SE, don't overthink Summoner 7.0. Just give people what they want. Just do it.

[Ggwppino]

But wait a minute that doesn't make sense. What you are talking about is old summoner where such actions were like the scholar's fairy where the fairy would still be present and perform the action and potentially cause the ghosting.

But when you use a gem or a demi, the game first does an automatic dismiss pet action of carbuncle, then the game automatically summons a gem or demi, then the gem/demi does its thing for the alloted amount of time it has, then the game does an automatic unsummon, then the game performs an instant cast version of summon carbuncle as it appears right next to the player and does not conflict with the player's gcd cooldowns.

Wyrmwave and Scarlet Flame are not like the old pet actions as it does these actions automatically every 1.5 seconds while in combat. It will not use Wyrmwave or Scarlet Flame when it has 1 second left on the duration timer, but it will do the action when there is 2 seconds left. As these are instant actions with no cast time that the pet performs.

And the purposed thing was to have Carbuncle have automatic ranged magical attacks every 1.5 seconds. So there should just be a simple bit of code that tells the carbuncle not to use its automatic attack, lets call it Gemblast, if Summon Bahamut/Phoenix/Ifrit/Titan/ or Garuda is actively queued in the actions.

In specific, particular and rare cases, it is possible to ghost the shield that gives the carbuncle, there has also been more than one post on the forum that testifies to ghosting.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...st#post5983340
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_smn_but_now/
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ameplay/page11

The queuing system still exists on the pet, things are never instantaneous if you notice, the shield doesn't come as soon as you call it but there is still a little delay, but this is really short. Same thing bahamut, bahamut does 4 attacks he does them in constant timelines to never get to ghosting point. If you put the automatic attack on the carbuncle it enters its queue and if you give it the teleport command but it is not instantaneous because it has the attack queued, maybe it will kill you (for example).

Mine is more of a concern. If in practice it doesn't cause problems, then I have nothing to object to, but if instead the auto attack could create problems, I much prefer to decide when the pet attacks. I'd rather die through my own fault than an AI's fault.

[Picker]

Yea don’t overthink the 1 button job lol

[Denji]

i am honestly offended at how clunky the egiglam command nonsense is and how they forced the ugly glowrat (which, i know, is my subjective opinion) down our throats. when i have to start memorizing commands to change my summon or use macros my eyes just glaze the hell over.

i really hate this.

[Ayer2015]

If we were to have all elemental 6 summons, I think having 3 with cast times and higher potency and 3 with instant cast times with lower potency would be a reasonable path forward. Trading mobility for higher dps.

Personally I would like to see Aetherflow and all the associated skills removed from SMN, including both physic and raise. It all feels like a relic of what once was. Rework Phoenix to be a support summon on a CD that applies an AOE regen on summon and enables 1 aoe raise, or 1 aoe heal.

[Ggwppino]

If we were to have all elemental 6 summons, I think having 3 with cast times and higher potency and 3 with instant cast times with lower potency would be a reasonable path forward. Trading mobility for higher dps.

Personally I would like to see Aetherflow and all the associated skills removed from SMN, including both physic and raise. It all feels like a relic of what once was. Rework Phoenix to be a support summon on a CD that applies an AOE regen on summon and enables 1 aoe raise, or 1 aoe heal.

I agree. Maybe 3 summons with instant seems exaggerated to me, but if we only keep Titan and Garuda with instant to use them optimally in agitated phases, it is ideal.

Aetherflow doesn't bother me that much. I would only combine aoe buttons with single target ones. It seems absurd to me that for one-minute ogcds that have the same concept there should be 4 buttons. Sure if they give me the choice between Aetheflow and a brand new smn mechanic that makes it unique, then clearly Aetherflow might as well die, but if they can coexist, I'd save 2 aetherflow buttons.

Physic, I haven't had it in bar for 4 years lol

So you would remove the phoenix from rotation right? I don't mind, but maybe if it is a gcd it becomes too niche.

[Ayer2015]

So you would remove the phoenix from rotation right? I don't mind, but maybe if it is a gcd it becomes too niche.

I find having a quasi-support summon odd to be tied to a dps roation. To me at least, having it as a skill with an appropriate CD would make more sense. Also, it would would bring existing skills more in line with with the SMN theme.
There is a lot of room for SMN to be refined now. I like the direction they have gone with the job in 6.0 thus far.

[ty_taurus]

On the topic of carbuncle, I am not bothered by him not attacking and can actually get behind the idea of him being a summoner's personal support pet; however, that comes with the caveat that he actually offers support (i.e. having more than just Radiant Aegis).

Ideally, what would really clean up the clunk of relying on carbuncle would be fixing whatever issue restricts a player from having more than 1 pet at a time. If carbuncle is not forcibly dismissed for each summon animation, it really opens up the door for him to be a genuine sidekick for you. This is 100% doable, it's just a matter of identifying the time required and making time for that task. Even if this would not come to fruition, I would focus on the following changes for the next expansion.

1. Return Searing Light to Carbuncle. If having more than 1 pet at a time cannot be fixed for whatever reason, I'd still make this change as it feels thematically appropriate since it originally belonged to carbuncle anyway. If absolutely needed, introduce a slightly weaker version of Searing Light (like a 2% buff instead of 3%) that replaces Searing Light if carbuncle is not in play. Optimally, you need to time it before summoning bahamut, but if you mess up, you aren't forced to delay the action till bahamut is dismissed.

2. Introduce a new action usable only when you have no gemstones to summon with (no ifrit, titan, or garuda). This action commands carbuncle to grant you a random gemstone and allows you to more effectively delay your next bahamut or phoenix summon. Additionally, you get another action that requires at least 1 gemstone be available. This action commands carbuncle to deliver a moderately potent attack by consuming all your gemstones. The potency increases the more gemstones you had. The potency is not worth the entire summon phase, but allows you to dump your gemstones if you were forced to hold onto a summon or two and need to go into your next bahamut/phoenix window.

3. Lastly, add a new action that harkens back to Alphinaud's moonstone carbuncle's field. This would be a cooldown centered around your carbuncle that increases HP restored to allies that stand within it; additionally, while you stand within it, the cast time of Resurrection is reduced to 0 seconds.

Something like this would make your carbuncle actually feel like a support pet to you and help you with survivability, recovery, and adding flexibility to your rotation.

[Ggwppino]

I find having a quasi-support summon odd to be tied to a dps roation. To me at least, having it as a skill with an appropriate CD would make more sense. Also, it would would bring existing skills more in line with with the SMN theme.
There is a lot of room for SMN to be refined now. I like the direction they have gone with the job in 6.0 thus far.

True, but since there are already 1/2 healers to heal, except in solo content, I don't see why a dps should "waste" gcd to heal instead of doing his job. If it were indispensable, therefore without smn you don't clear the content, then it would also make sense, but if the smn support is not indispensable it would be an end in itself. You can help healers heal, but it shouldn't be done to make up for their lack of skill, it would be unrewarding and quite humiliating for them. In my opinion in a dps class, the cure shouldn't be gcd, but that extra something that isn't bad to have and that if you don't use it you're just a horrible person, like horses (Peter Griffin quote).

Currently it is senseless that the smn can only heal in the 15 seconds of phoenix, or rather, it is senseless that the cures can only be used based on the dps rotation. The player should be made to think about when to use healing even with the help of healers.

a stupid idea that just occurred to me while I'm writing: instead of sacrificing gcd and at least about 6 seconds because of the summon lock, it would make more sense to have the possibility to "promote" the summon with phoenix and each attack is given a heals aoe constant or based on attack (of course it doesn't have to be broken). but frankly it would be enough to have an ogcd heal that you can use when it actually could lighten the load on healers.

[Renathras]

...

I do like the idea of him being a support, but some things:

1) Searing Light is originally Devotion, which was native to Bahamut, not Carbuncle, I believe. They changed the name but the effect predates it.

2) Is interesting as an idea, but bad with the crit RNG and two minute meta stuff. It's basically the Double Down problem on steroids. With the potential for this massive attack (even 50% of the damage the Summons cause could be several thousands of potency as each one is 750 of damage on the summoning and another 1,920 [Titan], 1,500 [Garuda], and 1,880 [Ifrit]. Suppose you used this with all 3 gems active. At even 50%, that would be a single hit of 3,775 potency. 7,550 if it was 100%. Imagine the difference between crit direct hitting a 3,775 potency attack vs getting neither crit nor DH from it!) making the SMN's DPS potentially swing wildly. There might also be meta builds that are designed around dumping it in burst windows because of the potential gains in potency unless the penalty is stiff, in which case it becomes an extra button we have but never use except in extremely niche situations, which contributes to button bloat with no really good outcome.

3) This one could be OP, but is more interesting. Though I also feel like Phoenix should be doing something like that, not Carbuncle. In many of the games, Phoenix does things like party-wide Full Life (which arguably means it should be a LB...if SMN was a Healer, I guess) or regens, while Carbuncle's power is almost always party-wide Reflect, with some games (like FF9) allowing this to be converted to Protect, Shell, or ...I think Haste was the fourth effect Eiko could generate with him.

.

The reason I'm a fan of the Ruin 2 thing is so that he's not just...standing around waiting for something to do. That's like a Healer that only casts Cure on people and, when no healing is needed, doesn't chaincast Glare or whatever, they just stand there. Waiting. That's even worse than the Cure 1 spammer or Regen/Medica 2 caster, since they're literally doing nothing. And that's what Carby is for almost all of fights now.

I disagree with taking Res away, though. That would have much farther reaching impacts in the meta, and it's one of the reasons I like SMN and RDM. One thing I HATE more than anything when playing a DPS is when the Healer (4 mans) or both (8/24 mans) go down and no one else in the party can do anything but watch the party wipe. It's explicitly why I only play SMN or RDM when not playing a Healer/Tank, and why I don't play other Jobs as my go-to DPS. I like MCH and I like NIN, but I hate that feeling of powerlessness in encounters like that, so I stick with the ones that aren't powerless.

EDIT:

You can help healers heal, but it shouldn't be done to make up for their lack of skill, it would be unrewarding and quite humiliating for them.

I will NEVER understand this mentality.

If a Healer or Tank is DPSing, no one worries that the DPS will feel emasculated. After all, the Healers/Tanks doing this are telling the DPSers "you aren't good enough to clear the dps checks without my help...". And...no one cares. In fact, doing this is PREFERRED.

I've never, as a Healer, at ANY time, felt "humiliated" if DPS or Tanks throw out incidental heals. If it's at a time of the fight the extra healing is useful and just reduces the pressure on us Healers, I'm not going to complain. If it's at a time when it's kind of useless, then it doesn't matter, and I'm also not going to complain. If it's at a time where we can't likely keep everyone alive without it, then I'm thankful, not humiliated.

It would take being a pretty egotistical, arrogant, and prideful Healer for one to complain or feel "humiliated" about such things.

[ty_taurus]

1) Searing Light is originally Devotion, which was native to Bahamut, not Carbuncle, I believe. They changed the name but the effect predates it.

2) Is interesting as an idea, but bad with the crit RNG and two minute meta stuff. It's basically the Double Down problem on steroids. With the potential for this massive attack (even 50% of the damage the Summons cause could be several thousands of potency as each one is 750 of damage on the summoning and another 1,920 [Titan], 1,500 [Garuda], and 1,880 [Ifrit]. Suppose you used this with all 3 gems active. At even 50%, that would be a single hit of 3,775 potency. 7,550 if it was 100%. Imagine the difference between crit direct hitting a 3,775 potency attack vs getting neither crit nor DH from it!) making the SMN's DPS potentially swing wildly. There might also be meta builds that are designed around dumping it in burst windows because of the potential gains in potency unless the penalty is stiff, in which case it becomes an extra button we have but never use except in extremely niche situations, which contributes to button bloat with no really good outcome.

3) This one could be OP, but is more interesting. Though I also feel like Phoenix should be doing something like that, not Carbuncle. In many of the games, Phoenix does things like party-wide Full Life (which arguably means it should be a LB...if SMN was a Healer, I guess) or regens, while Carbuncle's power is almost always party-wide Reflect, with some games (like FF9) allowing this to be converted to Protect, Shell, or ...I think Haste was the fourth effect Eiko could generate with him.

1. No it wasn't a Bahamut thing. You learned Devotion before even getting Bahamut during SB. It was always centered around your pet, and I imagine the name change had to do with the fact that it was an Egi action, and they wanted it to feel more thematic of Carbuncle, hence Carbuncle being depicted in the buff icon as well.

The Stormblood Tooltip from the FFXIV wiki... It doesn't specify it comes from the pet here but it certainly did back then, and you can see the Egi in the icon which was only true for pet actions.


2. You're basing it off potencies you came up with though, so sure if you attach a really big number to any action, you could claim it being too broken. Something like 300 potency per gem is enough as an OGCD action. The point is just to help give the job flexibility which is something it desperately needs. Even if the damage gained is much lower, getting that in one OGCD instead of getting nothing because your stones go unused would make it feel a lot smoother. As for bloat issues, SMN is the last job concerned about bloat right now, and we could also easily resolve that by cutting out all the unnecessary AoE only buttons:

Energy Drain upgrades into Energy Siphon
Fester upgrades into Painflare
Gemshine upgrades into Precious Brilliance

Have the intial potency of the AoE actions be the same as the single target precursor, then just add falloff to avoid too much AoE potency. That's 3 extra hotbar spots open and nothing about your gameplay changes--more room to add some substance to SMN's gameplay too. Having niche tools that offer flexibility to an otherwise inflexible job is a good thing even if those buttons aren't always needed.

3. I'm trying to discuss more utility options that you can give to Carbuncle in order to make him feel like an adequate support only pet. Creating a tool like that for Phoenix doesn't help in that regard. It also severely limits the usefulness of the action because now, you better hope any deaths that occur always happen exactly at that odd minute mark or too bad, you should've waited another 20 seconds before you decided to die. I can't help you. It's the same problem that Enkindle Phoenix and Everlasting Flight suffer from now.

As for standing around in general, one of the advantages of having your pet on standby is they react as instantly as possible when given commands. When Carbuncle has a cast or autos, you will regularly have delays when using actions associated with him. It's the issue that the faeries have now as well. As long as Carbuncle actually has a selection of tools that the Summoner engages with or has in their back pocket, I think it's fine for him to not do damage. Carbuncle has historically never been a damage dealer outside of XI and XIV anyway, so it feels more thematic for him to be there as a utility caddie, there to hand you the 5 iron when you need to get out of the rough.

If we do want to return him to dealing damage, then it would be better to give him a DoT, that way he casts only once and the damage tics without putting him into animation lock every couple seconds. Whether he deals 30 potency per GCD directly or has a 36 potency DoT over 30 seconds, the effect is virtually the same.