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

[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.

[Ggwppino]

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.

Bro, if a dps instead of using a skill that does 300/400/500/600 potency, uses a heal it just means that there's something wrong: it could be the healer/tank's lack of skill or even simply the entire party's lack of ability to manage the mitigations, for the simple reason that if it weren't, then that class would be staple and mandatory. Sure the rdm heal doesn't save the game if it has come to the point that it has to heal rather than do damage. The mitigations of the tanks are useful but because they are ogcd and do not penalize their rotation as are the mitigations of all dps.
One thing is the ress actually saving a game because it doesn't save a single healer's GCD but saves ALL of a party member's future damage output, but healing GCD of a role that isn't meant to heal doesn't make sense. On the other hand, the ogcd heal by a dps does, because it effectively relieves the difficulty of a healer without him feeling primarily at fault and without making the dps feel obliged to sacrifice what he should do, damage.

It's important that healers do damage, but it's equally important that dps that have higher damage output aren't forced to sacrifice it.