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

[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.

[SweetPete]

Can we get another demi summon already? I really want Alexander. Let it be our level 100 ability on a 2-3 minute cooldown.

[Connor]

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.

This exact mentality is why we have the current Summoner lol. It has high damage and makes no sacrifices whatsoever. DoTs? Healer role. Debuffs? Tank role or something lol. Pet management? Omg that’s for Scholars lul. Can’t have job mechanics or they might lower DPS. Just a bunch of flat damage potency skills that minimise the requirement to think, so Summoners can focus solely on getting those big dick parses.

[lulunami]

This exact mentality is why we have the current Summoner lol. It has high damage and makes no sacrifices whatsoever. DoTs? Healer role. Debuffs? Tank role or something lol. Pet management? Omg that’s for Scholars lul. Can’t have job mechanics or they might lower DPS. Just a bunch of flat damage potency skills that minimise the requirement to think, so Summoners can focus solely on getting those big dick parses.

They should give Reaper a raise spell called Necromancy. But because of this raise utility, their DPS can be nerfed too. Give DRG a dragon pet just like in FFXI but give it an AoE heal that consumes one Eye of the dragon resource. DRG dps can be nerfed as well.


Melee DPS players just want to do damage. Casters are probably the same. This game does not really reward utility that much. Bard would be a mage instead of an archer if that was the case.

[ty_taurus]

They should give Reaper a raise spell called Necromancy. But because of this raise utility, their DPS can be nerfed too. Give DRG a dragon pet just like in FFXI but give it an AoE heal that consumes one Eye of the dragon resource. DRG dps can be nerfed as well.


Melee DPS players just want to do damage. Casters are probably the same. This game does not really reward utility that much. Bard would be a mage instead of an archer if that was the case.

On a minor note, I don't think you're getting away with Necromancy as an action as the act of Necromancy has been specifically called out by name on several Q&As as never gonna happen as it's too "evil" for the warrior of light.

On the topic of utility, I actually would argue it's the community that devalues utility and not the game. Pushing damage is important, but what actually matters is getting the clear, not reaching the highest numbers provided that the jobs are balanced correctly and that the lowest damage comp is still capable of clearing without relying on crit luck. Naturally we've seen this not be the case in the past, but it's not always the case and something the design team tries to avoid, even if not always successfully.

Utility increases a party's margin for error and can potentially save a run that would otherwise be scuffed due to something like the healers dying during famine's harvest even if by fault of someone else. I've seen it happen many times where we could've continued a run but couldn't because both healers fell. My group has a black mage and not a red mage or summoner, and that extra damage wasn't going to help us clean up those runs. Now, we've also had messy runs that were near wipes, like last night where our Warrior died because he was missing a sliver of HP during the end of high concept II and we had to go into Dominion with him not having the damage buff. We literally won by miliseconds as enrage Ego Death was being cast as we got the victory, so his extra damage absolutely made that run a win whereas a summoner or red mage would've made that a wipe.

But that's the thing... Any given run could be subjected to either situation, and while certain fights might make one or the other more likely to occur based on the mechanics, there's no real way to know which scenarios you might encounter while progging or reclearing. Most people make mistakes. There are situations in which the utility caster would've saved and enabled a clear and others where the damage caster would've instead. There is noticeable value to both when it comes to harder content, it's just that we as a community tend to dump on utility because a perfect run doesn't benefit from it. But there is value in having these tools whether you needed them or not.

[Renathras]

...

Bro, you were talking about Healers "feeling humiliated". I pointed out that that's stupid. If your RDM or PLD casts a heal, it's stupid for you to feel humiliated over it. Either it did something useful, which makes it good, or it did not, which made it dumb for them to do it. If the RDM uses Magicked Barrier, do you feel "humiliated"? If a MNK uses Mantra? What if the Tank uses Veil/Passage/Shake/Heart of Light? Obviously they're showing you you can't heal, right?

NO! They're using their party utility to make an encounter go better.

And normal players - especially casual players - don't differentiate much between GCD and oGCD. An oGCD Curing Waltz will be seen the same as a GCD Vercure.

Suggesting Healers would feel "humiliated" is a non-argument. I'm telling you this AS A HEALER MAIN. I've never known a single other Healer that felt that way. I don't doubt the exist, but they aren't the majority, and they're being silly if they do, especially if they hold a grudge over it.

"It's important that healers do damage" - YES, because "DPSers are too bad to do good enough damage to clear the encounter and should feel humiliated the Healers are having to bail them out", right?

NO!

DPSers don't feel "humiliated" if Healers do damage. Healers don't feel "humiliated" if DPSers do some healing. It's that simple. Any that do are bad players. A good team uses all their abilities in a way that's optimal. Even The Balance has noted things like "If a PLD Clemency can save 2 Healer GCDs, it's a party DPS gain" and stuff like that. (Granted, that was Old PLD, but still...) The actual situation is nuanced, but yeah, appealing to people not wanting to "humiliate" others isn't the answer.

...

1) No no, I mean the ability was originally Devotion. While not tied mechanically to Bahamut, it was thematically. The name and effect kind of implies a lesser or muted version of what Tempering would do. Though I guess one could argue it came from Ifrit...

2) Oh, it could be anything. But if it's too little, it would always be a loss. For example, 300 potency per gem would be a DPS loss unless you were using it to burn all three gems, as merely using one of the Primals already does 750 potency of damage for the same single GCD. So in a situation the boss was about to go untargetable and you had, say, Ifrit and Garuda up, it'd be better to hit EITHER Ifrit OR Garuda than it would be to use that attack. That attack would only be a gain if you had all three Primals up (900 potency for burning all three gems vs 750 for using any one of the Primals). So being that low would be pointless. It would have to be over 750 per gem to make it meaningful for one gem, and over 425 per gem to make it meaningful for two gems. And unless you expect over 55 seconds of downtime or the boss is about to die (in the latter case making it a button you only use once per encounter), you'd never use it on three gems.

2b) As for bloat, I recall once hearing someone complain about a grandma being a penny-pincher even though she didn't need to be because she was well off. But the thing is, she was well off BECAUSE she was a penny-pincher. How this applies here: If you don't concern yourself with button bloat when it isn't a major issue, it tends to become an issue. But in this case, it's more "meaningless" button. If the proposal was something really useful, I'd agree. But as discussed above, it's something that would probably only be used once or maybe twice per 10-14 minute fight. Is that REALLY worth a hotbar slot? I don't think it is. Though I do agree ED/ES and Fester/PF could probably be straight upgrades. Not as sure about Gemshine and Brilliance, but I suppose at that point there'd be no reason to still have a distinct AOE rotation. And I do think (saw your post in the Healer forum on Holy/Art of War, etc) that we've come to the point in FFXIV where having a separate AOE rotation is kind of pointless most of the time for most Jobs. So I'm not exactly against just rolling those into the single target rotation so they get more frequent use.

3) I'm more making a lore argument there than anything. Carbuncle has never been associated with much other than some very specific WHM (Time Mage in the case of Reflect under the Tactics Job system) party buffs. I do agree with Phoenix being kind of weird. They should honestly rework it as an oGCD (or GCD) that isn't tied to the main rotation that can be summoned as an independent effect. Like Curing Waltz on DNC isn't tied to the rotation, and it's because of that flexibility that it's actually somewhat useful. Phoenix isn't NOT useful, it's just useful in happenstance - when that part of your rotation happens to align with fight mechanics, but you're using it anyway regardless of the fight situation.

4) I get that. That's why I think it should be instant cast with the commands being oGCDs. Think about your own character. Hit Dia then Assize on WHM. Not hit Glare and then Assize. Note the difference. Hit Ruin 2 or Biolysis then Indominability on SCH. Now do the same thing with Glare. While instants can have a minor delay based on animation lock for characters, this may not be true of pets. But regardless, oGCDs come out as soon as the action is complete, which in the case of Instant cast Spells/Weaponskills is immediate. It may even be faster than a second oGCD following a first oGCD is, honestly (the latter imposes a ~0.7 sec animation lock). One of the things I like on SCH vs SMN is that Eos is always DOING something. She doesn't feel like a useless ornament. Sometimes her Embrace gets in the way of something, but it's not super common, and it's got a relatively quick cast time. If it was instant, that would help SCH out, too. The GCD (hers is 3 sec) between uses prevents her machine-gunning them out. One thing about Carby damage, though, is that it can do some silly stuff, like that one World First that was cleared because a Carby got in the final hit when the party got stunned/petrified leading to the enrage. Hilarity ensued, but that kind of thing has value/cool factor to me.

5) DoTs. Are. Dumb. Specifically, DoTs that have no interaction with a kit. You already know my feelings on that. Further, we don't want to add more DoTs/debuffs that clog up the boss's bar anyway when that's already an issue in some situations (24 mans, Hunt Trains, and 48 mans like DR/DRSavage). Besides, you run into the same problem if he happens to be casting to refresh it when you need to use an action AND it would require more AI for him to determine his actions. For example, in AOE, does he roll the DoT across all enemies or just use it on one target and wait for it to expire? With instant cast Ruin 2, all he would do is lock onto the target you attack and use it on CD every 3 sec. There's way less AI programming involved in that. No, it makes far more sense for him to be the ARR Carby we knew and loved.

...

No, SOME players like to be selfish-dps. That's why SAM, BLM, and arguably MCH exist as they do, for those players. The majority of players seem to want some utility. HOW MUCH depends on the person. In my case, for example, I don't want to play a DPSer that doesn't have a Raise spell, so I only play SMN or RDM. Ever since RDM was released, players picked it up because it has VerCure and VerRaise. In fact, I think a LOT of players wanted it to be more of a hybrid Job that could do both roles (FFXIV's system doesn't allow this, of course, but in terms of what players WANT, I think it's valid to point out.)

I would say some DPS players just want to do damage. Just as some Healer players just want to heal. But there are many who want to do more than that, which is why systems that are more malleable are ideal. Namely, have some selfish DPS Jobs and then have other DPS Jobs that...aren't selfish.

On the topic of utility, I actually would argue it's the community that devalues utility and not the game. Pushing damage is important, but what actually matters is getting the clear, not reaching the highest numbers provided that the jobs are balanced correctly and that the lowest damage comp is still capable of clearing without relying on crit luck.

I agree with Ty 99.9% on this. I'd amend it only slightly to say "it's the raiding community that devalues utility". The casual playerbase LOVES utility. That's why you have PLDs in casual content casting Clemency all the time, for example. I had one in a level 80 Twinning run (X0 dungeon que) last night where she wasn't really using any CDs other than Shelltron, but man did she love using Clemency. And given she wasn't using other CDs...it was kind of REALLY helpful she was using it, lol. I don't think min-maxing, shooting for the 99-100 perfect rotation hardcore raiders (or people that strive to be that) realize how much the "regular" playerbase uses things like Vercure and Clemency, and how much they VALUE those tools.

I would even wager the bulk of the playerbase, and especially casual playerbase, values those tools more than damage maximization. Casual players aren't thinking "PLD can't use Clemency! That's a 380 potency DPS loss!". Casual players genuinely don't think like that, and they tend to value utility much higher than the hardcore static raider who has a solid team of players they trust to all do their Jobs more or less optimally. That's why you see things like a PLD holding Passage of Arms for the full duration, or an AST Collective Unconscious, or RDMs using Vercure, and probably would have SMNs using Physic if it scaled with INT. Because casual players tend not to think in terms of "GCD that didn't do damage?! POTENCY LOSS!!" They think "This seems useful, gonna use it". "Passage of Arms looks like a thing I press and hold to protect my party, I'm going to use it the way that seems logical to use." They aren't thinking of all those GCDs of lost damage. (And, to be fair to them, very little content in the game does that difference matter anyway.)

[Ggwppino]

This exact mentality is why we have the current Summoner lol. It has high damage and makes no sacrifices whatsoever. DoTs? Healer role. Debuffs? Tank role or something lol. Pet management? Omg that’s for Scholars lul. Can’t have job mechanics or they might lower DPS. Just a bunch of flat damage potency skills that minimise the requirement to think, so Summoners can focus solely on getting those big dick parses.

so having the dot is a sacrifice? Is having pet management a sacrifice of harm? I'm stating that a dps does damage and must have utilities that don't hinder it (like other dps). Why would a dps sacrifice 500 potency to use a heal that uses the healer? Explain to me, wouldn't you, be intellectually honest, you're probably the same one using swiftcast on splistream and then you don't have it for a hypothetical ress, and that's fine. what does pet management and the depth of a job have to do with something that absolutely cannot be the game mechanic because otherwise the class would be mandatory? If the smn heal becomes important, it means that the summoner is mandatory in raids. talk nonsense sometimes. The smn was born as a versatile class in the world of FF, and it is right that it has its utilities, in my opinion, but either it becomes a healer in all respects, or its utilities must be adapted to the role it currently has to be: a dps . And having 10-13 seconds of only healing with a summon lock of about 6 seconds is not suitable for a dps. To a healer yes, but not to a dps.

Bro, you were talking about Healers "feeling humiliated". I pointed out that that's stupid. If your RDM or PLD casts a heal, it's stupid for you to feel humiliated over it. Either it did something useful, which makes it good, or it did not, which made it dumb for them to do it. If the RDM uses Magicked Barrier, do you feel "humiliated"? If a MNK uses Mantra? What if the Tank uses Veil/Passage/Shake/Heart of Light? Obviously they're showing you you can't heal, right?

NO! They're using their party utility to make an encounter go better.

maybe the word humiliated wasn't the right word, maybe it's a word I've overemphasised.

As an ast/sch, do I feel as fault if a summoner uses Rekindle and Everlasting Flight? Absolutely not, if a mnk uses mantra should I feel at fault? i would say no, if a dnc uses samba should i feel at fault? I would say no. If a mch uses dismantle should I feel at fault? I would say no. if a rdm uses magick barrier should I feel at fault? I would say no. do you know why? because it costs nothing for these classes to do so and indeed, if they don't use them, I point it out to them, because they are useful for completing the raid. if a rdm uses vercure it means something is wrong, it means something is missing. Because he was forced to use it, a cure that should never be used in a raid. Because it costs so much to him but to the whole party to use it, at this point we must all examine our conscience, me as healer first.

[Connor]

snip

So thinking Summoner should have more than just slamming buttons as hard as you can is ‘trying to turn it into a healer’ with disgusting potency heals that can replace all healers and solo it. Now who’s talking nonsense?

Your argument doesn’t even make sense. If a healer had to wait 6 seconds on ‘summon lock’ (not sure what this is referring to, the initial wind-up some summons have? Having to keep using that Summon for 6s?) they would absolutely be on the forums kicking up a shitstorm about it. Especially if it was only healing. Seems a bit hypocritical, healers can dps to their hearts content but dps can’t step on anyone else’s toes.

Your scenario makes no sense either. So what if a dps uses a 500 potency heal on someone (as if any dps would ever get such a powerful heal on GCD lol)? Will the group immediately wipe? The boss gives up and leaves because you’re not ‘playing right’? Yoshida appears behind you and laughs? Or what, are they going to miss the super strict dps checks on normal content because they swapped a Gemstone Rite with ‘Support ability X’ (Lmao) .

With that logic how do you reconcile the existence of Red Mages? By shitting on anyone who dares use Vercure? They have a heal but they’re not mandatory in raids?! How is that even possible?!?! ! Or the fact that tanks can solo heal themselves through the majority of content?

Pet management and class depth are the exact sacrifices you have to make if you want your ‘pure dps only dps’ Summoner. People bitched about ghosting, having to position Egis, disparities between them, having to mash Egi action buttons in-between GCDs before they were added to it. So what did they do? Removed it all. Now Summoner can do pure dps without ever having to stop or think about anything else, so you got your wish.

Your logic is the exact justification they used in creating the current Summoner. Delete everything not related to pure dps, standardise the abilities so there’s no variation, no support, utility or healing because mUh DeEpS, no more pets, no more DoTs. ‘I’m just a DPS I don’t WANT to do those other things you can’t MAKE me’.


More importantly, it’s this thinking that’s resulted in the wider game becoming so incredibly simplified. Because there’s been so much severe pushback over anything that has the potential to be
‘S U B O P T I M A L’ , that they just don’t even bother anymore besides throwing one or two classes a 120s cool-down that’s practically automatic and generally functionally redundant.

Getting real sick of people bitching about game design then giving the literal justification devs used to inform that game design…Summoner is how it is as a result of all the complaining people did in the past about it being ‘too complex to easily optimise’. So they fixed that for you.

Summoner has already had its utility adapted to the dps role. It’s what we have now.

[fulminating]

If you summon something you’re locked out of summoning anything else for about 6 seconds it doesn’t really matter outside of downtime because prematurely ending isn’t often desirable

[Connor]

If you summon something you’re locked out of summoning anything else for about 6 seconds it doesn’t really matter outside of downtime because prematurely ending isn’t often desirable

I wasn’t aware this was a thing, which I’m putting down to small SCH brain only having one summon (kind of lol). My point does still stand though, if healers had to wait 6s before they could do something you can bet they’d be up in arms about it. I mean, look how controversial the cleric stance delay was, or the channel on Collective Unconscious. So I don’t agree that ‘that can only exist for healers’, because realistically it can’t exist for anyone. And so we reach the point of 6.0 Summoner where all of that decision making just doesn’t exist anymore