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

[Ggwppino]

snip

Summon lock I mean that when you summon an elemental you MUST wait at least 6 seconds to change another summon (this is how the summoner currently works). IF you enter phoenix that has ONLY cures, because my comment was born for this, IT MEANS that now you can ONLY cure. Also Vercure is just the example that it's a cure that isn't used in raids but it's a purely solo ability. An rdm in a raid doesn't use it because healers are already there to heal. The rdm uses ALL OTHER utilities it has, because they are the ones that really make you win.
I totally agree that we have a pet that is a dummy. Have you ever read the opposite from me? And I'm also one of those who feel that smn in its current state returns nothing to the player because it has nothing to optimize. Sure if you put in GCD heals these aren't used because they are USELESS in raids clearly in the current state of ff14.

[Connor]

IF you enter phoenix that has ONLY cures, because my comment was born for this, IT MEANS that now you can ONLY cure.

I’m confused by this. If players had the option of either Summon Phoenix or Bahamut depending on the situation, choosing Phoenix wouldn’t literally mean they can only cure. It has one heal on a 20s cool-down, and Everlasting Flight is overheal most of the time anyway. Why wouldn’t you be able to just use the standard rotation? You could still use Fountain of Fire / Brand of Purgatory. You can argue that it would be functionally redundant, and there’s plenty of problems with going through so much for a single heal skill, but again that redundancy is why we have the game we have now. Personally, I’d rather have the option to do something, even if it’s infrequently, than to just remove that option altogether.

I mean, look at base heals on healers. Cure, Physick, Benefic and Diagnosis technically haven’t had any reason to exist for several expansions now. But for better or worse they’re still part of the healers toolkit. What should happen to them then? Delete them? You could make the case for all GCD heals being functionally redundant, but then the only real option left is to delete them all.

Like, imagine if they made Physick scale off intelligence. Would there be any need for it? It would be functionally redundant for the majority of the time. But does mean we should just never have the option of using it? Again, I’d rather have the option to do something and decide for myself what’s best based on the content than for them to just remove all decision making in favour of simplified dps optimisations. Summoner’s versatility in previous FF’s gives it much more scope to do things than say, a Black Mage (which always fills the role of big damage), so personally I think it makes sense for Summoners to have the option of supporting the party if necessary, whether it’s buffs, healing, debuffs, or whatever other kind of utility.

To clarify, I think Summoner should have the option to be able to help the party if the need arises, and disagree that it shouldn’t be able to just because ‘it’s might not always be useful’

[Ggwppino]

snip

In this case I wouldn't have much to object to. Personally I would still find it not very useful for optimization purposes due to the simple fact that phoenix does the same damage as bahamut but also has healing, but frankly it wouldn't change much for me. I had (wrong at this point) understood from the Ayer2015's comment that it should become a summon to be added to legos and that it only had cures, this to "optimize" the use of cures and not only in the 15 seconds of a phoenix every 2 minutes. In that case, even if the intention would have been noble, however it would have been a waste of time and it would not have gone down well: I would like the designers to think of interesting things for the smn and not of a summon that would never be used except when you have to do solo content. Physick I agree that it should be in intelligence, because currently it's like not having it, personally I don't really have it in bar and it doesn't make sense. My bad

[Connor]

In this case I wouldn't have much to object to. Personally I would still find it not very useful for optimization purposes due to the simple fact that phoenix does the same damage as bahamut but also has healing, but frankly it wouldn't change much for me. I had (wrong at this point) understood from the comment that it should become a summon to be added to legos and that it only had cures, this to "optimize" the use of cures and not only in the 15 seconds of a phoenix every 2 minutes. In that case, even if the intention would have been noble, however it would have been a waste of time and it would not have gone down well: I would like the designers to think of interesting things for the smn and not of a summon that would never be used except when you have to do solo content. Physick I agree that it should be in intelligence, because currently it's like not having it, personally I don't really have it in bar and it doesn't make sense. My bad

A pure healing Lego summon would be kind of fun, but as you say it would have no reason to exist for Summoner and wouldn’t add very much. Especially considering there’s already a book using job with pure healing summons lol. Frankly I always forget Phoenix and Bahamut have identical potencies, so that would cause an imbalance where it’s like ‘why use Bahamut when you can do Phoenix for same damage and healing?’. I feel like if they separated Phoenix and Bahamut summons and adjusted Phoenix’s potencies slightly to be lower than Bahamut’s, it would go a long way to adding a bit of decision making and support to the job. Even if it would inevitably end up being Bahamut summoned most of the time, I still think having the option to use Phoenix instead for some party healing/support but less personal dps would be nice.

[Ggwppino]

A pure healing Lego summon would be kind of fun, but as you say it would have no reason to exist for Summoner and wouldn’t add very much.

As I said such an idea would be really nice but only if the smn was a healer and not a dps. (Which frankly, If he was a healer, I wouldn't mind at all. Indeed, I might even prefer him because with a healer kit, he would become the first healer with a minimum of rotation)
In my opinion, as I had already written, it would be interesting to have OGCD healing skills to be attributed to the pet and that these have the recast time reset when phoenix is ​​summoned (as with the old summoner it was tri-disaster). In my opinion, with such a thing you earn that the smn has to think about using their heals and not wasting them, helping healers in the most agitated phases. Regarding phoenix.
Then there would be so many things you can do to the pet but also to the rotation of the smn. It has so much room to be explored, it would be a shame if the designers didn't take advantage of it

[Renathras]

Meanwhile, PvP SMN is over here with Phoenix as a healing option and Bahamut as their DPS option. Like, you can choose which to use for your Adrenaline Rush, with Phoenix doing less damage (and DoT damage) while giving the party a heal vs Bahamut that does more direct damage. AND they can use Carby shields on other players.

As much as people praise modern PvP design and say "Why can't we have that in PvE?", if they did that with PvP SMN, the first time a SMN used Phoenix instead of Bahamut, they'd be decried for being a bad suboptimal player.

.

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Connor]

Meanwhile, PvP SMN is over here with Phoenix as a healing option and Bahamut as their DPS option. Like, you can choose which to use for your Adrenaline Rush, with Phoenix doing less damage (and DoT damage) while giving the party a heal vs Bahamut that does more direct damage. AND they can use Carby shields on other players.

As much as people praise modern PvP design and say "Why can't we have that in PvE?", if they did that with PvP SMN, the first time a SMN used Phoenix instead of Bahamut, they'd be decried for being a bad suboptimal player.

.

This is why we can't have nice things.

See PvP is exactly what I had in mind lol. I always say this but Yoshi needs to give the person(s) who done it a raise or something lol, put them in charge of PvE too (poor things will be worked to death)

I do agree about the second part unfortunately; you’d just get people bitching about ‘I was in a party and the Summoner used Phoenix oh my goodness I’m going to faint ’ lol.

At the same time though, I’d like to think the developers themselves are actually in favour of letting players make these decisions, so it may be that they could add it regardless of how the community would react, so people who want to use it can, or they can just use Bahamut. Like, I think they add things based on their own judgement of what the job should have, rather than what the community wants (for better or worse lol)

[Renathras]

...

I honestly have no idea. As you've said in several threads I've noticed, and I agree, part of the problem is that the community ASKS for things. Or, rather, they complain about things where the most direct solution is to just dumb down and sterilize things to horrifically homogenized harmony. AST Cards got this treatment because the majority of players fished for Balance and complained about the others. It's also why RDM can't have Vermedica and PLD can't have Raise (it did once upon a time...though it couldn't be used in combat, so, not really sure WHY it wasn't allowed to keep that...), despite players actually wanting those things.

Because then the hardcore raiders will complain about it. If RDM does as much damage as BLM, raiders will complain because "Why bring a harder BLM if RDM does the same damage and offers raising and healing?!", but if RDM does sufficiently less, "Why bring a RDM if it's basically griefing your team after prog when you don't need the raises anymore?" It's like these people wake up every morning thinking of ways to be upset about something so they can complain. We saw this in the thread about Job simplification with players who self-admitted they play SMN when they want to chill in their farm raids complaining that they have the option to do so and demanding they (and everyone else) be forced to play harder and more complex. It's like when you see a rich person say the rich should pay more taxes when they COULD voluntarily write extra checks to the government and yet they don't do so voluntarily.

Choices are good.

Utility is good.

These things are valued by normal players. One reason RDM was the most played Caster until EW was because many players liked the flexibility of being able to seamlessly drift between damage and healing and back. While high end players declare this is not optimal, to normal players, it's COOL. FFXIV isn't FFXI, but that utility is still highly prized by the players - and frankly, FFXIV could stand to be a little more like FFXI. In Eureka, RDM's were also highly valued, alongside PLD's and Healers. SMN's have always been down that list a little ways, but their raising utility (and back when it had some value, Physic healing) are things the playerbase as a whole likes.

The problem is, the raiders hate it. They hate when doing a 4 man roulette anyone steps out of "optimal", and they really hate it if in an Extreme (where it doesn't REALLY matter) or a Savage (where it CAN matter if not everyone's pulling their weight). And so you get threads like "Tales from the Duty Finder" which are mostly high end players complaining about casual players in casual content not being optimized. "How dare this Sprout Tank not do wall to wall pulls in Dzmael Darkhold!" was actually one I saw the other day. "The Sprout Healer should have to get a trial by fire and learn to be get good or wipe." Those were serious takes from people.

The Devs are trying to thread the needle between both, and the end result is a lot of bland Jobs, some clunky and convoluted ones they just haven't gotten to yet, and sterile sameness with interesting utility gradually beaten out of the game and Jobs in service to making sure Raiders only rarely have to complain about that one SMN who used Physic in their level 50 dungeon run.

.

I don't want to put this ALL on raiders, because casuals have complained about things as well, but when it comes to removing utility or balance considerations, those are ALL made at the behest of raiders, not casual players. Casual players aren't the ones complaining when a SMN casts Physic, nor are they the ones insisting SMN shouldn't do so much damage because it's "braindead".

[Ggwppino]

Yes, but you're the same one who says that the current smn is fine as it is. But you're blaming its bland essence on raiders.
In addition to the fact that your speech doesn't make sense when you say that there is a need to optimize normal or medium content. Also because there isn't even that much need to optimize even in high-level content, but maximum optimization is just personal gratification. And frankly, if you meet people like this, they are certainly not the problems of those who love this class and would want, for the sake of it, not empty and flat.
You also practically misrepresented the words in that post, and despite having unquestionable explanations, you still remained in your conviction.
Also a small curiosity: why should a smn after lvl 25 use Physick?

EDIT: Before you quote me, I'd like to withdraw the Physick line since you were talking about pre-50. Let me step back when I'm wrong.

[ty_taurus]

Also a small curiosity: why should a smn after lvl 25 use Physick?

Technically, Physick is quite usable until you get proper level 50 gear or start wearing your level 45 ARR relic gear, as from levels 1 - 50, casters and healers share the same gear which is equip-pable by all Disciplines of War or Magic that offers both INT and MND at the same time. There's still not much of a reason to do so normally, but it is as roughly effective as Vercure is up until that point, so in a pinch, you actually can save yourself or someone else with it. Cutters Cry, for example, seems to shake up a lot of sprouts with The Dragon's Voice and The Ram's Voice, which I think are still untelegraphed since it's an optional pre-50 dungeon?