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

[Nizzi]

It could've been worse. They could've made Gemshine just replace Ruin when a Primal was active.

Honestly, I'm convinced the only reason they didn't do that, was cause then SMN's hotbar would be even more barren that it already is. I put Physick on my bar just to hide the void of nothingness that is SMN

It still amazes me that even with as barren as SMN's hotbars are, there's still meaningless versions of buttons with things like Energy Siphon/Pain Flare or Precious Brilliance lmao

[Silver-Strider]

It still amazes me that even with as barren as SMN's hotbars are, there's still meaningless versions of buttons with things like Energy Siphon/Pain Flare or Precious Brilliance lmao

That's how they'll expand the class next expansion.

Turn Energy Drain/Siphon into those little Orb things that Leviathan summons to drain Aether.
Pain Flare upgrades to Levin Bolt
Fester upgrades into some Ice Spell to represent Shiva.

All these marvelous upgrades come with a whooping 10 extra potency too. /s

It's so pitiful that I can see it actually coming true

[Renathras]

Making me press 3/2 buttons over and over gets older much faster for me

Not everyone likes the same things. /shrug

Sides, SMN presses more than that.

[SavageCipher]

Yoshi is a fan of WoW...just follow the Warlock...make the DoT's stronger (irrelevant not, but really no reason to just remove them), have pets out all the time...its a very simple aspect that has been done from the biggest to the smallest MMO's...its worked, classes have been powerful for it, and not much complicated work goes into it. I get that its become the complicated class on purpose, but it need not be, honestly, the set it and forget tactics back then were fine, just needed more/cooler looking pets and dmg scaling.

[ZiraZ]

They need to lose the res or RDM is always gonna be a huge joke, plus that frees the swift use.

The Aetherflow system needs to be used to build up to Bahamut or something, having a 1300+600 pot attack usable 1 second into the fight just feels stupid and cheap, doesn't feel like the job belongs to the same game, I was gonna say it feels like a limited job but even BLU needs to prep for their burst so nvm, I'm not saying it needs to take 1 min to built to Bahamut like with DRG gauge, but it should at least take a few presses of other abilities in the opener.

Also, since the melee vs range tax is a hot topic for 7.0 I hope they don't forget about old content too. hopefully we get a lvl 70 content numbers rework in 7.0, right now if you are not playing a smn on prog or even reclears you are basically trolling the group, I'm pretty sure even 4 summoners is still a huge plus even with the loss of role bonuses, they are so far ahead it's unreal.
And yeah it might be old content but it still matters, as long as you can't unsync there should be at least relative balance.

[Teno]

Yoshi is a fan of WoW...just follow the Warlock...make the DoT's stronger (irrelevant not, but really no reason to just remove them), have pets out all the time...its a very simple aspect that has been done from the biggest to the smallest MMO's...its worked, classes have been powerful for it, and not much complicated work goes into it. I get that its become the complicated class on purpose, but it need not be, honestly, the set it and forget tactics back then were fine, just needed more/cooler looking pets and dmg scaling.

Hmmm they've done everything to stray from that though, and it's not a very "simple" aspect lol. Pets have always been clunky and the way they do it now (demi-primals and old school ff summons) feels better than before. Scholar still has big ghosting issues for instance. They did what WoW did so that ARR would work but the design is completely different now.

If anything, what most players see as the next step is Demi-Alexander (the one big emblematic endgame FF summon) and Ramuh/Shiva/Leviathan, as the OP mentioned.

[BaconBits]

It's wild to me that this thread is really asking SE to not overthink the most bare-bones, braindead, basic class in the game. Friggin gatherers have more intuitive gameplay than this steaming pile of refuse.

[AlexaAura]

Summoner was my main in Shadowbringers, now it's so boring pushing 1 button with 0 DoTs to maintain... If SE really cared about what the players wanted they would have just tweaked and fixed the pet system rather then going "It's too hard." and throwing everything out.

[LoveDroplet]

Summoner was my main in Shadowbringers, now it's so boring pushing 1 button with 0 DoTs to maintain... If SE really cared about what the players wanted they would have just tweaked and fixed the pet system rather then going "It's too hard." and throwing everything out.

But they're listening to the players, aren't they?

Look at how many people played SMN in ShB and how many do it now.
If the main thing SE wanted to get from this rework was more players playing the job, they did it.
They don't know if players enjoy the job, after all even if there's a lot of complain happening, it could just be a loud minority. (e.g.: the people that cried when they made gashin fang a combo instead of 3 buttons)
All they see is that SMN is by far the most player caster; The question now becomes, do they know why it's so much played?
They might unironically arrive at the conclusion that SMN is what other casters should be like. Now, imagine that... brrr... sends shivers down my spine.
Or they might come at the conclusion that people play SMN because the alternatives are either harder to play for no dps reward (RDM) or is the hardest job in the game (BLM).
Though... were that the case, RDM could recieve some love.

Point is, SE cares what the people say, but it's the majority of people, not the minority that write on the forum. The only way for SMN to be changed is for it to have an abyssal playrate.

[ZiraZ]

It's never gonna have an abyssal playrate while completely eclipsing the other casters in terms of output per effort.
Just look at the rollercoaster of Reaper statistics playrate, from EW release to Asphodelos release, to late Asphodelos farm, to release Abyssos and to right now. People just flock to whatever gets them their rewards the quickest and highest output with low effort.
If suddenly RDM gets a massive buff in 6.4 and SMN gets nothing you will see the fotm players suddenly flock away from SMN.
At some point the devs just need to actually play the game and realize the job plays like absolute garbage regardless of the playrate.