SMN Job 7.0 Feedback

[ThorneDynasty]

Funny how summoning in FF started off as glorified black magic spells, then it started to have hit points (FFVIII), then you get to order it to do attacks (FFX, FFXI, FFXII), becomes transformers to do its attack with you (FFXIII)... only to be a fighting game tag in FFXIV. Please tell me that it was a progression.

Right now it's closest to the classic SMN, where summon is just a big costly spell. Except they don't feel big after you've cycled rapidly through them a few times. They aren't even spells really. They definitely aren't costly.

Spamming a huge screenwipe style attack every 30 seconds without even having to stop for a castbar is kind of an antithesis to how summoning is supposed to feel. I mean honestly, if they actually want it to feel like a summoner (and not just the seal clapping every time they see pretty colors sense), you'd pretty much have to make the choice of what you summon somewhat cosmetic, or a flavor difference. Especially if you'd expect them to add a few more. Because just summoning off a factory line without cost or commitment isn't summoner. It should feel like a choice of what you spend your time and resources on, but you also don't want to make one or two summons the only ones you ever want to use.

Or then they should make you only able to summon each summon once, refreshing the resources only once you've used them all, but over a way longer period of time than it is currently. Like it should take half the encounter to go through them. I'm talking about one summon per minute tops, with enough timing flexibility to make room for 5+ second summon casts. Make it feel like you are changing the entire face of the battle every time you summon.

Anyway, that's my ideal take on the job. Which they'll never do anything close to, because, while there's no reason it couldn't fit the 120s meta, the devs are so obsessed with it now they can't comprehend not making everything literally fit inside a 120s loop.