Returning Summoner question

[Ayalu]

Summoner is now much more like what it is in traditional FFs. Calling summons to do a big flashy move and disappear.
In a game relying on GCDs a pet job will always end up feeling like an illusion of control tbh. The pet would either become your main rotation or a fancy oGCD.
It does feel stupid that carbuncle is out doing nothing on the field aside from looking cute, at that point they could just rework it to either be an auto attack or just make you summon it every time you use a barrier or something.

The current Style of Summoner does have validity but its also rather hollow especialy when we consider its a class that starts on level 1.
Its not even realy flashy till close to the max level and it would need to be there way way ealier.
The rework would also have been a good time to add leviathan, ramuh and shiva.

[vetch]

Summoner is now much more like what it is in traditional FFs. Calling summons to do a big flashy move and disappear.

Nobody tell her about FF10. Or 12. Or 13.

[rawker]

Nobody tell her about FF10. Or 12. Or 13.

[ThorneDynasty]

People just mean it has bigger animations now when they say "it's a REAL Summoner now", ignoring the mechanics completely or the fact those big flashy effects aren't mutually exclusive with any other iteration of the SMN gameplay.

SE could have given even the old SMN those animations, changing little about how it plays, and they'd praise it just as much. But because absolutes, anyone who doesn't like the lack of substance of the new job, must also be trying to take away the new flashy animations as well.

[AlphaXXI]

Nobody tell her about FF10. Or 12. Or 13.

I mean, I get your point, but I'm pretty sure she used "traditionnal" to refer to the way summons were in most FF games before FFX started to switch things around a lot more. You know, how they mostly were from FFIII to FFIX.
I don't even think that really reflects the job as it is now anyway, since Phoenix and Bahamut don't work that way, but let's be charitable here.

[Galvuu]

I mean, I get your point, but I'm pretty sure she used "traditionnal" to refer to the way summons were in most FF games before FFX started to switch things around a lot more. You know, how they mostly were from FFIII to FFIX.
I don't even think that really reflects the job as it is now anyway, since Phoenix and Bahamut don't work that way, but let's be charitable here.

People say this, but prior to X the only FFs with a dedicated summoner job were IV, V and IX.
In IV, Rydia can learn like 20 summons has uses a lot of Black Magic (she even learns Meteor).
In IX, Garnet has like 10 Eidolons and also uses White Magic. In V, they're exclusively about summoning magic only (barring some RDM dualcast specs) and have 15 summons too.
Only Eiko can be somewhat compared to XIV in that she has five summons who are also the bulk of her offense.
If you compare XIV summon to Rydia or Garnet, it surprisingly still lacks both in summon variety and even in skillset (in XIV, when you're not summoning, you're using Ruin and... Fester. I'm not sure what you're festering, since your disease dots are gone).
I really feel that even compared to historical FF summoners, XIV fares really badly.

[remiff]

The worst part about all this is that despite the complete rework, they left Fester and Energy Drain in place, even though they don't fit with the new system at all. The summoner rework doesn't even have proper resource management; it's just pressing Energy Drain every 60 seconds.

They didn't even bother to remove the egi coefficient, so all the attacks that are commands to Demi such as Enkindle Solar Bahamut/Bahamut/Phoenix or Aerial Blast, Earthen Fury, and Inferno don't have the actual power displayed.
All these attacks still suffer from the egi coefficient, which reduces the total spell potency by about 10%. For example, the displayed potency of Enkindle Solar Bahamut is 1600, but its actual pot is more like 1440.
Enkindle Phoenix and Bahamut drop from 1300 to around 1170.

It was completely dumb to leave behind dusty relics from the past like the egi coefficient or Energy Drain, especially when doubling its cooldown from 30s to 60s for 2 Aetherflow stacks.

In Dawntrail, they didn't make any effort either; they had the chance to rename Fester to something more fitting with the new summoner kit, but they decided to call the spell Necrotize, even though we no longer have any DoTs.

[AlphaXXI]

People say this, but prior to X the only FFs with a dedicated summoner job were IV, V and IX.
In IV, Rydia can learn like 20 summons has uses a lot of Black Magic (she even learns Meteor).
In IX, Garnet has like 10 Eidolons and also uses White Magic. In V, they're exclusively about summoning magic only (barring some RDM dualcast specs) and have 15 summons too.
Only Eiko can be somewhat compared to XIV in that she has five summons who are also the bulk of her offense.
If you compare XIV summon to Rydia or Garnet, it surprisingly still lacks both in summon variety and even in skillset (in XIV, when you're not summoning, you're using Ruin and... Fester. I'm not sure what you're festering, since your disease dots are gone).
I really feel that even compared to historical FF summoners, XIV fares really badly.

It's why I didn't say "Summoner" but "Summons", despite her using "Summoner" in her own post, I was making a broad statement about the act of summoning and the summons themselves, removed from the need for a specific job.

[Galvuu]

It's why I didn't say "Summoner" but "Summons", despite her using "Summoner" in her own post, I was making a broad statement about the act of summoning and the summons themselves, removed from the need for a specific job.

You're correct, I misread your post (probably because I read the whole thread in one go).
Either way, that's actually probably part of the problem- in a lot of FFs Summons are just magic nukes that anyone can use on top of other stuff. In the few where that isn't the case, there's another foundation.
I think XIV fails at both fronts anyway- the foundation in current SMN basically is as barebones as it can be (like... WHM level of dps foundation), and the summons themselves have very little variety (we have 5- soon to be 5 and a reskin, and, honestly, Phoenix kinda is a Bahamut reskin already). There's some interesting ideas with Garuda/Ifrit/Titan all having slightly different mechanics (long casts, ogcd weaving and rapid fire gcds). I still wish they added Ramuh/Leviathan/Odin and those had their own mechanics (some dot proc thing, some debuff/combo thing and a melee phase, maybe?). Something something "add depth later", later being never, I guess, CBU3.

[CasterSvarog]

Snip.

Honestly I would not be surprised if the whole Aetherflow system was kept purely because the devs realized ‘oh crap, there’s no oGcds, every dps job needs those’ and then kept it in without bay other thought to it.

SMN as a whole really felt like the devs just cobbled it together for what little budget and time was left without giving it much thought beyond, ‘just fix people’s grievances with old SMN’.
People didn’t like DoTs? No more dots.
People didn’t like pets? No more pet system
People want it to be big flashy summons like before? Just reuse the old Pet attacks and actions and you’re all set.
People want to use all there summons instead of just Ifrit for bosses and Garuda for dungeons? Cycle through them all.
People want big summons instead of the Egis? Level 90 upgrade, hits the quota for big flashy attack.
Oops. Budget ran out for the job, ship it out anyway.

I hope for 8.0 they step back, take ShB egi assault system, and the Gemshine system and make something that makes more people happy. Instead of the objectivelyc most boring job in the entire game.