Feedback for Summoner

[Supersnow845]

Yep. the whole - very obvious - point of the rework was to make it so that future expansions only need to add sets of minor summons and/or new major summons. Instead of the former we get nonsensical ability upgrades and follow-ups that nobody needs at all, and instead of the latter actually adding a new major summon, we get Bahamut 2.0, Lame Graphics Version.

If people are still buying the whole “foundation to expand upon” I don’t even know what to say anymore, how many times have we been fed that lie

[Connor]

If people are still buying the whole “foundation to expand upon” I don’t even know what to say anymore, how many times have we been fed that lie

I mean, I don’t think that the devs leaving the ‘foundations’ without ever actually building something anything top of it inherently means the foundations were somehow ‘wrong’ or never had any potential. Honestly I’d say it’s just another testament to their egregious laziness and lack of creativity that they effectively did nothing to improve the job between the rework and now.

Like, it could have been a good foundation if they actually worked to improve it with the intention of creating something meaningful over it. Instead they just left the foundation to rot, get infested with termites, and some animals have peed on it (lol)

[Sifpatata]

Look, Solar bahamut is proof that even if I wanted to add 15 different summons, they would only be a reskin of the 3 primary bases.
It is precisely the concept behind the new smn that is totally wrong.

things that seem incredible to me considering that the FF11 devs had a worse engine but they managed to fit most of the summons, if ff14 devs can't handle so much technology and tools at their disposal, it speaks volumes about them or rather they don't want to.

[Emitans]

things that seem incredible to me considering that the FF11 devs had a worse engine but they managed to fit most of the summons, if ff14 devs can't handle so much technology and tools at their disposal, it speaks volumes about them or rather they don't want to.

FF11 actually cared about the jobs feeling unique. All the FF14 devs care about is making everything homogenized so they can put in minimum effort in development.

[Ggwppino]

things that seem incredible to me considering that the FF11 devs had a worse engine but they managed to fit most of the summons, if ff14 devs can't handle so much technology and tools at their disposal, it speaks volumes about them or rather they don't want to.

Okay, but let's say that FFXI is a completely different game compared to FF14.

The problem with the new smn is that the summons have no real identity and are not really tangible (they are all the same, unique ifrit that for better or worse is saved).
The old one, with all the defects it had (and they could easily be resolved by making less wicked choices), had each summon being used for a very specific purpose. Every single summon had a true identity and a true purpose and above all it was a tangible and interactable entity. Actually similar to FFXI.

It's not the developers who can't fit FFXI's 20 summons, it's precisely the bad closed restricted design of the new smn that doesn't allow them to do so.

[remiff]

The problem with the Summoner is that it was sold to us as a strategic job where each summon choice would matter, but that’s clearly not the case.
The only real "risk" of the Summoner is Ifrit's gap-closer.
The Summoner is absolutely not a strategic job—its elemental summons are all the same, except one is green, another is yellow, and another is red.

The Summoner rework, aside from the visuals, is nothing more than a lazy overhaul focused entirely on aesthetics.
It lacks resource management, interesting mechanics, and has significant downtime between elemental summons, making the rotation even slower and duller than it already is.
It requires no strategy, no real thought, and no meaningful resource management—it’s pure brain death.

This job desperately needs a rework of its mechanics and should feel much faster.
Downtime between summons should be reduced, Carbuncle should be useful again and have its own kit, rather than being replaced by summons.
Resource management needs a complete overhaul, and Aetherflow stacks should be removed entirely—they make no sense and add no flavor to the rotation.

[WarGiver]

The more that I think on it the more I think the Sword Dragon (I refuse to treat it with respect until this mess is fixed) should have replaced Bahamut entirely, it didn't.

SMN is so low on DPS that we honestly are in the same range of damage as Physical Ranged, and last I checked they don't have cast bars. So tacking on GCDs that come up where you actually will wipe a raid if you use them because the boss is in a minute long stretch of mechanics that are either soak or dodge, making you choose between failing or doing DMG.

All I want is for SMN to feel satisfying, I want it to FEEL like you are calling down Primals (well shades of them) to blitz your enemies. I want it to feel good. Feeling like you are a lame duck that has to stop using your primal powered abilities and you are doing so little damage that you feel like a liability feels wrong.

What is more is when 7.0 launched they realized early that SMN (and SCH) had a bug (both DPS) where a trait that should have helped its DPS didn't work, and they knew about it, and did not fix it in ANY patch until 7.1. This was not a balance issue, SMN was suffering from damage output because of a bug. And yet it was treated as a minor issue and ignored, and to fix this bug it was left until the other balance issues were changed.

SMN just feels like SE wants it out of the picture.

[Carighan]

Well we also got the mobility of a PRanged (granted, so does Black Mage right now) so it's kinda expected we do similar damage?

[Sayurichan]

All I want is for SMN to feel satisfying, I want it to FEEL like you are calling down Primals (well shades of them) to blitz your enemies.

Curious : How would that look like different from what we have now? Because if I'm not mistaken, SMN already gets to summon a new primal every 4-5 GCDs, with most of them starting with a rather big skill effect. What would you change in that regard to make it "feel good" more "like you are calling down primals"? Having Titan/Ifrit/Garuda come down do their mega blasts every GCD would look rather silly, get old really fast, and would be rather irritating (hi, RDM LB3). Or when you say "feel good as if calling down primals", are you talking just about dps numbers?

[Carighan]

Curious : How would that look like different from what we have now? Because if I'm not mistaken, SMN already gets to summon a new primal every 4-5 GCDs, with most of them starting with a rather big skill effect. What would you change in that regard to make it "feel good" more "like you are calling down primals"? Having Titan/Ifrit/Garuda come down do their mega blasts every GCD would look rather silly, get old really fast, and would be rather irritating (hi, RDM LB3). Or when you say "feel good as if calling down primals", are you talking just about dps numbers?

Yeah the "feel satisfying" is what the reworked Summoner gets right. It does actual FF-style summons, and they all do their super-move when you summon them, too!