A Summoner Idea: Post 1.20 changes.

[MartaDemireux]

I wouldn't even think they would need to scale the fights if they would just slow the leveling pace way down and balance the pets so that you'd need them to get into progressively higher level parties

But there's still the chance of just pushing on through to 50 without getting some of the pets and then taking on the fight and destroying it in 30 seconds.

I think it would be awesome for everyone to experience the fights and "prove themselves" in the Summoner world no matter the level they take on the fight.

Sort of like in FFXI with Diabolos. Even though you had to be 75 to beat him (on any job), if you played summoner and called him out at any level it was kind of like a trophy and looked up to sort of thing.

[Airget]

I posted an idea a while back on my personal idea for a pet system or rather one that made it more about actually raising them then just something that raised up automatically. The basic idea was each "pet" class would have a food source to raise it's abilities. Cooking would be for beast pets, Automatons would be armorer/blacksmith/leathercraft and avatars would be alchemist.

For the evoker/SMN concept I kinda of imagine it where from lv 1-30 it works like the Kobold spells in which you conjure up magic to call upon the essence of the avatar to fight by your side aka think of Evoker as a class that can call upon attacks but not hold the form of said creature, while at 30+ you are given the "job" which has the ability to give a physical form to the creature you are calling which can act as a shield.

For cracked idols, I think having a summon limit would be a bad idea rather then a "limit" ok how about let's say there are 8 idol avatars and maybe 20 cracked ones. Am evoker is able to carry around 2 idols and 5 cracked ones at any given time but they have to go to their house if they which to change the combination they are using atm. The first idol KI isn't given to you til you complete the first class quest at lv 20 and you earn your 2nd idol after the final job quest. As for the cracked idol you naturally gain control over more every 10 lvs up to 40, So it would like like
Idols=20/50
Cracked Idols=1/10/20/30/40

Idols Would be superior elemental creatures compared to the Cracked idols which is why you can only carry 2, and why cracked is at 5.

I guess one way it could work, while I do appreciate the way you setup the skills I don't think a single skillset will work when it comes to make a pet class, rather one macro line will have to be dedicated to the pet so basically a SMN at 50 would have a basical macro bar that looks like
Idol 1-Idol 2-C1-C2-C3-C4-C5

An idol at 50 would have 10 abilities while a Cracked idol would vary from 4-7. With this concept though the pet class may have to work like a 2 button combination, press 1 button to activate the idol or cracked idol aka to open up the list of abilities then you use their ability as an evoker.

When you use an idol the recast time would not be active til after you use their ability and it would be based on the idol or cracked idol you are using. When it comes to idols the recast time would be based on how you raised them, when it comes to cracked idols it would be based on the type of cracked idol you are using, but the recast would always be the same unless you use an idols' AF which would put them in 5min recast aka "exhaustion" mode.

As it stands now we get 11 job traits, rather then job traits be set for Evoker/SMN it would instead be 6 and then 5 based on the idol you have active at the time. So in this essence an idol can also work to enhance yourself if there's a trait that benefits you but for example let's say Carbuncle is lv 50

Poison Nail, Meteorite, Holy Mist, Healing Ruby, Shining Ruby, Glittering Ruby, Soothing Ruby Divine Ruby, Searing Light,

To lazy to think of a 10th ability but basically we have half/half melee/support mixture. Divine Ruby is a cure spell just like Healing ruby but witha twist. You earn Divine Ruby later then you learn healing Ruby but Divine Ruby creates a combo which allows you to use Healing Ruby at the cost of more MP(The potency is the same and it increases the idols recast by 50% which means you save 50% by using it).

Idols themselves share a recast timer unless you use Astral Flow in which only one of them has the 5min recast while the other whill only be 1 minute. How about this, Idols will always be 1 minute recast but Crack idols recast will be based on the ability you use but the cracked ones don't share timers.

So On hand an Evoker/Summoner would have access to 6 abilities at a time(ignoring combos).

The unique feature with Cracked Idols is you would be able to use duplicates if you want said abilities on hand but idols are only one of each and since they share the 1min recast timer there is no point in carrying two of the same one anyway.
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Let me see if I can condense this down a bit. Basically I'll quote you and remove the abilities that I see as unecessary.

Abilities/Spells (*denotes skill requires jar/vial equipped in main hand):
Lv 1:Cracked Idol A=Channel abilities of Spirit within Idol
Lv 6: Spirit Dart; Non-elemental magic attack.
Lv 10:Cracked Ido Bl=Channel abilities of Spirit within Idol
Lv 20:Cracked Idol C=Channel abilities of Spirit within Idol
Lv 20:Idol I=Channel abilities of Avatar within Idol
Lv 30:Cracked Idol D=Channel abilities of Spirit within Idol
Lv 30: Spirit Blast; Non-elemental magic attack. Chance to inflict 10 second paralyze effect on target when used in combo with Spirit Dart.*
Lv 38: Passive Channeling; Lowers player's enmity over time.
Lv 40:Cracked Idol E=Channel abilities of Spirit within Idol
Lv 42: Aether Split; Next Evoke command will cost half MP. *
Lv 46: Spirit Impact; Non-elemental magic attack. Chance to restore MP in combo with Spirit Blast.*
Lv 50: Aether Infuse; Improve Focus increasing damage of next ability. Does not work with Astral Flow.*

Job Abilities:

Lv 30: Summon I; Create physical form of a avatar(can't do for cracked idols)
Lv 35: Astral Burst; Improve avatars Offensive abilities
Lv 40: Astral Focus; Improve avatars defensive abilties
Lv 45: Astral Limiter; Decreas Avatars abilities to lower perp cost.
Lv 50: Idol II;Channel abilities of Avatar within Idol
Lv 30: Summon II; Create physical form of a avatar(can't do for cracked idols)

Traits:

lv 12: Enhanced MP; Increases MP by 5%.
Lv 16: Auto-refresh; 3MP/tic.
Lv 20: Synergy; Reduce Recast of Cracked Idols
Lv 28: Enhanced MP II; Increases MP by 10%.
Lv 40: Auto-refresh II; 6MP/tic.
Lv 48: Conserve MP; chance ability will cost 10-20% less MP.

Basically the idea is as an Evoker/SMN levels higher they will gain more utility and flexibility over the skill they can use. The problem with the way I see it set up as a pet system is that the way it's setup may make it to easy for them to handle situations based on how easy it would be to switch between different pets.

The above idea I'm trying to bring out the original concept of the Evoker which was a class that would summon a creature to perform an action and that's it, not the type we are use to from 10+ but more like what we saw in FF3 in which each summon had 3 attacks based on what job you had active. The way Evoker is setup it's made to ease you into the concept of the class itself so that you don't become overwhelmed by it as a whole. At the start you only have access to one Cracked Idol and basic actions, by lv 10 you gain access to another Cracked Idol giving you more utility. At lv 20 you gain access to another cracked idol as well as an idol upon completing the class quest. With the idol in hand you are then able to challenge the avatars and obtain their contract however since you only have one Idol you can only set one avatar at a time. This is because an Avatar is pretty much like a Persona your body can only support having one in control that attempting to even have two on hand could destroy your Astral Body. The cracked idols are lesser spirits that don't need a contract to use and are very submissive, the avatars however are very prideful and take raising them to make them more effective while cracked idols always remain the same. It takes more work to make a loyal Avatar then it does to use the cracked idols, but the Cracked idols do have a limited skillset.

Upon reaching lv 30 you obtain access to the job quest Summoner, as a Summoner you learn of the lost art in which an Evoker can create a physical form for their Avatar, You need an idol in order to perform, the cracked idol is to weak of a vessel to perform the act of creating a physical form for the spirit that attempting the Summoning technique will break the cracked idol.

Upon learning how to Summon you are given the basic "attack" "retreat" "Recall" abilities but as you progress through the plot you learn of ways to channel your energy to have more control over the battle potency of your avatar. Your first trial teachers you how to increase their battle potency but it reduces their defense greatly, the second trial teaches you how to condense their energy to improve the potency of their support abilities and the final stance teaches you how to conserve your mana so that you can last longer in combat.

For the Final test you are given the greatest challenge, and that is to be able to hold two idols at once. Upon completing the last trial you are given the 2nd Idol and also granted the ability to summon that creature. aka you have a choice of two creatures to summon but can only have one out at a time, giving the SMN more flexibility in combat.

Overall on averages if idols have 10 abilities and cracked have 3-6 then at capped lv on SMN the job has a choice of 35-50 abilities which is pretty decent utility.

I might be missing some things but overall the idea is, when it comes to job traits the Evoker class only get 6 and the other 5 are based on the current idol you have active and wear off upon using their ability. This is the same for SMN upon calling the avatar you gain their 5 traits. A summoner is also still able to use the cracked idols but unable to use the 2nd Idol unless they recall the avatar. A SMN is able to deal high amounts of dmg or quick support but they bleed MP while an evoker may be unable to create a physical form of an avatar they don't lose MP as fast an a SMN. In that sense the downfall of a SMN comes with their reduced MP pool, let's say an Evoker can have 5k MP at maxed level, SMN would only have 3.5k because of the trials they go through. Mana is the essence which the avatars feed on so in order to be able to have 2 on hand you have to sacrifice your max MP.

The reason it's like this is so Evoker's don't become obsolete, while the SMN may have more burst damage they won't last long in combat meanwhile an Evoker would have access to more abilities and able to last longer in longer battles.
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I'm pretty sure I missed some things XD but I hope you like this little edit, I know people want a straight up pet class, but you have to do it the right way, it's hard to set it up just right but I think with the above it creates an environment in which you can have them as pets but it doesn't make them the solo powerhouse that they were in XI, it just gives you more abilities on hand when in combat, instead of having to use Idol ability, cracked idol ability, you can have your avatar attack, use an ability and each avatar ability would have a seperate recast timer unlike the evoker limit of having to wait a minute in between each ability however, it's because of this very ability that SMN end up bleeding MP. a SMN doesn't have to go through the trouble of activating the Idol each time they want to use an ability but then have to pay a perp cost while the avatar is active.
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[Alkar]

No jack of all trades again please. Summoner was never one, it was a powerful DD with small buffs in some games. The idea worked horribly in FFXI and I don't want to see it happen again.
Granted that XIV's system is different but they should really make Summoner something else and not follow XI's idea of "do everything but do it horribly compared to the rest".
If you're going to allow SMN to cover most roles in a party then let them do it properly... if SMN can fit the healer role make it heal like a WHM, if it can DD make it on par with BLM, if it's going to buff don't nerf them simply because they can use party buffs, etc.
Limitations should come in other forms that don't nerf the job directly. Same applies to RDM really, see how it ended in XI.

[Colino]

I get flamed for saying this every time but with the lore and how primals work I'd rather just not see a summoner at all.

Now a well done and balanced Beastmaster on the other hand...

[Andrien]

I like how summoning espers was done here. The music, and the zone atmosphere changes to suit the summon. Of course changing the entire zone weather should be something only a primal should do.

[Alkar]

I get flamed for saying this every time but with the lore and how primals work I'd rather just not see a summoner at all.

Now a well done and balanced Beastmaster on the other hand...

Summoners had a lot of different summons in the series. I honestly don't mind a different set for once and there are a LOT of underused summons to bring back to life in this game.
The only summon that has never been truly replaced at some point is Shiva but every new FF game adds at least a new creature to the list.
The only one I'm really hoping remains is Bahamut. He's pretty much an icon for the job and I was really disappointed that he wasn't summonable at all in XI. I honestly don't care if he's the strongest of the bunch storywise, I'd rather have him in my list for once in an online game.

[MartaDemireux]

@Airget: Very interesting idea Airget. The one thing that I'm not on board with though is having a pet be a command in general. I feel like it's a bit unrealistic of SE to create an entire new action bar simply for the pet. My concept here was to basically have the pet have their own bar that had 5 abilities, maybe more that can be accessed via gear or something. The player then uses an ability that corresponds to that action. This way the player only ever needs 5 abilities on one bar that control the actions of the pet (outside of attack and recall). Aether Assault for instance would be on the bar and would be what the SMN would use to get Carbuncle to do Poison Nails or Golem to do Shoulder Tackle. My idea was to have these abilities scale, so after the SMN gets to 40 or so the Aether Assault abilities could turn into Meteorite and Mountain Buster or something (turning both into physical attacks for this idea). As for Cracked Idols/Idols, I really feel you should have access to all pets at any time (that's a main theme for XIV as it is) and just equip them as you would a job stone. This is why I imposed a 5+ time limit on Evoke Spirit, to keep them from getting too much power. Time limit could be increased for SMN though if the Idols were made stronger as well. I was really only bargaining on 6-8 Cracked Idols (one for each element) and then more Idols (SMN being able to call more variety of pets) which could vary outside of the elements. This could bring things like "Idol of Swords" for summoning a Gilgamesh-like pet.

@Alkar: I feel the same way! That's why I made EVK have single target damage abilities and SMN get the AoE's (can use single target as well though). For the SMN buffs/debuff move, I was thinking it could work much like BRD songs where only one buff could be active at any time per SMN but with a 5 minute duration or so, leaving the SMN free to deal damage. Their healing move would benefit their pet the most but could still be used to heal a party member in a pinch (not unlike a BRD tossing out a cure if the WHM can't for some reason (which could mean SMN should get PGL/LNC for sub abilities and not CNJ at all)).

[Airget]

My concept may have changed a bit but this was the general idea I had.

The Idols would act the summons you can actually take out as pets when on SMN while the Cracked idols are only a pact which allows you to summon an avatar to do an attack for you. With that in mind I think it would actually be possible to use the put the Primals as summons but only through the Evoking kind rather then the summoning kind.

The reason why I condensed the abilities learned on Evoker was cause the progression felt like each avatar would always have the same set of abilities. It just feels like each avatar would be a copy of one another but with a different elemental attack or buff or debuff with little variation between each one.

With that in mind the way I imagine the Idol/Cracked Idol concept is as followed. Based on the summons obtained in FF4 I came up with the following cracked idols.

Chocobo:
Lv 1 "Chocobo Dash" -Grants AOE sprint effect- MP 10-50, Duration 30 seconds, Recast 2mins Idol Cooldown: 30 seconds
Lv 5 "Chocobo Kick" -Deals Moderate Single Target dmg- MP15-150 Recast: 30 seconds Idol Cooldown: 30 seconds
Lv50 "Fat Chocobo" -Deals AOE dmg- MP 500 Recast: 5 minutes, Idol Cooldown: 2:30

Shiva's Rage:
Lv 1 "Axe Kick"
Lv 10 "Blizzard"
Lv 30 "Double Slap"
Lv 50 "Diamond Dust"

Shiva's Ward:
Lv 10 "Frost Armor"
Lv 30 "Sleepga"
Lv 50 "Diamond Storm"

Ramuh's Rage:
Lv 1 "Shock Strike"
Lv 10 "Thunder"
Lv 30 "Thunderspark"
Lv 50 "Judgement Bolt"

Ramuh's Ward:
Lv 1 "Rolling Thunder"
Lv 30 "Lightning Armor"
Lv 50 "Shocking Squall"

Goblin:
Lv 1 "Goblin Punch"
Lv 10 "Pilfer" Chance to steal an item
Lv 30 "Goblin Rush"
Lv 50 "Goblin Dice" Deals a Random effect

Cockatrice:
Lv 1 "Petrifying Beak" Single Target Chance to Petrify target
Lv 10 "Sound Blast" AOE chance to lower INT and Silence
Lv 50 "Petrifying Break" "Deals bonus dmg to target that is petrified"

Bomb:
Lv 1 "Self-Destruct" AOE Fire dmg Idol Cooldown=5 mins
Lv 20 "Rage" Single target attack boost on ally Idol Cooldown=30 seconds
Lv 50 "Meltdown" Heavy AOE Fire dmg Idol Cooldown=10 mins

Mindflayer:
Lv 1 "Mind Blast" Single Target dmg with chance to deal paralysis and DoT -non elemental-
lv 10 "Mind Purge" Single Target Dispel
Lv 30 "Immortal Mind" Single Target MAG ATT/DEF buff
Lv 50 "Reporbation" AOE Dispel

Above is a list of 9 cracked idols, through my idea you would only be able to have 5 cracked idols active at a time. Each Cracked Idol has it's own Ultimate Move which brings it to a 5 minute cooldown when used basically a Cracked Idol has 2 recast on it. There's the ability recast which is how long til you can use the abiilty again, and the fatigue from using the ability which is how long you have to wait til you can use it again.

With the above Shiva/Ramuh have two types of Cracked idols, one that's focused on offensive and the other that's defensive. These idols would be unique so you would only be able to carry one of each however all of the above can be stacked. So you could have a 5 cracked idol set of all goblins if you wanted to. But ya the basic idea behind the Cracked idol is you activate it and it'll allow you to choose from a set of abilities based on your lv. At max lv an Evoker and Summoner would have 6 moves they can use at a time. Even though a Summoner can obtain 2 Idols they share the same 1min cooldown with their ability activation unlike the Cracked Idols which are all on seperate timers.

As for the idols their abilities would look like this:

Carbuncle: (All recast 1min minus 5 minus recast from Searing Light on Evoker) -Below Recast are for summoned state)
Poison Nails Recast 15 seconds
Healing Ruby Recast 5 seconds
Shining Ruby Recast 3mins
Meteorite Recast 30 seconds
Glittering Ruby Recast 30 seconds
Divine Ruby Recast 15 seconds
Holy Mist Recast 1min
Soothing Ruby Recast 1min
Lv 50 "Searing Light" Idol Cooldown=5mins

Fenrir:
Lv 1 "Moonlit Charge" 15 seconds
Lv 10 "Crescent Fang" 30 seconds
Lv 20 "Lunar Cry" 30 seconds
Lv 30 "Lunar Roar" 1 min
Lv 35 "Eclipse Bite" 45 seconds
Lv 40 "Ecliptic Growl" 3mins
Lv 43 "Lunar Bay" 1min
Lv 45 Ecliptic Howl" 45 seconds
Lv 50 "Howling Moon" Idol Cooldown=5mins

Diabolos:
Lv 1 Camisado 15 seconds
lv 10 Somnolence 30 seconds
lv 20 Nightmare 1min
lv 30 Nether Blast 30 seconds
Lv35 Ultimate Terror 1min
lv 40 Noctoshield 3min
Lv43 Night Terror 1min
Lv45 Dream Shroud 3min
Lv 50 "Ruinous Omen" Idol Cooldown=5mins

Other Potential Idols:
Alexander
Cait Sith
Yojimbo
Magus Sisters


When using an Idol like an Evoker the cooldown would always be 1min regardless of the ability used, however when you use their AF it would be a 5min cooldown on the Idol that's used and 1min on the other Idol if you are on SMN.

Idols have the advantage of having a wider range of abilities as well as the ability to be summoned. While an avatar is out the abilities they can use would all have unique cooldowns allowing you to use their abilities more often however your MP pool would decrease faster.

Perhaps one thing that could create a distinct difference between SMN and Evoker is that during the SMN state you can't use cracked idols since you have to focus on keeping the physical form of the avatar out. If this is done then both SMN/Evoker can have the same MP pool.

Basically a SMN's arsenal would be composed of 2 idols, they can have one out on a time and still use the other idols abilities with a 1min cooldown. The benefit of using a Summoner would be from the ability to add an extra attacker as well as have quicker access to their abilities.

An Evoker on the other hand would have this advantage, they would have access to 1 Idol as well as 5 Cracked idols which give them 6 ability sets to work with. An Evoker can spread their abilities to a wider range while a SMN focuses on one/two elements. A Summoner is able to use an idols abilities quicker while an Evoker would have to wait 1min between each ability.

But ya, I just think that if they did it this way they would be able to make the abilities more unique between each idol rather then each avatar having the same set of moves basically with slight variations between them.