Summoner: if summoner is the first new class to be released what would you expect?

[Niqote]

Diversity of abilities. For example in FFXI you have Buffs (Garuda, Fenrir), Healing (Carbuncle), DD (Titan, Ifrit etc)

Balance. I am afraid it will be OP, then shafted with the nerf stick.

Then again... all the classes could use a nice dose of balance. It's a shame to see exclusions..

[Churchill]

I don't follow, you can beat any current content with any tank/healer/dd setup you want if you aren't terrible

[KoujiGeki]

there is alot of lesser primals from all the other FFs for SE to choose from besides the classic Siva ifrit etc. Or Se could surprise us and make all new Primals for us to summon. I just pray that se doesnt get lazy and only give the summoners lame elementals only.

[Duelle]

I don't follow, you can beat any current content with any tank/healer/dd setup you want if you aren't terrible

Ranged still has an advantage over melee. That one still needs to be addressed.

Diversity of abilities. For example in FFXI you have Buffs (Garuda, Fenrir), Healing (Carbuncle), DD (Titan, Ifrit etc)

Balance. I am afraid it will be OP, then shafted with the nerf stick.

Depends. Tanaka & Co. were scared to death of summoners in FFXI because they never placed heavier restrictions on things like switching avatars. They tried to discourage it with summon MP costs and variances in perpetuation and then favors, but the playerbase is very thick-headed and never picked up on it. If you make it really painful to switch avatars, you suddenly don't have to nerf everything out of fear that players will swap avatars faster than they change underwear. I'd use something like the mechanic for Terestian Illhoof, but with player-character detriments instead of just taking more damage.

Say that Evokers can keep their avatar out without having to pay perpetuation, and instead spend MP to use avatar abilities as well as abilities they gain from the presence of their avatars. The avatar dies, and the Evoker gets hit by a debuff called Broken Pact that prevents the summoning of another avatar for 3 minutes and reduces all stats by 25%. Dismissing the avatar and trying to summon again within 60 seconds also grants this debuff.

Then at lv30 when you get the Summoner crystal, your first learned ability is Natural Order, an ability that allows Summoners to switch avatars without penalties once every 3 minutes, but it HAS to be an avatar that follows the elemental cycle of the previous avatar (so if you have Phoenix out, you'd have to switch to Shiva as the elemental triat goes from Wind => Fire => Ice). You can justify making avatar abilities stronger across the board under such design, IMO.

[Hysterior]

I want to walk around with Carby again

[KoujiGeki]

Ranged still has an advantage over melee. That one still needs to be addressed.

Depends. Tanaka & Co. were scared to death of summoners in FFXI because they never placed heavier restrictions on things like switching avatars. They tried to discourage it with summon MP costs and variances in perpetuation and then favors, but the playerbase is very thick-headed and never picked up on it. If you make it really painful to switch avatars, you suddenly don't have to nerf everything out of fear that players will swap avatars faster than they change underwear. I'd use something like the mechanic for Terestian Illhoof, but with player-character detriments instead of just taking more damage.

Say that Evokers can keep their avatar out without having to pay perpetuation, and instead spend MP to use avatar abilities as well as abilities they gain from the presence of their avatars. The avatar dies, and the Evoker gets hit by a debuff called Broken Pact that prevents the summoning of another avatar for 3 minutes and reduces all stats by 25%. Dismissing the avatar and trying to summon again within 60 seconds also grants this debuff.

Then at lv30 when you get the Summoner crystal, your first learned ability is Natural Order, an ability that allows Summoners to switch avatars without penalties once every 3 minutes. You can justify making avatar abilities stronger across the board under such design, IMO.

There are a few problems with what you said here. Well that WAS a huge problem in 11 for the longest time for summoners, reducing them to only main healer, and almost never actually summoning. I can slighty agree to the not being able to switch Primals once fight starts, BUT if its also includes when they die from AoEs which lets face it they WILL, that will severely hurt Summoners. Cause lets imagine im an elitist, Oh you cant resummon for 3 min?, thats 3 min of no damage, or we get a pet with weakness for 3 min if im reading what you are saying right. Well F*%& summoner get the Blm.

I am in favor of the No perpetual cause, and the more mp to do abilities just not a crippling amount, but it would even out if the cost of summoning was a decent amount to, back to the aoe problem if its alot your gonna got out of mp after your pet dies 3x. So a Summoner should IMO have a refresh even with a Summon out.

[Duelle]

I can slighty agree to the not being able to switch Primals once fight starts, BUT if its also includes when they die from AoEs which lets face it they WILL, that will severely hurt Summoners.

Oh, right, I'm thinking in WoW context without really explaining how pet classes in WoW worked. All pets scaled with their master's stats, and also all had inherent damage reduction (I think it was 80%) taken from AoEs. If a pet was dying during a raid fight, it was because it was pulling aggro and the guy playing the hunter/warlock was an idiot that forgot to turn off growl/torment. I'd expect a similar mechanic here, where Avatars would scale with their SMNs stats and also have an inherent mechanic that reduces damage they take from AoEs. Then the game becames about using and focusing on an avatar and, most importantly, keeping the avatar alive.

I am in favor of the No perpetual cause, and the more mp to do abilities just not a crippling amount, but it would even out if the cost of summoning was a decent amount to, back to the aoe problem if its alot your gonna got out of mp after your pet dies 3x. So a Summoner should IMO have a refresh even with a Summon out.

Believe me, I'd hate to place such a restriction on SMNs, but I also know that people who graduated from FFXI will try to twist every mechanic they can, and in order to deter it I can't think of something less than a direct kick in the balls to those players.

On refresh, without a doubt it should be and is shared by the caster classes/jobs, so I don't see why Evoker/SMN shouldn't have it as well.

[KoujiGeki]

ah i see now why some people mentions in other smn threads thats the Primals might not take full aoe dmg. I didnt know wow had that. The problem i see with that now is that defeats bringing any melee DD to ifrit cause whm will need to heal them over time while a Primal takes 80% less from aoes. Thats only an example i know by the time summoners out all Primals will be wanderers.

[Duelle]

ah i see now why some people mentions in other smn threads thats the Primals might not take full aoe dmg. I didnt know wow had that.

Verily. It was done as a way to combat what used to happen in vanilla and TBC, where hunters were prohibited from bringing their pets because it would die in 2 seconds from AoE damage. It's funny because after that was implemented, on progression runs I would die before hunter pets, and I was a ret paladin with a big hammer in my hand wearing heavy armor. XD

The problem i see with that now is that defeats bringing any melee DD to ifrit cause whm will need to heal them over time while a Primal takes 80% less from aoes. Thats only an example i know by the time summoners out all Primals will be wanderers.

This is why I'd put part of the responsibility on the SMN themselves. The summoner having an ability like Symbiosis means they have the responsibility of helping keep their pet alive.

As far as the healers go, WoW's healing design played very nicely with pet classes because of smart heals, AoE heals and auras weren't insanely rare nor did it affecting pets cause inconvenience. Prayer of Healing could hit pets and no one lost anything. Chain Heal could bounce off pets, which never caused drama (no "omg my chain heal bounced off your pet and was wasted!?!?!?!?!!"). Pets also benefited from Healing Stream Totem, and again, no problems. I'd like SE to take notes from that so that their game can be friendlier to pet classes without the stupid loopholes that existed in FFXI.

On avatar deaths, I would preffer to discourage people from using their avatars as fodder like they were in XI. I am willing to meet you in the middle, though, and could suggest that Broken Pact takes effect only if you try to switch to another avatar after the one you just had out dies. If you had Phoenix out and it dies from mob damage or from pulling aggro, you get a debuff called Weakened Pact, with a 10% stat pentalty for one minute. The debuff vanishes the moment you resummon Phoenix, thus not giving you much of a pentalty. If you try to summon Leviathan instead, then you get hit with Broken Pact unless you used Natural Order to suppress the penalties.