So why was Summoner advertised as a pet class

[lolirocco]

Summoner should have some casting abilities with sort of a long casting time and then the avatar pops up in front of the enemy and does a brutal (non)-elemental based magic attack...
Something like this except this is a death cast:

[Aegis]

None of this is going to happen though, it's the same vicious cycle that every other declining game franchise faces -

1.) Make rushed, unpolished, incomplete game

2.) Game has horrible sales or dies fairly quickly

3.) Instead of fixing the root problem, game company tries to copy other successful franchises or discontinues game franchise altogether



Game development is about a quick buck nowadays. Don't expect and significant improvements or overhauls of SMN gameplay or any other aspect of FFXIV.

of all the games to make this argument on...

[Nahara]

Summoner should have some casting abilities with sort of a long casting time and then the avatar pops up in front of the enemy and does a brutal (non)-elemental based magic attack...
Something like this except this is a death cast:

So a direct damage spell with a needlessly long cast time and animation?

Summoners, in this game, aren't Black Mages with fancy spell effects (even though that's what they essentially were in previous FF games). Summoners call upon their summon to act as a combat minion, which supplements their DoT damage. That is their identity in this game and I don't think it's something that need be tampered with.

[lolirocco]

So a direct damage spell with a needlessly long cast time and animation?

Summoners, in this game, aren't Black Mages with fancy spell effects (even though that's what they essentially were in previous FF games). Summoners call upon their summon to act as a combat minion, which supplements their DoT damage. That is their identity in this game and I don't think it's something that need be tampered with.

I know, I have it @50 and I like how it is, but the summons don't bring that much to the table tbh, extra DoT sure... But this way they would get some extra burst, and a real summoner feel. The real DPS would still come from DoTs obviously.

Don't know why you brought up BLM there, it's not a BLM specific thing to summon - in FFXI the ancient casts etc were long yeah, but summoners were also known for summoning and long casting times.

Also, I don't really care if people think that they shouldn't touch SMN as it is... This is mostly coming from Warlocks anyway. Fans of the franchise feel that summoner is lacking identity and we are here to discuss that, that is all :-)

[Dyvid]

I posted this in the DPS forums:

I'm not here to suggest we summon actually primals, rather change how our current Egis work. Currently we have 2 dps and one tank. One dps out shines the other so really, in 99% of time, we use Garuda.

DPS have 3 types of function they fall into; single target damage, AoE damage, and crowd control. I would like to see our 3 Egis also fall into these categories allow for better use.

Garuda seems the idea choice as single target mainly because of contagion. Aerial slash would need be change to some more suitable. Maybe razor plume that'll DoT the target.

Ifrit would be a good choice for AoE damage dealer. His abilities would need to be reworked to suit more AoE damage. Ideal you would use him in dungeon run trash mobs and bosses that have a lot of adds.

Titan would be a excellent candidate for crowd control. He would need to have enhance enmity for pulling mobs from party members. Also a bigger focus on binding that keeps them in place.

As for an issue that continues to pop up on the forums: Appearance. When the Summoner uses Spur, have it physically change the Egis appearance for the 20 sec duration. They would grow to the size of, say a Miqo'te, and the appearance would be closer to the actually primal. Ifrit and Titan would run on the ground while Garuda would still float above the ground.

[Spellbinder]

So a direct damage spell with a needlessly long cast time and animation?

Summoners, in this game, aren't Black Mages with fancy spell effects (even though that's what they essentially were in previous FF games). Summoners call upon their summon to act as a combat minion, which supplements their DoT damage. That is their identity in this game and I don't think it's something that need be tampered with.

That's all fine and dandy, but if each Egi doesn't bring something unique and worthwhile to the table, then any new introductions to their repertoire will shamelessly overshadowed by Garuda and Contagion, just like Ifrit and (to a lesser extent) Titan already are.

What's going to happen with Leviathan-Egi? Ramuh-Egi? Shiva-Egi?

If the answer ends up being "psh, forget that, better use Contagion" then the job needs to be re-examined.

[Ecks007]

I've had my Titan Egi used to tank AK (before 2.1) after Demon Wall due to a Tank d/c right after that fight and never came back. Titan Egi successfully handled everything and even tanked the final boss successfully. Which, by the way, is really hard to do when you get a purple line on you and have to run away from the rest of the party members. Running too far means despawning Titan... and no tank. However, that was probably the most fun I think I've had in that boring dungeon.

I use Titan every time I go out to "solo" anything, because he tanks like a boss.
I use Garuda for pretty much everything PvE that requires a Party as she is the best egi a Smn can use to increase their over all DoT dps.
I use Ifrit pretty much exclusively for those times when I actually do PvP, since I feel that out of the 3 he is best suited for that situation due to his abilities and increased damage. (but I think I read somewhere that they are going to nerf that for PvP, as if we Smn haven't been nerfed enough?)

[Dark-Saviour]

The DoT aspect of the class ruined it for me. The summoner portion is quite minimalistic and unsatisfying given what we have now.

I've always said that Arcanist as a whole felt like a sloppy sort of mess to me.
They're basically described as a studious mathemagickal type that uses advanced formulas to strategize and cast... Which... is related to inflicting diseases in people? And the height of which is obviously summoning a green or yellow cabbit...
Wut?


I've said it elsewhere, but I really think the class should have been split into 2;
1) Biomancer/Plaguebearer/Thaumaturge (since this resembles their description better than Black Magick does)
Gets all the disease-based DoTs and what not. Can ultimately branch into Scholar (similar to what we have now, just with a plague-doctor motif) and Necromancer.
2) Aethermaster/Evoker/Whatever
Summons parts of creatures for individual attacks (Enemy's arm surrounds player's arm to punch/knockback, creature's face surrounds player's to roar/spit poison/whatever/etc... sort of like Keats from Folklore). Would branch into summoner (which uses full summons) and maybe Blue Mage?

But meh... I disagree with the current application more on a conceptual basis than a functional one, so I dunno.

[Duelle]

then any new introductions to their repertoire will shamelessly overshadowed by Garuda and Contagion, just like Ifrit and (to a lesser extent) Titan already are.

What's going to happen with Leviathan-Egi? Ramuh-Egi? Shiva-Egi?

If the answer ends up being "psh, forget that, better use Contagion" then the job needs to be re-examined.

That's more a sign that putting contagion/shining emerald on a pet rather than the caster was a mistake. I'd call it Contagion, move it to ACN baseline and use it to replace some other ability, then give Emerald Carbuncle/Garuda-Egi something to replace it with.

[Geobryn]

.... give a "rotation" where the summoner presses the skills, and the summon would do it....

reminds me of DAoC necro ...
changing ifrit/garuda/titan to "stances" of one summon and make summon do most of skills, summoner could change into invulnerable "spirit form"
now that would be awesome XD