What I envisioned for Summoner

[Albus_Stiltskin]

I appreciate your responses Enkidoh, but the views I've expressed are just that. I never took game mechanics or lore into account when I wrote this. I've just got a mental image in my head of how I think a summoner should be in FF14. I'm also looking for other people to show there views on how they might like to play summoner, getting the ideas out there so if the devs do read they can atleast see we are trying to give some feedback. I'm pretty sure the stuff I've listed can't make it into the game for whatever reason, be it technical or lore based or class based. Then again things change, classes/jobs will inevitably be reviewed to balance around potential new jobs to be added. I just hope some time in he future that the summoner class will feel like a summoner or what I personally feel a summoner ought to be. Let's hope we get something we all like!! ^^

[Enkidoh]

It's no problem Albus, I'm sorry if I came across as too nasty in my posts, and yes, you're right that the developers could always find a way of improving the Job in accordance with the game's lore - the game after all is still its infancy after all.

[jars]

so what exactly would you do when your summon is not out?

dots and summons work well together, because dots let you deal damage while focusing on your pet.

[jlewiss]

so what exactly would you do when your summon is not out?

dots and summons work well together, because dots let you deal damage while focusing on your pet.

That implies you really have a lot to focus on with your pet. If we are going to go down the "if i had it my way" path, I would do a couple things differently. I would maybe have rather then any attack skills as smn job you just exclusively summon abilities. You summon that pet and they do an attack until they die or you switch pets. The level 1 pet can be one that uses a basic attack. The level 2 pet could be a pet that uses aoe dmg. The level 3 pet could inflict debuffs. The level 4 pet could buff etc. I would eliminate the conveniently written in lore that suggests you need to beat a primal before you could summon it. I would remove the conveniently written lore that says our egi's have to look like random 3d textures lumped together. Tri disaster I'll argue to the death is a completely useless skill, enkindle as it currently is might as well be useless and I would much rather have a different summon that was perhaps on a timer that did equal damage. Fester I would gladly get rid of again for a summoner class that actually focused on summoning. Spur as it is I would rather have removed in place of a summon skill and then add half of its utility to rouse, I think it's really unnecessary that we have 2 separate buffs for pet damage when we could of had another skill.

If I'm being 100% honest the arcanist/summoner class honestly feels like it was thrown together with random ideas and then they picked a random name to apply to it then wrote in a few lines of lore to justify their reasoning behind things. Has yoshi actually made an offical comment as to why summoner is a dot class? It also confuses me how for a summoner job 2/5 skills have nothing to do with summoning. Tri disaster I really challange anyone to give me a good reason as to why that skill fits in with summoners, and again fester could of been replaced with any number of other skills. Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant but I just am really dissapointed with how this class is.

[Ryuko]

Summoner in FFXIV makes a lot of sense if you think of it as a specialization of arcanist -- not its own standalone entity. Plenty of MMOs have base classes with different talent trees or specializations, where you get to pick and choose what type of role you want to play. FFXIV is different in that there is no wiggle room; once you choose your specialization, that's it. You equip the soulstone and you are a summoner. The summoner job in this game makes a lot of sense if you take the summoner quest lore, general world lore, and arcanist lore into account. As others have pointed out, summoners across final fantasies have all varied greatly. FFX in particular introduced the idea of a summoner who actually kept a pet out, protecting the party. FFXI solidified summoner as a 'pet' class.

What's really interesting is that OP wants summoner to be MORE like the Final Fantasies of old, while the usual critiques I see on the class is that not ENOUGH emphasis is given on the pet as a separate entity. As a level 50 SMN that pulls off 300~ dps in any given fight, my pet does about 50-60 dps. That's less than one third of me, but... raw numbers don't take into account all of the added bonuses your pet gives. Extra burst damage from Rouse/Spur/Enkindle and extended dots from Contagion are worth more than players may at first realize. Dying and not having your pet out with you right away once you are raised really hurts, and it does a noticeable blow to the summoner's effectiveness.

I am happy with the summoner pet class in this game. Although it is very reminiscent of the functionality of warlock in WoW (dot pet class), it does have its own flavor that I quite enjoy. It is unlike any other class, and drastically different from the only other caster. The lore fits the class and while everyone is entitled to their opinion of what summoner 'should' be, SE has proved over the years and many Final Fantasies that there is no 'one' right answer. My personal favorite type of summoner is one that always has the pet out, so I suppose that is another reason I like how it was represented in this game.

[Freyt]

Well, it's time to bring back the Evoker job.

[Jamez82]

I envisioned a class thats spells all summon a primal to do specific things. Casting a heal summoned charbuncle to do a heal. Casting a variety of different dmg spells summoned ifrit, shiva, ramuh, ect.

Also, a limit break that lets you summon a primal as a pet for a short duration. Hit LB then a spell containing the primal you want.

[Blackcanary]

I envisioned a class thats spells all summon a primal to do specific things. Casting a heal summoned charbuncle to do a heal. Casting a variety of different dmg spells summoned ifrit, shiva, ramuh, ect.

Also, a limit break that lets you summon a primal as a pet for a short duration. Hit LB then a spell containing the primal you want.

That reminds me of summoner from FFXI but in a 11 useing ur LB would allow to keep ur summon out longer.

[Akiza]

According to the job lore of the Summoner not only can they summon the Primals they can even bind the essence of the Primals to their will.
Summoner's should get an ability to summon the Primals based on which Egi is out for 30s.

[Cabalabob]

To be honest, the base of summoner is fine, there are just tweaks to the details I would want to make so it's an actual pet class not a DoT class who happens to have a pet. And some changes to the pets dynamic so you don't just use one pet. And obviously aesthetically I want them bigger as I've said in many other threads on the topic.

First: (now don't pounce until you read the whole thing) take contagion -and carbuncle's version- off of Garuda and emerald carbuncle. These moves combined with the fact that SMN is so primarily focused on its DoT's make them the egi of choice and that's bad. Now I'm not saying remove it from the job completely, it's a good skill, in fact it's a great skill for the job. What I want is to swap it with tri-disaster. So the summoner is the one using contagion, not the pet. This would do 2 things to improve the state of SMN, it would free up the SMN to pick whichever summon is best, rather than just Garuda full time. Second it would allow the summoner to extend their own DoT duration giving them the chance to focus entirely on their pet rather than worry about if their DoT's are still up.

Second: rework the egi dynamics, now I said swap contagion with tri-disaster, but it's not just a swap, I want to rework how Garuda and emerald carbuncle relate. I want Carbuncle to fulfil a minor crowd control role, backdraft for knockback, something to silence, something to bind. Now when changing to Garuda, instead of getting a damage increase, all those skills should become AoE. This would make ifrit better for single targets due to his higher damage, I.E bosses, while Garuda would be more suited to trash mobs for her crowd control element. Titan is fine as the solo pet for tanking.

Third: remove fester, (again don't pounce) fester is a great skill but it's a skill that takes away from the pet class element and puts it on the SMN themself. What I want is to replace it with a move that works like a weaker version of enkindle. When used it will order the pet to use a move that will vary based on which pet uses it.

Garuda, feather rain. AoE with light damage that inflicts heavy on all mobs inflicted with the masters DoT's (think of it like the feathers being attracted to the DoT's to explode). The degree of heavy will vary based on the number of DoT's I.E 1 DoT 5% heavy, 2 10% heavy etc.

Ifrit would do incinerate, a frontal cone attack where the damage increases based on the number of DoT's, essentially the current fester but frontal cone and on ifrit instead of the SMN.

Titan would do tumult, AoE around Titan, increase enmity, number of hits varies with how many DoT's are on titan's current target.

This move would have same recast as fester and require atherflow charges to use it. It would really just place the focus of SMN on the pet rather than the SMN themself, aswell as increase their AoE utility a bit.

Fourth: Enkindle, recast reduction. Not much, 3 mins recast maybe? Just seems more reasonable.

Final note: Only other thing I can think of would be increase spur potency, it is kind of lackluster, just make it have more potency than rouse, it seems only fair with it not getting all the other goodies rouse gives and with my changes SMN pet is the main focus so it deserves a few seconds of super power. Or perhaps a full heal on the pet instead of making it stronger than rouse, sometimes when your pet is getting beaten down, or even just being an idiot and standing in DoT circles, sustain and SMN physick isn't always enough to save it in time. Adding a full heal to spur might remedy that a bit.

Oh and change radiant shield on ifrit to crimson howl (enfire) seeing as he should not be getting hit and in a situation where he is you should probably be using Titan anyway.