What I envisioned for Summoner

[Albus_Stiltskin]

My thoughts on what a summoner SHOULD have been. This is my opinion only and some of you will agree and some will flat out hate, but it's just one persons view. Mine!.

This topic has nothing to do with our classes DPS, I know a summoner played properly can do some amazing DPS.

So to me, the summoner class should have never been created as a DOT class. There is lots of potential of new jobs where dots can be applied ( thief ) for example with poisons on there dagger. Summoner should also not have been allowed to have a Pet required to be out all the time.

Summoner to me is not a pet class, it is a class that when needed can call forth beings of immense power to aid them for a duration and then be removed from the field. Examples being Final Fantasy 7 and 8. ( yeah they never had specific roles in those games but it worked brilliantly. Even 10 was pretty good building up to the Aeons final ability ).

[Albus_Stiltskin]

Leave the pet classes to new jobs such as the Ranger if it ever gets released or a wyvern for the dragoon.

I envision the summoner class to be able to dart in and out of close combat, deal direct damage to a foe whilst gaining Elemental Focus with each attack. Maybe you can choose which element to align to creating tactical play, choosing the right element to achieve the upper hand in the given situation .

Phasing/teleporting to give them the ability to get in the face of the enemy and deal damage and then out to then be able to actually Summon a Primal when the elemental focus has reached it's focal point.

The Summons themselves must be attained like they have been so far, with quests that make them feel like it was a hard slog but also very very rewarding. I would also like the amount of summons to be increased and for each Summon called forth to have a specific unique selling point.

[Albus_Stiltskin]

Ifrit: Summon forth The Lord of the inferno - Deals massive single target Dps with Hellfire.

Titan: Summon forth The Lord of the Crag - Creates an impenetrable Rock Skin around the tank giving invulnerability for unspecified amount of time, whilst dealing small aoe damage when he was summoned via his Earthquake when he lands or erupts on the battlefield.

Leviathan: Summon forth The Lord of the Whorl - using the tumultuous waves of the ocean, Leviathan creates a Tsunami which deals massive AOE damage and causes an unspecified Debuff to all those caught in it's path.

I could go on and suggest plenty of Summons and what there specific utility/damage could be to fulfill different roles and situations as the potential is Huge!.

[Albus_Stiltskin]

Now your probably thinking what do we do as summoners when we dont have our primals with us?. Well like I said earlier we would be building up our focus to unleash another primal ( time it takes unspecified ) with our damage capabilities. Now seeing as we will be partly up close and personal a choice of weapon will be needed and a few come to mind.

I suggest a staff/kendo style weapon, or if going all out a greatsword. Running into battle with a summon at your back with a greatsword....the imagery to me is great but I am sure there are other weapons you guys could come up with which fits better to summoner lore /FF!!.

In the end this is just what I have in my head, it's what I feel the summoner should have been. Instead we have a summoner with sprites and a dot mechanic. I'm sure that's not what everyone had in mind when they released the info about summoner coming to FF14.

[Albus_Stiltskin]

am not a game designer and what I've suggested might not make sense in a mmo or even technically viable. The size of the primals May need to be reduced as an ifrit fighting an ifrit would probably be silly to a lot of you. Maybe they have a good idea with egi's which have a portion of there power, just need to implement them differently with regards to how they look and interact with the summoner. It's just a wishful fancy of mine!

What do you guys envision a summoner to play like?.

Please discuss and other ideas or comment on parts of mine or all of it if you agree or hate it!!

Thanks for reading!!

[AlrikRouge]

First - you can ignore character limit by starting a post, then editing it. Put all you want in the one!

(Can't do that from your phone though)

I, too, thought summoner would be, well, summoning beasts and primals. Like Ryda (sp?) from FF III/VI.

I don't like the idea of it being a warrior type, though, but should stick with it being a Mage of sorts.

They could still somewhat salvage this by changing the SMN LB, but still a disappointment in my eyes.

[AlrikRouge]

Stupid no-edit from phone.

Should be FFII/IV.

[Albus_Stiltskin]

I did this from my phone using notes and copying and pasting lol!. The devs won't even consider making changes if we don't let them know how we feel. We can do it in a constructive way which doesn't dismiss all they have done. Just summoner is such an iconic class in final fantasy and it just feels like a warlock from world of Warcraft.

[Enkidoh]

Summoner to me is not a pet class, it is a class that when needed can call forth beings of immense power to aid them for a duration and then be removed from the field. Examples being Final Fantasy 7 and 8. ( yeah they never had specific roles in those games but it worked brilliantly. Even 10 was pretty good building up to the Aeons final ability ).

Unfortunately, since FFX it indeed has been a pet class - having said that, pre FFX summoning was little more than a flashier magic spell with a nice graphic/animation. That style of spell worked well for the older games which had strict turn-based combat, but in more modern action orientated titles, that seems decidedly old-fashioned, especially as battle is usually far more feverish than it once was, thus summons remaining on the battlefield.

And the kicker is the player would never be able to call forth 'beings of immense power' as you termed them, as how the game's lore has been written, just does not allow that. Primals require enormous amounts of aether to summon normally, and require multiple summoners summoning at once - the actual player SMN Job is simply a short-cut that is summoning a slither of a Primal's essence that assumes a rough imitation of the Primal.

Leave the pet classes to new jobs such as the Ranger if it ever gets released or a wyvern for the dragoon.

DRG isn't getting a wyvern in XIV - again the game's lore wouldn't allow that even if it was considered. And RNG is traditionally just a glorified ARC with extra sniping abilities. I don't know where you got the idea they're a pet Job.

The Summons themselves must be attained like they have been so far, with quests that make them feel like it was a hard slog but also very very rewarding. I would also like the amount of summons to be increased and for each Summon called forth to have a specific unique selling point.

Although it's obvious the player will be getting more summons in the future, it's firstly dependent on SMN's abilities altering those of it's base class (ACN) - apparently this is half the reason why Ramuh and Leviathan aren't being given 'egi' forms for SMN yet - because Jobs only have five Job abilities, and ACN only has two for summoning, with the third given by SMN, they would have to spend a lot of time altering and re-balancing SMN's ability structure in order to accommodate extra egis. So it's more likely you won't see extra summons til at least when the level cap is raised (sometime next year I imagine).

Ifrit: Summon forth The Lord of the inferno - Deals massive single target Dps with Hellfire.

Titan: Summon forth The Lord of the Crag - Creates an impenetrable Rock Skin around the tank giving invulnerability for unspecified amount of time, whilst dealing small aoe damage when he was summoned via his Earthquake when he lands or erupts on the battlefield.

Leviathan: Summon forth The Lord of the Whorl - using the tumultuous waves of the ocean, Leviathan creates a Tsunami which deals massive AOE damage and causes an unspecified Debuff to all those caught in it's path.

I could go on and suggest plenty of Summons and what there specific utility/damage could be to fulfill different roles and situations as the potential is Huge!.

The SMN's Primal-egis already do this with the level 50 SMN Job ability 'Enkindle' - makes the egi use their parent Primal's 'signature' spell/move. And because that ability can only be used occasionally it keeps the spells balanced. This is what you're not understanding - single player FF titles are different from an MMO in that the developers can get away with having incredibly powerful spells and abilities, but in an MMO, classes and Jobs have to be properly balanced so as not to break the game by giving one Job or spell more potency over an other, an important part of ARR's whole design.

Now your probably thinking what do we do as summoners when we dont have our primals with us?. Well like I said earlier we would be building up our focus to unleash another primal ( time it takes unspecified ) with our damage capabilities. Now seeing as we will be partly up close and personal a choice of weapon will be needed and a few come to mind.

I suggest a staff/kendo style weapon, or if going all out a greatsword. Running into battle with a summon at your back with a greatsword....the imagery to me is great but I am sure there are other weapons you guys could come up with which fits better to summoner lore /FF!!.

In the end this is just what I have in my head, it's what I feel the summoner should have been. Instead we have a summoner with sprites and a dot mechanic. I'm sure that's not what everyone had in mind when they released the info about summoner coming to FF14.

That's just not possible I'm afraid, given a Job uses it's base class's weapon, and due to the Armoury System used in XIV, each class is identified with only one weapon type - SMN's weapon type is grimoire. Wooden staves are the weapon type for CNJ/WHM and metal rods are THM/BLM I'm sorry to say. It's a restrictive system to be sure, but that's ARR's Legacy which players actually voted to keep - one of the first things Yoshi-P asked the Community when he took over as Producer and Director was did players want the Armoury System scrapped in favour of a FFIII/V/XI/Tactics style Job system, or to keep the Armoury System with it's classes identified by a weapon type and just add Jobs as an extension of that. Players voted for the later. So yeah, that's democracy for you.

[Albus_Stiltskin]

I do feel that the story of the primals in FF14 is a inhibiting factor for our class as you rightfully say. Lore demands that large stores of aether be collected to summon a primal. I can't help and look to Ff11 though, there summoners weren't perfect in that game, yet they did feel more like summoners if only aesthicially!. I am just looking for ways that could make our job actually feel like a summoner!. Keep those opinions coming!!.