Summoner Class needs a serious revamp

[Siren]

I know it has been said many times before but wanted to give my 2 cents and this is just my personal opinion on the summoner class, you can agree or disagree, everyone has there own opinion.

When I first learned that we would have a Summoner class when 2.0 went live I was very happy as I always loved summoner classes in many games I have played and to be able to summon in a Final Fantasy game (my favorite game series) I was ecstatic, However what I wanted and what I got were 2 completely different things.

I was not expecting to get a class that deal with not only dots but disease and poison based ones at that, these are the spells that you associate with a Necromancer or Black Mage.

Summoner's are Supposed to be 100% about the pet with spells to support the pet only such as Haste / Healing / Dmg Shields / Def buffs etc etc but at the same time make the pets stronger 3-4x more since the summoner isin't dmg'ing the mobs themselves. Have your Mage pets huge on the aoe or single Nukes you control, dps and tank pets comparable to dps and tank classes as they are your class just controlled though you.

IF that option is to complicated then have it done similar to say FF 7 and don't have a pet at all but a summon you do and it comes in does an attack and leaves and keep the spell types summoners have but get rid of some of the dots and trade them in with nukes, Summoners need some serious burst dmg. Summoners are the least played class and not wanted in higher tier stuff such as coil, but Like I said this is just my opinion.

[Jamez82]

My smn is well loved in coil and every other manner of high level dungeons.

That said. I will agree the concept of the class seems off. A summoner should simply not be a dot class, it makes no sense.

Still love my smn though.

[Siren]

I dunno, I always play my WHM for high lvl stuff and talk amongst the group or LS's is they simply do not want a summoner over a BLM, just yesterday alone in the turn 4 group I was in they wanted a BLM only as a summoner is no good on the bugs and later on in my LS another summoner was asked kindly to leave and was upset cause the group rathered a BLM cause there aoe's are better.

I just seem to see this sort of stuff all the time.

[Jamez82]

From what I've parsed blm destroys bugs but smn destroys dreadnoughts. My static consists of me (smn) and a blm for that reason.

I am envious of their aoe output though.

[NintenPyjak64]

I find SMN a ton of fun personally. And in terms of coil my DPS is close to the top if not very top (still missing quite a bit of gear)

I think it's perfect the way it is. And as for Burst damage, Fester is the most we really need (especially with 1.1k crits at my gear level), but SMN is more built for sustained DPS, similar to Monk.
And as for using the pets, I'm using Aerial Blade, Enkindle and Contagion (duh) quite often, During serious boss fights I have Spur and Rouse always on Cooldown, I'm constantly telling the pet to change targets or re-positioning the pet. It may not be 100% but I'm not leaving the pet on Autopilot and focusing ONLY on my DoTs (unless it's Atomos or Demon Wall, then I use Ifrit and have it go buck wild)

Final point I'll be making: Not wanted in higher tier stuff? SMN is very wanted in T5 for the extra pet, SMN is high ST DPS close to if not next to MNK, SMN has utility like Eye for an Eye, Virus and most importantly, a Battle ress spell that a DPS class can use. I'm sorry to say but to say it's not wanted is pretty foolish

I dunno, I always play my WHM for high lvl stuff and talk amongst the group or LS's is they simply do not want a summoner over a BLM, just yesterday alone in the turn 4 group I was in they wanted a BLM only as a summoner is no good on the bugs and later on in my LS another summoner was asked kindly to leave and was upset cause the group rathered a BLM cause there aoe's are better.

I just seem to see this sort of stuff all the time.

From what I've parsed blm destroys bugs but smn destroys dreadnoughts. My static consists of me (smn) and a blm for that reason.

I am envious of their aoe output though.

It may not be as good as BLM, but if a SMN knows what they're doing they can parse higher then Bards in terms of AoE damage. It takes getting used to but I've done many large AoE pulls in AK and Haukke HM as practiice

[Alistaire]

Again with this "smn is not wanted in high tier stuff like coil"...

SMN is one of the better dps to have in coil, period. Downright near essential for turn 5. Wins DPS races on quite a few of the endgame fights, while also throwing random res's to the table when needed.

[Havenae]

I love the summoner job. I like that we can summon primals, and would love to see more come as a result of more primal battles being released. But I'm very disappointed with the job as a whole.


First of all, all primals (and scholar pets really when you think about it, fairies are from the wood) follow an elemental schema. Where Scholars and Summoners deal damage more akin to a warlock or a necromancer in most games (death and disease). Where's the logic in that? It makes absolutely zero sense, but I guess it is what it is.

Second, as far as the egi for summoner go they are not at all impressive. Your fight the primal fights and they're these huge powerful awesome creatures. Then you get your egi as a summoner and they're these miniscule little things that take nothing more than a common mob running around Eorzea to bring them down. Meanwhile their AI is terrible, even in comparison to Scholar fairies. (You mean to tell me you script AI for a summoned pet to heal, and actually heal very well. But you can't see to get a dps pet to stay on target or prioritize threats? Sad.)

These egi are also your replacement pets from your Arcanist pets. The result? Ifrit is unimpressive but ok. Garuda is meh once you accept her retarded AI. Titan however is a horrible replacement for Topaz Carbuncle. Topaz does it so much better and easier than Titan and this should really be the other way around.

I'm not saying the egi should be as powerful or even close to as powerful as their full fledged primal version but, a little more oomph couldn't hurt. Bigger models would be mice for one, these are PRIMAL GODS we're summoning, not carbuncle or minions which is exactly what they appear to be. More functionality and better AI scripting would be great and some more survivability as well.

Which speaking of survivability. Summoner is NOTHING compared to a scholar. In normal pve as a scholar you're damn near invincible and not too worse off in dungeons and the like either. Summoner you're more made of glass than a thaumaturge should be. Part of that has to do with the fact that you have a very well scripted fairy backing your ass, while your egis as a summoner tend to not really seem to care if you live or die.

Summoners should be a featured class of this game as their entire concept plays so much of a role in not just the main story of this game, but other FF titles as well. This is a staple job to the franchise. So why then does it seem more like something that was just thrown together on a whim out of old parts and duct tape?

Overall this job is marginally fun. But no where near as impressive or interesting as it could've been.

[Akiza]

Summoner's as a sepearte job was a good start but it does need to be reworked
-remove blizzard 2 and give us blizzard
-give Summoner's the ability to summon the Primals.
-Each attack should cost MP
-The Primal should automatically use there signature ability once they are out of MP and leave.
-The Primals signature ability should be in the Primals attack bar
-allow us to make pacts with the Primals to reduce the cost of attacking with them.
-allow us to buff the Egi for 30s with a 60s cool down and summon a mini primal.
-Enkindles recast time should be instant and cost an aetherflow stack.

[Blackcanary]

Summoner should be a Pet Class not a Dot Class plan and simple. Summoner has always been a pet class. Yoshi P needs to stop acting like Summoner is a warlock like in WOW i wish he never played it now.

[Mapleine]

It is unlikely to be changed, since it's functional and potent. Saying otherwise is not truthful, period

My disappointment with the class is that it's an entirely unoriginal lift from World of Warcraft, only not nearly as creative and fun as the Warlock actually is. I would love Summoner to be about the Summon like it traditionally has.