Adding fuel to the fire, Summoner's future

[Spellbinder]

A game that hasn't been shutdown (for financial reasons no less) would be a much better example.

Yes, this is true. But I don't jump from MMO to MMO to MMO like some people do, so the pool I have to draw from is limited. There are no "action-rpg" style MMO's that I've played in recent memory that have a pet class other than that one. You yourself have even stated that you know of no MMO's that offer that type of pet gameplay, so it just goes to show that MMOs with capable pet classes (action-rpg style anyway) are far and few between.

[RinchanNau]

Yea. I don't see a ruin buff happening, but I certainly would not be opposed to it. Given that they gave BLM single target damage to rival MNK in addition to their already awesome aoe I certainly would not mind a small boost. :P

[Rydia13]

Yea. I don't see a ruin buff happening, but I certainly would not be opposed to it. Given that they gave BLM single target damage to rival MNK in addition to their already awesome aoe I certainly would not mind a small boost. :P

They only rival monks on fights where they don't need to dodge. In most worthwhile fights, that won't be the case.

[Akiza]

City of Villians Mastermind is a great example of what a pet class should be.

[Zari]

I think SMN is overall fine the way it is, although I don't play it myself so I don't think I would really have a huge say in this type of discussion anyways.

Although I do think it would have been interesting if instead of SMN being completely pet by your side all the time style, if it would have been more burst/combo type damage style where the egis are summoned for a few moments to do a certain attack or something like that. Like for example Ifrit egi bursting out in front of the SMN and clawing the enemy followed by titan egi appearing above the enemy and slamming down on them and then garuda egi popping up in front of the smn and blasting the enemy with a ball of wind. Stuff like that.

Although that would obviously not work anyways due to the fact that SMN comes off of ACN which has the whole pet-based thing.

[RinchanNau]

It's ridiculous that some people still think Garuda is the only good pet. As someone that has admittedly only been a SMN main for less than a month and has had t9 on farm for almost 3 months I think I do pretty well with Ifrit.

While I do find Garuda better for certain fights, like Ramuh ex, I go with Ifrit for most others. Ifrit is quite good in all of second coil. I've tried all the fights with Garuda only, Ifrit only, and also pet swapping. Pet swapping would be starting with Garuda and swapping to Ifrit after the opening RS + int pot contagion. Ifrit only or pet swap has generally gotten me the best results.

Maybe I'm just bad. Was around 390 - 400 in t6, t7, and t8 this week. 360 in t9. That was at i108 with the soldiery book. Not sure how that compares to those with similar gear proclaiming Garuda to be the only good pet, but it seems reasonable to me. And lucky me finally got the HA book this week so it'll be interesting to see how well my damage scales.

[Mjytresz]

I can't believe people are seriously arguing over single player archetypes on a MMO.
That alone makes this entire thread nothing but a laugh.

Also, lol @ the lack of context in this thread. Might as well say all classes are the same because they can attack things.
Anyone who even touched Affliction Warlock or even watched a Youtube video can see how stupidly similar they are in virtually every area. Your denial doesn't make it less true.

[Ardan]

Of course I miss an entire two pages worth of comedy gold. Why oh why did I decide to have a 4 hour nap while this witch hunt was happening?

[Crxssroad]

I'm not a summoner, nor do I plan on being a summoner so my opinion may be completely irrelevant(tbh, the only real knowledge I have of summoners I have is from my brother), but I think Summoners play just fine the way they are. As someone looking from the outside in, I can say it's a VERY versatile class. They're able to dish out decent damage(second highest I believe?), provide supplementary healing and rezzing, while also being able to tank(with the titan-egi). What other class provides this kind of flexibility? And this flexibility lets it live up to its name.


The biggest thing that seems to be bothering some people is how the damage is being dealt. I've heard no one complaining about the amount of damage it actually puts out(which, as I mentioned earlier, is fairly large) and the fact that they can fulfill multiple roles.

I think part of the problem stems from it's base class(arcanist is it? I'm not sure, just bare with me) and how it's shared with another job. This base class affects both Summoners and Scholars so any change done to the Arcanist class in benefit of the Summoner job will also affect the Scholar job. Now, I don't know how rotations work for either class, but I assume it's a little of the same during scenarios where the player is soloing. During dungeons/boss fights, DoTs are very appropriate for Scholars as their main job is to heal, applying a DoT to the boss and quickly switching over to heal is most effective. In a sense, you could even say that their play style is "summoner-like"(other players being the pseudo-summons). These DoTs and the like come from the Arcanist class, which Summoners have access to, as a result, they use these skills to increase their damage output. That's why the job seems to focus on managing DoTs. You have access to them, right? So why not use them? And since your job is to deal damage and not heal, you'll be using them even more than the Scholar.

The only way this job would be able to change its play style is if it, one, creates a new base class specifically for Summoners that forces the Summoner to use skills that directly affect its summon, thereby increasing the damage it deals and shifting the focus of the summoner to "summon managing" rather than "DoT managing", or, two, with further updates and level cap increases, forgoing the arcanist class(by this I mean stop adding skills to the base arcanist class) and increasing the number of skills each individual job receives.

If the first thing is done(changing the base class), Summoners would lose some of their versatility(by this I mean their ability to directly aid with healing and rezzing) but they would gain a new arsenal of skills that would focus on aiding the summon(damage increases, attack speed increases, ability to inflict element-specific damage) while not completely forgoing DoTs as they could, theoretically, initiate a DoT and return to Summon managing. If the second thing is done(forgoing the arcanist class after level 50 in favor of more jobcentric skills) this could create a "rift" in Summoner playstyles. By this I mean that Summoners could opt between "DoT managing" and "Summon managing" as the base arcanist class would still be there(although I assume that the later skills might entice more players to "summon manage" rather than "DoT manage".

And that's my uninformed two cents!

tl;dr You guy seem good the way you are even though I don't know the specifics.

EDIT: Forgot about the actual summons. They do seem kind of pathetic, tbh. They could definitely use an increase in size. Not ginormous, mind you, there's no point in cluttering a screen for an ego boost regardless of the impact it would have on a server. At the most, the size of a chocobo as everyone can summon one. It seems like an ideal size.

[abzoluut]

Let's hope SE chooses to go the overhaul route for 3.0. This means they decide to drop the current class/job system and just give us jobs.

While I don't play SMN myself, I love to see them around. Unfortunately they are nothing but casters with one pet right now. There is nothing wrong with that except that it's a summoner. You would think it would actually summon stuff during battle. Right now SCHs are summoners too since they summon their pet one time and that's it for the fight.

Why not give summoners abilities which their summons execute? For example: summoners will have a rotation where they at some point have to execute X1 ability. This particular ability is Titan's. So we'll see Titan summoned quickly and does the attack and disappears followed by the appearance of Ramuh because ability X2 is ready. I could work this all out, but you get the general idea. This not only makes one feel like a SMN, it will also give the devs more oppurtunities to implement useful stuff for a job.

I still have hope..