The problem with Summoners

[Havenae]

The rest of us are HAPPY with it.

Please don't speak for everyone when you do not, in fact, speak for everyone.


I personally am marginally 'ok' with the summoner job, I like casting classes but I also find BLM boring. In that capacity that doesn't leave a lot of options. I preferred summoner in FFXI and other FF games. Summoner in FFXIV does not have anything remotely close to that feeling so I see a lot of room for improvement here.

This. All of this.

Which is really why they could just do away with the individual spells for summoning, use something similar to the minion or mount management windows, give us one summoning spell and it summons whatever egi we have selected in that management window and they no longer have to worry about increasing the number of spells we have to be able to give us new egi. THEN we could have more variety of summons that could fulfill multiple roles based on party needs. And yes of course, have them give buffs, have them do debuffs. Have the party benefit from them as well, then its no longer a question of "Who does more dps?"

I think having dots or some kind of personal damaging abilities to fall back on is a good idea but our focus should be the summons and thats what the job severely lacks. Even when you micro manage your egi, you still feel like you're just casting another spell. In fact the only two times where I feel like I'm not just another dps caster that also has a pet wandering around somewhere is when I'm soloing using titan to tank or if I'm playing scholar and managing Selene or Eos, and that isn't even the summoner job anymore.

There's the opportunity to make summoners a very versatile job that extends beyond the parameters of 'just another dps'... but all anyone seems to be focused on is the numbers involved with smacking things.

But then that does require that SE balance the egi to a level where there isn't necessarily a set preference that it always used, or expected to be used. SE needs to give each egi viability in numerous situations. But I am glad to see someone has a similar desire to see this happen with the job.

[rawker]

IMO, current SMNs are good in their own but if we will be strict to what and how SMNs has been, I would suggest for it to be its own class and just let SCH be the only branch of the ACN class.

[Dyvid]

Why waste your time telling people to stop suggesting ideas to SE? Get out of here with that trash mindset.

The truth is ppl play smn and love to see it fixed, they know its faults intimately. They deal with its issues and shortcomings daily if it is their main.

SE encourages us to suggest and give feedback, and the reality is a lot of the players feedback has made positive impacts on the game.

Looks like you're just here to argue for the sake of argument with nothing but a message that our input is meaningless and to just accept what we get.

I say no. If you're going to have that kind of attitude then its you who is wasting their time.

Asking for changes within the confines of the job is good. Asking for the job to be completely overhauled to play completely different is bad. The latter is what a certain few keep asking for.

[Minorinz]

This..

I like this, if they can enhance the EXISTING pet CDs in a way that doesn't boost our DPS by a mile but actually works for the benefit of the party then summoner will be needed for being a summoner in a party not for the sake of being a caster dps. Pets need to play a roll within the party itself and the summoner should be able to put a strategy on swapping the pets when needed for both the party and their own dps. That would be too good.

[Akiza]

Please don't speak for everyone when you do not, in fact, speak for everyone.


I personally am marginally 'ok' with the summoner job, I like casting classes but I also find BLM boring. In that capacity that doesn't leave a lot of options. I preferred summoner in FFXI and other FF games. Summoner in FFXIV does not have anything remotely close to that feeling so I see a lot of room for improvement here.



Which is really why they could just do away with the individual spells for summoning, use something similar to the minion or mount management windows, give us one summoning spell and it summons whatever egi we have selected in that management window and they no longer have to worry about increasing the number of spells we have to be able to give us new egi. THEN we could have more variety of summons that could fulfill multiple roles based on party needs. And yes of course, have them give buffs, have them do debuffs. Have the party benefit from them as well, then its no longer a question of "Who does more dps?"

I think having dots or some kind of personal damaging abilities to fall back on is a good idea but our focus should be the summons and thats what the job severely lacks. Even when you micro manage your egi, you still feel like you're just casting another spell. In fact the only two times where I feel like I'm not just another dps caster that also has a pet wandering around somewhere is when I'm soloing using titan to tank or if I'm playing scholar and managing Selene or Eos, and that isn't even the summoner job anymore.

There's the opportunity to make summoners a very versatile job that extends beyond the parameters of 'just another dps'... but all anyone seems to be focused on is the numbers involved with smacking things.

But then that does require that SE balance the egi to a level where there isn't necessarily a set preference that it always used, or expected to be used. SE needs to give each egi viability in numerous situations. But I am glad to see someone has a similar desire to see this happen with the job.

It would upset a lot of people if pets were made like minions and they have one single Summon spell that has to be swapped out every time we want to summon a different pet.

[Akiza]

Summoner needs their own spells separate from the Arcanist so they don't share spells with the Scholar.
Pets need to play a role in the party and not just be an auto turret.

[Havenae]

Summoner needs their own spells separate from the Arcanist so they don't share spells with the Scholar.
Pets need to play a role in the party and not just be an auto turret.

They really don't, they just need to make the split more prominent. If we're going to stick on this track of being just a dot class, then there needs to be a little more functionality that we can pull from beyond what a scholar can than basically just having fester.. well and of course tri-disaster which is pretty much next-to-useless. For instance giving a trait that removes the cap on the number of targets that bane will hit would be a start.



And to be honest Scholars need to be toned down a little. I can solo things on my scholar that I can't even begin to attempt as a summoner and that is mostly because with Eos they are virtually invincible until it comes to group content. Pop cleric stance and you are nearly as powerful as a summoner and you don't really have to worry about dying to boot thanks to the fairy, but that's another discussion for another day.

Also...

It would upset a lot of people if pets were made like minions and they have one single Summon spell that has to be swapped out every time we want to summon a different pet.

How would that upset people if you still have the same basic functionality but with less actual spells to perform it? I'm also not suggesting they be downgraded. All I said was use a selection process similar to how we can open up a window to choose a mount or a minion. I'm sure macros could even be adjust to select the specific egi rather than going through the menu each time. I mean the macro system can already tell the difference between Eos and Selene when selecting macro Icons..

I just find it a little hard to believe anyone who plays a summoner would be unhappy with a system that could actually allow the job to have more summons faster over the long run rather than waiting for each new level cap increase because SE doesn't want to seem like they're giving summoners extra abilities while everyone else does with what they have.

Or, are you just arguing with everyone now based solely on principle?

Asking for changes within the confines of the job is good. Asking for the job to be completely overhauled to play completely different is bad. The latter is what a certain few keep asking for.

The latter is what a vast majority of forum complaints from many different people, likely the majority of the job as a whole (at least from what visits the forum ) have been asking for since v2.0. I'd just be happy with a slight shift myself, not a complete overhaul.

[Sequora]

I've personally stated this several times myself. For me it's mostly the aesthetic image of SMN for me. That and lack of pet focus. I don't mind being a DoT class at all. I do think our repertoire of spells feels out of place. I would say every other job in the game feels like an extension of the class. We go from this poison wielding mage to a caster who uses the power of the primals. It just doesn't fit. Separate SMN and SCH. SCH should stick with arcanist as I feel poisons make more sense for their DPS spells. Give us elemental DoTs of some kind and then for heavensward give us more pet focus. No new DoTs, just new abilities involving our summons.

[Buff_Archer]

They should give is a really rude and nasty Summon that works in conjunction with our main DOT's when on SMN, where each time you cast one the Summon uses a corresponding animation and sound effect which the rest of the party hears. Like a successful Miasma cast would have it slow burp in the face of the target, and Miasma II would be more of a loud but fast belch. For Bio & Bio II those could be flatulence based with the Summon doing a quick 180 on the target. It would still have its own auto attack but this way it would be more directly tied into the caster's DOT spells, and maybe when using this Summon you get an enhanced version of the spells not available to a SCH in Cleric Stance.

From a design perspective, if they made it look like Slimer then that's not a huge departure from the current Summon design, just a slightly different shape and color.

[Wintersandman]

You must be on a rare unicorn server then. In the endgame scene i see VERY few SMNs. Most of the SMNs I know have changed to BLM since 2.4 and haven't looked back.

It's not just the server as I df almost everything. I seen 4 in WoD and normally 1-2 a day. SMN offers some things BLM can't. In places like WoD they can actually have a more significant impact when enemies are spread out and a BLM can't AoE. Cerberus? They can DoT him up and then dot/bane the flowers. Stomach they can dps all of the Stomach parts at the same time.