I like playing SMN and I like everything they put out in the last Live Letter

[ManaKing]

Thank you delightful FFXIV team.

I would rather you increase the Quality of my current Egi instead of just needlessly increasing the Quantity. They will hopefully be more interesting to use, which addresses my chief complaint as a SMN. Hopefully the Glamour system will not disappoint since looks are everything...except maybe the job being viable end game...; ; If you added a feature in the Glamour system for Egi that allowed players to change the size of their Egi maybe you could placate some of the more obtuse players.

Tri-Disaster was poorly named, thank you very much for assigning an appropriate skill to the name. It looks lovely in both design and mechanics. Tri-Bind...is an ok name for the old skill and to your credit, I can't really think of anything that would be more lore appropriate.

Hey lets talk about FF1-FF9: remember how Summons were 1 hit wonders and didn't stick around after you summoned them? Just BOOM and cya later. My goodness If I summoned Bahamut from this game then I would want him to cast Ahk Morn. Oh look, you did that. You made SMN do things that Summoners did for most of the FF series, thank you. Lets talk about FFXI: Odin and Alexander required you to 2hour to even cast them and then they don't stick around. It's like you've done something like this before but people can't remember it. Thanks for not making Bahamut accessible once every two hours.

Please don't be discouraged by people complaining that SMN is not supposed to be this way because you also have the support of less vocal people. Clearly you have a plan and it is attractive for anyone who isn't completely stuck on full size summons that play the game for you.

<3s for being great.

[pandabearcat]

Bahamut casts megaflare, jerk!

#akhmorngate2015 #megaflare #neverforget

Akh morn can't melt megaflare beams.

[ChaozK]

Bahamut casts megaflare, jerk!

#akhmorngate2015 #megaflare #neverforget

Akh morn can't melt megaflare beams.

If i had to guess i would say mega/giga/terraflare might be SMNs new LB.

[Arkenne]

If i had to guess i would say mega/giga/terraflare might be SMNs new LB.

Of the LB will differ depending on which Pet Skin you have out :v

[Shuon]

I think the general sentiment is that smn's mechanics are perfect only that the delivery is somewhat underwhelming.

I'm sure if the dreadwyrm trance involved turning the egi into the animation of bahamut's head and akh morn is cast by the egi, they would have been much happier.

[ManaKing]

I think the general sentiment is that smn's mechanics are perfect only that the delivery is somewhat underwhelming.

I'm sure if the dreadwyrm trance involved turning the egi into the animation of bahamut's head and akh morn is cast by the egi, they would have been much happier.

Not me. I'm excited to get flips and shit animations for my SMN. SMN has the most underwelming party presence from a visual perspective. I want to jump into the air and throw lazers! BLM > SMN as far as the cool factor goes with magic. Having anything to keep up with them makes me happy.

I still stand by the fact that they look very interesting though... It's going to be very different opinions on it ofc, but I honestly don't care how a job is "supposed" to be, just about how fun and engaging it is to play.

You should know that, not everyone wants it to be more about the pet though... I keep hearing about everyone wanting it, here on the forums, but in the game, a lot of the ones that play SMN right now (and others too), like them right now, and actually want them to give this amount of focus on the summoner itself.

It's the same with all jobs pretty much, we've seen tons of people complain about the additions for every job, but there are a ton of people that like them, but just don't post about it here. Need to respect those people that like it too.

I agree.

I like minions as much or more than just about anyone and I totally played SMN in XI, BUT think about what SMN was like without a subjob. It was literally you summon pet, you put pet on mob, you tell pet to do something twice a minute, you stand there. You really weren't a mage even though you had the largest MP pool because you didn't have native magic spells other than summons. SMN/WHM was a thing because there was a lack of people willing to heal and SMN were just that bored.

Think of every game that ever had a SMN in it. That wasn't their entire job. Most are some combination of WHM or BLM that were born with a horn or from some bloodline that lets them ALSO cast Summons. In FF6 you had to have the crystalized corpse of the summon equipped in your possession to be able to summon them and you could only have 1 per party member. It wasn't until FFX that summons would even stick around and Yuna was most certainly the WHM for your party.

I'm ecstatic that I'm not saddled with healing duties as a SMN and that I'm a DPS. Egi usually do about 1/3 of my damage and I generally think of them as my best DoT. If anything Dreadwyrm Trance makes me feel more like a higher tier SMN because I can summon the powers of Bahamut, generally one of the later summons in a FF game, and drop damage on my enemies like I've always done as my SMN in other FF games. This feels more like SMN than it has ever been in this game and I think they are going the right direction with it.

[Zaft]

I think the general sentiment is that smn's mechanics are perfect only that the delivery is somewhat underwhelming.

What do you mean by delivery? If you mean spell effects, I prefer them simple. Big extravagant crap just makes it hard to see and forces me to turn off effects.

If you mean egis, I also prefer them small. It's not as big of a deal here, but in WoW where you have 20 raid members, it gets incredibly hard to see when you have a bunch of large, cool looking pets swarming the bosses ass.

[Spellbinder]

What do you mean by delivery?

Here's my take on it. So, here's what we got.

1. An aoe attack that uses a stack of aetherflow.
2. Tri-Disaster (new one) that applies Bio, Bio II, and Miasma at the same time. (Note that Yoshi-P didn't say it costs aetherflow, that was a fumble of the interpreter)
3. A new single target attack.
4. Two new skills that significantly change our rotations (i.e. Dreadwyrm Trance and the Ahk Mor attack)

In the video they're shown in the order of Tri-Disaster, new Aoe, Dreadwyrm Trance, single target attack, and Ahk Mor.

Looking at 1, what if you could spend an aetherflow stack to have the Egi initiate the aoe attack shown in the video (graphics changing depending on the Egi used)?

Looking at 4, (I suggested this in a different thread) what if it was some sort of "Primal Trance" that activated a primal-based attack based on the Egi we had out at the moment?

Same results, different delivery. I personally think it was a missed opportunity to please multiple camps of people who wanted changes in Summoner.

[Zaft]

Here's my take on it. So, here's what we got.

1. An aoe attack that uses a stack of aetherflow.
2. Tri-Disaster (new one) that applies Bio, Bio II, and Miasma at the same time. (Note that Yoshi-P didn't say it costs aetherflow, that was a fumble of the interpreter)
3. A new single target attack.
4. Two new skills that significantly change our rotations (i.e. Dreadwyrm Trance and the Ahk Mor attack)

In the video they're shown in the order of Tri-Disaster, new Aoe, Dreadwyrm Trance, single target attack, and Ahk Mor.

Looking at 1, what if you could spend an aetherflow stack to have the Egi initiate the aoe attack shown in the video (graphics changing depending on the Egi used)?

Looking at 4, (I suggested this in a different thread) what if it was some sort of "Primal Trance" that activated a primal-based attack based on the Egi we had out at the moment?

Same results, different delivery. I personally think it was a missed opportunity to please multiple camps of people who wanted changes in Summoner.

It's likely for balance reasons. Think of it like this: Around 2/3 of your damage comes from you, and 1/3 from your pet. If your pet is busy doing an action (such as #1 or #4), your DPS will be higher, because you are able to continue DPSing. So they have two choices. One, make the damage from the attack high, but require the player to use it. Or two, make the damage from the attack lower, but have the pet use it. These two would balance out to the same number, but I would argue that it's cooler to see myself do awesome damage, than see my pet do moderate damage while I continue DOTing.

[Spellbinder]

snip

Well, considering summoner doesn't appear to be designed as a burst DPS class like black mage (although I'm not so sure anymore considering these changes), I see no reason why they couldn't have gone with the former.

At the end of the day, it boils down to a matter of opinion and the two options you pointed out. I'll be biding my time until 4.0 or some later 3.X patch when the Egi might finally get a little attention.

That's not to say I want more of them or giant skyscraper summons as people seem to constantly suggest people are asking for (and I'll admit some are). I'd just like to see a little more interaction than Contagion once a minute with Garuda or Sic and auto-pilot with Ifrit.