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.

[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.

[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.

[Dyvid]

The one thing that is irking people is no new Egi and the sad thing is they could have easily added one in the form of a timed pet like WoW's Infernal. Use Dreadwyrm Trance summons Bahamut Egi, who starts dps'ing while starting a __sec countdown to Tera Flare. The more bahamut stacks you have the higher damage his flare does at the end. After Tera Flare, Bahamut goes back to the void, cooldown and repeat. Boom, everyone happy...


*edit* Spellbinder hit the nail on the head too, just a missed opportunity all around.

[Ryuko]

Always remember that the displeased ones are often the loudest.

Most summoners are content with the job... We just see those complaint threads, roll our eyes, and think... "Not another one..." While I enjoyed the 'style' of FFX and FFXI summoner, what you said about the vast majority of 'summoners' is true. And... this one is different as well. I welcome change.

I'm really excited about the changes, particularly the LORE behind them. For example, what is the lore reason behind WHY we get Dreadwyrm Trance and can now throw Akh Morns? Considering the relation to the ending of Final Coil would be... really interesting.

As far as functionality... that's all speculation. We'll see. I'm sure it will be great.

[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.

[Skeith-Adeline]

My personal quarral of the SMN is, they aren't using Summons as their source of action, and that is all