A more summonery Summoner

[Edellis]

I'd just like to stop everyone and point out that technically, up until FFX, summons have always been brief (usually one sprite, non-animated) appearance + single attack > go away.

FF9 even brought this back, making their full animation a rarity. You'd be lucky to even see the actual summon after the first time you cast it, unlike in FF7 and FF8.


So in that regard, Dreadwyrm trance is closer to a "summonery" summoner. The pinnicle of this would probably resemble the way Ultima Weapon uses Ifrit/Titan/Garuda in his story fight.

[pandabearcat]

FF9 had, imo, the best summons.

They were the size of cities. They were incorporated strongly into the storyline.

Thats what a summon is.

A summon is not the summoner's plaything. You should be careful...

[Asierid]

Only three games had pre-defined summoner characters with alternate abilities, 3, 9, and 10. Two of them it was still their primary source of damage without some trickery of the mechanics, not so in 14.

No. Run a parser and do any form of content that lasts a decent amount of time and one can see that the summoned primal is a rather decent chunk of your damage.
Garnet was mainly a healer before a summoner in 9 since there lacked any sort of healing role outside of Eiko. Same could be said for Yuna in 10, though you really had no choice once you started using them for damage, as it removed the party entirely.

In all the games with the summoning ability, 3 all through 13 3 through 10 and 12 through 13, it was used most often for at-will spike damage, not as a concurrent minor supplement. Not so in 14.

This isn't how summons works in 14, this one is irrelevant. Besides, you get Trance now to do your spike damage. Game play doesn't allow for three minute heroes (Burst CDs and nothing more) without them being extremely weak outside of that cooldown. This has been done in many MMOs and has failed every time.

The most recent games, 10, 11, 12, and 13, actively developed the trend into interactive summons, acting persistently and also used for primarily at-will spike damage. Actually one of the few areas 14 continued, but very halfheartedly given their limited abilities and supplemental damage.

Again, spike damage on a summon is irrelevant with how the game currently works as well with what was mentioned above. As for "limited abilities", 14 is the 2nd game where the summons actually have more than one ability (Counting DPS since SMN in 14 don't heal). First being XI, third being X, obviously.

In the games with a job systems and the summoner job (including the very first incarnation of it), 3, 5, and Tactics, that's all the job did. Not so in 14.

It has always meshed better with magic DPS due to the stat spread in those games. so BLM spells were always a shoe-in to supplement SMN DPS. 14 has continued this trend by making SMN DPS, but not like a BLM. We really don't even want to consider letting SMN use just summons and that's it. That would be a balancing nightmare.

So with the way SMN has always worked, outside of three games (IX, X, XI, XIV where they could be the only healers) follows that "classic" trend by allowing SMN to be the DPS with the ability to summon primals. A healing summoner never worked, as the summons usually called for quite a bit of MP which was needed to keep the party alive. Therefore, SMN was almost never used this way. It was easier to use them as wannabe WHMs and leave the summons only for when the party was full (even then, end game stuff you took quite a beating). You'd essentially be an Arcanist the whole game.

So.

tl;dr: It would be boring. It wouldn't fit with the current state of the game. It breaks the trinity.

[Saggo]

And Ranger combo'd with Mystic Knight was OP, doesn't mean rangers get enspells. Synergy is not synonymous with concept.

Every time you have to say "It's irrelevant because that's not done" is the exact reason someone new is upset with, you know, how it was done. So thank you.

P.S. SMN stopped being forced into main-healing years ago.

[Asierid]

Every time you have to say "It's irrelevant because that's not done" is the exact reason someone new is upset with, you know, how it was done. So thank you.

Considering you can't just snap your fingers and instantly program something, it is irrelevant. It takes about the same amount of effort to wish for a gold toilet that massages you while you sit there. So you want the team to take time and effort to rework a class that is already working for a small group of people for nothing but nostalgia reasons? That's nothing but a waste of time and money on something that more than likely won't even work correctly for awhile. That is one way to drive the profit of the MMO down the drain.

What everyone in these threads fails to understand boils down to a simple saying: S**t in one hand and wish in another. See which weighs more.

P.S. SMN stopped being forced into main-healing years ago.

Because they were bad at it and DPS compared to main classes. XIV won't suddenly make that better.

[Svalitz]

If a SMN which relied on it's Egi for all it's DPS would not only have to worry constantly about the positioning and dodging of themselves, but also that of the Egi. Furthermore if the Egi were to perish then SMN would instantly lose all DPS, and in certain situations take whatever agro the Egi had onto themselves and then also perish.

See this to me sounds fun and much MORE like what a traditional summoner role would encompass in an MMO.

The main reason I enjoyed playing Summoner in XI was because I was required to worry about my positioning as well as my pets and the result of doing that poorly meant I suffered for it. The job itself was at times like playing two separate characters at once, and felt much more thrilling because of it.

[Svalitz]

With some tweaking of the pet AI (which I feel is already necessary anyhow, I mean CMON Chocobo's MOVE) pets could be made to be more self aware and able to move on their own when necessary. This is not a great technological feat to incorporate. And even if this was not implemented, simply giving pets higher HP / Defense would solve this issue. Topaz Carbuncle is just fine.

Also let's not forget that weapons are key in FFXIV. With a SMN who had the Egi as it's only source of DPS abilities, then there would be no use for the grimoire they wield as the Egi would essentially be the SMN's weapon. Which although may sound like an interesting idea, it does not adhere to the game mechanics in place and therfore could not be realistically implemented.

Weapon stats effect summon pets > problem solved. Not to mention you are not rendered useless simply because your main source of damage is your pet. It dies? Re-summon before you get squished.

[SoloWingMetatron]

See this to me sounds fun and much MORE like what a traditional summoner role would encompass in an MMO.

The main reason I enjoyed playing Summoner in XI was because I was required to worry about my positioning as well as my pets and the result of doing that poorly meant I suffered for it. The job itself was at times like playing two separate characters at once, and felt much more thrilling because of it.

Although I agree it does sound fun, it would still not work that well in FFXIV. In FFXI the party did not often have to worry about repositioning/dodging. Battles were almost always static, with Tanks/Melee at the front and Casters/Healers at the back. This format rarely changed and breaking formation to dodge or reposition was even rarer.

However in FFXIV the mechanics of dodging/repositioning are key. It's all very fast paced (unlike FFXI) which is the main reason FFXI's SMN and FFXIV's SMN can not be compared game play wise. As the two games play completely differently.

With some tweaking of the pet AI (which I feel is already necessary anyhow, I mean CMON Chocobo's MOVE) pets could be made to be more self aware and able to move on their own when necessary. This is not a great technological feat to incorporate. And even if this was not implemented, simply giving pets higher HP / Defense would solve this issue. Topaz Carbuncle is just fine.

Weapon stats effect summon pets > problem solved. Not to mention you are not rendered useless simply because your main source of damage is your pet. It dies? Re-summon before you get squished.

If the Egi was the SMN's sole source of DPS then the job would be useless as soon as the Egi died....so in fights like Keeper of The Lake where Egi deaths are pretty common, you would just be an extremely under powered healer since Physick, Resurrection and Virus would essentially be the only moves you had (remember we are going on the scenario that all DPS abilities come directly from the Egi)

Yes you could re-summon, however a summoning can easily be interrupted if you need to dodge/reposition for mechanics, or if you have aggro and are constantly getting hit. Furthermore, even in the event you successfully re-summon you will still possess all the aggro for a time, as the Egi never instantly regains all hate after a re-summon. (Of course there is Swiftcast)

Also as previously stated, you would not only have to worry about the dodging and repositioning of yourself but also that of the Egi, which may be fine in lower level content. But would be totally impractical for all hardcore content and fights such as The Keeper of the Lake final boss. For that reason alone the Egi as SMN's sole source of DPS will not work.

At any rate, this is all irrelevant as SE has chosen there direction for SMN. Bahamut Trance is here to stay, so as I said before the best we will ever get now is a balance between DPS from the SMN and DPS from the Egi. Nothing is going to change that now, so need to move on from that....simple as.

[SoloWingMetatron]

I should stress though that I am actually an advocate of a more Egi focused SMN. I love my Egi! But as I said before SE have made the call as to where they are taking SMN. So the endless SMN debate is over! Even if someone could bring a flawless idea of how the Egi could work as the job's sole focus, that is not the job SE have made and people need to accept that.

[Darkstride]

I think Summoner should have just continued using Carbuncle as the active pet, with Primal being brief, single attack summons. These attacks could be tailored to support the Summoner. They would be on a cooldown.

Ifrit: single target attack, scales with DoTs (replaces Fester)

Garuda: AoE attack that lowers magic resistance.

Titan: single target attack that causes Heavy, Bind, Slow

Leviathan: creates a whirlpool that draws smaller enemies to its center.

Shiva: debuff that raises damage dealt by Dots

Ramuh: deals single target damage that arcs to nearby enemies and increases based on the number of targets hit.

Enkindle: allows the next summon to perform it's signature attack for high damage.

These are just examples, but with everyone tossing around "this is a classic Summoner", most Final Fantasy Summoners have summons as a single cast, not a pet. It's not as though the core of XIV's Summoner will ever be redesigned, it already exists we just have to deal with it. The above is just my idea on how SMN could have been a better advancement of Arcanist to make it feel more "Summonery".