summoner sugestion

[Cronar]

I know they are working on new egis or summons skins if you will since no one seems to like the way it is now. and with square saying that it will take a lot of work to make the summons the way we want them. I thought. how about this. we go fight primals like normal if we win we can learn to summon them. now once you do that instead of a preset triad how about we get a window just like we have for our choco companion and let us decide what we want that summon to be tank/dps/healer/random ? that way we can train our summons just like we can our chocobo .

what ya all think? seems it would be easier since we already have that in the game. just change it to summons instead of choco. ya know could even do that for beastmaster if they ever put it in the game.

[MagiusNecros]

We won't be summoning Primals in the vein you are suggesting and a lot of people seem to like the way Summoner plays now. Even if I feel it's a half baked Necromancer harping on the base class that is Arcanist.

Only thing revolving around Egi's is Carbuncle Glamour. That's it. And even that is pretty tight lipped. They may have dropped that consideration completely. Egi's were for the most part completely ignored and it's really been all about the player character getting more Aetherflow Skills and a new albeit limited trance mode.

[Saccharin]

And even that is pretty tight lipped.

The way things are going I bet it will be a paid service.

[Darkstride]

Only thing revolving around Egi's is Carbuncle Glamour. That's it. And even that is pretty tight lipped. They may have dropped that consideration completely.

Actually, it supposed to be more detailed that that if it is ever implemented:

Live Letter XXI:
"During development, we thought long and hard about this, but we will not be adding new egi at this time. Looking at the long-term, instead of adding more pets, we felt it better to give more use to the job by adding actions to summoner. However, I’m sure many are wondering if they will have to continue looking at the same egi forever, but we are planning to add a system in the future that will allow you to change the appearance of your egis, including Carbuncle, but their stats will remain the same."

...and then later:
"Q7. Can you please let us know the current progress for the system where we can change the looks of summoner egi?

A7. We haven’t been able to address this yet. We’ll need to make this work with all the actions and we’re going to start working on this, so please give us some more time. Even if we were going to change their appearance, we would need to create the effects, sound, and actions for each egi, so it’ll require some time. We’re still deciding if we’re going to add these as we’re done with each one, or add them all at once, so please be patient while we work on this."

It's more than just a Carbuncle glamour that they initially proposed.

However, it's entirely possible we may never see this be a reality. They haven't released any more information and it's possible they haven't even started implementing it.

It feels more like hopeful brainstorming.

[Gralna]

Or we could just leave summoners as they are, currently well balanced, fun, and versatile.

[Alberel]

Or we could just leave summoners as they are, currently well balanced, fun, and versatile.

This is a discussion of cosmetic options for the pets. Balance, fun and versatility don't really come into this as these changes would have no impact on anyone that isn't interested.

OP I think what you're proposing is actually more or less what the pet glamour system is intended to be. The reason it's taking so long is because they have to create new animations and skill effects for all of the skills depending on which egi is using them.

[Gunspec]

The reason it's taking so long is because they have to create new animations and skill effects for all of the skills depending on which egi is using them.

Pretty sure the reason its taking so long is that they haven't started yet. The only in-game suggestion is Alphinaud's ruby and onyx carbuncles, while the summoner quests clearly indicate that our characters try and fail to summon new primal egi. Behind the scenes we've seen nothing about egi glamour, despite seeing mock-ups of primal pets, with Ifrit landing in 3.1.

Now, this skepticism is from a person who listened to Blizzard talk about new character models in WoW for over 5 years before they finally showed evidence of those models being in progress, so have faith if you want. Personally, if they don't show me even a rough sketch drawn out on a bar napkin, I won't believe they're doing anything at all.

[Nalien]

It's more than just a Carbuncle glamour that they initially proposed.

However, it's entirely possible we may never see this be a reality. They haven't released any more information and it's possible they haven't even started implementing it.

It feels more like hopeful brainstorming.

It actually would be quite a lot of work to do... Carbuncle is easy enough, they're pallet swaps, Carbuncle has both Tank and Mage movesets, they'd just need to give him animations for Melee and they're basically done there.

The Egis, though... Well, if they're working it how I think they're working it, they need to give each Egi each moveset. Ifrit needs animations for Tank and Mage. Garuda needs them for Tank and Melee. And so on. That's the only way I can see Egi-Glamours going down well, if they keep Garuda as a Mage, and just go "But you can have Ramuh as Mage instead!", then that doesn't address the underlying reason Egi-Glamours are desired... Titan and Shiva could be Tanks, for example, but I want to use Shiva-Egi! I'd never get to see her though, because Tank-Egi is never really used... The only way to really give us Egi-Glamours is to say "Pick an Egi, and all three of your summons will be that", or something similar. Personally I'd opt for using that unused offhand slot Summoner (and every Job that isn't Paladin) has. Unlocking Arcanist gives you a Ruby Gem to equip there, makes your pet Carbuncle (whether they want to bother with Topaz/etc. as well is up to them). The Summoner quests reward you with Inferno/Tremor/Vortex Gems for their respective Egis. Equipping the Vortex Gem means you only summon Garuda-Egi, be that Tank, Mage, or Melee version. The remaining Egis can then be obtained somehow. All they're really need to do beyond that is lock the Summon skills behind having a Gem equipped, the same way Shield Bash is locked behind having a shield equipped.

Basically, while the models for some of them already exist (Ramuh-Egi, for example), the animations do not. That's what is taking up most of their time. Ramuh-Egi perhaps has a moveset for being a Mage pet, but for Egi-Glamours to work properly, he needs moves for Tank and Melee. That's what is taking so long.

I kind of hope they keep Enkindle special though... Rather than Ifrit getting a Mage and Tank Enkindle, I'd rather see all of them have their own thing, with Enkindle being rebalanced to prevent one of them being the best. Though ideally I guess I'd like them to be situational... This game lacks Healing Ruby... Wonder is Scholar can get Carbuncle as well...

[FeliAiko]

Snip

I like the Gem-in-offhand-slot idea. I've also had similar views on how SMN could've thrived more had it been a HW job without the link to SCH via ACN, but main issue I feel is that they shouldn't have added a second DPS pet in the first place. Keep the Carbuncles, with the original 3 Primals represented as various spells/effects based on one of their signature attacks (like we have with Deathflare, albeit not necessarily as grandiose for each ability), and that would've set a better platform to incorporate the other 3 Primals as part of their HW toolkit, in addition to Deathflare.

Or alternatively, if going with the Egi system, have it so you can freely switch between the two during battle (e.g. a CD that makes your next Summon I/II/III instant cast for no MP, available every 3 mins) so you can play to both Egi's strengths depending on the phase of a fight.

[Lemuria]

"Summoners" do less summoning than Machinist's do with their pets. Can we really still call it that? We could rename it Ravager to reflect the reliance on DoT and it would make a lot more sense. I'm pretty sure SE doesn't care about the Egi's in the least bit, so glamours are probably on the far-back burner, assuming it even left the rumour stage. It's nice that we finally got an actual nuke (seriously, trying to kill adds with DoT is a pain in the a- err, bum), but our pets have only ever had four skills, none of which are particularly amazing.

I'd love to see them flesh out summons a bit more, but that seems as likely as winning the jumbo cactpot.