Now we've reached the nitty gritty of my post—the Egi and what they bring to the table. Before I begin, I'd like to make clear that, while I have always been a proponent of making meaningful changes to the Egi, I am not in favor of a system akin to Final Fantasy 11 where the summon does all of the work, or any previous iteration of Final Fantasy where the party stands back for a five minute cutscene, eating popcorn while a deity of unfathomable power lays waste to the squirrels of Black Shroud. I also do not see a need for more pets.
Originally Posted by
Anonymous
It's not about pet quantity as much as it is about pet quality. I don't care how many pets I have as long as I have more than one to choose from where each is viable in most fights.
The pet needs more interaction with the player.
Originally Posted by
Anonymous
Why do people use Ifrit over Garuda when the boss is mainly stationary?
He deals more damage.
There's no complexity, at all. Right now we have 3 pets: Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit. Titan tanks things and is largely useless in everything that isn't solo content (except Ramuh EX before they changed it). Garuda is a ranged DPS that....... does damage from range. Ifrit is a physical DPS that...... does damage from melee.
Originally Posted by
Anonymous
Why do we have 2 DPS pets when they just give each other competition? Either have the DPS pets specialize in something or make 1 a support pet instead.
Originally Posted by
Anonymous
I actually want the pets to get better and have new abilities while improving the job itself by giving more power to the caster. The more power you give to your pet the less your gonna get in terms of control.
A few excerpts from the myriad back and forth discussions on the subject of summoner around these forums, but I feel the encompass my thoughts on how the Egi function in tandem with the player. Or rather, how they don't.
The summoner itself is in a good place right now with the addition of the skills gained after level 50. The Egi, while they did receive a number of much needed adjustments (receiving the effect of foods and potions, accuracy changes, etc.), I feel their ability to compliment the summoner has been neglected. After hearing that they intend to take summoner in a different direction, one that focuses on abilities given to the caster and not the pet, I wonder how far they will go to sweep pets under the carpet and retune summoner in coming updates and expansions.
But let's say, hypothetically, they want to give the Egi a little love in 4.0. What can be done to improve the quality of pets? I imagine they would need to do at least two things:
1. Give the Egi more specialized roles (not necessarily adding more Egi).
2. Improve the ease with which we can switch between Egi in a given encounter.
Please note that none of the ideas I suggest here are to say, "I want these changes right now!!!" But if there comes a time for Egi to have serious adjustments, these are things I think would make things more interesting.
Defining Egi Roles
So let's take a look at the Egi as they are now, and how their roles could be defined a bit more.
Titan-Egi
+ Higher HP than other Egi.
+ Two attacks with increased enmity to take hate.
+ Has one cooldown to increase defense against enemies.
- Has difficulty taking hate when summoned mid-combat.
- Has difficulty keeping hate on multiple targets taking area damage.
Titan is obviously meant to be the meat shield of the three pets. When used at the start of a fight, it's quite easy for Titan to keep hate on a single target using its two enmity building attacks. However, its inability to quickly take hate mid-combat, or to hold hate on multiple targets would lead me to suggest adjusting Titan to specialize in keeping the attention of a single target.
Suggested Skill Adjustments
・Change Mountain Buster from a weak area attack to a provoke skill.
Mountain Call
Gesture threateningly, maximizing enmity in target.
Recast: 60s
・Add increased enmity to Landslide, maintaining two attacks with increased enmity.
Landslide
Deals earth damage with a potency of 70.
Additional Effect: Stun
Additional Effect: Increased enmity
Recast: 40s
Naturally, Titan's stats would need to be adjusted in such a way that, while it can reliably take the attention of a single target, it's not desirable to the point where it can replace an actual tank for prolonged periods in a party (e.g. tanking Ramuh Extreme). As summoners continue to grow in strength, more reliable single target enmity would also help when soloing for those rare occasions where you burst enough to take hate away from Titan. These are by no means simple adjustments, but they would go a long way to making Titan a more specialized tanking pet.
Garuda-Egi
+Attacks from a distance.
+Has an area attack that's relatlively easier to target with than Ifrit's (although their radius is the same)
+Can increase the duration of Bio, Bio II, and Miasma by 15 seconds.
-Has a knockback attack that can become bothersome in party play.
Garuda is usually the go-to Egi when dealing with groups of trash mobs, with its easy to target Aerial Slash and contagion to extend the duration of DoTs to be used in conjunction with Bane. I honestly have no real qualms with the way Garuda functions save for its Shockwave skill (knockback). Not only is the cooldown incredibly long, but knocking back an enemy is generally disruptive to party play, even if there is benefit to interrupting an enemy attack. How can we adjust this one flaw in an otherwise good Egi? I was scratching my head on this for the longest time, but then an answer dawned on me, and Neverreap confirmed that it can be done. If we want Garuda to interrupt enemies, do they have to be knocked
back?
Suggested Skill Adjustment
・Change Shockwave from knock
back to knock
up and reduce the recast time.
Shockwave
Deals wind damage with a potency of 50 (reduced from 90).
Additional Effect: Knock-Up
Recast: 60s (reduced from 90)
In this example, I opted to reduce the potency of Shockwave in the spirit of making the Egi more specialized. Since Garuda lends itself to helping with area damage, it's only fair that it's single target attack is meant more so to support than to be offensive. Nevertheless, changing the knockback to knockup would allow players to dust off this skill and use it more often in the same manner that players use stun.
Ifrit-Egi
+Attacks at melee range.
+Radiant shield now helps the party reflect physical damage.
-Has trouble keeping up with mobile targets.
-More prone to taking area damage than garuda (i.e. cleaves and point blank area attacks around the target)
While its role as the go-to Egi for single targets is refuted by some, I think it's fair to say that with Garuda being a clear winner for assisting with area damage, Ifrit should excel at single target damage. Furthermore, it would help to give Ifrit a way to overcome its difficulty in following mobile targets.
Suggested Skill Adjustment
・Adjust Crimson Cyclone to become a gap closer for Ifrit.
Crimson Cyclone
Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 105.
Range: 20y (increased from 3y)
Additional Effect: Stun (unchanged)
Recast: 40s (unchanged)
・Change Flaming Crush to a potent single target ability.
Flaming Crush
Delivers an attack with a potency of 105.
Additional Effect: Sears the flesh of enemies infected by Bio, Bio II, and Miasma, dealing additional damage with a potency of 95 for each effect.
Recast: 60s (changed from 30s)
As always, these are just personal opinions and ideas, but I think a gap closer akin to monk's Shoulder Tackle would greatly improve Ifrit's ability to keep up with enemies, which is the reason for my suggested change Crimson Cyclone. Flaming Crush, however, is an idea that came to mind based on Garuda's Contagion ability. As many of you already know, Contagion increases the duration of Bio, Bio II, and Miasma on an enemy by 15 seconds. With the server checking these statuses for damage every three seconds, this gives an extra 200 potency to Bio, 100 potency to Miasma, and 175 potency to Bio II, resulting in an extra 375 potency over the course of 15 seconds. Damage over time is summoner's forte, but there comes a time when you need damage "right now." In the case of a single target, it seemed fitting to essentially give Ifrit the
inverse of Contagion. Of course, it would be strange to have an attack that potentially does no damage, so I left the base of 105 as is. With Bio, Bio II, and Miasma on a target, however, Ifrit would deliver an attack with 375 potency, essentially making Flaming Crush a frontloaded Contagion.
Earlier I mentioned it would also be beneficial to have a way to easily switch between Egi during a given encounter. As I’m sure they’re not going to change any of our current skills (I’m looking at you,
Tri-Bind), I’d like to suggest a new skill that could be introduced in 4.0.
Primal Calling
Summon, Summon II, or Summon III can be cast immediately at reduced cost.
Cast: Instant
Recast: 30s
The utility of this skill is pretty self-explanatory. Having the ability to switch between Egi without taking a serious hit to MP could potentially allow for more interesting gameplay, depending on how Egi are changed in the future, if they’re changed at all.
4.0 and Beyond: The Future of the Egi
To wrap up my ramblings on the Egi, I'd like to consider the possibility of new Egi actions (note: not new Egi, just actions). The suggestions above, or anything remotely like them, are not something I would expect to see prior to the next expansion. With that said, one cannot help but wonder what will become of the Egi in light of Yoshi-P's statements on the direction they want to take summoner. That being, that it would be more interesting in the long run if they fleshed out the actions of the caster rather than add new Egi.
I'm going to make the assumption, if only for a moment, that in some strange fantastical bizarro universe they decide to add on to the Egi in some fashion. A number of players (not necessary some invisible majority or minority) were convinced that the Egi would receive new abilities in 3.0, and unfortunately that was not the case. While I was not surprised at the lack of new abilities for the Egi, it is my belief that, with the current system, it isn't possible to add new Egi abilities that function like Flaming Crush, Contagion, Mountain Buster, etc. The reason for this is the use of the Pet Hotbar.
While it is possible to make a customized hotbar with pet actions on them, the actual pet hotbar is very limited. The actions and commands on it cannot be rearranged. Furthermore, all pet actions are on a shared cooldown. The only exception to this is the trademark skill of the Egi triggered by Enkindle, but even those all share Enkindle's cooldown. These trademark skills cannot be activated directly, but Inferno, Aerial Blast, and Earthen Fury can all be found within the Pet tab of the Actions & Traits menu.
If we are to see new Egi actions, I believe one of two things needs to happen:
A. Any new Egi skills introduced must have an intermediary skill (e.g. Enkindle) to activate them.
B. The Pet Hotbar needs to be revamped to allow some degree of customization.
Adding actions via option A is pretty straightforward, so I'd like to share a few thoughts on hypothetical option B. I think revamping the hotbar would allow for more interesting play in the long run. As I said earlier, I'm no photoshop wizard, but I do have a knack for powerpoint.
Imagine, if you will, that the Pet tab of the Actions & Traits menu was divided up into sections like so:
General Pet Actions
- Here you would find the auto attack for each Egi, and possibly their basic commands (e.g. Sic, Obey, Away, Place, etc.)
Additional Pet Actions 2, 3, and 4:
- In these subsequent sections, you would find a list of actions for all Egi that would have to share cooldowns within each category as they do now.
Additional Pet Actions 2, 3, and 4:
Using Garuda-Egi as an example, let’s say it receives three new non-auto attack actions, giving it a total of seven: Auto-Attack, B1, B2, C1, C2, D1, D2.
The goal here is to let players choose which Garuda-Egi skill from each category of actions they want to use. The result is several possible combinations of actions.
Auto-Attack, B1, C2, D1
Auto-Attack, B1, C1, D2
Auto-Attack, B2, C1, D2
I think the idea here is pretty clear.
This setup is under the assumption that the developers would find it too unbalanced to change the shared cooldown. As new Egi skills are introduced, players would have to choose three skills—one from category 2, 3, and 4—to customize their Egi. If they're adamant about keeping the hotbar as it is, this would at least help us circumvent the restriction of the pet hotbar to a small degree, while also offering players a bit more customization with the Egi.
While still on the topic of customization, I must mention one last pipe dream: the ability to choose which skills are and are not used when using the Sic command. With pets as they currently are, for example, it would be a boon if you could set Ifrit to not use Radiant Shield unless instructed to manually, while still using its other attacks as soon as they’re available.
(2)* The sad thing is that FFXIV turned RDM into a turret, and people think that's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to combine sword and magic into something more, not spend the bulk of gameplay spamming spells and jump into melee for only 3 GCDs before scurrying back to the back line like good little casters.
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