Why are summoners so neglected?

[Kazrah]

Welp, may as well throw my two cents in and add onto the "no egis" bandwagon....

Personally, I don't think summoners should have pets at all. Do away with them. Instead, have summoners utilize a REALLY basic damage kit while revolving around a stance system that would alter the effects of their spells. Think of it like something similar to Dreadwyrm Trance, but alternating between multiple primals (Bahamut could be one of them) and end with Summon, where the summoner briefly calls a full version of the primal for their signature attack before they depart, causing the stance to fall off. Certain primal stances would have certain effects (i.e. "Ember Trance" (Ifrit stance) could give dot effects to their spells, "Aerial Trance" (Garuda stance) would make spells hit multiple targets, etc.), and the goal would be to alternate between a variety of primal stances for particular circumstances.

With a system like that, far more than three primals could be implemented. Maybe not exact size, but using that system would mean not having to muck around with the whole "more egis" argument.

[Talraen]

All these "no egi" class ideas sound cool but... why would they change a working class so fundamentally like that? I don't think the current summoner is going anywhere. Maybe they'd consider a new, separate class (let's say Evoker for that FF3 love) that did all this stuff. But they're not going to scrap the summoner class due to aesthetic complaints when mechanically (and divorced from its name) it's a perfectly fine class.

[LineageRazor]

All these "no egi" class ideas sound cool but... why would they change a working class so fundamentally like that?

Why would they? Because currently, the pet is a mighty small fraction of the SMN's damage output. Probably the greatest contribution the Egi has to a SMN's DPS output is Contagion, and that could just as easily be a job ability rather than a pet ability. A SMN can work perfectly well without their pet being summoned, and in fact may not notice for quite a while if it has died. That's how little impact the Egi has on a SMN's job.

However, they likely WON'T make this change. It would require a lot of rework to do. If SMN doesn't have any pets, what does it do with the Summon abilities it inherited from ACN? Remove them from ACN as well? Then how does SCH get their fairies? I'm sure anyone could rattle off a plan for changing SMN that takes ACN and SCH into account - but that brings us to the main reason it won't happen, and that's that it doesn't NEED to. SMN works perfectly fine how it is - it is a powerful damage dealer. Nobody's unhappy with the amount of hurt SMN is able to put out, so it's fulfilling its job role just fine. The complaints people have are aesthetic; "I don't like how Egis look!" or "Egis should be bigger!" or "Egis should deal a greater proportion of the SMN's damage!"

SE, after much development time, has worked in a solution for "I don't like how Egis look!", but look at how long that took. Egi glamours are a drop in the bucket compared to an overhaul of SMN's very functionality. I'm not gonna hold my breath.

[NaesakiAshwell]

small fraction

I wouldn't call a constant 110 or 135 attack from Garuda / Ifrit respectively to be considered a "small fraction." Then combing the two buffs, they do hit for quite a fair chunk, and then of course using enkindle in conjunction.

I mean SMN can't always be in burst mode with Dreadwyrm, and you ideally don't overwork the cast of Ruin III outside of the trance unless you are properly weaving in aetherflow and energy drains you can't just sustain it endlessly for "max deeps". So you do have periods of regular ruin spam. Though I do tend to keep a reserve of mp specifically for battle resurrections.

[Silverquick]

Why would they? Because currently, the pet is a mighty small fraction of the SMN's damage output. Probably the greatest contribution the Egi has to a SMN's DPS output is Contagion, and that could just as easily be a job ability rather than a pet ability. A SMN can work perfectly well without their pet being summoned, and in fact may not notice for quite a while if it has died. That's how little impact the Egi has on a SMN's job..

No what they COULD end up doing is changing it, and screwing up the mechanical functionality it has now and Gimp it into being exactly what I said... the old FFIX summoner where you just looked "cool" while getting your butt handed to you...

I don't want that...

This Summoner is viable and powerful... you change it... and break it... you just screwed up everything that was working... and working well I might add...

[Shougun]

Interesting to see some didnt like the Bahamut thing, thought that was pretty cool XD. The look of the Egi is a joke to me (in comparison to all other major MMOs and to SE's own games - although to be clear because it's been confused before I "don't" want 1:1 scale) but the weird/difficult thing with summoner is they've been like everything lol (healer, dd, in some games everyone is one).

So the aspect that SMN can raise and DD with non summoning related mechanics is actually pretty good to many representations in the series, but at the same time I figure many don't really care about those side elements and just want to focus 24/7 on the summons. Fun place to be for SE. However, I do agree that they should theme more of their damage mechanics around the summons even if its not strictly related to the egi (Ifrit Egi, now your have Infernal Aethertrails and your spells change slightly accordingly). I'd be cautious of turning mechanics completely inside out though, so some of the ideas here that shift how the pets work slightly, add new ones, or change the abilities slightly based on pet out I think are a bit safer than taking something that clearly some people like and being like "yeah that's done" you lost 85% of your abilities here are new ones lol.

New pets would be awesome, it's true people might not always need to have an anti-mage pet out, but the fact would be at the moment it's useful a good summoner would shine over one who just sits on the default "generic DD" summon (like the Warlock that actually helped CC the group vs complete chaos :P, different pets can be useful in specific situations that would let them shine - a lot). Not sure exactly what you mean Duelle on the aethertrail summoning a pet thing but I like the sound of it (I'm assuming I understood it), because adding more pets that let a good summoner shine.. it would be important to be able to actually switch your pets in fight without looking silly . Still hoping that the SMN gets some sort of upgraded egi form that makes each egi look "mean" and good looking (like I guess as a random example the spirit master has tiers of pets in Aion, or Warlock has upgraded versions too).

[Shougun]

SE, after much development time, has worked in a solution for "I don't like how Egis look!", but look at how long that took. Egi glamours are a drop in the bucket compared to an overhaul of SMN's very functionality. I'm not gonna hold my breath.

I wouldn't even call it solved yet though - just opening up a path to being solved, I mean carbuncle is actually pretty damn cute but the Egi people complain about are still ugly so its like "you don't like 80% of your Egi? Here have one cute one, and we're never adding new ones again!!!".

However less exaggerated lol iirc they did say they were going to add more in the future so, could be solved then - I'd just say it is not yet so. Like WoW/some other pet summoning classes have upgraded visual options. I'd rather not make every summon carbuncle and call it "fixed" as much as I'd like to just actually summon a sexy Garuda or a.. no who am I kidding I just want a sexy garuda. Jk.. but hey in WoW succubus was top pet for the longest time and while they weren't bad their over use I imagine was in part due to their look (a lot of succubus when sometimes it should have been a Felhunter).

[Ralts]

Welp, may as well throw my two cents in and add onto the "no egis" bandwagon....

Personally, I don\\'t think summoners should have pets at all. Do away with them. Instead, have summoners utilize a REALLY basic damage kit while revolving around a stance system that would alter the effects of their spells. Think of it like something similar to Dreadwyrm Trance, but alternating between multiple primals (Bahamut could be one of them) and end with Summon, where the summoner briefly calls a full version of the primal for their signature attack before they depart, causing the stance to fall off. Certain primal stances would have certain effects (i.e. "Ember Trance" (Ifrit stance) could give dot effects to their spells, "Aerial Trance" (Garuda stance) would make spells hit multiple targets, etc.), and the goal would be to alternate between a variety of primal stances for particular .

Yeah, this is also a neat solution

[Evumeimei]

What would be the point of new pets? The majority of them would be strictly situational or unused. You will probably be using the same 2 Egi's for raiding and dungeons unless you are willingly allowing your self to lose dps for eye candy.

This is what would happen. Would still only be one or two considered the "best."

Also, I've seen a lot of people mention remove egis and have summons appear while you are casting a spell, but that just makes me think of BLM with different animations.

Welp, may as well throw my two cents in and add onto the "no egis" bandwagon....

Personally, I don't think summoners should have pets at all. Do away with them. Instead, have summoners utilize a REALLY basic damage kit while revolving around a stance system that would alter the effects of their spells. Think of it like something similar to Dreadwyrm Trance, but alternating between multiple primals (Bahamut could be one of them) and end with Summon, where the summoner briefly calls a full version of the primal for their signature attack before they depart, causing the stance to fall off. Certain primal stances would have certain effects (i.e. "Ember Trance" (Ifrit stance) could give dot effects to their spells, "Aerial Trance" (Garuda stance) would make spells hit multiple targets, etc.), and the goal would be to alternate between a variety of primal stances for particular circumstances.

This sounds interesting.

[loreleidiangelo]

This is what would happen. Would still only be one or two considered the "best."

Also, I've seen a lot of people mention remove egis and have summons appear while you are casting a spell, but that just makes me think of BLM with different animations.

Why would it be "BLM with different animations" if the DoT concept is kept the same, just that the DoTs are applied via actual summoning spells instead of random indistinguishable poison graphics? Or if SMN summons were treated as steps in a combo, similar to MNK/DRG combos but with the end goal being a big spell mimicking traditional summon ultimates from other FF games?

There are a lot of workable concepts, several of which have been posted in this thread. Approaching the only alternative as "BLM with eidolon graphics" is kinda narrow-minded, tbh.