Why are summoners so neglected?

[Silverquick]

Personally, I'd favor proven identity even over proven functionality thus far even then though;

I don't... that was the FFXI Summoner... its the ... "I look kewl while getting my butt kicked" formula....

The FFXIV Summoner is... I may look plain... but I'll kick you to the curb.... and the army you brought with you too...

I prefer the latter.

[Rysir]

I don't... that was the FFXI Summoner... its the ... "I look kewl while getting my butt kicked" formula....

The FFXIV Summoner is... I may look plain... but I'll kick you to the curb.... and the army you brought with you too...

I prefer the latter.

I have a question thats been sitting with me for a long time.

Why is it when summoner gets complaints that you and a lot of others instantly jump to the power of the class and how you dont want FF11? Since like summoner was not invented by 11 though it was influenced in style by 11.

We actually dont care about the power as thats not the issue, having an identity does not automatically mean "we want FF11 summoner" so what is it that makes you say we want that? Since really FF14 summoner is FF11's summoner but instead of heal oriented its DOT and damage with the cost over time to keep it summoned removed.

One would think that if people wanted to stay as far away from FF11 like it was the plague they would agree to returning to classic forms which leaves me confused to these responses.

[Kazrah]

First of all, I can respect a good rotation and player taking the time to delve into the details, you're not alone in this. What "I" am proposing is simply giving us more summons and then grouping their 5 main abilities under a single action button, like have all the summons 1st abilities (Wind Blade, Rock Blaster, Crimson Cyclone) fit under a single action button since you can only have 1 out at a time, each of those buttons having the list of actions they perform in their description, thus reducing the number of hotbars required (except if you like having a CD list on your screen) and also giving us more summons. You're looking at this from a statistical perspective and we're looking at this from a more lore based perspective, since traditionally more and more summons are made as you progress with summoners in final fantasy games (all of them).

I'm still not seeing how this is a separate solution from just sticking with egi glamours, because by giving egi glamours, not only would it provide the sense of having those extra summons, but also skip over the petty disputes of what role each one of them would be. Ah yes, pet role, the major reason why there's no need to have more egis.

"How about an AoE-focused egi?": Not only would this be too situational, but if SMN was really that desperate for more AoE damage (like it's actually needed), it'd be easier just to buff the AoE skills of the current egis.
"Why not a CC egi?": Quick, when was the last time you used a CC skill outside of a quest? You're right, never, and that's about how often such an egi would be used.
"What about a debuffing egi?": So debuffs that either wouldn't work on major fights and/or debuffs that other jobs provide? Sure person without friends that could provide them, although balancing it would mean its damage would be worse compared to other egis.
"I want a support egi!": If you want a support pet, stick to SCH. Otherwise, you'd end up with the loser who wants a debuffing egi.
"I'd like an egi with X ability.": If it's off a primal, then that primal could wind up as a glamour and might hopefully have an ability like that one.

Sure, egi glamouring isn't a perfect system, but it's a lot better than asking for more egis when the vast majority of SMN players don't even use all of the ones available to them.

[Silverquick]

One would think that if people wanted to stay as far away from FF11 like it was the plague they would agree to returning to classic forms which leaves me confused to these responses.

That's fine.... but half the people in this thread are talking about types of things that won't help the Summoner... or will only wreck it.

And they seem to be doing it without the really even knowing how the Job currently works or performs.

Lets be serious for a minute here... If the people here were only talking about a cosmetic "make this more cool looking" type adjustment. Yeah I could see it.

For example: Painflare is pretty weak on the animation side. It could stand to be spiced up just from a graffics perspective. And most people can't even tell when you kick in Aerial Blast from Garuda the graffic tell is that weak.

Secondly... the recast timer ON Enkindle (Aka what you use for those Ifrit/Garuda/Titan special Attacks akin to Deathflare/Teraflare) needs to be shortened to about 1 minute or less to bring it on line with Teraflare... this goes akin to the Deathflare/Teraflare rotation using the Aetherflow stacks (which allow Deathflare once every minute) and will even things out with other jobs at level 50 which is where the job needed help prior.

The things are already built into the base mechanics... but shallow people who only see "pretty things" can't tell when these things are happening or how good the damage actually is.

So really... the only things you REALLY need is all graffics related or "terminology" related... I mean things like... Blizzard 2 being re-labeled to something like Icy Breath of Shiva or something like that... but in the end its all the same... just a different name and terminology.

And they seem to be doing it without the really even knowing how the Job currently works or performs.

[Rysir]

That's fine.... but half the people in this thread are talking about types of things that won't help the Summoner... will only only wreck it.

So really... the only things you REALLY need is all graffics relate or "terminology"... I mean things like... Blizzard 2 being re-labeled to something like Icy Breath of Shiva or something like that... but in the end its all the same... just a different name and terminology.

Id think a lot of the frustration is that the modern summoner could have played exactly the same with the DOT game its got going as now but actually utilize the summons instead of just being little poofs of viruses. Like Im pretty sure that if all DOT moves and such had the visuals of summons or semi egis attacking and placing the effects that there would be tons and tons less complaining, there would still be some obviously since there always is.

Having the current DOTs masked as summons would curb a lot of frustration though not a perfect fix but it would improve its visual appeal and sell it as a summoner better since its unrealistic to suddenly expect classic summoner to just happen. And yeah people want the pretty things cuz I mean look at machinist and how many not very flashy moves it has that even copy paste some animations that have no visuals, people hate that especially for a job thats known for being a crowd pleaser like summoner.

[Nalien]

Lets be serious for a minute here... If the people here were only talking about a cosmetic "make this more cool looking" type adjustment. Yeah I could see it.

All I'm asking for. I'm perfectly fine with the current rotation, I just wish it felt like I was a Summoner, because tossing out a single pet and then pretty much doing the same rotation as my Scholar irks me... I'm not summoning, I'm barely commanding the pet ("Contagion Garuda-Egi... CONTAGION! DAMMIT GARUDA, USE CONTAGION!"), it just doesn't feel right to me... Scholar effectively using and spreading diseases to deal damage? Perfect. Summoner doing the exact same thing? Ugh...

Is it a minor issue? Perhaps, but look at it this way; Ninja used Katon/Raiton/Suiton/etc., not Fire/Lightning/Water/etc.. They gave it Ninjutsu and its own mechanics surrounding that, and that gives the Job some of its identity. Katon pretty much just is Fire II, the same way Bio, Aero and Combust are pretty much the same skill. Again though, while they all do pretty much the exact same thing, they're given their own feel, because having two Jobs with the exact same skills would be bland... Yet when we come to Scholar and Summoner that's exactly what we have... Two Jobs sharing 90% of their skills...

Honestly, the whole cross-class system annoys me for similar reasons... I loath every physical DPS sharing Invigorate, I'd much rather have seen them all get their own form of TP recovery, which ties into the Jobs identity and mechanics... Really, the only Job I'm perhaps OK with any of this on, are ones which historically just copied others... To my mind, Paladin should just make Cure effective, rather than having Clemency, and Red Mage having Aero? Sure, taking that more as an indication that cross-class skills are staying and it'll rightly be Thaumaturge/Conjurer at the moment, but it's fine, that's what Red Mage has and (IMO) should always be doing... Just like Summoner should be, you know, summoning...

Heck, "fixing" Summoner is arguably easier than other Jobs I take similar umbrage with... Bard not barding can't really be fixed as easily... That does require changing up how the Job is actually balanced, giving it actual Song utility rather than more pew-pew (hopefully new skills at least help with MP recovery...). With Summoner it's literally just an issue with the animations/names of skills...

You know... I probably wouldn't even care anymore if it weren't for Egi-Glamours... Once that got announced I started to think "Wait... This doesn't really fix the problem...", they clearly want to try and fix the issue, I just think there are better ways to go about it... Letting us pick what we summon is an improvement, don't get me wrong, but I cast Summon so infrequently that letting us customize it has very little impact IMO... Letting me shout at Ifrit-Egi instead of Garuda-Egi for failing to Contagion doesn't really change anything... Bad enough they're straight up doing it wrong, too... Text commands to swap pets? Seriously? Should have had an offhand item to determine the pet; Ruby, all your Summon skills bring out Carbuncle, Inferno Focus, all three summon Ifrit-Egi, etc., that's the kind of polish I used to expect from SE, at least... I really do expect to see Leviathan-Egi doing Aerial Blast at this rate... Not any time soon, of course...

[zylo1010]

I miss my FFXI summoner. when i quit FFXI it was one of the jobs i had the most fun on, (i left at 75 cap not 100). I had ton's of summons and with the gear i had it was 0-1 mp a tick to keep them out. I wish FFXIV summoner was closer to FFXI summoner. At it's current state it feels like a black mage with pets.

[Silkerin]

I like how in the live letters instead of questions like: "will the devs be open to sugestions to make smn feel more like a summoner class?", "why shield oath isnt given at lv 30?", "why they insist of not giving any potency to pld's flash?", "wont they give bards their mobility back so players who chose bard on 2.0 can still feel like they are playing the class they chose?"; and other questions like that, we get instead for the live letters questions related to peaches and stuff that was already answered in previous live letters... makes me think they pick the easy and dumb questions from the threads on purpose...

Still, I am all in for Nalien's suggestion, it would help a lot the issue of the "feel" of the smns, hell, if it is a lack of funding the reason, make it a mogstation thing, it will be an annoying yes, but still, it isnt something "necessary" to the class and purely cosmetic. of course i will rather have it be an option in the game from the beginning but hey...

while talking about egis, tbh i would like to have at least 1 more egi, a support one, maybe a moogle king egi, that can give tp and mp like a brd or mch, of course its dps would be lower compared to other egis and slightly lower when it is singing/dancing, but no other kind of buffs to the party, as buffing the party would feel like something a sch fairy should do, and it still would somewhat fill in what a smn could do in previous games, as some summons had a secondary or purely support effect. I say this because of the situation i have in my static, the bard doesnt really want to play bard or mechanist anymore, because as they said, "they chopped off their legs and turned them into a bowmage", but since it is the only 2 classes that can give tp and mp, she is stuck with it, but having that option on smn might allow for her to switch to another class.

Also i still want more skills/spells that interact with the egi :P

[Talraen]

I have a question thats been sitting with me for a long time.

Why is it when summoner gets complaints that you and a lot of others instantly jump to the power of the class and how you dont want FF11? Since like summoner was not invented by 11 though it was influenced in style by 11.

We actually dont care about the power as thats not the issue, having an identity does not automatically mean "we want FF11 summoner" so what is it that makes you say we want that? Since really FF14 summoner is FF11's summoner but instead of heal oriented its DOT and damage with the cost over time to keep it summoned removed.

One would think that if people wanted to stay as far away from FF11 like it was the plague they would agree to returning to classic forms which leaves me confused to these responses.

The reason people immediately bring up FFXI is because it's the only other summoner in the entire series that makes sense in an MMO context. Though some people actually do seem to be OK with the idea of summoner being a black mage whose animations happen to involve summoned creatures (which is what summoners were in FF3-9). FFX, FFXII, and FFXIII all had summons that replace the entire party, which obviously wouldn't work in a multiplayer game.

But if you want summoner to be a job where you summon a pet, keep it out, and it does stuff, FFXI is the only model available in the Final Fantasy series.

Also, "with the cost over time to keep it summoned removed" by itself makes FFXIV summoner a completely different animal than FFXI. That aspect is completely fundamental to FFXI summons. (Or used to be at any rate.)

I miss my FFXI summoner. when i quit FFXI it was one of the jobs i had the most fun on, (i left at 75 cap not 100). I had ton's of summons and with the gear i had it was 0-1 mp a tick to keep them out. I wish FFXIV summoner was closer to FFXI summoner. At it's current state it feels like a black mage with pets.

Plus, people do actually keep asking for it.

[Nalien]

while talking about egis, tbh i would like to have at least 1 more egi

I kinda feel like they could remove Egi as pets completely... Would completely destroy any comparison to XI, just replace the Summon skills with their respective Egi abilities... Rework all the existing skills as I've described, so each one corresponds to a specific Egi, then have Enkindle function like Kassatsu on select abilities... Instead of Summon I, you have Garuda-Egi in the form of Contagion, while Summon III becomes Flaming Crush. An Enkindled Flaming Crush is just straight up Inferno, even opens the door for more Enkindles; Enkindled "Shadow Flare" could be a joke Zantetsuken...

IDK, more work than it's worth IMO, you'd need to completely rebalance the entire Job to make up for the lost pet damage, but at this point the Egi just feel really lackluster and pointless... You have Contagion or soloability which pales in comparison to Warrior or Scholar... If trash packs in dungeons were scaled to die quicker, Ifrit-Egi and Radiant Shield might be more potent than Contagion, but I don't think that's the world we live in, Contagion + Bane > anything else... Rather than a fourth pet, I'd say just rebalance what we currently have... I think Machinist works a lot better as a pet Job currently, both pets have a clearly defined purpose, I'd actually quite like to see them get a Knight type autoturret, which upon Promotion provides damage mitigation, with Hypercharge applying a Drain Samba style effect for a sort of Regen effect... Summoner could work on a similar principle... The main problem is Bane/Contagion... It makes Summon I both the best single target pet and AoE pet... I'd say drop Tri-Bind, make Contagion the Lv40 skill, give Summon I something else and give the current three pets clearly defined roles as single target focused, AoE focused, and support/tank focused. Perhaps have Summon IIs Enkindle be an Asylum style effect, rather than a second Shadow Flare... That's useful for solo and potentially has a small niche in party content... Could change Earthen Ward too, and I guess Landslide? Though the other two skills are pretty much required for him to hold hate solo...

Although... As I said, not fond of cross-class skills for the most part... Summoner having Quelling Strike isn't right IMO... I want the same effect done in a way that is unique to Summoner... Shadewalker (wow, such unique), but limited to my pet, achieves the exact same thing as Quelling Strike, but in a way that fits Summoner, and potentially frees up Summon II to work solo (any of them, really) with less enmity skills... He can still be a tank, but you'd free up some room for more support oriented skills that could benefit people in grouped content. Kinda wish Sustain was just a stance that constantly drained MP to heal/channel your enmity to your pet... That 10s duration is just irritating...