How Would You Do... Summoner?

[Shurrikhan]

For anyone else waiting for the servers to come back up, or remembering that even if they do come up there’s really not much to be done before Stormblood, and therefore left a bit of empty time that they’d like to fill with something creative and (at pretense, at least) constructive, here’s another thread to talk about how X class could be better in Y aspect through Z redesign because of A, B, and C.

The challenge: be thorough. What, if any new mechanics would you create? How would you solve the “pet problem”? Will there be a reason we use books? Etc., etc.

For those of you who can't handle creative endeavors that don't amount to concrete results, maybe just what you hope for from Stormsblood (although, that ship, too, has probably long since sailed...)?

Clarification: Consider SMN before its incarnation in either 2.0 or 3.0. How would you have made it (from scratch), or how would you have revised it to prepare its way forward (into 3.0 and beyond)?

[Shurrikhan]

Okay, I've finally pulled together some my own spitball ideas after a day of wondering how best to present them. This is a ground-up rework, and will certainly go into more detail than most would read, so the majority of text is hidden, and much of it in hidden blocks within hidden blocks.

Purpose:

I'm sure it's no secret to anyone that while I like what SMN has accomplished design-wise in Heavensward, including an instance of macro-rotation that's amounts, ostensibly at least, to more than just CD-sync, I'm not a fan of everything the Summoner job has left disused or untapped. I've often suggested a more pet-centric SMN in order to try to draw more from its iconic presence, but I wish to clarify something: this has never been for the mere purpose of having pets, nor have I ever given such suggestions without, in turn, suggesting improvements to the currently clunky systems by which pets are handled. My goal has always been increased engagement through added viable choices, a first ever "play your own way" at least until competing within the top 5% or so, and nuance between those choices, varying in pace, aesthetic, focus, and feel. I've seen SMN as the poster child for versatility and synergy. Pets have been just one of many tools, as stances might for Warrior but now with far greater depth, to achieve that versatility and nuance in gameplay.

Highlights:

• Summon is now one spell that can support up to 6 different Summons (8 if you include the Carbuncles).
• The Summoner now gets Trance at level 30 instead, gifting your pet's undermechanics and/by changing your basic spells into your pet's element.
• There's now a skill-based reason Arcanists, Scholars, and Summoners use books as their weapon, but it varies for each (job-dynamic skill: Graph, Scan, Image).
• Summoning now doubles as an offensive skill, allowing you to bowl your summoning carbuncle into foes or drop it as a small comet atop their heads, facepalm an enemy with a flaming claw to summon Ifrit, knock enemies outward when summoning Garuda, grab enemies by the feet while pulling Titan up from the ground, etc., etc.
• Pets now use predictive movement, giving the appearance of instant movement, move more quickly, can simultaneously cast abilities with spells, and have greater ability range.
• You can now Summon with little to no loss of uptime. Pet-swapping is now far more vital to Summoner macro-rotation, and each pet's effects on gameplay more diverse.
• You can now spend Aetherflow stacks on pet buffs, caster nukes, or pet nukes, each with very different rotational consequences.
• You can now consume your pet in order to sprout wings for mobile casting and store additional evasion-boosting charges for bonus damage to be released on filler attacks (Garuda) as a storm of feathers; gain defense, absorb incoming damage as mana, and store your own offensive effects for later release (Titan); gain a short damaging aura, added haste, and a melee cleave in place of your instant filler (Ifrit); allow you to teleport between affected targets or terrain (Leviathan) and consume such effects for health or mana; counterstrike and lock down targets while blocking incoming attacks (Shiva); or store a bonus portion of all periodic damage dealt in a "cloud" from which you can unleash massive burst damage (Ramuh). Such effects quickly fade after resummoning your pet.
• Aethertrail is now a thing from the time you get your first pet nuke ability, is now element specific, and carries additional bonuses, though it becomes far more effective after receiving Coalesce at level 52, which allows you to consume Aethertrails for an improved Trance based on their included elements (one of which is Dreadwyrm). Death Flare is simply the caster-nuke made available during the Coalesce of two opposite (conflicting -> chaos) elements.

Still working on the rest....... Hopefully I'll get time enough tomorrow...

The Big Questions:

1. Why a book?

2. Arcanist—to keep or scrap?

3. How do we make pets more reactive?

4. How do we make pets more interesting?

5. How do means of making Summoner more interesting via pets compare to means that do not include pets?

6. Given the above, how pet-centric should Summoners be?

The Backing (Mechanics Worth Adding):

I'll try to keep this explanation brief unless any specific questions arise, at which point I will edit in the content of the response. We can break these into two categories, universal and Summoner-specific:

Universally useful (but largely optional):

• Higher polling rate
• Periodic effect roll-over (This would allow for DoT-clipping for certain or all effects or from certain or all classes, adjusting gameplay. This may or may not be advantageous to overall excitement of gameplay in a given class or rotation, but would generally constitute a QoL-increase, especially in lieu of a higher polling rate.)
• Predictive diminution (This allows the implementation of continuously decaying effects, such as a 60% heavy fading to a lower percentage, say 30% or 0%, via whatever linear or nonlinear equation. It can also allow for greater leniency in DoT timings, wherein replacement at a certain time is optimal, but extending filler time and replacing later is still viable. Essentially, it widens options and allows for more effective CC possibilities.)
• Equating potency or damage, given relevant caster and target stats, to percentile effect. (This allows for debuffs to have more equal effectiveness across both stronger and weaker enemies, due to the larger having a larger flat value affected by the minimum or greater percentage, and the weaker facing a higher percentage effect.)
• Equating potency or damage, given relevant caster and possibly target stats, to a given resource, which is then equated to a percentile effect on the target based again on target stats. (This opens up a broad field of additional gameplay possibilities, individually and especially in group play. A DoT, for example, may attempt to consume x resource or x% resource per second or over y duration, but the spell can be cast multiple times to extend duration or DoT rate.)
• Debuffs as value-holders re-calculable by inputs after the original (This extends the above by allowing shared categorical debuffs, such as slows, stuns, and heavies, to be stacked by multiple contributors, allowing for a much more focused and influential utility presence (especially by DPS) in party survival. Multiple BLMs, for instance, could stack a chilling effect resource, which can heavy the target by different percent effectiveness based on the total resource present, practically freezing it in place. This also opens up the way for actual elemental gameplay, in which each element has inherent effects and consequent synergies.)

Summoner-specific:

• Client-side movement prediction applied also to pets and other player-influenced mobile AI units (This would make pets look far more responsive.)
• More to come, once I can find the specific terms to describe them (essentially, elastic hitboxing, predictive chase, and a couple other minor things that may be useful to AI generally, but show up most in our pet frustrations).

The Arsenal:

Snapshot of Gameplay:

[lunar_seraphim]

If I were in control of Summoner, I wouldn't change much about it mechanically, rather most of my changes would be cosmetically to its animations. I would retcon that Carbuncle is the only summon you can safely call to this world (rather than being some math formula) and together you harness the powers of the other Primals. But let's not waste the Egi-glamour system; Carbuncle is able to change its appearance at will.

Ability wise, Fester would remain Fester - however, renamed and its animation changed to briefly summoning an Ifrit-like entity that charges from the caster to the target like a fiery cyclone.

Bane would remain Bane, however, renamed with Garuda appearing to cast a whirlwind that transfers your DoTs to all surrounding enemies.

I would like physical changes to the caster when evoking Dreadwyrm Trance, such as possibly gaining the wings of Bahamut or even the current animation of Bahamut's head staying while under the Trance.

I love the playstyle of Summoner, I just think its animations are severely lacking. I also really like the grimoires as weapons. I picture summoning circles sprouting out of the grimoires and unleashing the Primals.

[Kill3rkoi8082]

Ability wise, Fester would remain Fester - however, renamed and its animation changed to briefly summoning an Ifrit-like entity that charges from the caster to the target like a fiery cyclone.

Bane would remain Bane, however, renamed with Garuda appearing to cast a whirlwind that transfers your DoTs to all surrounding enemies.

I would like physical changes to the caster when evoking Dreadwyrm Trance, such as possibly gaining the wings of Bahamut or even the current animation of Bahamut's head staying while under the Trance.

I agree so strongly with this. Especially when going into trance we should have some kind of animation.

[magnanimousCynic]

I'd just make the Egis a bit bigger (Maybe about 33-40% larger) and have them hover closer to the ground, to help them look even bigger. Making them bigger would help them feel like a proper summon without having to go down the route of having it be the full-sized version.

[Nerisu]

I'd just make the Egis a bit bigger (Maybe about 33-40% larger) and have them hover closer to the ground, to help them look even bigger. Making them bigger would help them feel like a proper summon without having to go down the route of having it be the full-sized version.

Or they can keep their sizes but make them more detailed. Even the smaller minion versions of them are more detailed than the egis.

[EssenceFlux]

More ejis that do more things or serve different purposes! We've fought so many primal, why not?

Consider a Shiva eji for PVP, slows and snares in the kit would be nice.

What about "prime" ejis? Summons that are bigger and stronger but only last a limited time, similar to FF11? You can reserve this for specifically dual aspects primal if you wished. Imagine oh, say, a Ravana eji that fought as a guardian type but was only in battle for so many seconds with a significant cooldown shared with similar prime ejis.

In fact the disappointing thing about ejis is that we have games where we see the summoner with so many summons at disposal, yet we only get 3? Meh.

More trances like Dreadwyrm. Sophia is a primal, why not an Equibrium trance? Where your Ruin III damage is lessened but adds to a doom timer which does the damage plus some after expiration? Just an idea but they have primal to play with on this front.

[xyaie]

SE has stated they dont want a true "pet class", so without going into that

1) the final boss of.. was it Xelphatol? He has his own set of moves, but 3 of "his attacks" summon garuda to do a quick hit then go away. This would be closer to summoner in most final fantasy games (the summon comes down, hits, then goes away). Imagine death flare being a bahamut summon, pain flare being a different summon.. now that I think about it most of the current oGCDs would be fitting. This is mainly an astetic change (and roll some of the current pet abilities/utility into the summoner, as well as a flat DPS increase)

2) FF10 summoner. The summoner is weak by themselves, but can take the form of a summon gaining access to new abilities. As cool as this would be, it may be too potent. Channeling titan would give tank like abilities, channeling ifrit and becoming a melee DPS, a caster as garuda and so on.

[Silverquick]

No need to create or any new mechanics, they're fine as is.

There are parts I would adjust though.

The ACN when he hits his first 3 dungeons at level 15 has no real AoE, so tends to borrow Blizard II from BLM so he can contribute. At higher levels many do not use Miasma II, removing Bliz 2 from the ACN, and improving the potency of Miasma II along with reducing it to LvL 15 will go a long ways to remedying this problem.

Generally at 30th level the SMN will get BANE... his first AoE. Potency as follows...

Bio (40) + Miasma (35) + Bio II (35) per tick for 110 Potency AoE
Then much like at higher levels with Deathflare and Painflare... they will use something over the top. Generally this is Blizzard II spam (50 potency, cast time 2 seconds)... DoTs tick once every 3 seconds... spamming Bliz II is approximarely 75 potency every 3 seconds while spamming.

So at 30th the SMN/ACN does what is in essence...
110 + 75 potency AoE when combined for 185 AoE in damage per tick.

The BLM its sister class has the same type of AoE attack in Fire II.
100 + 20% per stack of fire for a combined 180 AoE per cast in damage.

Removing Bliz 2, and increasing Miasma II potency to account for it will both remove Excess Buttons, and give the ACN something useful in Party at lower levels. And will result in Miasma II actually being used more at higher levels as well.

The next Balance point is one where the Summoner Falls Short...

The 50th level Capstone ability for the Summoner is Enkindle. Which gives us...

Garuda's Aerial Blast (250 potency Circle AoE)
Ifrits Inferno (300 total potency Cone)
Titan's Earthen Furty (200 potency Circle AoE)

BUT only usable once every 3 minutes. Again I go to our sister class of BLM for this one.

The BLM has Flare at this level which is a 260 potency attack with the same +20% damage per fire stack. Usable at will and at any time but consumes all MP. Which is easily replenished with a single stack of Ice and a Transpose.

It is no small wonder why in ARR people abandoned SMN for BLM when THIS was the actual balance point at level 50. There is no justification for a 3 minute CD on Enkindle... this needs to be a 1 minute recast timer to bring it on par with Flare (and by extension Deathflare at level 60 which is usable once every 60 seconds due to the way Aetherflow works).

There's no real excuse or rational justification for it to be a 3 minute CD.

This also allows the Summoner to use actual Summon Powers a lot more in his rotation and will likely please the "Its not SMN enough for me" crowd who never played the job past level 50.

50th level to 60th...
Yeah both on par with each other. Here the BLM does more Single Target, and the SMN does more AoE... so the two begin to split off from each other as DPS jobs at this point... each taking its own specialization, yet still appropriately mirroring each other. I consider them both very well balanced against each other at these levels. The BLM runs into some problems at these levels but it has nothing to do with their actual damage output and more to do with content design literally excluding the Job from participation in various instances (linked to overdone mechanics).

60th to 70th level... aka the new Stormblood levels.

At this point no one can deny the Dreadwyrm Trance and Deathflare is the way the majority of players want to go with the Job... the Heavenward changes to SMN are incredibly popular, and Summoner flourishes as a job these days. I will propose a direction akin to what I hear from most SMNs who actually MAIN the job regularly would like...

More Aetherflow Stacks... and more powers akin to Dreadwyrm Trance and Deathflare (aka Bahamut's Teraflare).

Example:

Level 62: Another Aetherflow stack

Level 64: Another Trance like Ability that sets up the next power (or possibly skip this and keep it all under Dreadwyrm)

Level 66: Another Ability akin to Deathflare... but costing 4 Aetherflow stacks to use. Perhaps linked to Alexander or potentially one of the other Summons from Heavensward.

Level 68: Another Aetherflow Stack for 5 Aetherflow stacks.

Level 70: Another Ability akin to Deathflare using 5 Aetherflow Stacks... say Alexander's Time Stop ability for 3-6 seconds.

Why Time stop as an example?

Well one of the things I notice in high level raids... is that during the last 25% of health on the Boss Mob in the instance it tends to throw every mechanic in the book at you all at once... This is usually a critical time when you have the most Mechanics failure. And tends to drop a lot of people in the Alliance. So as an example if you've saved up your stacks and haven't blown them on a Deathflare... you can pop them for...

The Boss Mob and all Mechancs freeze for 6 seconds... the BLM runs over and places himself in perfect position and prepares Fire IVs around the multiple mechanics going off.

The Healers take their time while they have the shot to move out of the frozen kill mechanics and begin Raising the dead.

The Tanks pre position themselves to take on the boss again and perhaps critical time for a CD to refresh, pre prepping for the next mechanic.

Potential for a Raid save or potentially Tactical advantage late in the game just when you thought everything was lost.

And of course the Alexander Mechanic for this was pretty cool when it did it.

This is just an example of the things I both see and hear from others.

[ty_taurus]

My first change would be the Egi design, similar to how some others here have described. Basically, I'm looking at Carbuncle's design and think about how the Egis should look closer to that, more specifically, the size of the larger white Carbuncle you see during the Anima Weapon quests. The Egis would still be different than the primal in appearance, but less like an elemental and more like an organic organism.

Next, there would be only "Summon" as an action instead of "Summon I, II, and III." All Carbuncles and Egis do the same thing with different visuals for the sake of balance, so basically the glamour system that would expand to Levi, Ramuh, Shiva, Bismarck, and Ravana. You have a damage stance that increases base damage, and a tank stance that creates agro for the pet. Then there would be certain actions that would share cool downs, tank actions and damage actions.

Actions used would come from the pet similar to how pacts worked in 11, but the functionality of the class as a DPS could be relatively the same. I'd have designed the Tank stance to allow the Summoner to be queued as a Tank under that stance, (and not let it be removed in duties). Pets in battle would drain the Summoner's MP or HP instead of dying if they'd take lethal damage, just so all hell wouldn't break loose if the pet died.