How Would You Do... Summoner?

[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: