How Would You Do... Summoner?

[Silverquick]

2) More pets: This has been a peeve I have with the direction the job was taken, since I still argue that SMN should at the least have the 6 main egis to correspond to the 6 main primals we fought in ARR. Each egi could and should have a different role and purpose. The downside to this is that gameplay currently doesn't require enough input from the player. We don't have adds that need to be CCd in raid fights. We don't have enemy abilities that must be interrupted in raid fights in order for you to get a clear. Shiva-egi could enter as a CC pet, Leviathan-egi could enter as an anti-caster pet, but without gameplay actually giving them any use, it'd be a wasted gesture.

Yeah that's why Pets or any new pets are a bad idea... and won't work either.

Summoner is a DPS job in this game. There's a reason only ONE summon ever gets used while the others are little more than benchwarmers...

Garuda has Contagion... for +15 seconds of Bio/Miasma/Bio 2 on your DoT casts... (Bio 40 per tick, Miasma 35 per tick, Bio II 35 per tick... for 5 ticks (15 seconds)) ... total Potency 550 in a BANE Area of Effect or AoE. Plus Aerial Blast 250 potency AoE.

Ifrit has Flaming Crush every 30 seconds... ie 110 potency or 220 potency every 60 seconds... and Inferno (Enkindle) for 300 potency in a cone...

Garuda = BANE AoE 550 potency attack (60 sec recast) + 250 potency attack (Enkindle, 5y circle) = 800 potency in attacks.
Ifrit = 220 potency (60 seconds) + 300 potency (Enkindle, 5y cone) = 520 potency in attacks

Its a no brainer as to why Ifrit sits the bench. Titan is a tank... so not usable unless the actual Tank goes down or DCs.

ANY NEW PET a summoner gets...

Their last two abilities will need to dish out at least 800 potency in attacks in 60 seconds... or they will be sitting the bench too. Which means then Garuda will sit the bench and never be used again.

At this time, the SMN is an AoE class designed to take out large groups of mobs. Both with DoTs and DDs. With Pets, Spells, and DeathFlares.

[Duelle]

Yeah that's why Pets or any new pets are a bad idea and won't work either.

Summoner is a DPS job in this game. There's a reason only ONE summon ever gets used while the others are little more than benchwarmers.

The problem with this is that the devs gave one pet a notable DPS increase via Contagion. If they had made Contagion a SMN ability from the start, you wouldn't be having this issue much. Regardless of other changes or modifications to the job, removing Contagion from Garuda is a given.

Going back to my earlier point, lack of variety in gameplay is largely to blame. As I said, we don't have enemies with skills that need to be interrupted because if you don't the tank dies. We don't have adds that need to be controlled by multiple people in the raid to prevent the raid taking too much damage. We don't have air phases where ranged DPS can shine. The entirety of combat in this game is focused on telegraphs and memorizing American football plays.

In every one of those scenarios, SMN pets would have a purpose in the event a raid group brings a SMN. Boss has an air phase that prevents melee from hitting it? Pull out Garuda to do her thing. Your raid is short an interrupt for a boss fight? Pull out Leviathan and join the interrupt rotation. Boss fight has powerful adds that need to be CCd and your raid is short one DPS with reliable CC? Bring out Shiva. Boss fight has an add phase with lots of adds that need to die quickly? Bring out Ramuh and have him AoE stuff to death.

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I get why Garuda was given Contagion; they wanted to go for a pet benefiting the master, but there are other approaches. Passive personal/group buffs would be one way (having X egi active for Y seconds enhances some aspect of your performance). Slightly affecting certain abilities on your action bars would be another (X ability gets a slight boost when Y egi is active).

Another thing those that don't actually play the job don't know are the kinks in the Pet interface. There is a major delay due to queueing of the pet attacks that creates enormous delays in the response time between the time you issue the pet a command, and they actually obey.

Contrary to what you think, people are indeed aware of delays in input. If you play a PLD or WHM, you see that every time you push Benediction or Hallowed Ground. It's no surprise that pets suffer from that problem as well, and that needs to be addressed as a whole.

Limiting class variety due to not wanting to arse yourself to fix the issues with the battle system is not an excuse.

One is stronger on one side, the other is stronger in the other. This is their balance point and how they are balanced against each other in the grand scheme of things. Remove that AoE damage from the SMN and you only gimp him. so now he has substandard AoE and no niche where he filled it perfectly before. and still allowed the BLM to flourish in his niche.

You're a) assuming that BLM would not be seeing changes in any form (unlikely), and b) banking too much on niches.

Niches in overall design don't matter because classes live or die via a combination of output and utility. Niches needlessly force classes into subcategories for the sake of being different, when the gameplay is what sets one apart from the next. Put into tank terms, I don't give a shit if Mystic Knight enters the game as a tank that can mitigate damage as well as my PLD can or has as many defensive cooldowns; what I care about is how different the gameplay is between the two while generating the same results (hence why Yoshida's "WAR should deal more DPS than the other tanks" logic is complete bullocks).

Same logic applies to DPS, though I personally make room for minor advantages where appropriate. Of course, minor advantages like better AoE are worthless if you're not putting those aspects of a class to use in combat. Going back to my earlier point, if you're giving a class an advantage in AoE, you better be including boss fights that put that AoE to use.