Summoner Over-Nered (and A few other Problems)

[Neophyte]

Q11. Sustain was very useful in some content. I would like to know why this was removed.
A11. We had it set so that pets would take reduced damage from enemies and we figured it wouldn’t be an issue as long as players don’t place the pets directly in front of the enemy. However, there were some players that used it quite a lot, so we would like to discuss some more with the dev. team.

Thats why I have no words left..dont place the pets directly in front of the enemy..where should we put tank egi? Also they do cleave attacks that will hit Ifrit and the pets themselves are reaction way to slow if one wants to move them out of stuff..Also reduced damage? Garuda egi was never nearly one shotted in ARR or HW..yet that one enemy in the story dungeon was taking her out with a cleave. >_>

And they even said that some players used it a lot..why keep physik that is so useless but take sustain away that is even used?

Because you can't get Physik out of Arcanist.

The only way to remove Physik from SMN, but leaving it on SCH, would be to make it the first job ability of SCH (at level 30).

But what does a SCH do, when he get's unsynched to below level 30?
Just only rely on fairy (not that this is not possible)? I mean, ok, but taking a healer the ability to heal (although only low-level) as a trade-off so SMN can tank again (which might be not intended to be a big thing anymore, because we are a dps job and not a weak one).

I mean, you want the best solo or best non-tank group or even (when a bit outgeared) the best utility at all, being able to tank significantly as a dps role? Then deal with having the lowest dps of all jobs, around MCH's current damage. Period.

[Ariomi]

Because you can't get Physik out of Arcanist.

The only way to remove Physik from SMN, but leaving it on SCH, would be to make it the first job ability of SCH (at level 30).

I mean, you want the best solo or best non-tank group or even (when a bit outgeared) the best utility at all, being able to tank significantly as a dps role? Then deal with having the lowest dps of all jobs, around MCH's current damage. Period.

Uh.. Hate to break it to you. The best tank that isn't actually a tank goes to either Red Mage, or Monk. Monk can reduce the damage they take, with fists of earth/Earth's reply. Can heal themselves with bloodbath and second wind. Red Mages can heal themselves with Vercure and until they buffed the enmity on tanks, Red Mages tanked a lot of the early dungeons they were in just from their high burst.

Did you know that most classes in this game have a way to reduce the damage they take, or have a substantial self heal.
Here's an example. Ninja's - Shade Shift. Monk's Fist of earth/Earth's Reply. Samurai - Third Eye. Black Mages Manaward -shields all damage upto 30% of the black mage's total health.

There's only a single class in the game that doesn't have a self heal over 400 Potency, or a way to mitigate damage for themselves.
Can you guess what that class is? Summoner. You can argue hey Summoner's have Titan Egi, but see. Titan doesn't reduce the damage the Summoner takes. Nor does he heal the summoner. Titan also disappears when you summon Bahamut. So that tank you were depending on? Gone the second Summoner actually tries to do damage. No Summoner uses Titan in raids or dungeons as he doesn't do anything. He's a solo only pet (and the weakest pet at that.) If a mechanic happens in a raid, Titan Egi is powerless to save a summoner in any way.

The best way to fix this? Give Summoner a role specific skill that turns physic into a useable heal, or make physic scale of int. Easy as that.

Oh and Summoner is objectively weak.

https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/15#boss=1036

Let me put it in perspective. Look at Monk and Ninja. Monk- High personal dps, with the ability to boost all physical raid damage by 5% and now is the only class with Mantra to help out with healing if necessary. Ninja? High dps, Innate Aggro control with 10% raid damage increase.

When you look at bard and Machinist who are the only classes lower then summoner, is because they offer more utility. Machinist and Bard can regen the entire groups Tp/Mp and can increase raid damage. Hyper charge is a 5% damage increase for thirty seconds, Foe Requiem is a 3% damage increase for around 33, then also boost the group with battle voice and crit rate for the entire fight. Dragoon which has similar numbers as a Summoner provides Battle Litany - 15% crit for 15 seconds. Piercing Debuff, and Dragon Sight.

What does Summoner offer? Ignoring everything that Red Mage also offers. (Cause Red Mage does it better)

Summoner offer's Aoe weaker then Black Mage, the lowest single target damage of all casters and only has three skills that it contributes.
Radiant Shield. 2% Physical damage increase for maximum of 24 seconds. 2% physical damage... Wow.. That's intense. I can barely handle this one. It's so powerful that if you did 1000 damage, under this buff you would do 1020. Summoner has Contagion that is 10% Magical damage increase for 15 seconds. (Should be 16 - 20 Seconds to match Dreadwyrm Trances Duration >.>) and Devotion. Devotion - one player gets a 5% increase to damage/healing. Devotion is the worst designed skill in the game, having you either move your pet to buff the person you want, (You can't just select them.) And offers no benefit to the Summoner ever. Devotion (Ironically named) goes to anyone except the summoner.
Monks can benefit from Brotherhood. Ninjas benefit from trick attack. Bards benefit from Foe req. Dragoons benefit from Dragon Sight. Summoner's don't benefit from devotion...

So let's tally up the score.
High Survivability - Nope
High Personal Dps - Nope
High Utility - Nope
High Mobility - Nope
Significant group wide dps gain? - Nope
Easy class to play - Nope

You hear Dragoon's complaining about how hard their rotation is for the damage their getting. While I totally agree with them, Summoner has it just as bad, except Summoner has nothing to offer a team. Dragoons are a dream come true for Red Mage/Bard/Mch with Crit buffs and damage up for everyone. You will never notice the difference of a Summoner with radiant shield/contagion/Devotion.

[NaesakiAshwell]

Because you can't get Physik out of Arcanist.

The only way to remove Physik from SMN, but leaving it on SCH, would be to make it the first job ability of SCH (at level 30).

What they need to do is divorce Scholar completely and make it its own fully fledged job with its own unique kit like how the HW and SB jobs work, retool and restructure their old Arcanist abilities into something specific to them.

Bring the Dia and Banish line of spells back maybe or something to replace the acn dots and such, create 3-4 tiers of broil so they have one to use in early levels.

I mean in terms of how the Scholar storyline starts its already a lot more separated compared to Arcanist flowing more naturally into the Summoner story-line.

I can't imagine them retooling it would be that arduous. Its unfortunately just money they probably don't want to spend if they can avoid it.

[Claviusnex]

Because you can't get Physik out of Arcanist.

The only way to remove Physik from SMN, but leaving it on SCH, would be to make it the first job ability of SCH (at level 30).

But what does a SCH do, when he get's unsynched to below level 30?
Just only rely on fairy (not that this is not possible)? I mean, ok, but taking a healer the ability to heal (although only low-level) as a trade-off so SMN can tank again (which might be not intended to be a big thing anymore, because we are a dps job and not a weak one).

They don't have to take anything away from Scholar at all. All SE needs to do is at level 30 change Physick to Sustain for Summoners. If you are sync'ed below 30 then set it to Physick which is still effective at the lower levels. They already do something similar with Bio and Miasma so it isn't like they don't have experience or precedence against it.

[Alleo]

Because you can't get Physik out of Arcanist.

The only way to remove Physik from SMN, but leaving it on SCH, would be to make it the first job ability of SCH (at level 30).

But what does a SCH do, when he get's unsynched to below level 30?
Just only rely on fairy (not that this is not possible)? I mean, ok, but taking a healer the ability to heal (although only low-level) as a trade-off so SMN can tank again (which might be not intended to be a big thing anymore, because we are a dps job and not a weak one).

I mean, you want the best solo or best non-tank group or even (when a bit outgeared) the best utility at all, being able to tank significantly as a dps role? Then deal with having the lowest dps of all jobs, around MCH's current damage. Period.

Then make it so that for SCH its Physik and for us SMN it turns into sustain..problem solved. Or make Physik heal pets more.

We cant even solo that much anymore..our tank egi does not hold aggro that much anymore and you cant use Bahamut and Titan at the same time. Not even talking about not being able to heal the pets. In the end I am not really sure how you exactly came to the conclusion with my post at all..I mean I did not even mention all of those points..

Right now we dont have good buffs for the party, we cant do a lot of solo content anymore (only possible if you have a good chocobo) and we are quite punished if we make mistakes..at the same time our place in the DPS ranking is not very good depending on the content. So what exactly do we have? A clunky Bahamut summon that not only blocks the view from a lot of people but also responds way too badly..(and lets not talk about dungeons under lvl70)

Really when I will try to get to 200 solo in PotD (when it will not kick me from the server anymore) I will do this with a redmage. You have a good heal, top DPS and gets hit quite less..even with the new potion I cant see how we summoners should survive it now.

[Feifer]

From what I've noticed playing Summoner now, is that is it simply too punishing once you make a mistake.
If you accidentally click Bane or Fester without DoTs, you are set back on your entire combo from Dreadwyrm to Bahamut by 60 seconds waiting for Aetherflow to come off CD.
An easily QoL change is to make it so that you gain Aetherflow is given regardless of whether you have DoTs on them or not.
Having no damage done/Misusing the ability to its full potential should be the punishment.

Devotion is also very uncontrollable.
It is counterproductive to move your Ifrit/Garuda to a certain party member, using the ability, and expected to go through your rotation smoothly.
It simply cannot be done effectively. You lose out on your potential for damage, and feels overly complicated for simply no reason.
There are Role abilities that are programmed to be used much better than this. This should be changed to be more usable.

[Ametrine]

I'm curious if that Aetherflow boosting trait SCH is getting will go to SMN, too.

I'm not sure how much it would aid them compared to the help it will give SCH, except maybe decrease the time between Bahamuts a bit and possibly lessen the overall punishment for mistakes.

[dinnertime]

What they need to do is divorce Scholar completely

At this point I don't see any reason to separate SMN and SCH, especially when they abolished bonus attributes and that SMN's new damage spells are job-based rather than class-based, so they could buff those without worrying about SCH being buffed too.

[NaesakiAshwell]

At this point I don't see any reason to separate SMN and SCH, especially when they abolished bonus attributes and that SMN's new damage spells are job-based rather than class-based, so they could buff those without worrying about SCH being buffed too.

Its more when you have spells like Physick still lingering on Summoner when it is effectively a useless spell to them as it currently stands since it still scales off MND, so its effectively just pointless button bloat.

Unless they actually decide to change it to INT scaling when a summoner uses it. Because we know they can do this since you only have to look at the ACN dots on SCH scaling off MND.

Yet they removed Sustain for such lacklustre reasoning, they genuinely seem completely out of touch with the Summoner player-base and the job itself.

[Silkerin]

and, if you are going to remove the filler spell smn used before for aoes, then at least buff tri disaster to be decent if you dont want to give smns a new spell D: we all know that bind for all casters is basically useless... specially with the pvp changes... also if you give sch miasma 2 back just give smns too D:

oh better yet, make an aoe bind an role skill and give new effects for freeze, tribind and that one for red...

dont really care for potencies that much, smns do less damage than reds for a lot less work but, thats easily fixable so they do similar damage, but the way it is working right now is too clunky.

also, smns are only asking for a proper healing physic now because of reds and the removal of sustain, if they dont want to give sustain back just give us a proper heal to use, smns can already raise why not just give a weak heal to them? they would have to hard cast each one either way, so reds still would have the superior heal support for a caster.

and before someone say something stupid like its not part of the job or the lore or whatever, smns throughout the series had healing and buffing summons, some summoners had white magic, since they are still stuck to schs via arcanists, they should be use physic to at least some decent proficiency, this all could be avoided if they gave titan egi some life steal when they removed sustain

before we were given the excuse that smns couldnt summon primals in a more full form, but here we have demi bahamut, so lore impending the role to get something as simple as a healing spell and an aoe filler is invalid