Why Summoner Needs Help

[EllieShadeflare]

snip

You've hit the nail on the head, but the other problem is the new intended "identity" that I can see the team was trying to go for with Summoner in SB: They were trying to create a build-up mage, easily punishable but utterly deadly when it reaches its boiling point. Unfortunately, that payoff is decent at best, or outright crippling our standard arsenal at worst. With both Red Mages and Black Mages having far better build-up mechanics than Summoners do, it makes our struggle all the more irritating.

[Besame]

Played my job summoner after leveling my main bard to 70. It feels clunky and ruined. I'll play her when I am bored and the stand alone 60 summoner shall sit idle. Both times I ran the sum in an instance, people asked me how I liked the changes and complained about theirs also with the same things I noticed. Oh, and the aetherial change plain sux. Why do game devs always want to fix what is not broken? Shame...

[Troile]

I have to say that while I agree with some things said here, I completely disagree with making Bahamut a turret. I think the devs allowed us to control him in an interesting way which doesn't really take "extra" effort. I find it good that we have direct control over his dps.

I do agree that he shouldn't just follow us around and we should be able to place him though. Also...I agree with not locking out Aetherflow during our different states.

[AscendantManes]

The punishment would be a lot less severe if

a) Fester and Bane could only be used on targets with Bio and Miasma, and
b) If we didn't lose all the Bahamut stacks on death.

Being able to target Devotion would be very nice too. We have a series of role skills that are used by targeting other party members, so why can't Devotion do the same? If it's to intruduce an element of randomness to the all-purpose buff, then the right macros can nullify it almost entirely... so why?

[Ferrasper]

actually you can't be more wrong ferrasper. the black mage and the summoner are two pure dps caster... the only difference is the form the dps take. one is directly casting the damage, while the other relly on his pet and the dot for create a substain dps.
the trouble with smn, is the loose of the dot have affect too much them dps and lead them far behind. i feel they did hope that the ruin III will cover for this loose and the ruin buff too... sadly it's not enough. we can hope for the 4.05 a boost of the dot damage for cover this part.

I disagree because the BLM can't combat rez people while SMN can which puts him more in line with the RDM. Not to mention the devotion buff and physic heal which is crappy. It is still a heal though. SMN is a utility caster along with RDM because of the heals, rez, and buff. BLM has none of that making it the pure caster.

[EllieShadeflare]

I disagree because the BLM can't combat rez people while SMN can which puts him more in line with the RDM. Not to mention the devotion buff and physic heal which is crappy. It is still a heal though. SMN is a utility caster along with RDM because of the heals, rez, and buff. BLM has none of that making it the pure caster.

And Red Mage also happens to outpace us in literally every way as well. How convenient!

As I mentioned in my previous post, it seriously feels like they tried to give SMN a more support-DPS role with a build up twist, similar to Dragoon, but our payoff and our support doesn't really work well, especially since Red Mages can essentially rez with no flaws period, and have an AoE support... and then there's Vercure. Both aspects require adjustment, the payoff to our DPS, and the support.

[Ferrasper]

And Red Mage also happens to outpace us in literally every way as well. How convenient!

As I mentioned in my previous post, it seriously feels like they tried to give SMN a more support-DPS role with a build up twist, similar to Dragoon, but our payoff and our support doesn't really work well, especially since Red Mages can essentially rez with no flaws period, and have an AoE support... and then there's Vercure. Both aspects require adjustment, the payoff to our DPS, and the support.

I know which is why I think SMN should be put in line next to RDM making it more a matter of which play-style and buff I want to play with. I want SMN buffed. Please don't misunderstand that.

[EllieShadeflare]

I know which is why I think SMN should be put in line next to RDM making it more a matter of which play-style and buff I want to play with. I want SMN buffed. Please don't misunderstand that.

Ah, fair enough. Hopefully, more people can get on board, since it feels like SE doesn't know what to do with us a good deal of the time.

[Age_of_Oblivion]

It's always been kind of odd to me that BLM has traditionally been better at AoE than SMN. I mean... it's a Summoner. The point is to slowly build up to a massive nuke that obliterates everything in sight. BLM has always been about high, consistent damage.

[Koyuki38]

I agree with all that points, but changing to much things about SMN's power would lead to unbalance.

IMO, SMN is currently stronger than people think, he is not the DPS god, like the current Samourai, but we can't say that he is underpowered.
But I think it requires too much effort to make the best out of this job and i would like to see this jobs improved, without necessary increasing it's power.

Some ideas :
- changing DWT icon into Death Flare when we enter the DWT. Same about Summon Bahamut that should be changed into Enkidle Bahamut (or use the same Enkidle skill for both Enkidle or Enkidle Bahamut.
That's the same order after all).
- Rework Devotion and Physic. Both are useless currently. Physic has no point in its state and devotion is pointless with this 'target' system
- Make bahamut a turret that autohits so we can use it at any moment without feeling we are doing bad if we have not Aethers stacks + Virus + Tri-d
- General animation lock, pet responsive, macro and network improvement (see below*)

*
- the previous DWT was 15 sec, that's supposed to be 6 GCD WITH 0 SPELLSPEED. In fact it's 5 with a decent amount of spell speed, that's not that much better with 1 more second.
- Pet should be as responsive as the summoner. Even if we know Garuda has to finish a cast, I don't see any reason from garuda to wait 3 sec for Contagion when her cast is supposed to be 1s...
- Pet doesn't queue some order. If i do Devotion + Enkidle, i'll spend animation time to say to Ifrit to do something, and Ifrit will just answer : "hey bro, here is your Enkidle back, do it again plz'.
- I don't like some animation locks, especially the one from potion and DWT. I don't see either why it's not smooth to burn Fester,ED and Painflaire in the same gcd
- I use a macro for Shadow Flare because i find hard to place it while having a high chance to loose the target (something like /ac SF <t>), but game the decides that sometimes the macro can't be used during GCD.

Just few improvement without directly powering up the jobs would be greatly appreciated.