Developers Poor Attitude to Summoner

[Derio]

I personally would rather have sustain than a boosted physick.

[Amariel34]

I personally would rather have sustain than a boosted physick.

This x1000.

[Claviusnex]

Thats the problem. Physick is stuck with us because of sch. If you make physick a job ability, what happens when a sch does leveling roulette and goes under lvl 30. That would kind of be tough if your healer doesn't have a heal. So they have to leave it as an archanist ability, which means it's stuck with us summoners.

That shouldn't be an issue. All SE has to do is at level 30 replace Physick with Sustain for Summoners. When we enter a lower level dungeon set it back to Physick. They already do this up/down with Bio and Miasma not to mention they've given SCH Miasma II but not Summoners. The fact is they aren't as tightly coupled as SE makes out and they've already set the precedence of having the two being different.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

Aka go play Red Mage if you want to do competitive DPS.

Huh? He was talking about Vercure and Raise, not DPS. I know people are upset but they shouldn't take this so personally, why would the Dev team hate a job just because? I mean it sounds silly.

[dinnertime]

Just bring back Sustain. Problem solved. No need to remove Physick, just ignore it from your class actions or better yet make it INT-based as an ACN/SMN.

[Youkulm]

I just want Sustain back. Is it too much to ask to be able to heal my pet? I'm sick of having to resummon him because he stands in poopy. I'm busy dodging mechanics. I dont have time to constantly move him as well as DPS moderatly well and stay alive.

[Len]

To add to the discussion, here are some good reads about the issues Summoner is facing.

Link: SMN - Most Glaring Issues

Link: After years of playing Summoner, I'm shelving the job and here's why.

[Duelle]

SE regrets it because SE has been trying to pidgeonhole Summoner into a WOW class since day one, when it is supposed to be able to perform different utilities to some degree.

If SMN had even half of the things it could do in other FF games, the cries to nerf the job would reach the heavens and echo across the world. AoE Stoneskin, Aoe Blink, AoE stat increase to the full party, AoE heals, party invincibility, and one-hit kills, to name a few. The complaints about RDM would look like a drop of water on a hot anvil by comparison.

Yeah, making the summoner an affliction warlock was an odd choice. The big party piece for it probably should have been the pet control and variety.

Started as affliction, then tried to make them Demo locks with DWT (back when demo had Metamorphosis).

The problem with summon variety is that you have a high risk of overlap unless you design each egi for one specific purpose. And even then you start running out of room fast. FFXI's SMN ran into this problem, leading to more convoluted ways to use summons over time. And some summons are just stupid-powerful in-world, which makes it a balancing nightmare. For example, Alexander with Perfect Defense = AoE Hallowed Ground to a full party; imagine the shitshow that would create if our SMN could do that. Or if Titan-egi could Stoneskin a full party at the cost of an Aetherflow stack.

My beef with SMN is that design-wise it's all over the place. 1-50 was "DoT mage with a pet", then 51-60 was "fuck that pet, trances a go-go", and 62-70 it seems to have gone full retarddragon mage or "we've replaced the egi with a mini-bahamut; let's see if he notices". There's other issues like unresponsive/inefficient pet AI, lack of connection between master and pet, and how the role primals play in the game has changed.

[Kallera]

If SMN had even half of the things it could do in other FF games, the cries to nerf the job would reach the heavens and echo across the world. AoE Stoneskin, Aoe Blink, AoE stat increase to the full party, AoE heals, party invincibility, and one-hit kills, to name a few. The complaints about RDM would look like a drop of water on a hot anvil by comparison.

You could say the same of plenty of other classes. But SMN is now not even comparable in its own role now. now it's just a job that doesn't play right and doesn't feel like a summoner...

[dinnertime]

and doesn't feel like a summoner...

Honestly, what makes a Summoner a Summoner?
In my opinion Demi-Bahamut is a good example of what summoning should've been in the first place, from the pretty grand visuals of summoning him, to the powerful signature move (even though Akh Morn is actually just 540-ish potency) and and yet I see this.

Maybe they could've made Summon Bahamut only cost one Dreadwyrm Aether to see it more frequently, increase its DPS and make the job less punishing, but what's the problem this time? Do we need different Demi Summons/Demi-Glamours now, too?
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