Developers Poor Attitude to Summoner

[Cherishes]

Yoshida-san. You told us to go red mage if we wanted to heal.

If summoners wanted to heal, we would have gone scholar.

[Alleo]

The problem with summoner is (and thats why lots of people probably complain) that is has no true path where it will go.

First we got the three egis that, comparing them with the fairy, are looking quite ugly. So all that people wanted was better looking ones and maybe a bit bigger. (The look from the minions would be beautiful imo) Then they teased us with even more egis and yet suddenly decided that they wont give us more because "reason". At the same time we see more and more different looking egis in the job quests and they are even bigger too! This just feels like trolling. (Hey look we know what you want but dont give it to you)

As a compromise we wanted something to glamour over our egis because lets be real..the only important one is Garuda (and this did not change with SB). So they simply could delete the other two (especially with the lack of sustain) and make her the only true egi. (Maybe give her a tank stance or something for solo content) And give us all the other existing primals as glamour skins. I am quite sure that a lot of summoners would be happy about it.

But what did happen. We are teased about new egis but dont get them, we wait a long time for egi glamour and when we finally get it, its just a simple glamour option that should not have taken them that long. And on top of that the egis themselves are not bigger and we did not get any new egi glamour with SB (while they teased even more in the new SB job quests..).

Then they give us Bahamut. He is big and he is a summon so people should be happy right? No, because he is really clunky, he is way to big and he is bad for our egis..I get the feeling like they never tested him with groups or maybe they just wanted to prove that bigger summons are bad..but there is still a middle ground between his size and the ones from the egis..and egis can be moved. But they will only see our disappointment and will just say that we are never fine with anything, even though they could have implemented him differently..

Yet in the end since SB I am just not really sure what we are anymore. Are we a Dot job? So why take away our Dots? Are we are egi/pet job? Then why make two of three egis useless and take important skills away from us? Are we a summoner that summons stuff for a short amount of time? Then why is Bahamut so clunky, punish us with our egis and is still only a small part of our job?

Dear SE: I would be fine if we would be more of a true summoner, like instead of having egis we would summon different kind of primals to make one attack and disappear again. Maybe to call them we have to get a certain amount of aether through attacks which we will gain through Ruin or something like that.

But if you dont want us to be that way, then please focus more on egis and dont give us random stuff like Bahamut. I just feel like I am nothing at all. I am not a true pet job because only one is important and you cant do much with it. I am no true DoT Mage and I am not a true summoner.

If you dont find a path for us we can never be truly happy because we dont really have our own job identity. Putting some band aids on this job with stuff like Bahamut or egi glamour but thinking it not through is no good way to make your player base like it. And then reacting in such a negative way when people criticize it, is bad too, because we are customers too and pay money.

I do kinda question if they should not create a true PR team and leave Yoshida and Co. with their current jobs. Because I am not really sure if its good for the game to have the same person that already has enough on his plate to also have to do all the advertisement. Especially since he seems to be annoyed a lot.

[Airget]

Man, fiddling with the job, I can definitely feel the chunkiness of it. Just feels like it lacks the finesse to flow properly.

Two DoTs having the same duration feels awful since it just comess of like you are destined to lose DPS trying to keep them both applied. Odds are you open with Bio, or Miasma, hard to say which one should be applied over the other but when it wears off it seems you want to do Miasma followed by Bio to keep them around the same tick but it just feels messy.

With the old 24/30 second difference, The application just feels more fluid, let's just assume we are working with 2.5 recast. so applying Miasma(24) then Bio(30), so you have potentially 9 Ruin Cast before reapplying Miasma, and then 2 Ruin Cast later you reapply Bio, that just feels more organic then having two DoTs neck and neck since it gives off the mentality that you will always lose DPS because it's harder to upkeep their DoT potential 100%.

I think it might be one change worth trying out Either up the duration of one while slightly lowering it's potency or lower the duration of one and up it's potency.

Miasma could be 24 seconds at maybe 50 potency a tick or Bio could be 36 seconds at 33 potency a tick. I just think in terms of upkeep, you are more likely to have the full potency of your DoTs if they have a better stagger to them compared to what they currently are. Honestly I'd go from the 24 second duration with 50 potency on Miasma rather than increasing the duration of Bio further.

The option to Summon bahamut and trance should not exist, Trance should organically turn into Summon Bahamut once you get two stacks, giving the option imo creates an unnecessary choice between two options. A SMN should just go into the Summon once they can further trancing feels like a destined DPS loss.

Maybe one addition to Summon bahamut that would help with the DPS, give it the dissipitation touch, when you Summon Bahamut, it restores your Aetherflow, not you don't have to hold out and can move quick between phases of trance and summon.

When it comes to inputs, SMN just has to many to upkeep to remain decent in their DPS. With Rouse, Aetherflow, Fester, Tri-disaster, Contagion, you're guaranteed to miss out on a Ruin or two trying to activate everything.

I'd make the following changes.

A Trance activates a pet aura, Ifrit increases physical dmg dealt to target by 2%, Garuda the increase magic dmg dealt by 10%, and Titan could decerase dmg dealt by 5%(These are just ideas based on the pet actions available) the idea here is that you have options/reasons to swap between pets before using trance to activate a aura you might think is necessary in the given situation.

With Summon Bahamut, I'd want something similar, the pet used augments the Bahamut in some way. Garuda could increase proc rate of Ruin IV or give SMN swiftcast til Bahamut disappears, Ifrit could increase chances to critical hit and Titan could create an aura around bahamut that reduces dmg taken by 5% to those in close proximity.

So basically you have 3 uses of Bahamut here, 1 for when you have to dodge and move around a lot, one when you don't have to worry about being on the move and another as Support if you need to help absorb dmg in a 20 second period.

In terms of shared ability slots I feel the following should occur.

While I do wish Enkindle and Bahamut Enkindle could share, I can see why it might be tough given their drastic difference in recast times.

Though I do think Summon bahamut should replace Trance and maybe Enkinldle Bahamut could replace Deathflare. Feels like button bloat is created because abilities you should be "upgrading" to as they become available don't replace said skill.

SMN should have the ability to choose who they Aetherpact, makes no sense to make this a bit of an RNG game even though other jobs have the option to choose their target.

Honestly with SMN, I feel the whole Sic/Obey thing needs to be eliminated, the neutured pet actions just makes it feel a bit unecessary to keep as they are.

If anything I'd consider the following change to Rouse. "When used the pet will use certain actions based on what spell is used Ruin IV proc rate is double during this time"

Aetherflow based abilities will cause pet to use X action, Ruin abilities would cause pet to use Y action and DoT abilities would cause pet to use Z action during that 20 second period. So now you do have this period of controlling your pet but it can fit in more organically with your current abilities you would no longer have to deal with the cumber-stone feeling pet actions. Rouse would only work with the original egis and not Bahamut.

Enkindle, when used reduce cooldown of Rouse by 30 seconds. Maybe even have it where Aetherflow abilities reduce Rouse timer by 5 seconds with each use. The idea is that Rouse is now this ability you try to use whenever it's available as it gives you options to "control" your pet and command them to do specific actions for a short period of time.

Basically what performing actions does with Bahamut Summon is something that should of been done with all egi's from the start.

It is a bit troubling though since the whole key behind SMN does seem to be a Ruin spam in between applying DoTs. Even RDM upon unlock has this fun mechanic of weaving between two spell rotations of decent potency but SMN is more like apply DoTs, use Ruin, use up Aetherflow, go into trance and keep using ruin, they took the term Trance to literally since you are pretty much unconciously spamming ruin or rather pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 or 2 2 2 2 2 2 depending where you put Ruin III once you hit the "trance" lol.

----------- This second thought came to me that might be a better method of fixing SMN from a single target/AOE point of view

Maybe the most basic thing they could do is this.

Dreadwyrm Trance, you build up 3 stacks like an aetherflow, when you call the trance, those 3 orbs remain rather than create a lock you instead create augments to aetherflow based abilities.

Energy Drain turn into "Flare Star" Deals 300 dmg potency but can only be used once during the trance.

Fester becomes Rage of Bahamut, acts as an AOE Fester effect, sure might just be another 300 dmg attack but potency is not reduced as it hits more targets. can only be used once during trance

Bane becomes Flare Breath, can only be used if Tri-disaster hasn't been used yet, applies Bio/Miasma without diminishing returns to all targets hit by it. can only be used once during trance.

Painflare becomes Gigaflare Single target 600 potency on 1 target, or less potency, can only be used once during trance.

So basically during trance you get to use 3/4 of these abilities while using Ruin, this at least gives more options for SMN and in essence integrates SMN's aetherflow mechanics into the trance itself rather than being tossed aside when in trance.

Since it is sad to say but Trance is nothing more than 3 abiltiies currently, Ruin III/IV, Tri-disaster and Deathflare(But this ability ends the trance once used). So it's pretty much 1 abilty that you spam until the end. . . it's just not fun. If they needed to balance it out damage wise, my suggestion would be to have these Aerthflow abilities be part of the global cooldown while trance is active so you would miss out on 3 Ruins while using them, but they would be worth it.

This is just all off the top of my head though, as I tested SMN myself, there is this inorganic feel you get playing it where nothing seems to mesh because you have to keep changing mentalities. The Build up, the trance, the summon. But the trance and summon are pretty much the same thing with a different coat of paint the only difference being Bahamut's enkindle can be used at the start and end but Deathflare can only be used once since it ends the trance.

So in the same way you have to build 2 stacks of Trance to use Summon, then the aetherflow for Bahamut could just be 2 options. Where you still have 4 choices but you can only pick 2/4 of them. I would say keep the above abilities since the main perk of a Bahamut Summon comes from his own additional attack so having it where his options are the same as trance wouldn't be a bad thing imo at least. But at least SMN would feel more engaging in my mind, your head would be use to the options already available to you and it would just feel like an extension to aetherflow.

In my mind I feel like the above would help to tackle SMN's current issue with being able to upkeep with AoE dmg but it would also give them less excuses to hold their trance before a boss, since now their trance has more utility to handle both single target and AoE situations.

[dinnertime]

Frankly, I like the concept of a build-up through the use of Aetherflow skills to summon Demi-Bahamut. My problem with it is that it's not so frequent because it takes two Dreadwyrm Trances/Aethers, which made the job more punishing if you die or mess up an Aetherflow stack (which isn't possible now) and it takes very long to achieve that. I do not like how Dem-Bahamut prioritizes movement when he's invulnerable to damage. His attacks should at least be possible to use while he's moving or instead he's kept stationary. I don't like how Wyrmwave functions either and should just be an auto-attack.

Anyway, I'm quite convinced that 4.0's SMN is a "True Summoner" although people aren't still satisfied and just want the job to be even more flashier, but what's more important right now is that it has problems that needs to be addressed.

[aesteval]

Airget: just one comment in regards to changing the aetherflow abilities to something else during trance. Don't change the single target / aoe of the transition. Fester should remain single target and Painflare should remain AoE. Having Fester become AoE and Painflare become single target is counter intuitive and bad design. I like the idea otherwise.

[aesteval]

Would it be OP or appropriate to have Summon Bahamut reset Aetherflow like Dreadwyrm Trance resets Tri-disaster?

[aesteval]

However, it's too late to do that now. Now they need to be more careful about how they implement skills because if they change it too drastically it might upset a lot of players on both sides. I just don't like the argument that it wouldn't work or simply was doomed to fail from the start. It was doomed because not enough thought was put in.

Meanwhile we have a bit of a mess that I'm not sure if either side is happy with anyway.

[aesteval]

Bahamut was a step in the right direction. Maybe will get a real summoner for 5.0

If they take until 5.0 to actually fix summoner it'll be too little too late. I actually have a friend who's irate at how drastic some of the job changes have been. You learn to play something and then suddenly one day it's gone. I have another friend who's taking it a bit better and he plays Bard of all things. But he's still a bit irked at having to completely relearn the job all over again.

[Stormfur]

I really wish they would consider letting summoners cast basic spells, but the real bulk of their power would be to summon many different primals (not just three) with different effects. Bigger primals, like old FF summons had.

[Teryaani]

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.

I'm fine with them having an rdps pet, mdps pet, tank pet and minor spiffs for each. Maybe more pet buffs, swap raise for a revive egi, trait to swap physick for a pet heal. I certainly don't want to see SMN going through the "OP! NERF!" "OMG DELETE SMN!" cycle again and it would be nice for the class to have it's own niche.

I wish they had angled more toward BM hunter than Aff Lock in terms of role design (with the egi being the primary damage in the equation). I am almost definitely in the minority with that opinion, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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.

Totally agree. It's a bizarre mix of things and the pet AI is something special for sure.