If you were part of the DEV team what adjustment will you make to Summoner?

[Dralonis]

Make the summons more temp with massive damage, possibly make them like bahamut where you have a enkindle bahamut( ifrit, and garuda). Depending on which you summon, make Ifrit AoE, Garuda ST or something. Also, get rid of them as pets, just have a bahamut like egi but for Ifrit and Garuda (maybe even make it random eventually and make garuda possibly be replaced by shiva and Ramuh replace Ifrit and what not). have dreadwyrm refresh aetherflow and when bahamut is gone (and the dreadwyrm stacks falls off so you don't just go straight into dreadwyrm again right after bahamut), or get rid of Dreadwyrm and maybe aetherflows.

it is in tune with SMNs lore in the past games to make them only there for a short bursts like Bahamut, scale them down slightly, and would no longer need crappy egi's. Personally, I don't care for dots either.

[Cebo]

While I'd love to see an overhaul and change of direction in the next expansion (focusing more on having a variety of short-duration and/or quick damage summons, and making a job like the Beastmaster the game's actual pet class), here are a list of tweaks I'd want to see to the current 4.0 SMN that would at least improve our rotation:

Tweaks

1) Bahamut no longer follows the player
2) Tri-disaster and Addle no longer trigger Bahamut's Wyrmwave
3) Bahamut does not despawn your current egi (so it no longer overlaps with Rouse, Enkindle, and other pet cooldowns, and makes the use of Contagion during Bahamut less clunky) -- this may require some potency nerfs to Bahamut
4) Devotion is targettable by player or made a party-wide buff
5) Aetherflow can either be used in DWS, or gray it out so player cannot accidentally use it during DWS
6) Un-nerf Bane's damage reduction. This was completely unnecessary considering the loss of Contagion's extended DoTs and Miasma II.
7) Change Ruin 3 to bring back a 3rd DoT to SMN's rotation. Rename it if need be.
8) Physick turns into Sustain when equipped with SMN job crystal

[Ariomi]

After thinking about it for awhile.


I think Miasma 3 and Bio 3 should be Aoe dots. (Akin to Aero 3.) Make them shorter, but increase the damage.
Contagion should be reverted to how it previously was, (extending dots) and Bane, made into a skill that increases damage the boss takes. Maybe Summoner only, and give scholar a way to spread dots.
Shadow flare should be a normal spell again.
Devotion should be 5% damage increase and everything to the entire group, but have a longer cooldown and useable in solo play. Maybe 120 sec cd.
Aetherflow is no longer locked behind Dreadwyrm trance, This lets summoner flow, and not get clogged, by a skill named aetherflow.
Bahamut and Dreadwyrm trance have similar mechanics, - Mp cost reduced on spells, damage up, blah blah. This means bahamut no longer uses wyrmwave, only using ahk morn. Instead Bahamut and you attack together, (meaning he just strengthens the summoner's spells. 10-15% damage increase, or halves the cast time for spells.) Then using ahk morn before flying away.
Ruin 3 is changed back to 200 potency. Ruin 4 is a dot that can be used whenever, and get rid of the proc nonsense.
Physic is made useful at healing your pet, or removed.
Enkindle has it's cooldown lowered. (250 potency move on a three minute cooldown!?! Contra sixte is 300 potency on a 45 second cooldown)
Add a new ability called Aethercast. Costs one aether, next spell is instant.

The thought behind these ideas is bringing Summoner's gameplay back to balancing damage more equally between dots, and spells. Taking away damage increases from frustrating pet ai, and giving it to the summoner, so that there is no delay. and just keeping the pets functional, giving summoner better flow little better damage, and much less frustrating.

[Atomos]

I absolutely love the idea of using the summons as like a chain attack kind of thing. Where you work your Aether up to be able to summon one of the first 3 primals(Ifrit, Garuda, Titan) changing your skills that correspond to that particular summon and give them all unique effects/buffs etc. then if you use the abilities of that summon in a certain way you get the choice to summon the next tier of primals(Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan) and use those summons to collect enough aether or whatever to be able to summon a larger primal(Bahamut, Alex etc) to perform a huge attack that depletes the aether that you have accumulated.
Then you start the process over again.

I really love many of the ideas in this thread.

[Sunako]

I would rework devotion, remove damage and healing effect from it and make it 10% damage reduction whole party. Another thing I would change is ruin4 would be instant cast and replace ruin 2 instead ruin 1/3 on proc.

[Il_Gatto_Nero]

About the summons: why can't we have both pets AND summons ?

For summoner, why not have Carbuncle as a '24/7 on the field' pet, with the usual pet bar, and then distinguish Ifrit, Garuda, Titan, Bahamut summons as these special 'primal' summons that disappear after a set period of time, with buttons designed accordingly? While at it, let's revamp some summons.
Also, owing to the arcanist heritage, I think that DoTs and Ruins can help serve to fill in the gap between the big primal summons.

Ability changes to implement the primal summons:

Changes at 30:

• Summon III is removed
• New job abilitites: Primal Summon- Ifrit, Primal Ability

Changes at 35:

• New job ability (i.e. in addition to Fester): "Primal Summon- Titan"

Changes at 45:

• New job ability: "Primal Summon- Garuda"

Changes at 50:

• "Enkindle" is changed to "Primal Enkindle"

Changes at 62:

• Ruin IV and Further Ruin are removed.
• New job ability: "Primal Summon- Odin"
• New job trait: "Syphon Primal Aether", which allows you to gather Primal Aether stacks after summoning Ifrit, Titan, or Garuda
• With the new trait, when one of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan is summoned, "Gathering Primal Aether" status appears for 75 seconds; after the end of 75 seconds, a stack of Primal Aether is granted. Only dying before it completes aborts Gathering Primal Aether. If another primal is summoned when "Gathering Primal Aether" is active, it does NOT revert to 75 seconds.

Changes at 70:

• "Summon Bahamut" is changed to "Primal Summon- Bahamut"
• "Enkindle Bahamut" is removed- use the aforementioned "Primal Enkindle".

How the primals would work:

• Yes, you would have Carbuncle AND one of the primals out on the field at the same time.
• The primals have auto-attacks AND spam something else. For Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan, it would be the current 3-second CD level 1 thingy that the current Egis have, with more potency; For Odin, they do one more attack after the auto-attack, much like Sword Oath; for Bahamut, this would be auto-attack and Wyrmwave. They will attack whatever target the summoner is targeting, regardless of the summoner performing any actions. To stop this, use the Z key to sheathe weapon; using the Z key again would make the primal summons resume attacking.

How "Primal Summon" would work in terms of cooldown and duration:

• Primal Summon- Bahamut and Primal Summon- Odin 20s duration, 30s cooldown, but does not undo Carbuncle summon for the duration
• Primal Summon- Ifrit, Garuda and Titan have 15s duration and 75s cooldown
• The cooldown for each "Primal Summon" starts as soon as the primal appears on the field- either due to the duration expiring or summoning another primal (e.g. if you summon Garuda when Ifrit is out, Ifrit disappears). If the summoner dies with a primal summoned, the primal disappears, but the cooldown does not start to tick.
• The cooldown for each "Primal Summon" is separate.

Resource requirements of the "Primal Summon"s:

• Primal Summon- Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan requires mana
• Primal Summon- Odin requires 2 stacks of Primal Aether, which is accumulated by Gathering Primal Aether
• Primal Summon- Bahamut requires 2 stacks of Dreadwyrm Aether

How Primal Ability and Primal Enkindle would work:

• Primal Ability and Primal Enkindle change based on what primal is on the field at the moment
• Primal Ability has 75 second cooldown, which does not reset if you were to summon a different primal
• Primal Enkindle results in the current primal leaving the field, and its cooldown is 120 seconds
• Primal Ability- Ifrit: Radiant Shield for the party, lasts 30 seconds like now; Garuda: party-wide Devotion minus the damage reduction, lasts 15 seconds; Titan: Granite Gaol (inflicts "Granite Gaol" on the summoner's target and within 6y radius, which works like Bind and Stun combined without having to destroy rocks like in the trials), lasts 10 seconds; Odin, Bahamut: none
• Primal Enkindle- Ifrit: Inferno (potency to be determined); Garuda: Aerial Blast (potency to be determined); Titan- Earthen Ward (20% damage reduction for all party members and summoned pets of party members, lasts 10 seconds); Odin- Zantetsuken (potency to be determined); Bahamut- Giga Flare (potency to be determined)

I thought of giving the primal summons party-wide buffs as well as more firepower; I think summoner can be more than just an occasional nuker. Besides, 3.x was a nice revelation of how the summoner may be expanded upon as an arcanist in addition to managing summons.

[OranGemeo]

I think SMN is a great class (at 70) and is fun enough at 60. It fails miserably at lower levels and there's one proposed change I think could fix this issue.

Enkindle.

I would propose this ability is renamed to "Astral Flow" and would work differently.

Upon activation, your current "egi" would become a mini-primal like Bahamut. They will last for 6 seconds and then immediatley cast their signature move at the end. After this, you would lose your ability to summon that same egi for the entire AF duration. But the game would be nice and immediatley summon the next pet in line for you, where they would come up and cast their current version of "enkindle" ability.

Example: Ifrit Egi > Use Astral Flow > Ruin 2 to get him to attack > He uses Hellfire > Ifrit Egi goes away and Titan is resummoned > Titan uses his current Enkindle spell.

**This could be used in Dreadworm Trance but NOT with Bahamut.

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Other small changes that several have mentioned:

-Sustain
-Important pet abilities should always be on obey, but several it doesn't matter. I would currently say Ifrit's shield and Garuda's Contagion are the only two that *really* matters if you cast them. I'd say scrap obey/sic all together and let those be cast. They should also share the same hotbar spot, incase you change them out (think of the controller user pls)
-I see no reason your pet should stop learning things at 50. Maybe two more abilities for each.