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

[Angry_Evil]

All these suggestions to remove pets from the only pet-based dps class. Maybe you guys don't want a "Summoner" and really just want a Warlock?
If anything, SE needs to reduce SMN's reliance on personal damage and focus more on abilities that command and augment their summons. Like the job name suggests.

Did you ever even play SMN? With how clunky pet control is in this game nobody wants to deal with them anymore. And especially rely on them for decent dps... ANd no SMN is not a pet job at all, it's a mix of jobs and pets aren't even on the 1st place. Summoner shouldn't even be a pet job, something like they did with bahamut is much closer to actual FF summoner. Too bad it's so poorly designed lol. People are asking for revamp and removing of egis exactly cause they want actual summoner job and not this messy mix of things.

[RuneSevalle]

Roar

Oh, I get the reasoning. It's part of why my SMN is only 61. It's still the ONLY pet-based DPS, despite it's terrible design. If I was to re-design SMN, it would be a lot like PUP was from FFXI, with a dot-heavy caster instead of melee for the operator. Pets currently suck in FFXIV. That doesn't mean it has to stay that way. (While we're at big changes though, please change this crap tab-target system. Not sure why WoW's is so much better, but it is.)

[Angry_Evil]

Oh, I get the reasoning. It's part of why my SMN is only 61. It's still the ONLY pet-based DPS, despite it's terrible design. If I was to re-design SMN, it would be a lot like PUP was from FFXI, with a dot-heavy caster instead of melee for the operator. Pets currently suck in FFXIV. That doesn't mean it has to stay that way. (While we're at big changes though, please change this crap tab-target system. Not sure why WoW's is so much better, but it is.)

Well until SE shows us that they're capable of fixing horrible ff14 pets I would be cautious to ask them of anything pet related. Also I bet if they could they would make smn more pet dependable already, but it probably never worked out in their tests lol.

After O3s I still feel that bahamut is a step in the right direction but job needs to be designed more around it with new skills\trances\summons and rotations and not lazy 2 DWT=bahamut. Especially they need to fix this "not skipping 1st dwt=dps loss" thing ASAP...
Also I think it's time to stop feeding us this BS about new egis and change garuda\ifrit to something new like they did with carbuncle. Pretty much same as they're now (1 for melee parties, 1 for magic and tank whatever). Aetherflow system needs a serious rework too. Locking all our damage around 3 stacks that u can't even refresh properly is super dumb.
DoT probably should go too if we want more pet\summons skills. I generally was fine with DoTs in 3.0 and kinda fine with less DoTs in 4.0, whatever. If job will be interesting and fun I don't care if I'll need to handle DoTs or pets.

PS
pet-based DPS that can't even sustain their pets is a joke

[Neela]

It's still the ONLY pet-based DPS, despite it's terrible design.

the problem is the cls' aren't based on pets - egis are just visual dots fairys just visual hots. Even if this job is intended to be "pet-cls" the pets actually need a ground revamp - knowing that SE won't take the effort to completely rebuild the pet-mechanic -> people suggest new mechanics which change pets to trances. SMN in the FF universe were never meant to be pet-cls at all...

[RuneSevalle]

the problem is the cls' aren't based SMN in the FF universe were never meant to be pet-cls at all...

Definitely agree with this for the single-player games, but the other MMO with FF's name on it indeed does have the class as a pet-class (when it isn't being abused as a poor man's healer). Without a VERY substantial re-design, we won't see upkeep costs and the other assorted details that comes with that gameplay, but quite frankly, SMN in FFXIV needs a full re-design either way you look at it.
SE either fixes the pets, or gets rid of them. Neither one will be an easy fix that is likely to be implemented in any normal patch.

[Mapleine]

I would drop it from Arcanist and retool Arcanist to better suit Scholar.

I would move it away from a pet and DoT class and as it isn't an Arcanist no more Soul Shards/Aetherflow, a Summoner isn't a Warlock.

I would base it around a new Aether Gate gauge where you cast nukes in a specific order to open different gates for different Summons. Large variety of Summons, each with a cooldown and have a small selection fulfilling each different role, ie; single target damage, aoe damage, debuffing, etc.

Summoner should be about, well, Summoning. It should be flashy, calling down Shiva for a 3-4 second Diamond Dust animation, then going back to prepare for the next. Summoner should be about nuking with Summons or fading into the Aether to become the Summon. The last thing it should be is a Warlock-style pet class where all of your Summons are glorified imps.

It is amusing because XI and XIV are two games that really get Final Fantasy, especially post-Sakaguchi, but they both botched its most iconic job by trying to turn it into a pet class. Summons are not pets.

[Saefinn]

Honestly?

Make it two jobs.
FFXIV SMN is a great job, I never saw them as real Summoners, but a DoT mage with pets. And people have generally had the opinion it's not truly a SMN and now SE appear to be trying to address that in its changes but at the cost of an already great job.

Whilst I enjoy the changes, I feel two jobs works better.

But I think that in mind there will be a lore issue. However, any good writer can patch that up. We can't Summon actual primals, but maybe could be solved with two schools of Summoning/Summoners? Maybe one is more controlled, hence Egi's, but one is a little more raw and involves a few more forbidden magicks and naughty things to work (after all, WHM's and BLM's do this), where you summon Demi's, but you're using more of your personal aether to do this, so less of a need to cast spells but do it through a Demi. Rough thoughts, but I think should it could be doable in lore and as 2 separate jobs.

[Grimoire-M]

...

If SE split SMN into a completely separate job, they'd likely rework Arcanist into a healer job alongside it. I'd prefer they didn't, but if they did keep the DPS half of Arcanist, Sage would work for it. I'd also recommend adding a new base class, Evoker, to be the pet-based caster to work with SMN.

[ShaolinMike]

1. Make the pet default attacks be auto-attacks instead of casts, which (I think) would help with some of the responsiveness for actions.

2. Remove all pet related actions from the player and place them on the pet so that we don't have to use Ruin II to weave pet actions.

3. Give pets an automatic regen in combat, since sustain has been removed.

[Wolf_Gang]

Lock the class and remove it. Give everyone who leveled a SMN a free level potion for a job of their choice.

Maybe down the line they can introduce a new job like Evoker, that summons a being to perform an attack and disappears but right now SMN is a mess and they need to start over.