Summoner’s job identity

[Cabalabob]

SMN lately is in a good place gameplay wise, strong raider and it’s rotation flows decently well.

But to get to this point it has gone through a lot of experimentation and it has left the jobs identity in kind of a stewpot of ideas that the devs have tried to blend together.

DoTs, aetherflow, trance, egi, Demi primals. More than half of which have nothing to do with summoning.

Now while DoTs and ruin are fine as just things for the smn to cast as filler spells, I feel like trance and aetherflow moves, particularly fester, are moves that draw attention too much to the caster than the pet and make it feel more like it’s still an arcanist than it is a summoner.

So I think SMN could still use a bit of work, not primarily to its gameplay, but mostly to bring it back in line with the summoner identity.

Let’s start with Arcanist:
For the most part, it’s fine, arcanist is essentially the filler spells for summoner, DoTs and ruin are something to keep it busy between pet related things, and it works as a “base” class, I even like the synergy between Demi-primals attacking when you do and egi buffing ruin 2 into ruin 4, the problem is when it starts to leak into summoner with things like fester which we’ll talk about later.

Egi:
Now Ifrit and Garuda are fine really. In HW I disliked that they were mostly just a glorified auto attack, but with the introduction of Demi-Bahamut and the ability to glamour them into what they really are, weak little carbuncles, I think that suits them. They attack and occasionally use a utility move in contagion or radiant shield. They also have their mostly ignored stun and knockback and their little AoEs, all fine.

But Titan, he has suffered greatly, even in ARR he wasn’t that good at his job, but HW and SB have just crippled him further and further. With the introduction of trance in HW he simply could not keep hate, he was designed to outpace a SMN throwing DoTs and ruin 1, not ruin 3 and deathflares. This was compounded by summoning Demi-Bahamut resetting titan’s enmity when he’s resummoned, he’s never gonna catch up after that.

What Titan really needs is a provoke. But the obvious concern here is Titan replacing OTs to eat tank busters, as a well co-ordinated static could abuse the hell out of that. But what if he had a provoke that put him +1 above the SUMMONER’s enmity? After all, Titan is primarily a solo pet and is meant to protect his summoner, not the party.

I think that replacing titan’s earthen ward with an ability similar to ultimatum (AoE provoke on tanks) that puts him above the summoner’s enmity on all targets would go a long way to fixing his problems. The lost 20% mitigation from earthen ward could then be tacked onto rouse giving him more uptime on it to make him sturdier, while not doing much damage to balance on the other two.
(We could also talk about physick as a pet heal here but since that’s an absurdly controversial topic I’ll leave that can of worms shut for now).

Moving on to aetherflow:
I feel like aetherflow was a real missed opportunity to give the egi some power and put more focus on them than the summoner.

Fester and painflare are great for dps but why did they have to be something used by the summoner? Why couldn’t fester be a mini enkindle that makes the egi do a 300 potency attack not tied to DoTs? Why couldn’t painflare be an AoE version?

These moves don’t tie into summoning at all, fester is clearly arcanist and painflare seems like something you’d use in trance but isn’t even related to trance. Change these to be egi-related moves that require aetherflow charges and it goes a long way to making summoner pet focused again.

Speaking of trance:
I never liked trance, it’s only loosely connected to summoner at all and was the point where summoner went full on black mage with a pet for an auto attack.

While trance is an interesting concept that could have been turned into an entire job in its own right, it does not suit summoner at all.

Demi-Bahamut on the other hand has been a step in the right direction. And Demi-primals could be a great mechanic to replace trance.

Instead of going into trance after 3 aetherflow attacks, what if you summoned a demi-primal? E.G. with Garuda egi you’d summon Demi-Garuda, with Ifrit egi, Demi-Ifrit, with Titan egi, Demi-Titan.

These demi-primals would work exactly like Demi-Bahamut with a bit of trance mixed in, they’d attack when you cast and at any time you can use the demi-summon (trance replacement) button to cast their ultimate attack (deathflare replacement) and end the summoning, going back to your egi. After 2 Demi-primal summonings you’d be able to summon Demi-Bahamut who works like normal.

Conclusion
With that, all the stewpot is gone, instead of DoTs > arcanist attacks > trance > bahamut,

We have DoTs > egi attacks > demi-primal > bahamut.

Little has changed in the way of rotation or gameplay but the job is more pet-centric, the meat of the rotation relates entirely to its summoned pet with a few arcanist filer spells to keep the summoner themselves involved. All the pets can fulfill their relevant role and balance is maintained.

I know it’s unlikely anything like this will happen as trance is firmly locked in by the story quests now, but it’s nice to think how SMN could have been reworked to be an actual pet focused job rather than the mess of ideas thrown at the wall to see what stuck we have now.

[Brightamethyst]

I always felt that HW was a missed opportunity in terms of making the job more 'summoner-like'. They could have called Painflare Thunderspark and given it a Ramuh animation. Tri-Disaster could have been Acid Rain with a Levi animation, etc. It would have been a really easy way to add the classic summoning feel while having no effect on gameplay or balance.

[Jandor]

Sounds alright.

Dreadwyrm trance into 'Primal Pact': turns your currently summoned egi into a demi version of itself.
Deathflare into 'Enkindle II': orders your pet to unleash a large attack, ends your pets demi-form.

Would need to retcon the SMN quests though, it's written into them that you go the trance route and use it to kill an Ascian.
Needs a rewrite to state you go the boost your currents egi's power route, and then use that to kill an Ascian I guess, maybe the level 60 quest could be a preview of the fact you get to summon Bahamut eventually. Would have been a dick move back when 60 was the level cap but not so bad for a retcon.

I'd also rename Summon Bahamut to Summon IV and Enkindle Bahamut to Enkindle III, but that's just me being particular.

[FFgame]

To block my view with your big arse pet

[Zerathor]

To block my view with your big arse pet

I gotta say this^

Summon animations for most little spells would be really cool, and more 'summoner' like, but everyone (yourself included) will end up turning off your animations when it fully blocks all view of the floor every 5 seconds.

[Kabooa]

I gotta say this^

Summon animations for most little spells would be really cool, and more 'summoner' like, but everyone (yourself included) will end up turning off your animations when it fully blocks all view of the floor every 5 seconds.

Not much different than currently with the amalgamation of all skill animations going off.

Appropriate but unobtrusive skill animations would be key here, and I think there can be quick and easy ones.

Painflare: Mini-Titan coming down and doing a quick smash, roaring, and dissipating.
Shadowflare: Mini-Frit blazing up an area with a translucent flame dome. (Literally put Minifrit at the center of current)
Bane: Mini-Ruda blasting an area with wind.

They wink in next to the Summoner, scaled down in size, do the animation, wink out.

[Ordoric]

summoners identity in this game is DPS

[Mordoni]

So, Form Before Function?

We have RDM for that.

[Thatusernameistaken]

I actually really love the ideas in this thread for cool summoner abilities that actually make use of our summons. Let's keep the idea train going!

[zuzu-bq]

Although I know many players that enjoy SMN, its a mess design-wise. Its idendity is pretty clear though, its a Pet-managing DPS class right now with its lore being drawing powerful from Primals we've got in contact with and Bahamut is the most powerful of all.
The problem isn't its if the identity is solid or not, it is that its identity is based on a system that barely works.