Suggestion for summoner rework.

[Palladiamors]

Before we begin a couple of things. First off this is not a quick fix, the changes I am suggested would be pretty major and would affect both Arcanist and Scholar as well as the Summoner. What I am proposing are changes to how the summoner interacts with the egi and in making the egi feel both more important and more powerful while actually putting said power in the hands of the player. Think of them as orders, if you will. You're still getting the same effect but the action is coming from the Egi instead of the summoner.

Second, I have no illusions or dillusions of granduer. I am fully aware that what I am suggesting most likely isn't going to make it into the game. I was simply pondering one day and thought to myself "How could an egi be more useful and seemingly more powerful without the summoner being left totally useless in the event of its death?"

Third, I am not a numbers man. The numbers I propose here are based on current numbers and could wind up either being waayyy to much or way to little. Numbers can be adjusted, its the ideas I am trying to get across.

Now then, whats on the chopping block? Bio, Miasma, Bane, and Rouse would all be cut out and replaced. I realize a lot of people like the DoT management of the class but the focus really needs to be more on the summon itself and not on managing three seperate focuses of damage. Rouse is out because Egi's would deal 100% of your damage instead of their current 70%ish. This might sound like a straight up 30% damage increase but considering Devotions up time, its not.

How are egi's changing? Their current special abilities would be removed and replaced with skills focused on dealing damage. Don't worry, I'm not suggesting completely removing them. I'll get to that in a minute. For the melee egi's, they woul gain attacks that work like weaponskills, moving up to the next tier. For Ifrit this is a 140 attack, a 170 attack, and then a 200 finisher. For Titan, a 110, 140, 170. For Garuda we get an air aspected attack of 150 with no cooldown, an air aspected DoT that lasts for nine seconds with a twelve second cooldown, and an air attack with 200 potency with a ten second cooldown.

And now for the summoner. A summoner without an active egi would remain largely the same as it is now. Fester and Painflare would both operate at max damage potential as if the target had two DoT's on them. Tribind and Tridisaster would change but I'll get to that.

With an egi out, however, the summoners entire kit changes to fit the element of the currently summoned egi. I'll cover each of the skills in the order that you learn them.

Ruin becomes Fire with Ifrit summoned and applies a 30 potency DoT in addition to its normal damage. It becomes Earth if Titan is summoned and heals the egi for 20% of the damage dealt. Finally it becomes Wind if Garuda is summoned and hits for 140 potency.

[Palladiamors]

Bio becomes Aetheric shock, and deals 60 potency non-aspected damage and stunning the target for two seconds. With Ifrit summoned it becomes Crimson Cyclone and applies a 20 potency DoT that ticks three times, Titan becomes Landslide and stuns the target for 3 seconds, and with Garuda it becomes Contagion and increases the amount of magic damage the target takes by 10% for 15 seconds and will always apply the Contagion effect, even if the target is immune to stun.

Physick becomes Primal Bond when you become a summoner and heals the target for 400 potency, with your egi being healed for 25% of the healing done to your target. Scales off of intelligence and heals your egi for a total of 500 potency if used on them directly.

Aetherflow is untouched.

Energy Drain becomes Draining Heat when used with Ifrit and applies an HoT to the caster as well as a DoT to the target, dealing 20 potency a tic for nine seconds. It becomes Sapping Mud when used by Titan, healing Titan as well as the summoner. It becomes Exhausting Blast, which hits for 200 potency.

Miasma becomes Aetheric Shield and decreases the damage take by the party by 5% for twenty seconds. With Ifrit it becomes Radiant Shield and causes the target striking to shield to take 2% more damage from physical attacks for 4 seconds. Titan, it becomes Stone Wall and increases to 10% less damage taken. With Garuda, Soothing Breeze and applies a 20 Potency HoT for ten seconds as well.

Bane would be replaced by Painflare and would function as it does now with no summon out, 180 unaspected potency to the target and all nearby enemies. With Ifrit, it becomes Flaming Crush and also applies a 20 potency Dot to the target over six seconds. Titan becomes Mountain Buster and heals the party for 5% of the damage dealt. For Garuda it becomes Aerial Slash and deals 220 potency.

Fester remains the same with no summon out but functions at 300 potency. For Ifrit it becomes Flaming Claw which redirects Ifrit to your current target and applies a fire aspected 20 potency Dot on the target for six seconds. For Titan it becomes Rock Headbutt and redirects Titan to your current target as well as healing him for 20% of the damage dealt. For Garuda it becomes Cutting Wind and deals 340 wind damage to the target.

[Palladiamors]

Ruin 2: See Ruin 1.

TriBind Deal 10 fire potency, 10 Wind Potency, and 10 Earth potency damage to the target and all targets near it, addtionally binds the target. Under Dreadwyrm trance the effect is increased to 25 potency per element and bind is removed.

Rouse is removed and replaced by Rage of Earth. Rage of Earth increases Titans damage by 20% and removes the additional enimity he produces. This allows people to use Titan in dungeons for those who want to use his flavor of support. Lasts until canceled.

Shadow Flare remains the same.

Enkindle remains the same, with buffs in potency to each of the special attacks to help make up for the lack of DoT's.

Painflare replaced by Bane. Bane increases the amount of damage taken by the target by 5%. 15 second duration, 60 second cooldown.

Ruin 3 remains the same with no summon. Under Ifrit it becomes Fire 3 and deals a 20 potency Dot over six seconds as well. Titan it becomes earth 3 and heals Titan for 10% of the damage dealt. Garuda deals 160 potency wind damage to the target.

Tri-Disaster assaults the target with the power of Wind, Earth, and Fire, dealing 75 potency of each element as well as adding a 20 potency Dot to the target and healing the summoner and Egi for 10% of the damage dealt and increasing the potency of Ruin and its variants by 20 potency for 15 seconds.

Dreadwyrm Trance is untouched.

Death Flare is untouched.

Ruin 4 remains the same if no egi is summoned. Ifrit, you guessed it, becomes fire 4 adds a 20 potency DoT to the target, Titan becomes Earth 4 and heals titan for 10% of the damage dealt, and Garuda becomes Wind 4 and deals 250 wind aspected damage.

Aetherpact is untouched.

Bio 3 becomes Aetheric Blast 3 and increases potency to 100.

And everything else remains untouched. All of Titans abilities acrue more aggro if not under Rage of Earth

[Mikaeus_The_Lunarch]

haven't read through every little thing, but just a heads up with touching bio, miasma, and bane: any changes to them would also affect scholars,

[Rongway]

haven't read through every little thing, but just a heads up with touching bio, miasma, and bane: any changes to them would also affect scholars,

There is nothing forcing this to be the case. Without taking any design time, SCH could easily be separated from ACN and made into its own class-less job. The current actions, with their current names and effects, just need to be copied over to a "new" job.

[Shurrikhan]

There is nothing forcing this to be the case. Without taking any design time, SCH could easily be separated from ACN and made into its own class-less job. The current actions, with their current names and effects, just need to be copied over to a "new" job.

Technically, that would take some minute amount of design time to change in to a 30+ job that merely requires a 30 Arcanist. I think it'd be worthwhile, but still, technically, it would.

Sadly, likewise, simply adding a trait at level 30 to make the adjustments to any shared skills would take a minute amount of development time. It can be revealed to players or just work in the background. Also worthwhile it if separate skill balance is actually needed.

Each would give the same result in terms of skill balance. We already see retroactive changes between the two same-class jobs. If one wishes to split 30+ SCH/SMN into separately leveled jobs, the first option is the simplest. If not, the second is both simple and the only viable option.

[Duskane]

haven't read through every little thing, but just a heads up with touching bio, miasma, and bane: any changes to them would also affect scholars,

clearly not when SMN got Bio and miasma trait in SB

[Rongway]

Technically, that would take some minute amount of design time to change in to a 30+ job that merely requires a 30 Arcanist. I think it'd be worthwhile, but still, technically, it would.

By "design time", I strictly meant the time spent coming up with new actions, names, animations, combat gimmicks, lore, and quests of a new job. In that sense, it would require zero design time, as all of that has already been there for five years.

[Lastelli]

Now then, whats on the chopping block? Bio, Miasma, Bane, and Rouse would all be cut out and replaced. I realize a lot of people like the DoT management of the class but the focus really needs to be more on the summon itself and not on managing three seperate focuses of damage.

Why? SMN is a much appreciated job right now, many players clearly like how it works, including DoT management. I mean, they might change some animations to make it look like egis are more relevant (like changing fester animation so that the damage comes from the pet) but other than that, there's really no need to change the job just to make it fit into someone's idea of what SMN should be like.

Anyway, there's no elemental damage in this game (if we exclude BLU's gimmicks). Personally, I think the best thing they can do right now is add more prime-egis and differentiate them by giving them different duration, aoe damage potential and single target damage potential or even party synergy potential, so say you may want to use a "support egi" when all party buffs align.

[Kalise]

Well... As mentioned, changing class skills is simple enough via traits.

I mean, that's how SCH has Broil, while SMN has Ruin I > Ruin III and Ruin II > Ruin IV.

As far as the DoT management vs Summon management... It's hard to really say.

On the one hand, many people like the DoT management (Though, I personally find it a bit meh, given such few DoTs with such similar durations. I mean, it's very similar to WHM keeping up Aero II and Aero III...)

On the other hand, SMN is unique in its capacity to focus on summons. No other job aside from maybe Beastmaster or Puppetmaster would be able to have such a focus on pet management and literally no job would be able to utilize iconic Primals like SMN.

Meanwhile however, there are other avenues for creating a job that focuses on DoT management, it's not a particular trait uniquely associated with SMN (It is associated with Bio/Virus though, given it applies Poison. Miasma... Less so, with it only having a chance to apply Poison in some games)

Personally, I think the biggest issue is the suggestion to use Fire I-IV which are already skills that BLM use. Not to mention, a supposed focus on Summons but then removing the 1 skill to actually boost the power of summons. Like you'd think that with a focus on summons, you'd be able to boost them up temporarily. Also, what about resummoning? It seems like there's more focus on resummoning different Egi to make use of all the different skills as well as resummoning one if it dies because you're pushing more of the SMN's damage into the Egis, why is there nothing about improving the ability to do that outside of the Role Action Swiftcast for an instant summon once per minute?