Demi-Summoner Idea

[Rollout]

Having a tank is also useful in other areas of the game. Heck, I relied upon him to do the job quests. He's also useful while doing FATEs solo, doing PotD/HoH etc.

Basically, Titan-Egi being a tank is actually useful if you're not just doing Duties in parties and aren't at end-of expansion gear.

There would obviously need to be some adjustments for the job quests to make it work. I admittedly don't remember many of the pre-SB job quests, so I don't remember how much you need Topaz/Titan.

If you're doing enough damage thanks to the summons, then you won't even need a tank. And if it's something that's so strong that you'd need a tank, then it's probably something you shouldn't be soloing in the first place, no? FFXIV is an MMO, after all, so ask your fellow player for a hand.

You do realise that the current Egi's have different utilities right? With Garuda providing the same 10% magic resistance debuff as Emerald Carbuncle and Ifrit providing Radiant Shield which is a physical damage increase debuff.

With them being pretty close in effectiveness.

This neither makes SMN too strong because of overabundant utility, nor makes people only use one type of Carbuncle.

Yes, I'm aware and the community has mostly decided that Ifrit on Sic is just better, with high end players using Garuda and toggling Sic to get her to use Contagion.

So you want to make Summoner feel more like Summoner by making it Bard?

I want to make Summoner feel more like a Summoner by making the Summons the primary focus, yes. Though the theme of the rotation might be the same, they could add abilities to the Summoner to empower the Demi-summons or command them to use their other attacks as oGCDs.

I could get into the DoTs debate, but I tried to leave most of the core gameplay of current SMN intact.

This meant keeping DoTs and skills like Fester, Bane and Tri-Disaster.

Since, honestly, the core gameplay of SMN isn't bad. Build into burst phases with DWT and then get ultra-burst phase with Demi-Bahamut.

Which is why I tried to recreate DWT phases but in a more "Summoner"-y style, where your burst phases are instead summoning Demi-Primals to come and blow stuff up for a short while. With the end reward ending up being the big bad Bahamut to come and deal huge damage.

With in-between burst phases being the standard DoT and utility management while building into the next burst phase.

As I said, I don't think Summoner, at the base level as a job, is a bad concept. Rather, it just doesn't FEEL like a Summoner, it feels like a DoT mage that has a pet. I only feel like a summoner every two minutes, when I bring out Demi-Bahamut. Hell, half the time, I'm not even that concerned with my pet, since they're immune to most AoE damage, outside of any tankbusters that have splash damage.