Shadowbringer: Summoner Changes Discussion

[Rydia_Misuto]

I've been maining SMN since 2.4 and this new summoner is so miserable to play I miss doing World of Darkness back in the day because at least then I didn't have to struggle with pet AI that is comically incompetent. New SMN feels so bad I can't tell if it's intentional or not that I consume stacks of egi attacks when I try to chain them but the egi doesn't do the thing. Our APM has been cranked through the roof so we can do less damage than we ever have, it doesn't feel rewarding to get down the mechanics and I legitimately don't understand what the goal is here design-wise if it isn't "make it more complicated so it's more complicated". Stormblood summoner was a good place, and the only complaints I had then were that Demi-Bahamut being glued to us and unable to cast Akh Morn while moving feels bad.

Pet AI, especially pathing AI, has always been the weakest aspect of the job and I don't understand the decision to make it even more prominent. Being unable to stack aetherflow out of combat and the stacks being dropped from 3 to 2 feels like a pointless downgrade that exists to be annoying.

SMN is too painful to play past 70, I've given up on it for now, but I don't want to main RDM either because its casts feel too slow. I miss being able to run and spam spells like I'm a ranged DPS and not lose anything for it. Maining MCH til this gets fixed because at least there when I have to weave OGCDs constantly I know that I press the button and the attack happens.

SMN feels like I have to put in three times the effort for less benefit than a RDM or BLM both, and both feel more satisfying to pull it off than SMN. Please give me my favorite job back, so much of Shadowbringers is fantastic, I just want to be able to enjoy this and Astro again.

[NovaBismarck]

I don't believe anyone is arguing that there were good changes to summoner, bane, instant cast pets and the like.

Even high percentile players feel like the rotation is off. If someone who can execute the class to such a high degree is not particularly jazzed about the flow, something is wrong. The problem is flow and if flow is off then the whole quality of life of summoner is off. It definitely needs some rework.

I know the rotation, I'm following Tsundere's rotation as of now. I understand the breakdown of the rotation and I still am not a fan. There are too many clunky issues that just don't integrate smoothly. Reading through Balance discord is enlightening as far as understanding how the class stands. I'll still be on the forums complaining about QoL changes until we get them.

[dinnertime]

BLM is a lot more mobile than the other casters now and it's sad. The only thing SMN and RDM is good for atm is rez and it's so niche. I guess it's time to ditch SMN after 5-6 years of maining it, and come back to my og starting job BLM. I've been through thick and thin with SMN and its awful reworks but this was the last straw. I might come back if it's actually fixed but I don't think it can top the level of good design BLM is in right now.

Also I tried PvP SMN and imo it's honestly so much better. It doesn't have a lot but I think the idea of having no Egis, frequent Demi summons, DWT/Deathflare being tied to summoning Bahamut and then having Ruin IV replace Ruin III (although I wish it was instant cast) is something I want for PvE SMN.

[Taranok]

BLM is a lot more mobile than the other casters now and it's sad. The only thing SMN and RDM is good for atm is rez and it's so niche. I guess it's time to ditch SMN after 5-6 years of maining it, and come back to my og starting job BLM. I've been through thick and thin with SMN and its awful reworks but this was the last straw. I might come back if it's actually fixed but I don't think it can top the level of good design BLM is in right now.

Also I tried PvP SMN and imo it's honestly so much better. It doesn't have a lot but I think the idea of having no Egis, frequent Demi summons, DWT/Deathflare being tied to summoning Bahamut and then having Ruin IV replace Ruin III (although I wish it was instant cast) is something I want for PvE SMN.

Don't forget that PvP summoners use Energy Drain specifically to get 1 stack of Aetherflow each, and they need 2 stacks of Aetherflow to enter a trance, whereas Fester is a means of spending Aetherflow when you can't trance, and similarly has a cooldown as well. It's clunky but somehow feels better than maintaining the PvP DoTs.

It is certainly a unique take on the current Summoner, and if they deleted the DoTs outright in PvP, it would certainly be an interesting, if bizarre, rotation as everything is tied to building aetherflow moreso than spending it.

[dinnertime]

Don't forget that PvP summoners use Energy Drain specifically to get 1 stack of Aetherflow each, and they need 2 stacks of Aetherflow to enter a trance, whereas Fester is a means of spending Aetherflow when you can't trance, and similarly has a cooldown as well. It's clunky but somehow feels better than maintaining the PvP DoTs.

It is certainly a unique take on the current Summoner, and if they deleted the DoTs outright in PvP, it would certainly be an interesting, if bizarre, rotation as everything is tied to building aetherflow moreso than spending it.

Honestly? I think the concept would work out really well for PvE too, and I think it's better than what we have even if it needs work. Even better if we can just spend an Aetherflow stack to refresh DoTs without any sort of downtime (Tri-Disaster but it's BRD's Iron Jaws except applies Ruination if both DoTs are up) to get rid of how annoying it is to re-apply both DoTs manually again, or just get rid of DoTs then add something more engaging and SMN-like, maybe to spend Aetherflow on while waiting for Trances like with Fester, to keep us from just spamming Ruin.

It would centralize the job in managing Aetherflow than 3 to 4 things at once like it is right now. Idk if it's a good idea though lol

[Taranok]

I just don't like Aetherflow as a mechanic. It's somewhat archaic and redundant since it's a cooldown to gate other cooldowns which gate other cooldowns (in SB's case).

In reality, the class is at its best when it's directly controlling demi-summons, and I mean more than "The demi-summon copies our GCDs to do its own GCDs." Which is bad design for other reasons. If you took the concept of Enkindle Bahamut/Phoenix, and stretched that into a rotation all to its own you ran during the summon itself, mixed in with your own personal GCDs that changed a little depending on which summon was out, and then expanded the number of demi-summons, that captures the essence of summoner better overall.

Each summon can also have some sort of party utility. Phoenix can offer light healing utility mixed with perhaps some bonus healing, Bahamut can increase damage done by the party, you could have Ifrit which gives GCDs by the party a chance to proc extra damage attacks (Eruptions, of course), and Titan, which can pulse out a barrier on the party to slightly reduce incoming damage.

Then just delete Aetherflow outright and pace the rotation to be like, Ifrit->Titan->Bahamut->Phoenix on a 2m or so total cycle time and bring the numbers to a realm of sanity and boom, done.

You take abilities like Egi-Assault, Enkindle, and your standard ruins and adjust rotations based on what pet is out. An example of possibilities is looking at DWT's rotation (if you combined it with DB) versus FBT's rotation. FBT is 1-2-1-2 whereas DWT is 1-1-1-1. You can add oGCDs such as a 20s cooldown 2 charge ability for a bit of burst, or a 5s cooldown and mix it in with a 10s cooldown such as enkindle.

Completely get rid of things like Wyrmwave and make it so the pet exclusively acts from oGCDs or GCD commands. You could even go so far as to make it so Brand of Purgatory and Fountain of Fire directly commands the pet to do that specific attack, and the summoner does nothing personally so it comes exclusively from the pet. Then as long as pet movement isn't an issue, boom, summoner. You can just trance on a 30s cooldown to enter it at this point.

Possibly finish this off with a "The pet will always finish all executed commands before leaving, but you cannot execute any more commands after X seconds." to fix early jumps killing the pet (in other words, make the command to leave an action queued up automatically by the pet that is cast right as thhe timer ends, but is executed after it finishes its queue).

[dinnertime]

Yeah, that's a better approach with things while improving more on its job fantasy. Actually it was something I've been asking for since Stormblood. I am also fine with Aetherflow being gone than becoming a quick, infinite resource like in PvP, like you said it's pretty archaic. I've even said in one post that Aetherflow skills should just be charged-based instead. I'd like to see SMN in general be trimmed down of its pretty redundant mechanics and buttons since it suffers bloat the most of every job right now.

Hopefully they do replace (or at least upgrade at higher levels) the Egi's to become Demi's, and Demi Primals are improved upon. Personally I see the rotation being more like Ifrit/Titan/Garuda to Bahamut then Ifrit/Titan/Garuda to Phoenix, with the trio being their own shared, separate trance from Bahamut and Phoenix acting as downtime filler between them while still being the same or at least weaker.

Not too sure if they can pull off pets being able to snapshot commands and execute everything after the timer like that though, especially with this game's noodle code.

[Nyoraii]

If you're talking about your ideal for SMN, mine is this:

Elemental Trance

• Can acess spells from elemental primals: Ifrit, Garuda, Titan, Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva
• When you use a spell, the summon appear like in the official art, uses the skill and goes away, just an animation
• Could have single target fire burst, a wind AoE, a water AoE, earth buffs, ice debuffs
• Each spell you cast fills a summoning bar

Summon Demi-Primal 1

• Requires a full summoning bar and Elemental Trance
• Needs a target, summons a random primal to attack a target
• Before leaving (or if commanded) it casts its finisher: Hellfire, Whisperwind, Gaia's Wrath, Tsunami, Judgment Bolt, Diamond Dust
• After you summon a demi-primal, you gain one Aether

Primal Trance

• Requires 2 Aether to be casted
• Can acess spells from stronger primals: Bahamut, Phoenix, Alexander, Odin
• Fills the summoning bar with primal energy

Summon Demi-primal 2

• Requires a full summoning bar and Primal Trance
• Needs a target, summons a random primal to attack a target
• Before leaving (or if commanded) it casts its finisher: Akh Morn, Revelation, Divine Judgment, Zantetsuken

THIS would be the ideal Summoner, every spell comes from Summons, a million times better than current iteration. No relying on dots that have nothing to do with what a Summoner should be. Also Elemental Trance could be the default state of a Summoner, no need for a stance for that. Could reduce the number of Summons if this proved to be too much work to animate and etc.

[Roda]

Alright I don't wanna have to make my own thread about it so I'll post it here since we're talking about ideal summoner designs:

Here's my overhaul
(It's gonna be a work in progress for a bit as I refine stuff, but I think I've got most of my idea across)

[Vitreus]

Anyone else feel like the pet change really didn't accomplish what they wanted it to? Sure it's more involved than just auto attacking but it's still not involved in any of our major class mechanics. DWT, Aetherflow, Bahamut, Firebird, none of them are actually involved with our summon. I feel like the egi assaults should have been incorporated with the old system to put us into the trance. Maybe assault 1 and 2 correspond to single-target/aoe and combo with fester/painflare?

Also I really hate how DWT works now with aetherflow. Everything just feels disjointed. I get they wanted to reduce how long our rotation lasted but they kind of threw the baby out with the bath water by just flat out removing it.