Shadowbringer: Summoner Changes Discussion

[Kyohei]

I must say I agree with how crazy the job feels. Especially coming from playing RDM throughout Stormblood, the amount of pressure there is for OGCD and how bad it feels compared to the smoothness of RDM has been very tricky to adjust to. I've been mostly playing by ear and really have no idea if I'm even doing it right.

The other issue is that the lack of pet tanking made the lvl 60-70 SMN job quests extremely difficult. It required chocobo companion, titan shields, and potions to complete and I still died a couple times. I'm not sure if they retuned these quests to compensate for the lack of a meatshield Titan.

Overall, I'm tempted to go back to RDM but I told myself I'd get to 80 on SMN and main it this expansion and I'm sticking to my guns for now.

If you see it as as three layer rotation you'll see just how awesome the job is by making you do more different things compared to other mages (not saying others are bad though, they're also good, but have a different playstyle). SMN whole rotation includes 3 sub rotations: one with dreadwyrm, one with bahamut and one with phoenix and only then it repeats, while other jobs consists of one bigger rotation that repeat itself. Once you notice the layers it's easier to smoothen the whole rotation .
I get it might be overwhelming at first but when you get used to it it's actually very nice to have because there no feeling of being bored to do the same thing. That's only my opinion however, i got bored by all other jobs, except NIN.

Oh, and i remember that lvl 70 quest and i died too twice before clearing it during SB, titan didn't keep aggro so i didn't use him anymore after the second try and went full dps with ifrit. Potions did help though, that's true.

What really annoying now for me is that the pet is literally non-existent in HUD layout. Meaning there's no feedback on what it's doing. You can't track garuda's dot except by looking at the tornado itself or putting her in focal.

[Trensharo]

If you see it as as three layer rotation you'll see just how awesome the job is by making you do more different things compared to other mages (not saying others are bad though, they're also good, but have a different playstyle). SMN whole rotation includes 3 sub rotations: one with dreadwyrm, one with bahamut and one with phoenix and only then it repeats, while other jobs consists of one bigger rotation that repeat itself. Once you notice the layers it's easier to smoothen the whole rotation .
I get it might be overwhelming at first but when you get used to it it's actually very nice to have because there no feeling of being bored to do the same thing. That's only my opinion however, i got bored by all other jobs, except NIN.

Oh, and i remember that lvl 70 quest and i died too twice before clearing it during SB, titan didn't keep aggro so i didn't use him anymore after the second try and went full dps with ifrit. Potions did help though, that's true.

What really annoying now for me is that the pet is literally non-existent in HUD layout. Meaning there's no feedback on what it's doing. You can't track garuda's dot except by looking at the tornado itself or putting her in focal.

That's a pretty weak argument. RDM has a rotation with two layers as well: Melee and Ranged. It flows well, is actually intuitive, and is far more approachable. That's the difference between good class design and a badly-executed salvage job. That's not surprising, though, for obvious reasons.

You're doing 4x as much work for mediocre results. The DPS disparity between Summoner and Red Mage is small enough that it simply isn't worth dealing with Summoner unless you have some sort of RP attachment to the class. It feels absolutely awful to play, and RDM brings decent utility and more available raises (due to easily accessible instant casts).

The same way [s]he can see how "awesome" it is by putting on his/her blinders and deluding him/herself with your cop-out, you can see how "awful" it is by realizing how mediocre it is to do that much more work for disproportionately meager gains.

I'll agree that some people may like the "multi-tasking," if we can even call it that... but let's not kid ourselves here.

At the end of the day, it isn't even about DPS... it's about fun. It isn't fun to play this class outside of questing in the overland zones... This class doesn't even allow one to enjoy the game while playing it.

The way this class is set up isn't even logical, FFS.

[Taranok]

And remember Trensharo, there are vastly, vastly better designed multitasking classes. RDM for casters, and Bard/Machinist/Dancer. As bad as Machinist is post-rework for people on high ping, as bad as it is to maintain drill anchor shot, the class actually does flow, unlike Summoner.

Even by multitasking design, Summoner is badly designed.