How I would want SMN to work.

[Burningskull]

People have been asking for 6 years for SMN to be completely reworked and into their own vision of what a SMN should be. Except they miss the part where what they think it should be is just a black mage with summoned monsters popping out to do the attack animation or simply things that won't work in an MMO in the style of XIV. It's baffling to me. We will never be Rydia or a Caller or Yuna. Rydia was 80% black mage, Callers just used golem and then whatever summon did the most damage in a particular fight, Yuna replaced her whole party for a single party member that did the same thing as any other character could but had bigger stats.

SMN has always been mostly a flashier BLM that did somewhat more damage starting out but for more mp cost. I think SMN should be the BLM of FF14 with BLM being somewhat in the middle of SMN and RDM. But I'm not a game developer lol. So how I want SMN may not be best for the game. But it's still fun to share thoughts and hear others opinions on those thoughts.

[Nyoraii]

People have been asking for 6 years for SMN to be completely reworked and into their own vision of what a SMN should be. Except they miss the part where what they think it should be is just a black mage with summoned monsters popping out to do the attack animation or simply things that won't work in an MMO in the style of XIV. It's baffling to me. We will never be Rydia or a Caller or Yuna. Rydia was 80% black mage, Callers just used golem and then whatever summon did the most damage in a particular fight, Yuna replaced her whole party for a single party member that did the same thing as any other character could but had bigger stats.

So what? MCH and BRD are both ranged weapon users, doesn't mean they both play exactly the same.

SMN should be a bursty magic user just like BLM as it always was, even then there are unlimited ways to make it special. SMN being a dot class is just the devs trying to force it into a niche it was never meant to fill. It's like remaking BLM so that more than half of its dps comes from hitting mobs in the head with his rod and then casting BLM magics on the side, this is what I feel playing SMN at least. Summons are an afterthought, they comprise less than half the dps coming from SMN, it's ridiculous.

[Madoka]

The big difference in SMN and BLM in ff3 was that summons were all aoe and spells weren't unless they specifically stated. This was kind of the same in ff4/5 in that summons were always full power and black magic did less damage when multi-targeted. That's not really a big enough distinction for MMO job classes. Especially when they've gone in hard on black mage being the aoe caster class and never really budged from it. I think any other good ideas of ways to remake SMN have already been taken by RDM's design.

I'm also not saying SMN needs to be a dot class or anything, but there's no reason it can't be either. Rydia's best spell for most of FF4 was Bio.

[Atamis]

We will never be Rydia or a Caller or Yuna.

We don't have to be, but there is little reason they couldn't come close. Yuna summoner would simply be a large summon that comes out and your entire action bar gets replaced for theirs. Rydia summoning would be just like any other summoner, do filler spells that tend to hit hard and have long cast times until summon comes of cooldown or you have the extra mana for one.
If anything we should be more of a Terra style summoner and become the Esper (trance) itself before summoning one, but we're not. We are biomancers and ruiners right now. summons take a back seat to nearly everything.

[Dyvid]

Remove Pets.
Remove Ruin Bio and Miasma.
Remove Trances.
Remove Atherflow or Rework it.
Separate Summoner and Scholar. With the way advanced jobs work there is no reason Scholar needs to be tied to Summoner anymore.

Have actual spells that summon aetherial versions of primals that appear for a few seconds to do their attacks and then leave. This way from lvl 50-60 you could have spells from Ramuh, Shiva, and Leviathan. A spell from Bahamut at 60. Then 60-70 you could have spells from Ravana and Bismark. A spell from Alexander at 70. So on and so on. Have some gimmick where one primal will empower another primal so you have a reason to cast all your spells. Maybe have the Bahamut and Alexander spells combo some how since they are the level capped spells. Or have combos of primal spells build Aetherflow to summon Bahamut or Alexander to do their big attacks. This way your summons are your spells and not just mobile DoTs as people call them.

While I disagree completely of the idea of burn it all down and start over, I do believe the next step for SMN is going to be one and done summon spells. It's the next logical step to pair up with permanent pets and temp pets.

[Taranok]

While I disagree completely of the idea of burn it all down and start over, I do believe the next step for SMN is going to be one and done summon spells. It's the next logical step to pair up with permanent pets and temp pets.

It worked wonders for Machinist though when they decided to pick on a specific aspect of the class and burn the rest down. MCH has a few QoL issues, the biggest being that it is ping intolerant, but it's otherwise in the best place it has ever been since release. And if your ping is fine, MCH has one of the smoothest rotations with only a tiny bit of overall bumpiness to it, it is truly amazing how much better it is for burning the house down and rebuilding fresh using the skeletal remains purely as inspiration.

Well, Summoner is in a very similar boat to how MCH was in SB. It's a disjointed mess that lacks flow and needs help, but it has something almost every summoner can agree on is great despite their flaws (demi-summons). So if it worked for Machinist, they can probably make it work with Summoner. It won't live up to everyone's expectations, I have no illusions of that, but the class can definitely benefit from being gutted and reworked, tearing out what doesn't work, and building upon what does.

Hell, it's really telling when Machinist does summons better than Summoner does with Automaton queen. When the biggest complaint about a pet mechanic is that the thing has 5 seconds of downtime intentionally designed into its summon animation while the countdown is running even though it's designed that way, you know you're off to a pretty good start. And because it doesn't mirror MCH actions, it is guaranteed to do up to 8 auto attacks (iirc) and then do its finisher without mch involvement otherwise.

Now I'm not saying Summoner needs to specifically be that style, but it could be to at least even out the innate damage of the summons. And the really nice thing is, if you look at Firebrand Trance and how it adjusts the rotation just for being in the trance, you could have the summon itself do its own thing while the summoner has a slightly augmented rotation that has a different texture to their at rest rotation so that they channel the summon's power in addition to the summoner doing its thing as well and being awesome about it.

So tearing the house down to fix the foundation is definitely worthwhile, and Machinist definitively proved that it is worth doing.

[Dyvid]

It worked wonders for Machinist though when they decided to pick on a specific aspect of the class and burn the rest down. MCH has a few QoL issues, the biggest being that it is ping intolerant, but it's otherwise in the best place it has ever been since release. And if your ping is fine, MCH has one of the smoothest rotations with only a tiny bit of overall bumpiness to it, it is truly amazing how much better it is for burning the house down and rebuilding fresh using the skeletal remains purely as inspiration.

Well, Summoner is in a very similar boat to how MCH was in SB. It's a disjointed mess that lacks flow and needs help, but it has something almost every summoner can agree on is great despite their flaws (demi-summons). So if it worked for Machinist, they can probably make it work with Summoner. It won't live up to everyone's expectations, I have no illusions of that, but the class can definitely benefit from being gutted and reworked, tearing out what doesn't work, and building upon what does.

Hell, it's really telling when Machinist does summons better than Summoner does with Automaton queen. When the biggest complaint about a pet mechanic is that the thing has 5 seconds of downtime intentionally designed into its summon animation while the countdown is running even though it's designed that way, you know you're off to a pretty good start. And because it doesn't mirror MCH actions, it is guaranteed to do up to 8 auto attacks (iirc) and then do its finisher without mch involvement otherwise.

Now I'm not saying Summoner needs to specifically be that style, but it could be to at least even out the innate damage of the summons. And the really nice thing is, if you look at Firebrand Trance and how it adjusts the rotation just for being in the trance, you could have the summon itself do its own thing while the summoner has a slightly augmented rotation that has a different texture to their at rest rotation so that they channel the summon's power in addition to the summoner doing its thing as well and being awesome about it.

So tearing the house down to fix the foundation is definitely worthwhile, and Machinist definitively proved that it is worth doing.

Yea... except MCH has always had a poor following while SMN has alwasy had a healthy player base. Just because a few people on the boards don't like something doesn't mean everyone doesn't like.

[Atamis]

Yea... except MCH has always had a poor following while SMN has alwasy had a healthy player base. Just because a few people on the boards don't like something doesn't mean everyone doesn't like.

And where are you pulling this data from? It seems the majority of the board is how summoner is needing help. Where are you getting information on ah ealthy player base or mch being poor? It seems you're just counting on your opinion being taken as fact.

[Exodus-E]

Because nobody has the time or care to read through 30+ pages of arguments?

Community reps and developers do.
Also, it doesn't stop the JP side from consolidating everything into a single topic, unlike everyone else who wants to feel "special".

And where are you pulling this data from? It seems the majority of the board is how summoner is needing help. Where are you getting information on a healthy player base or mch being poor? It seems you're just counting on your opinion being taken as fact.

You do realize the hypocrisy/irony of that statement, right?
Especially since not everyone posts their grievances/opinions/etc. on the official forums...

[Duskane]

Well everything is fine for SMN

But to make it feel like a summoner you would just change the visual effects of all the moves

Miasma and Bio get a fire and wind theme
All the ogcd are based on other primals possibly even showing a shadow of the primal so it feels like you're summoning something to use these moves.