How to fix summoners.

[Palladiamors]

There are two schools of thought on how summoners should play in XIV. The first school wants stronger Egi's that are more representitive of their primal forms. The second school of thought wants a more old school variation where summons are single use, strong attacks. The thing is, these two things are not mutually exclusive, and we can in fact have both. And better yet, this propsition requires very little in the way of new art assets.

First things first, remove Aetherflow abilities and put their potency onto Egi Assault's. Ifrit gains 300 potency for Crimson Cyclone and Flaming Crush, with Flaming Crush becoming single target only. Garuda gains 150 potency on Aerial slash and slipstream deals 50 potency, with a 50 potency constant damage. Titan gains 150 potency on Mountain Buster, and I suggest replacing Earthen Armor with Earthen First, a 300 potency attack which also raises a 20% hitpoint shield on you. This makes Titan a middle ground between Ifrit and Garuda. Finally, double the basic special attack power of Garuda and Titan and beef up Ifrits to 200 potency. Right now their basic special attack is anemic and needs a shot in the arm.

Now, for the other side of the fence and the one area that would require some additional art. Summoners would gain a new resource, called Primal Rage. Primal Rage builds up to the tune of 8 rage per primal special attack, and 10 per Egi Assault. This bar is the art I was talking about. At 100 Primal Rage, Enkindle becomes usable. Enkindle now causes your Egi to briefly assume their full Primal form ((But smaller, of course)) and deliver a beefed up version of their former Enkindle abilities. Ifrit deals 600 potency to his initial target with a 60 potency 15 second DoT and half of that to everything in a cone that is not his primary target. Garuda delivers a straight 700 potency attack to the target and all nearby enemies, and Titan delivers a 600 potency attack to his initial target then lays down his 40 potency per tick damage field. This makes Ifrit the king of single target, Garuda AoE, and Titan right in the middle. And now for where all that extra damage is coming from...

Finally, Dreadwyrm Trance remains the same, but now summon Bahamut summons the King of Dragons for a single, 1,300 potency attack that no longer unsummons your current Egi. He then hangs out looking awesome for a second before buggering off into the aether. Phoenix Trance no longer summons Phoenix, but when it ends Summon Bahamut turns into Summon Phoenix which does the same as Bahamut, summons the firebird to deal a 1,300 potency attack and apply her HoT to the party. Yes, this removes their attacks that they deal when you use abilities, but that damage is now tacked onto the new Enkindle.

[Palladiamors]

And there you have it. We have strong egi's, powerful summons, and we cut down on some of the OGCD spam we need to do at the start of fights. Clearly the potencies would need some adjusting ((Not sure if as is they'd be too strong or not strong enough)) but you get the picture. This allows summoners to differentiate from Black Mages while retaining their identity of relying on summoned creatures to fight for them.

[Barta]

Or they'll just.... Not give SMN any of these juicy and wonderful ideas and at this rate let the job be sad for an expansion.

Or slip out lame mini-math adjustments.

[OldeWolfe]

At this point, I would just be happy with a pet that can generate agro for use in fates, leves, hunts and the like...
Having a class that did less damage in exchange for mobility and a pet to assist with both agro dmg, was what I had signed up for when I mained SMN.
Smn for me now...meh.

[Nyoraii]

I like these ideas, but still, they'd have to fix many of the pet's problems as of now to make this work... If the potency is so much more dependent on egis, they'd have to function 100% correctly or our dps loss would be huge.

Also, I think I'd like it more if there was a choice between for example:
>Trancing to Ifrit (best single target dps)
>Trancing to Garuda (best aoe dps)
>Trancing to Titan (maybe buff the party and debuff mobs? that or get rid of it completely)

And then having a choice between:
>Trancing to Bahamut (best single target dps)
>Tracing to Phoenix (best aoe dps)

So on a boss fight you would be trancing to Ifrit->Bahamut normally and to Garuda->Phoenix for ad phases. Maybe to Titan too depending on how they implement it.

But these are all just ideas, in the end what they'll most probably do it just increase some potencies, see people are happy with higher numbers and call it a day.

[Kabooa]

The egis are currently a step away from just being visual representations of the Summoner's buttons. One more step and the 'pet' aspect can be completely removed inf avor of temporary visual augments. (RE: Big monster).

Have more "Egi Assaults" that change based on which Big Monster is out.

[Zerathor]

Or they'll just.... Not give SMN any of these juicy and wonderful ideas and at this rate let the job be sad for an expansion.

Or slip out lame mini-math adjustments.

You're right, they might have to put up with being the most popular savage caster by 50% vs other casters combined instead of 75%. The tragedy.

[Vendalwind]

You're right, they might have to put up with being the most popular savage caster by 50% vs other casters combined instead of 75%. The tragedy.

I don't play SMN yet but looking at the logs even RDM is outdoing them in some percentiles right now, and they do have raises but the gap between them and BLM is HUGE.

Im honestly still surprised there isnt a bigger rant following for them and RDM than there is for NIN right now, but thats cause they do actually still have some outside dps utility.

It's not something to make light of.

SMN is in a bad spot, and IMO would be the class I'd want the least in my raid group of the 3 to fill the caster spot.

[Drayos]

I don't play SMN yet but looking at the logs even RDM is outdoing them in some percentiles right now, and they do have raises but the gap between them and BLM is HUGE.

Im honestly still surprised there isnt a bigger rant following for them and RDM than there is for NIN right now, but thats cause they do actually still have some outside dps utility.

It's not something to make light of.

SMN is in a bad spot, and IMO would be the class I'd want the least in my raid group of the 3 to fill the caster spot.

Really?! What percentiles I haven’t seen any logs with RDM out performing them?

But yeah BLM is defintly king of casters xD haha

[dinnertime]

I don't play SMN yet but looking at the logs even RDM is outdoing them in some percentiles right now, and they do have raises but the gap between them and BLM is HUGE.

Im honestly still surprised there isnt a bigger rant following for them and RDM than there is for NIN right now, but thats cause they do actually still have some outside dps utility.

It's not something to make light of.

SMN is in a bad spot, and IMO would be the class I'd want the least in my raid group of the 3 to fill the caster spot.

People in the english forums are too focused about the playstyle and writing out their own ideal SMN by reworking the fundamentals of the job which isn't really a bad thing, but I'm glad the japanese forums are talking about its low damage problem a lot more, and the devs will probably listen to them more.