Summoner Redesign 2.0 Shadowbringers Edition

[Kaiserdrache]

Summoner is a Job, which I absolutely want to see getting fundamentally change, together with the Scholar. The Job is so incredibly messed up and flawed and due to this doen't play out how a Summoner should act in my opinion.


First something on the fundamental basic changes I'd do with the Summoners:

- Give them in Limsa Lominsa an own Starter Class, the Herold
- Herolds/ Summoners don"t use Books, they use Warhorns with that they are calling.
- Alisae is like her Brother an Arcanist, before she becomes Redmage, unlike him she simply doesn't like Carbuncles, say due to some personal reasons we might get to know somewhen.
- All Summoner Books get renamed and become Scholar Book Glamours

Following Skills get removed

- Bio/ Bioga
- Miasma/ Miasga
-Physick
- Ressurection
- Fester
- Energy Drain
- Bane
- Energy Siphon
- Painflare
- Tri-disaster
- completly Bahamut and Phoenix get redesigned
- Outburst
- All pointless Summon Controll Skill, cause they can't be targeted anymore, only Summon and Sacrifice/Remove needed.

The Job basically should get the whole Machinist treatment, because 50% of this Job's skills are - sorry to say that - just unfitting garbage that has NOTHING TO DO WITH BEING A SUMMONER.

As you will realize, removing those skills above will mean naturally, that the Summoner will lose Ether as Sub Mechanic. It will become a Scholar only-mechanic. Summoners will use a new Mechanic instead - Sacrifices, with Familiars as Ressource.
Now able to summon up to 3 independant Familiars and based how many you sacrifice, allows you to do something different

1 Sacrifice > Allows you to ressurrect a fallen Ally, but the sacrificed Egi (Avatar) can't be resummoned for 2 Minutes.
2 Sacrifices > Grants a combined Group Buff based on which Familiars have been sacrificed
- Ifrit grants Damage Boost
- Garuda grants Critical Boost
- Titan grants Defense Boost
- Leviathan grants Health Regen over time
- Ramuh grants Skill/Spell Recharge Speed Boost
- Shiva grants Mana Regen over time
- Odin grants Movement Boost
- Bismarck grants Magic Defense Boost
- Ravana grants Magic Damage Boost

Only the first thee are learned via Main Story, the others will be learned via new optional Summoner Side Quests retroactively added.

3 Sacrifices > Summon a Guardian Force out of 3 Options
- Bahamut
- Alexander
- Phoenix

[Kaiserdrache]

With so much skills removed, I'll show first, which new Skills will come as replacements.

Summoner Skill List:


Level 1 > Ruin

Level 2 > Call/Summon and Sacrifice Summon and Remove Summon
Moved from 4 to Level 2

Level 4 > Nova
Deal Damage over time to targets in your ground target that are hit by the fire rain of small Meteorites at the place.

Level 6 > Protes
Cast a supportive spell upon your Familiar and you that reduces your received damage by 5% per Familiar/ Avatar near you.

Level 10 > Summon Assault
Renamed to get rid of this term Egi

Level 12 > Nodabba
Summon a Sphere of expanding Sunlight that deals damage to nearby targets and blinds them over time periodically

Level 15 > Loud Call/ High Summon
Enables you now to summon two Familiars/ Avatars together.

Level 18 > Encouragement
Enables your Familiars/ Avatars to attack faster and more often critically temporarely.

Level 26 > Inspiration
You command your Familiar/ Avatar to be more creative in Combat, the results of that are based on the summon different.
Gets more Effects so more Summons you have, starts with Carbuncle naturally.
- Carbuncle > Performs Ruby Light to absorb with a Barrier a next dealt damage that is of maximum 30% of your party members Max Health.
- Ifrit > All gain Fire Auras that reflect 10% received Damage, including Ifrit self and cause Burnings as damage over time, which stacks in time per hit Fire Aura.
- Garuda > Empowers Party Auto Attacks with Wind Bursts that can interrupt targets.
- Titan > Creates all over the place Rock Walls that can protect from most AoE Damage when standing behind them. Exceptions exist naturally. Damage destroys walls, so each wall is a 1 time protection
- Ramuh > Casts an Electric Field to paralyze targets inside of it.
- Shiva > deepfreezes enemies, making them unable to move and attack, attacking frozen targets ends the effect, but is 100% direct critical.
- Leviathan > sends a Tidal Wave, that removes negative effects, and washes foes away from you, drenched in water vulnerable to lighningbased attacks.
- Odin > Uses Gungnir for a powerful line of sight attack.
- Bismarck > Breathes deeply and creates a cloudy mist that lets allies regain some MP
- Ravana > Copies itself to perform with each of an Allies Auto Attack an additional hit from a Ravana-Copy, like a flying blade that soars through the air.

Level 30 > Grand Summon/ Summon Ritual of Sacrifice
Allows you to summon now up to 3 Avatars and with a sacrifice with them to summon later Guardian Forces via the upgraded Summon Ritual, once 3 Avatars are there.

Level 35 > Empowerment
Increase the Potency of your Summon Assaults temporary

Level 38 > Ruinra

Level 40 > Secondary Summon Assault ( getting rid of idiotic I's n' II's as well)

Level 45 > Enkindle, renamed to Enrage
Moved from 50 to Level 45

Level 50 > Avatar of Odin, Avatar of Leviathan, Avatar of Shiva and Avatar of Ramuh (Optional Quests), Avatar of Bahamut

Level 52 > Protera
An alternate Version of Protes, which grants the supportive effect to allies near to your Avatars.
Gets later a chance to become Protega, which grants the defense boost near Avatars to the whole Party with 8% per Avatar up.

Level 54 > Ruinga

Level 56 > Abbadon
An alternate version of Nodabba, summoning a Black Hole of Darkness, which deal just once strong damage to foes staning in the effect of Nodabba, drawing all nearby foes to it's epicenter, where the strong hit happens.
Cancels the effect of Nodabba. Deals more damage, so closer Nodabba was before ending.

Level 58 > Protega

Level 60 > Avatar of Bismark, Avatar of Ravana (Optional), Avatar of Alexander

Level 62 > Ruinka

Level 64 > Ether Pact/ Devotion

Level 66 > Supernova
An upgraded version of Nova, that ends with a bigger Meteor crushing into the ground target lastly when the skill ends that deals more damage so more meterites have hit something before.
Has a chance to change Supernova into Big Bang later.

Level 70 > Summon Limit.
Is your Guardian Force enraged, then you can activate the Summon's Limit Break, which are the following 3 Skills
- Bahamut > Terraflare > Deals roomwide Damage.
- Alexander > Holy Judgment > Not as powerful as Terraflare, but timestops enemies for a short moment, until the damage is dealt. Only 1 Alexander can be there at any given time. If one Alexander is up, can summon other Summoners in Raids only Bahamut or Phoenix.
- Phoenix > Ashes of Rebirth > Not as powerful as Terraflare but causes Burnings as DoT to targets and can revive allies without having to sacrifice Avatars, Phoenix sacrifices itself in order to be reborn from its ashes.

Level 72 > Avatar of Phoenix

Level 80 > Big Bang
Upgrade Effect of Supernova, which you summoned. When the last Meteor appears and Big Bang was active, then will be the poteny of it further increase and on impact will happen a roomwide Shockwave that deals addiotional damage to all targets with a diminishing effectr from the 3rd target on minus 10% for eachit hit target more (maximum minus 50%)
Big Bang activates if the small Metorites deal 10x damage before the Meteor of Supernova comes.

[Kaiserdrache]

How do Summons , especially the three big G.F's work?:


Familiars & Avatars

Those are very simple explained.
The plaer either summons them, removes them, or lastly sacrifices them.
Each tim you either summon or sacrifice an Avatar, your summoner's new reworked " Ether Gauge" will increase.
Summoning an Avatar just costs Mana, but summoning the Guardian Forces, the big 3 High Avatars Bahamut, Alexander and Phoenix will require the Ether Gauge to be filled through sacrifices.

Once you summon a Guardian Force, each of them has an own timer that counts down in a similar shown way like the Ninjas' Huton UI (in fact I'd just like to reuse that here, based on my Ninja Reconcept removing Huton).
Reaches it 0, ends the G.F. and needs to be resummoned again.


Familiars and Avatars have just like G.F's all their very own Skill Sets.
While Avatars and Familiars have only 2 Assault Skills, 1 Inspiration Skill and 1 Enrage Skill that they use on command, do have G.F's own Skills to use, which can't be commanded - the G.F's A.I completely organizes the usage of them alone like Trust NPC's can fight for themself alone, without needing any commands.


Bahamut Skills:

Limit: Terraflare
Enraged: Gigaflare > More poweful Megaflare , bigger Radius
Normal:
- Megaflare (former Deathflare) > deals short radiused AoE Damage
- Akh Morn > Is multiple singet target damage over time that follows the target like a trail
- Wyrmwave > G.F Buff, that supports your Ruin type spells with Megaflares
- Impulsive Wings > Creates strong Wind Impulses, that interrupt foes Auto Attacks and interruptable Skills.


Alexander Skills:

Limit: Holy Judgment
Enraged: Divine Spear > Conelike AoE Attack, which can ignore the enemy defense and hits critically.
Normal:
- Restraining Order > Binds two targets together dealing damage over time, if they dont move away from each other too far. Stops a single target for a second, if there is only 1.
- Punishing Heat > Activates an efect on the target which damages it whenever the target attacks as a reactive punishment.
- Blazing Scourge > G.F Buff, that lets your used Skills cause additional Burnings and lets you cause Aoe Damage, when you kill targets that are a blazing scourge by your attacks.
- Radiant Sacrament > Deals in a cross shape damage to targets.


Phoenix Skills:

Limit: Ashes of Rebirth
Enraged: Scarlet Flame > Stronger version of Fountain of Fire, grants additionally Allies a Fire Aura like Ifrit's Inspiration, but no Burning, therefore stronger Damage Reflection, overwrites Ifrits Fire Aura.
Normal:
- Fountain of Fire > Deals AoE Damage
- Brand of Purgatory > Deals AoE Dmage with big Bonus Damage for each removed negative Effect. Removes 3 negative Effects.
- Revelation > Deals single target damage now, but weakens first the target with 3 negative effects to decrease attack power, defense and slows targets.
- Everlasting Flight > Heals the Party over time

[Kaiserdrache]

The Familiar Skills for Carbuncle, Ifrit, Garuda, Titan stay untouched. Just thei Inspirations added.

Ifrit
Inspiration:
Flaming Presence.

Carbuncle:
Ruby Light

Garuda:
Storm Fists

Titan:
Rock in the Surf


Shiva Avatar

Enraged: Diamond Dust > Big AoE damage. Can also blind targets.
Assault Skill: Freeze Lancer > Sends out a volley of Ice Spears to the target and nearby foes of it.
Secondary Assault Skill : Snow Queen > Creates a snow blizzard to cause damage over time that reduces also enemy movement speed
Inspiration: Deepfreeze


Ramuh Avatar

Enraged: Bolt of Justice > Deal Aoe Damage, more so, so lesser your health is.
Assault Skill: Thunderstrike > A lighning crushes into a target, as fast disappered as happened. massive single target damage.
Secondary Assault Skill: Chain Lightning > Damage that jumps over from target to target as long there are targets that haven't been hit yet.
Inspiration: Stasis


Leviathan Avatar

Enraged: Flood > AoE damage stronger than Tidal Wave
Assault Skill: Cascading Geysirs > Geysirs cascade under the targets and launch hit foes into the sky, if not too big/ heavy.
Secondary Assault Skill: Maelstrom > Deal AoE damage that draws in to bind targets .
Inspiration: Tidal Wave


Odin Avatar

Enraged: Hall of Valhalla > Buffs nearby Alles with increased damage and criticals hits, should you die with this effect on, can you be ressurrected 50% faster with 25% more health.
Assault Skill: Einherjar > A strong defense ignoring single target attack.
Secondary Assault Skill: Sleipnir > Temporary increases everyones Movement Speed, recharges Sprints and does a line of sight attack like a gallopping Sleipnir rushing through them.
Inspiration: Gungnir's Fang


Bismarck Avatar

Enraged: Heaven's Fall > AoE damage from above, that can interrupt targets, deals more damage if targets health is under 50%
Assault Skill: Whale Slap > Slap with the back fin to the ground, cause damage in a cone. Allies in that cone get healed based on the dealt damage to targets in the cone.
Secondary Assault Skill: Zephyr Stream > Creates e line buff that grants allies standing in it a high chance to dodge incoming Auto Attacks.
Inspiration: Soothing Clouds


Ravana Avatar

Enraged: Wrath of the Colony > Strong repeated single target damage, 1 hit for each alive ally to a random nearby target.
Assault Skill: Blade of the Colony > Deals consecutively each time a bit more damage so more oftenly this skill hits the same target, up to a bonus of max 200% to the Base Potency, each hit increases the potency by 20%.
Secondary Assault Skill: Community > Raises everyones Max Health temporarely for each alive member of the party by 2%
Inspiration: Butterfly Effect

[CrimsonGunner]

you have all summons under one skill but how do you pick which avatar summon you want to come?

[Marxam]

They could just easily change the three egis into Primal Materia representing Red Materia (melee physical), Blue Materia (ranged magic), and Yellow Materia (tank support). Each materia can be attuned to a type of primal and using it will enter a "Primal Trance". SE should just get rid of egi's entirely and focus on trances since it feels more like a sumoner to summon primals to get the to do their signature move. The models are also already in-game and usable by the player in HoH.

Examples of an ability tool tip for Red Materia but the other two are the similar with varying difference. Red is for single target, Blue is aoe, Yellow is party buffs.

Ability: Red Materia
-Summons attuned Demi-Primal, Ifrit or Shiva, to fight by your side. Each time you cast a spell on an enemy, Demi-Primal will execute an attack of 100 potency on the same target.
Duration: 20s. Recast 90 secs. Cannot be used while Bahamut Trance, Firebird Trance or Judgment Trance is active.

Ability: Red: Signature Attack
-Orders your Demi-Primal to execute its Signature Attack.

Ability: Signature Attack: Inferno
-Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 500 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Can only be executed while Demi-Ifrit is summoned.
※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.

Ability: Signature Attack: Diamond Dust
-Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 500 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Can only be executed while Demi-Shiva is summoned.
※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.

[DustyBlue]

Having more than one summon out at the same time would be really really awesome (I think machinist should be able to deploy multiple turrets too). I like the idea of getting to use Ramuh, Shiva, and Leviathan of course, and Odin and Alexander would be really cool on top of that. Bismarck and Ravana probably ought to be skipped, however, since they aren't part of classic Final Fantasy summons as much. So the classic 6 elements, plus Bahamut, Phoenix, Odin, Alexander.

Me personally, I think a reinvention of summoner's mechanics should basically be like all summons working like Demi-Bahamut, but with mechanics that manipulate the duration of the timer so that you can keep them out for as long as possible. Sacrifice your MP to keep your summons out for longer, or shorten the timer for the sake of some burst damage in the here and now. But when they do have to disappear, you get some of the coolest flashiest attacks in the game so that it's not a feeling of disappointment. I also like the idea of going into temporary Trances that make your spells insta-cast and hit harder, maybe even take on the elemental properties of the current summon at least visually. Also, I miss Shadow Flare.

It's a shame our Bahamut can't use Megaflare, or our non-existent Shiva use Diamond Dust. Also, I find it kinda funny how blue mage has more epic primal attacks than the summoner does. And all 6 of them too. As a blue mage, you can BE a primal, but summoners summoning actual primals, their attacks aren't quite as cool...

[Kaiserdrache]

you have all summons under one skill but how do you pick which avatar summon you want to come?

The games has for that already a Cycle Mechanic, that can be kept to use it further of Bahamut > Alexander > Phoenix, basically the chronological order of content ARR > HW > SB/SH.


The Familiar Carbuncle and the Avatars will be all Skills, you decide which three you summon by pressing the 3 you want to use.

The Summon Skills of the Avatars, Removing them and sacrifing them will be all Skills that you can freely place into your skillbar how you want.
Currently if you use summons, the summon commands are shown in an own locked untouchable skillbar. That sucks.
I want them to be placeable freely as you want. Theres no need for a locked skillbar. both - PC as like console players have more than enough space for the avatar skills, summon, remove and sacrifire, that are 3 controls, the minimum neccessary amount plus 9 Avatars, means 12 Skills.
One of 8 Skillbar Segments you can use on PS4 has space for 16 skills, so my proposal here costs a console summoner player even not 1 full skillbar segment of maximum 1. The differende with my proposal is, my propsal would allow the playrr on which of the segment you want to put them, able to switch swiftly between them with the R-Buttons alone, while the current system with the locked bar doesnlt make this possible, making playing summoner with summon out feel clumsy and uncofortable, cause yor are forde to do finger gymnastics with yout pat just to switch the skillbar segments. Console issue only

PS Bismarck is an FF Oldie like the others, only not as iconic like Ifrit, Shiva n Ramuh, because he hasn't be there constantly in every older FF game, like these 3. on Ravana you are right, but on principle should be summoners able to summon all primals, that played part in the story due to wild tribes, only exceptions the SB ones, cause they dont are classics.


@ Marxam: My concept is basically exactly doing that, but completely without needint the materia stuff you came up with. Just 12 Skills, 1 per Summon to choose what to summon, 1 to remove summons normally, 1 to sacrifice them, one to actually summon your chosen Avatars, working basically like Ninja's Ninjutsu mechanic to activate your chosen summon/s

My concept just exchanges the fantasy term Egi with a better one that is really existing - Avatars of the 9 Primals, basically what you called "Demi- Ifrit/Shiva", would be called under my proposal here if using these skills "Avatar of"Insert Primal"", that would be displayed then on screen, or shorter version "Primal Name"-Avatar
I added only all the missing once that haven't shown up until now to complete the summoner in my mind with everything it should be able to do up till Shadowbringers..
We go to Ifrit, Titan n Garuda, theb directly Bahamut, completely forgetting, that there exist also Shiva, Ramuh, Odin and Leviathan up to that point in the gametoo, whose powers could help us becoming stronger as a Summoner, which we should be able to summon. That's why retroactive sidequests can fix this only, or SE would have to rewrite and rework the whole Summoner Storyline to make that possible in an understandable way within the game's storytelling..

[Grimoire-M]

The Summoner Questline makes more sense than people give it any credit for. Go rewatch it. Also vague flavour names do not justify anything. Add actual mechanical text to each ability so we can get a sense of how the kit actually works. This top-level approach that refuses to get into the necessary level of systemic detail is why SMN “reworks” like this don’t actually accomplish anything. These posts read like isolated brainstorming, not a design doc that attempts to address the actual issues with the job.

SMN currently ONLY has a numbers issue and a few rotational hoops to jump through, and doesn’t sacrifice its flavour to do the very things core to the job. This is its best state in ages. Work with it.

[Kaiserdrache]

Thats the Job of the Game Balance Department to decide at the end which numbers are attached to potencies and durations, ranges ect. because they have much more data and statistical informations, than anyone of us and can decide due to this the best, how effective these proposed skills should be in the end, thats why I waste no time with this and focus myself more just only on the far more interesting effect mechanics to describe them.

The summoner questline makes only sense, until you have collected the first three primals, from then on it felt completely rushed to go directly next to Bahamut, instead of completing first all the classic elemental primals fist, before going after the much more powerful Bahamut.
The fact that Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan and co. are exen two expansions later still ignored to be part of this class speaks for itself, how flawed and messed up the whole summoner design is, not to mention that most of its current skills are no summoner skills at all, but theoretically Greenmage Skills, would it exist like a Bluemage only as limited job, because poisoning (Bio), is absolutely NOT what summoners do.

Summoning a hail of Meteorites (Nova), or magical suns und blackholes (Nodabba/ Abaddon), that actually lies in the powers of a summoner to summon destructive things to them to cause harm with them to their enemies. They dont need to suck out foes like vampires to get energy, they just sacrifice thei avatars to obtain the neccessary ether to summon the the big High Avatars for which their bodies alone have not enough ether to do so, without dieing on the try to summon Bahamut without a sacrifice, thats also why the small avatar disappears for when Bahamut gets summoned.
The difference between now and my proposal here is just only - I want to make out of this sacrifice thing a real integrated gameplay mechanic, which is fully part of the summoner design and not just something that simply happens in the background automatically, without that it plays any role to the summoner design at all in a depthful way.

Yes, naturally are concept posts like this, just in the end brainstormings, because people who post these kinds of things are in 99 percent just NORMAL PLAYERS, like you an me and not professional Game Developers with access to game balance statistics ect, which is also work that is done in teams and not by a single person, so its completely pointles to waste time with any thought out potency numbers, reactivation times or MP costs ect, becaus that stuff doesn't matter, what matters is, that the concept and its mechanics in itself are interesting and convincing enough to give the responsible developers for that classe the inspirational drive to actually want to make changes on the class based on the concept. Doesnt mean naturally that they need to copy everything 1:1, but thats also very unlikely to happen ever, that a simple gamer comes up with a class concept which gets then 100% taken over by the devs lol ^^