summoner should get a do-over

[SenorPatty]

3 jupiter, 2 mercury for that summon? xD

Have all my upvotes please.

[Nemmar]

I dunno about wiping it all clean.

But i am in the train that i would rather see demi's than egi's. Imo Carbuncle should be the only permanent pet, egi's should be removed and turned into demi's. And btw, do give carbuncle a reflect of some sort... cmon...

It is odd that such a big staple of FF games such as the summoner has been so badly treated across the years in this game. I remember it was an event seeing a summoner on FFXI. It looked really cool. I think that feeling can be regained with demi's.

Oh i really like that idea of having spells of an element build a resource that then allows the summoning. Like water spells until leviathan, wind spells until Garuda, fire to Ifrit, etc. That would be more interesting than the current DoT spells. Tri-disaster could once more be what it was and be all elements cast at once. Actually if they really want to keep the DoT theme, they can make elemental DoT spells. Sadly, i doubt any of this will happen outside of a new expansion.

[Nemmar]

It's kinda like you're all asking for Huge Powerful Spell Effect, and going to get Itty Bitty Damage as a result. Can't make it too powerful, or else it becomes mandatory for end game.

I don't know about you, but I dimly remember it taking 'forever' for the ramp up to Summon Powerful Beings ... during which you didn't actually do anything worthwhile. So, great burst damage and lots of AoE dancing (hoping you don't die before the power-up occurs) for the win, I guess?

Power of a class/job doesn't come from how flashy/huge their attacks are but from the numbers of damage they deal. I don't think anyone is wishing for an OP job that breaks the game. Just one that looks like a proper summoner.

[dinnertime]

I want XIV smn to be more like XI's because in XI your summons were your primary means of dps and boons to your party. etc.

And then SMN players suffer migraines because controlling summons is now primary when they already feel terrible to command in this game.

And I'll have to correct you that SMN is barely a DoT job anymore with a handful aspects of it cut down as expansions go. The devs have been trying to put more focus on the summoning aspect with Demi's, and Phoenix is what the other summons should be like.

Personally I like the mix of both the summon and Summoner doing equal work but if it's not anyone's style then XIV's SMN is simply not for you.

[TwiibieTwuu]

I feel like ARC/SMN/SCH suffers some kinda identity crisis each expansion.

[AnimaAnimus]

Personally I like the mix of both the summon and Summoner doing equal work but if it's not anyone's style then XIV's SMN is simply not for you.

Diehards used to say the same with mcn "if you don't like it, its not for you, don't play it", but a little listening to player feedback and then actually thinking the job through and look how much better it is now. Just because it is good for you, does not mean it is good. If it were we wouldn't be having this conversation again and again and again on these forums.

Egi are easy to manage because there is very little to manage...for me. I find the amount of reliance on pets abysmal...for me. That doesn't mean that smn is bad, just that my opinion of it is bad. But the overwhelming amount of negative feedback and criticism it gets, does. And I think the xiv could do good, taking a page out of XI's book. Or IV's, or X's. But that is my opinion. They could put a whole new spin on it but if pets are a fraction of a fraction of the job, or handled via ogc as a secondary thing, its never going to be seen as a smn and will be judged negatively because of that. If brd was a ranger it likely wouldn't get the criticism it does. But since the theme is brd, it's being torn apart.

[Lambdafish]

I think the best thing for them to do would be to split summoner off from arcanist and scholar entirely. Make arcanist scholar's base class and make summoner a job you unlock on it's own with just a job crystal. They'd have to retool the story a bit probably, but it'd be a lot cleaner going forward.

Why would ACN branch into SCH? SCH is the weird one here because it is a DPS becoming a healer.

[Eloah]

just wipe the slate clean and give us something like the xi summoner. i wouldn't even be mad if in 6.0 rather than 2 new classes they just scrapped summoner and made 1 new class and a new and improved summoner. they just keep slapping bandaid upon bandaid upon bandaid instead of properly cleaning and sealing the wound

Sorry, I couldnt even move past this post, it was kinda funny. Now I never played XI, and I wont claim XIV's Summoner is the pinnacle of jobs, but with all of the information I've looked up and heard from veterans, XIV's Summoner is better than XI's by a wide margin. The only thing XI's Summoner had going for it, was that the Avatars were true to their original forms. Otherwise, XI and XIV's Summoners are designed identically, but XIV's doesn't rely on a secondary job to be useful. I'm not saying XIV's Summoner can't be improved, but you can't ask for it to be more like XI's since it already it.

Why would ACN branch into SCH? SCH is the weird one here because it is a DPS becoming a healer.

Actually, SMN is the odd one out, since thematically ACN and SCH have similar lore. True the shift from DPS to Healer is odd, but SMN is the odd one in this situation.

[dinnertime]

Diehards used to say the same with mcn "if you don't like it, its not for you, don't play it", but a little listening to player feedback and then actually thinking the job through and look how much better it is now. Just because it is good for you, does not mean it is good. If it were we wouldn't be having this conversation again and again and again on these forums.

The difference between MCH and SMN is that MCH actually did play terribly gameplay-wise. Of course this was subjective, but this has been the most common complaint with MCH.

Meanwhile the complaints SMN gets is "it doesn't feel like a summoner" and yet it plays well. There are few instances where the gameplay was problematic and that was shortly in 2.x for getting balanced while it's tied to SCH, 4.0 launch and currently in 5.0.

There's a difference there. SMN and BRD are more comparable because they're fine to play but the playerbase complains about job identity. Yes, we can hope to see more summoning-related things for SMN in the future but a do-over from scratch might cause more harm than good, especially for the people who actually play/like the job for what it is. Ignoring the awkward 5.0 changes, it played fine at large and it doesn't need to be messed with.

[Freyt]

I want summoner to "equip" summons. It shares the idea with Dreadwyrm Trance where the power of Bahamut is invoked, rather than brought in as a separate power. Something like if you summon Ifrit, he isn't out there attacking on his own, but your Ruin spell is transformed into some sort of ranged fire slash or other effect that Ifrit contributes to. Outburst would change similarly. The visuals of these skills would be the main appeal, but would also be varied and balanced across summons. "Summon Demi-Bahamut" could be eliminated, and Dreadwyrm Trance would serve to summon Demi Bahamut in a similar effect, and Ruin would then become "Wyrmwave". The build up to use Demi Bahamut could still be the same or similar.