summoner should get a do-over

[Cled-cat]

Get rid of Ruin, Egi Assault and Tri-Disaster spam, work those missing potencies into new Demi-Primal versions of our existing Egi’s with their own miniature rotations like Phoenix has. Solves multiple problems all at once. Where will we draw the line with summoners increasingly disparate themes and identity crises? There seems to be a very vocal minority of people who actually enjoy the egi’s And dots, which is fine, but it’s becoming pretty obvious with the direction SMN has been taking the last 2 expansions they’re trying to get away from that and focus more on Demi-Primals. Everyone can’t be happy, but the contention is how much are they willing to keep screwing and twisting summoners already strange and bizarre identity to try to appease everyone?

Just do a huge rework of it, hell, even make a new pet style class like Beast Trainer or Arcanist as it’s own separate job focused on poisons and afflictions to make the DoT-Pet lovers happy, but I don’t see how Summoner is going to last much longer being pulled in all different directions like this.

[Nyvara]

It seems to me that while other jobs rotations got easier SMN went the opposite direction. At least that's how it feels to me. Prior to 5.0 MCH and BLM had me scratching my head till I gave up. Now I love those two jobs while SMN has me questioning my life choices. If i were to try to put it in better words SMN feels to clunky and to complex.

While not a popular opinion I feel jobs should be intuitive with a bit of practice and not need a 30 page info-graphic guide to play.

[CrimsonGunner]

summoner need a rework ,most definitely need one but it doesn't mean getting rid of the pet sytem.
summoner should be focus on what he is which is summoning,which lets face it right now the summoner kit is hardly doing any summon related other then call egi/demi to be next to you.
there is no meaning to the summon and its not a true part of his kit which is why people are upset and don't like him that much anymore.

we can approach summoning from 2 different views:
1.calling a summon that will do your biding and your kit revolves around the interactions with the summon which gives a sense of bond(the pet class approach)
2.call forth a powerful being that will just do its most devastating attack and leave,as well as harnessing its power as your own to upgrade your magic(the nuke approach).

they are both good views,they are both summoners but SE instead ignore both of those and decided to give a poor poison class that can hardly pull any of those views.
SE need to decide how they want to deal with the summoner,how to view him and give him a fucking kit that revolves around summoning not bio/miasma and the rest is just extra.

there should be a different between a smaller and stronger summon , the trance system link to the strong summon is an excellent idea and the demi system is loved cause that how a summon in general should feel,you call the summon it attacks with you.

they can either give the demi system for the smaller summons(ifrit,titan,garuda) or maybe upgrade the egi system with some upgraded visuals for egi appearnces with better interactions that will benefit our kit and make it revolves around summoning(most importantly they need to have plenty of primals to pick/summon and fix the bugs both system have such ghosting and delays) .

keeping trances linked to harnessing the summons power(can even be tied to small summons not just big ones) and most importantly make the big summons the nuke bombs we deserve either by truly calling them for nuke skills or have something truly grand and glorious in the demi form as they did with phoenix but better(more buffs,more effects more Carnage.....ahm but that just me being greedy )

in conclusion ,they need to decide how they view weaker summons,how they view stronger summons ,how they are approaching summoning.
they can go view 1 or go to the other or even give us a proper mix of those 2 perspectives but what they really must do is give us is A DAMN SUMMONER KIT AND NOT A SAD POISON CLASS WITH MANY DETACHED KITS PARTS THAT IT FEEL LIKE THEY TOOK RANDOM PARTS FROM THE JUNKYARD ,USED SUPER GLUE IN HOPE THAT THEY WILL SOMEHOW STICK AND SAY THERE YOU HAVE A JOB WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

It'd be neat if we could use Judgment Bolt, Diamond Dust, Tsunami, etc. as regular Summoner skills in lieu of things like Ruin or Miasma, just for the Summoner flavor, but I guess they kinda put that aside for BLU already.

Basically what LineageRazor said below.

[LineageRazor]

No, we don't need XI's Summoner. The pet system in this game is ridiculously bad. What would be better, I think, is to return to the old days of flash-in-the-pan summons that appear, do their thing, and then vanish. Replace all our spells with unique Primal summons; wouldn't even need to change what they do, really. Instead of Bio, we get Dread Tide, in which Leviathan appears, hoses the enemy down with a Dropsy DoT, and then vanishes. Instead of Ruin, Ramuh pops up, Shock Strike, vanish.

The pet system is so bad, that even though they aren't technically even pets anymore, they STILL are terrible. I've lost track of how many pet abilities I've wasted, because I sent the command when the pet was otherwise busy, or the mob dies before it can go off, or whatever.

[SenorPatty]

SMN's problems feels like it's rooted into the mistake that is arcanist. What the lore says is one thing, what is actually happening is a whole other. I know SE loves its scorched earth cannon so they should aim it at ACN and it's lore and gameplay and nuke them both, then slap a A Retcon Reborn paint all over that and start fresh. Then, they should extract a common suggestion point from all our smn complaints then go full throttle with it. Give half the dots back to SCH and the other half to a new job like chemist.

And then--this one being personal wish list--rebrand smn as invoker. Let it channel/trance primal attacks, like smaller scale judgement bolt or diamond. Once you build meter/gauge with the attacks, actually summon the primal (replacing you temporarily) and be a nuke for like, 10 secs, then revert back to yourself.

[Lacan]

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.

[Enkidoh]

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.

Actually I think the reverse is true: it's SMN that is more associated with ACN not SCH (SMN grimories are usually listed as 'ACN/SMN' where as SCH grimoires are usually for SCH only). Selecting ACN at character creation as your starting class also shows SMN AF as it's 'Job' appearence, and shortly after, choosing ACN as your starting class has the character appear in SMN AF during the dream where they evoke the Blade of Light. And SCH is also listed independent of ACN/SMN in the list of classes and Jobs in the Edit Player Search comment screen.

So really SCH is the anomaly when it comes to ACN, SMN is the Job more associated with that class not SCH. So I would not be surprised if SE are planning to remove SCH completely from ACN/SMN, as the whole 'multiple Jobs off one class' experiment sadly was a failure.

[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.

[DPZ2]

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?