Thread: 6.0 Summoner Speculation

So, what do you all think Summoner will look like next expansion? I myself honestly don’t have a clue what they’re going to do, as the job still feel a bit of a jumbled mess right now, especially in comparison to its caster siblings RDM and BLM. The DoT’s, Aetherflow, Egi’s don’t seem to mesh that well together, and just feels like a bit of a hodgepodge of busywork meant to keep you pressing buttons until the *actual* fun part of the rotation comes about (the Demi-Primals)

I’d be fine with them keeping the DoT’s, since there are many who enjoy them, but get rid of Aetherflow and the Egi’s and just do a constant stream of Demi-Primals that alter your spells like Phoenix does.

Aetherflow and Fester will be gone. You'll get a new OGCD here to fill the gap.

They'll merge DTrance and Bahamut into a singular buff window.

The new capstone will be wrapping themselves into a lore appropriate Primal.

What's likely to happen the most is Dreadwyrm Trance and Demi-Bahamut being merged just like with Demi-Phoenix. The good thing about this is the phase being more convenient to play, the bad thing is we lose on mobility now that Dreadwyrm Trance isn't its own thing. I suspect the Demi summons will still behave the same and won't be rooted onto the floor like people have suggested.

They might also attempt to make the job's abilities blend better together. The lack of it is one of the biggest complaints of Shadowbringers Summoner.

Also something I'm hoping that might have a good chance of happening is removing DoT gimmicks in favor of something more thematic.

Honestly I think 5.XX Summoner has everything it needs as far as a tool set, just needs to be worked to mesh better.

People have responded positively to how Firebird trance and Demi-Phoenix work so I would expect DWT and DBahamut to redesigned to work similar.

I would expect Summon II, the tank Egi to be dropped all together since this has been the slowly happening since 4.0

I would believe the next evolution of Summoner would be one and done summons were as you call it, effect happens, and it goes away. Whether that method is built up, channeled, or just a normal cast/cooldown is another discussion.

I fully expect dwt and bahamut to be combined, and it's going to be another in a line of terrible changes aimed at simplifying the job - that only ends up making the job worse to play in actual content.

honestly if they fix the pet que and add another trance I think it would be perfect

- DWT and Demi Baha being merged to work like FBT (Wyrmwave auto, Flare Star ST into Megaflare AOE)
- traits that skin AF abilities into primal-themed animations with higher potencies
- A job gauge filled by AF abilities/egi assaults for 1 or 2 one-and-done summons
- Ruin V replacing Ruin III
- egis (Ifrit/Garuda/Titan) being changed to a rotating cycle like BRD songs (IDK about passive effects)
- better response time for the AI I hope
- Demi Alexander capstone w/ Holy Judgement big hit (Divine Spear ST into Mega Holy AOE)

I'm hoping for a merger of DWT and Bahamut, along with a removal of the egi's entirely, they can be made into maybe mini trances you use at lower level so that Summoner at level 30 feels similar to one at level 80, but overall they've never truly made the egi's satisfying in this game. The job is definitely one of the more complex ones in the game and in some ways that's a good thing, not every job should be like Dancer, Samurai or Red Mage, some should have a more complex rotation, but this isn't a good complexity, it's just a mess (in fairness to the dev team though, it's miles better then what it was on launch). To change it up I'd like to then see them move over to finding more things to do with aether flow and the Demi's, introducing more oGCD attacks through aetherflow to take advantage of having instants throughout Bahamut phase, and find another option to proc Ruin 4 off of with the loss of Egi's.

Obviously their will be some new 'big thing' the job gets, be it another Demi summon, or some combination of the two, or some new attack within the trances, whatever it is I hope they keep within the current windows, as while Stormblood Summoner is my favorite iteration of the job, that massively long cycle could cause some serious issues. My hope is that removing egi's and merging DWT into Bahamut allows for space in the rotation to open up for the new thing that the job will get.

My biggest concern and hope they address is mechanic synergy, as currently right now Summoner has the most disjointed DPS kit in the game, with multiple mechanics that do not work together much or at all. The job lost that in the transition from 4.0 to 5.0. You had dots that fueled the power of your oGCD attacks, the use of your oGCD attacks unlocked the power of your trances and summons, your summons come out, and you use more oGCD's to do more damage within the summon windows. The only thing that wasn't really connected to the kit was the egi's themselves, as they only needed to be on the battle field doing their thing to allow you to summon your Demi's and get the occasional ruin 4, which is a pretty passive synergy instead of active synergy. Now you still have the need of egi's to generate ruin 4's and summon your Demi's, but outside of that very little in summoner builds off each other. Dot's still make your festers more powerful but that's the only purpose that they exist along with aetherflow, to just do fester. The Trances and the summons all exist completely on their own. It just feels very disjointed compared to what summoner used to be, and especially compared to the other casters, who's entire kits very much work in harmonious unison. So I really hope that is addressed next expansion.

Oh also, could we please make it so Bahamut and Pheonix stop having to follow us around? Like... Please?

Originally Posted by Rika007

My biggest concern and hope they address is mechanic synergy, as currently right now Summoner has the most disjointed DPS kit in the game, etc.

I've noticed that at least Phoenix will stop following to attack when you input a command, something Bahamut still doesn't do :/

Totally agree about kit synergy, too. I know XIV SMN doesn't have to adhere strictly to everything that defines SMN in past iterations through FF, but if we're going to be the DoT mage, they need to integrate into the kit better than just "this one skill will refresh when you trance, and this other one skill hits harder when DoTs are ticking, but your entire skillset otherwise is totally unrelated". It wouldn't shock me to have SMN reworked to move DoTs over to a new job entirely in favor of something else, but that's honestly a pipe dream that feels very unlikely, so I'm not resting on it lol.

One of the things I'd love to see in a SMN rework is Aetherflow being changed to a job gauge that fills from 0 to 100 like SAM's kenki. Using AF gives a fixed amount, ticking DoTs fill it very minimally as they tick and the gauge can be expended for one-and-done oGCD summons that can replace Enkindle. Ifrit's Inferno could easily be changed to work like Higanbana as a long duration DoT since it's already a Dot. Garuda's Aerial Blast could still be the AoE option, while Titan's Mountain Buster (is that even the right one? I've never once summoned Titan lol) is the single-target equivalent. It would open the floor to one-off attacks by Ramuh, Leviathan and Shiva, too, while letting us keep elder primals or more prominent summoned figures for demi-trances (DWT w/ Bahamut, FBT w/ Phoenix, and I would assume some kind of holy trance w/ maybe Alexander?).

Of course, I'm not sure about how to make this work mechanically, because I don't think SMN should be reaching BLM levels of output, but should still be stronger than RDM. I still want to see egis go in favor of one-and-dones, but I also like the way egi assaults work right now minus the occasional ghosting. So much to think about!