Splitting SMN in Two

[dezzmont]

Summoner doesn't have an "identity crisis"; a few people just don't like the identity.

Its mechanical identity is sublime. Its thematic identity is... baaaaaad.

Its bad. Lets not mince words. SMN's visuals and ties to its fantasy (both in the greater Final Fantasy series, and in universe where pretty much every Egi we encounter is way cooler than ours despite Egis being 'the point') is really bad. I suspect almost all of the complaints about SMN would vanish overnight if it solved the '2.0 visuals' problem. Its sorta up there with Monk in how bad the visuals and impact of their abilities hold back the job.

All damage is "Damage over time" it just depends on how it is used. BLM has massive Burst damage while Summoner has death by 1000 cuts and Red Mage lives somewhere in between. Remove all the visuals of a job and you'll notice that the dummy is taking slow big hits from one, faster milder hits from another, and a steady stream of hits from the other.

This is an interesting thought experiment because, yeah, if you removed all visuals a lot of jobs people really like might do a lot worse, and vice versa. Like BLM is probably safe despite Fire IV being one of the most satisfying spells in terms of 'impact' in the game, but BRD comes to mind as a job that does a lot of 'heavy lifting' with visual flair. And heck, people might actually like MNK a lot more once its not dragged into the dirt by how not visually rewarding its main mechanics are.

And that isn't a trivial or petty complaint. Visual design is a key element of game design, and its a huge part of the FF series overall. And summoner is a super iconic job. Summoner. Not SMN. I think Summoner could exist in SMN, but right now it doesn't, and a lot of discussions by SMN mains seem to admit this as if it isn't a big problem that puts the entire mechanical identity of SMN at risk, because I don't believe the devs would preserve SMN, the job from one game, over Summoner, the iconic FF job that utilizes some of the most iconic abilities in the series.

Again, I think most of the 'SMN is actually not really a Summoner at all" complaints come from how bad the job is at conveying what is actually happening with your egi and egi assaults and how clunky those feel. I am hoping the overhaul is just that, but considering the Egi mechanically doesn't exist for most purposes besides weird cast delays and pre-setting the AoE for Devotion I suspect it will be more substantial.