Thread: Is anyone else concerned about 6.0 Summoner?

From a story perspective, the first Heavensward SMN quest establishes that we can't summon Ramuh-egi to begin with, but I can't remember the details of why. From a gameplay perspective, the game works around having specific rotations and I feel like having 9 different summons/stances including trance, demi-bahamut, and demi-grandpa would be a bit too much for the devs to balance and for the players to handle.

To me, the SMN rework is a long time coming. Yoshi-P has already stated his distaste for pet classes and we've seen them dialed back every expansion. On top of that, the class has been an awkward combination of a DoT mage and a weaker version of summoner when compared to summoners of past FF games. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting ahead of the video, but I'm happy to see big summons with a big attack upon summon make an appearance and I'm interested to see how the new stances work.

As a smn main since ARR, I'm not, and I won't let it bother me until 6.0 lands and we get our hands on it and see how it actually plays. Fretting and fussing right now, when we only saw a 30 second clip and had a few minutes of discussion from it by Yoshida, is pointless since we really don't know much of anything.

Smn is not and never really has been a super difficult job and I would much rather have a more traditional summoner than a dot mage. And say what you will, but this is a more traditional summoner. In many ff games, the summons only appear momentarily and the rest is just the smn themselves dpsing like a blm or healing like a whm. Would persistent pets be nice? Yes! FFXI, as example, had a lot of smn fun with persistent pets, but to be fair, all you really did was swap your own attack button for one that commands your pet so it was, at its core, just a bit more flashier than normal attack. Just like it was in any ff game with persistent summons. Or just like it will be with the rework.

So am I worried? Again, nope. None of the jobs are complicated and those few that still do have anything that could be remotely seen as complicated will be streamlined eventually. That is just how ffxiv works. If ppl want more complexity, they need to think about that when they are complaining that everything is too hard or too complicated. Cause that is precisely why we have mmos like we do today, instead of mmos like we had back in 2005.

I haven't really looked into the job but it looked like the rotation might be a tad too simple. Especially since current smn player seem to enjoy a more complex rotation.

Summoner is becoming what it should of been since ARR.
These weird nuggets fighting alongside were always terrible and Titan egi is still useless.
Summoner finally got back to its true identity, not that DOT job it currently is.

Originally Posted by Eloah

Ah I see where the confusion lies.

Well to start, not sure if you are aware about the clamor the forums have been subjected to over the years about FFXIV's version of SMN, and how it wasn't a "True SMN". Which isn't a thing, but I digress. These individuals kept pointing at FFXI's version of SMN, since it was the only other MMO version to compare it to, makes sense I guess. But these people had clouded memories and kept insisting XI's SMN was "better" for some reason. My guess is because the Avatars looked "cooler" than the Egis.

However, people who played XI and whose minds weren't clouded by nostalgia, pointed out that the two systems were the exact same, a pet that follows you that you give commands to every so often, while you do your own thing. In XI this usually had you rely on your 2nd job, but in XIV it was about managing your DoTs.

With Shadowbringers, the system started to move away from that design, and this rework seems to be enforcing it some more. That was what I meant when I mentioned FFXI. That their iterations were functionally similar, but with this rework that doesn't appear to be the case anymore.

Oh and as for the other 3 primals, I wasn't saying add them to the rotation per se, at least not how the job looks now. I was meaning as glamours. Like we can swap out the Ruby, Topaz, and Emerald, for a Sapphire, Aquamarine, or Amethyst.

Oh I get ya. I guess how people view FFXI SMN depends a lot on when they last played it. As I'm sure you know at 75 cap it was relegated to a ghetto healer with /WHM. In my head I was thinking of it as it is now, well developed where almost everything the player does is pet actions and people tend to /RDM just for the fast cast trait and convert.

Originally Posted by Eloah

Well to start, not sure if you are aware about the clamor the forums have been subjected to over the years about FFXIV's version of SMN, and how it wasn't a "True SMN". Which isn't a thing, but I digress. These individuals kept pointing at FFXI's version of SMN, since it was the only other MMO version to compare it to, makes sense I guess. But these people had clouded memories and kept insisting XI's SMN was "better" for some reason. My guess is because the Avatars looked "cooler" than the Egis..

From my understanding its because in ffxi we did everything via our pets, few smns in xi actually did much casting and even fewer pulled out their staff and started clobbering, so the job revolved almost entirely around your pet. There was a massive disappointment with egi but from what I remember back at its reveal was it was because a 12 year old mmo had better summons than this new installment both graphically and functionally, then to add insult to injury egi were mostly left to their own devices. So it really didn't feel like a smn at all because you summoned an egi and forgot about them. They were a glorified auto attack.

imo ffxi did the jobs in the series more justice than any other game in the franchise for the most part. Not only were they able to go dark, real dark in a lot of cases, with the storyline because they were not concerned about making so much of the game cute or whimsical. But some jobs like smn, blu, rdm, these were all dang near perfect versions of them, esp blu and rdm. But that was because the jobs could be so large, expansive and detailed. You had actions for everything because they threw everything at you instead of trying to limit everything for simplicity. Not to mention they had no concerns about speed. You didn't need everything right now, that game is all about the long run.

This version of smn is more of a traditional summoner from a solo ff game. You summon your pet, it appears, does an attack and disappears, leaving you to do your own thing. So they are literally just giving us smn, its games like xi that are the deviation. So I am not too worried, nor am I freaking out about it, esp since we have no real idea how it will play.

Simplification is the #1 rule too ffxiv at this point, so screaming that its not complex enough is silly. You know what you are going to get when you log into ffxiv. You know what you are going to get with job changes. You know what you are going to get with new jobs. If you really want a challenge or complexity in how you play, this is seriously not the game for you at all and I have no idea why ppl still cling to the belief that it is or someday will be.

Originally Posted by KitKatnip

Egis don't do anything but stand there. You still summon the dragon and phoenix. You charge gems. You're a gem charger now. One of your important spells you have to cast has a long cast timer and you can't move while casting. But if you don't use it, your dps will be in the gutter. They specifically said you can't just pick your favorite gem and use it. You have to use all 3.

I don't see this as an improvement.

If that turns out to be the case that stinks and I will not like playing. I have not played other jobs except as part of the Shadowbringer MSQ scenarios. I hated the characters where I pushed one button and it went through a series of skills with no thought needed. If SMN turns into one of those I guess it will be back to ESO for me which is too bad as I have been enjoying the game since returning a couple of months ago.