Future Summoner Summonings

[Hanayumi]

(Whoops, ill delete previous post when get home, can't on mobile) Anyway, think rather than adding more gems for summons, its far more likely any new summon could replace current ones as a kinda skill upgrade like they normally do, and I totally would mind that, the ol 3 are getting well... old... Curious what could replace bahamut or pheonix?

[Archwizard]

I hold out hope for them to provide the option to Glamour summons, much as they did with the Carbuncles/Egis. Even if they don't do so for every Primal in the game, having the option at least for the rest of the ARR 6 would be exquisite.

I doubt the devs want to make 6 versions of every spell, so even in the event they did provide glamouring, each would probably be a 1:1 replacement of an existing summon with different visual effects.

Of course, who glamours over which would be the real question -- Leviathan could fit Ifrit's leap attack but Shiva's sword works best for the following melee, and under the "caster/support/melee" pet rules you could have cleanly argued Ramuh glamouring over Garuda, but with Titan's role completely changing, one could now argue Ramuh's burst damage would fit in his slot better than Garuda's GT DoT...

[Raikai]

Slightly offtopic but in the light of having more summons, let it be glamour or new actions, I would LOVE if we got one of the mass-size summons as the LB3, like Alexander or Mateus.

[Karshan]

Before that, a small change I would make is re emphasize a bit the pet in gems phase, keep aspected summoner GCDs but have the charges be oGCD egi assaults, to still feel like you use them That said.

I hope we have all 6 base summons (so adding Ramuh, Levia, Shiva). Optionnaly, replace Phoenix with Alexander (cooler I think). And get a big "level 3" Astral / Umbral summon at level 100 : Zodiark / Hydaelyn Aspected

That would work on a 1 minute cycle rythmed by trance like now, like that :

- Summon Bahamut / Summon Alexander, for 15 seconds ; gives 3 gems of Astral or Umbral
- the gems allow you to summon the egis for ten seconds (so 4 GCDs max), 4 stacks of egi assaults and have the big version come and do the attack at the end, not the beginning
- each gem used gives an umbral or astral aether (regroup the 3 astral and 3 umbral together) to use the lvl 3 summon that only does one giga attack : Hydaelin aspected (the sundering) or Zodiark aspected (the sacrifice ?)

Or

- have aetherflow grants you the three gems, which in turn give you access to trance, which gives you the astral/umbral aether to the level 3.


I get they did the first order because of raid buff alignment and have demis during trick, but why not.

[Sequora]

Before that, a small change I would make is re emphasize a bit the pet in gems phase, keep aspected summoner GCDs but have the charges be oGCD egi assaults, to still feel like you use them That said.

I hope we have all 6 base summons (so adding Ramuh, Levia, Shiva). Optionnaly, replace Phoenix with Alexander (cooler I think). And get a big "level 3" Astral / Umbral summon at level 100 : Zodiark / Hydaelyn Aspected

That would work on a 1 minute cycle rythmed by trance like now, like that :

- Summon Bahamut / Summon Alexander, for 15 seconds ; gives 3 gems of Astral or Umbral
- the gems allow you to summon the egis for ten seconds (so 4 GCDs max), 4 stacks of egi assaults and have the big version come and do the attack at the end, not the beginning
- each gem used gives an umbral or astral aether (regroup the 3 astral and 3 umbral together) to use the lvl 3 summon that only does one giga attack : Hydaelin aspected (the sundering) or Zodiark aspected (the sacrifice ?)

Or

- have aetherflow grants you the three gems, which in turn give you access to trance, which gives you the astral/umbral aether to the level 3.


I get they did the first order because of raid buff alignment and have demis during trick, but why not.

I think that’s a tall order. I don’t think we’ll even get the other 3 primals (leviathan, shiva, and Ramuh).

There’s nothing wrong with phoenix.

They could incorporate Alexander and other summons in other ways. Like maybe have them be normal abilities.

Carbuncle gives us our defense shield, maybe it gets an upgrade in 7.0 and Alexander uses “perfect defense” or something.

That being said, I would really like to see all 6 base summons as part of our kit. We’re many expansions in at this point. I feel like endwalker is making up for past mistakes with SMN.

[ty_taurus]

It would be ideal to find a way to integrate Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva into the main kit rather than as glamours as the first six are thematically linked, but as others have said, it becomes very difficult to imagine how to do that without returning the summoner to punishing DPS. One way that I see it being done could be with making them OGCD phases that are worked in simultaneously with your GCD phases.

How it works would be Opal Shiva, Aquamarine Leviathan, and Amethyst Ramuh would replace Energy Drain/Syphon and then upgrade and change your Fester and Painflare. It's simple, yet I think it could work given the direction Summoner is now going in. I also think there's a lot of build-ability for the future after that too. Imagine an Aetherflow finisher that summons something else based on whether you summoned Shiva, Leviathan, or Ramuh, and during which phase you were in for Ifirt, Titan, or Garuda.

Ifrit + Ramuh = Ravana finisher
Titan + Shiva = Thordan finisher
Garuda + Leviathan = Bismarck finisher

It's all very long term concepts, but I think there is room to grow, and I believe that was intentional.

[Raikai]

It would be ideal to find a way to integrate Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva into the main kit rather than as glamours as the first six are thematically linked, but as others have said, it becomes very difficult to imagine how to do that without returning the summoner to punishing DPS. One way that I see it being done could be with making them OGCD phases that are worked in simultaneously with your GCD phases.

How it works would be Opal Shiva, Aquamarine Leviathan, and Amethyst Ramuh would replace Energy Drain/Syphon and then upgrade and change your Fester and Painflare. It's simple, yet I think it could work given the direction Summoner is now going in. I also think there's a lot of build-ability for the future after that too. Imagine an Aetherflow finisher that summons something else based on whether you summoned Shiva, Leviathan, or Ramuh, and during which phase you were in for Ifirt, Titan, or Garuda.

Ifrit + Ramuh = Ravana finisher
Titan + Shiva = Thordan finisher
Garuda + Leviathan = Bismarck finisher

It's all very long term concepts, but I think there is room to grow, and I believe that was intentional.

Just sayin' but Shiva should be Diamond :P

Now yeah... actually six gemstones would perfectly represent the Elemental Wheel! with Astral or Umbral polarities. Though, I could see the combinations matched to have a Light/Dark/Unaspected finishing summons... I.E. Astral + Astral = Light / Umbral + Umbral = Dark / Astral + Umbral = Unaspected.

I really like this concept of matching gemstones for a finisher... Can't wait to see the SMN gameplay to actually gauge where the system would go in 7.0.

[ty_taurus]

Just sayin' but Shiva should be Diamond :P

Now yeah... actually six gemstones would perfectly represent the Elemental Wheel! with Astral or Umbral polarities. Though, I could see the combinations matched to have a Light/Dark/Unaspected finishing summons... I.E. Astral + Astral = Light / Umbral + Umbral = Dark / Astral + Umbral = Unaspected.

I really like this concept of matching gemstones for a finisher... Can't wait to see the SMN gameplay to actually gauge where the system would go in 7.0.

Actually, the reason why I say Opal is because that's how it was in FFIX, though thinking about it more critically, the existing summons don't necessarily match that theming.

In FFIX, where abilities both active and passive were learned by wearing equipment, gems could be equipped as accessories and would teach summons to Garnet and Eiko. These were how the gems were laid out:

Princess Garnet's Summons
Opal: Shiva
Peridot: Ramuh
Topaz: Ifrit
Amethyst: Atomos
Dark Matter: Odin
Aquamarine: Leviathan
Garnet: Bahamut
Pumice: Ark

Eiko's Summons
Ruby: Carbuncle
Lapis Lazuli: Fenrir (And Titan)
Phoenix Pinion: Phoenix
Ribbon: Madeen (aka Maduin)

Emerald, Pearl, and Diamond had no summon associated with them but would change which buff Carbuncle gave to the party.

[Shikiseki]

It would be ideal to find a way to integrate Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva into the main kit rather than as glamours as the first six are thematically linked, but as others have said, it becomes very difficult to imagine how to do that without returning the summoner to punishing DPS. One way that I see it being done could be with making them OGCD phases that are worked in simultaneously with your GCD phases.

How it works would be Opal Shiva, Aquamarine Leviathan, and Amethyst Ramuh would replace Energy Drain/Syphon and then upgrade and change your Fester and Painflare. It's simple, yet I think it could work given the direction Summoner is now going in. I also think there's a lot of build-ability for the future after that too. Imagine an Aetherflow finisher that summons something else based on whether you summoned Shiva, Leviathan, or Ramuh, and during which phase you were in for Ifirt, Titan, or Garuda.

Ifrit + Ramuh = Ravana finisher
Titan + Shiva = Thordan finisher
Garuda + Leviathan = Bismarck finisher

It's all very long term concepts, but I think there is room to grow, and I believe that was intentional.

I think combination attacks of elements can be built in the warring triad if you think about it:

Sephirot is Earth + Water
Sophia is Lightning + Wind
Zurvan is Fire + Ice

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The only thing I hope to see is Summoner losing their "base" animations through summoning styled animations later on (if BLU can get those animations why can't SMN )