New Summoner looks really nice, but...

[Dyvid]

As for Heavensward gameplay? The expansion where instead of giving summoners a new pet they decided to implement a "trance" that visually has barely any payoff and mechanically was "a 1 button spam?" No thanks.

That's what SE gave you for endwalker, except times 3. Now instead of pets and DoTs, you trance dance with a flashy animation for each. Might as well delete carbuncle and Demi's.

The "class fantasy" argument against DoTs is sooooo lame, SMN in Final Fantasy XIV is an Arcanist that happens to also have a SMN soul crystal. Just like how in IV Rydia is a black mage....who can also summon eidolons. Like most jobs, HW really nailed SMN mechanically and aesthetically

HW wasn't my favorite version mainly because I felt they should have just added Demi Bahamut rather than DWT. I just don't understand why they didn't build on 4.0 version that was generally praised instead they screwed it up with 5.0 so bad they felt they had to just burn it down.

[Rolder50]

Yeah, ShB did a great job. I heard healers especially have high levels of satisfaction when it comes to job design.

True that. Personally switched off healers because they dumbed them down so much they weren’t fun any more. Now they are coming for my Summoner as well! Sad times.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Personally really happy with where they taking summoner, much less bloated hotbar and it actually feels like a summoner now with the summon rotation. And good riddance to the dots they were not fun at all, the only enjoyment to them came in dungeons for spreading em around. Seeing as we get few dungeons now and my smn is capped, no joy there for me.

I never played any other ff game besides some ffxv before I started ffxiv, so I don't know the history of summoner.. I see a lot of fighting over it. But I will say, if something is going to be labelled a summoner it should focus around summons not dots, this is an mmo and not every player coming here has history w the franchise. It was a big jebait for me as a new player who loves pet based classes that I had a hideous egi and dots to manage. I stuck with it because I LOVE bahamut so so much. I did enjoy it a lot in Stormblood, less so in ShB but I still love the jobs style with the big summons and my lil carby at my side. Hyped to come away from healing and back to SMN and MNK. Sadly my DRK is still shelved till it gets some attn.

Forgot to mention the jank! Good lord the ghosting and outright just ignoring of commands, glad to see the back of it.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

Like most jobs, HW really nailed SMN mechanically and aesthetically

I politely, yet vehemently, disagree. Playing HW Summoner was like trying to untangle a slinky while also juggling 3 other slinkys. I took SMN into PotD and could not stand the Aethertrail mechanic, which is by far one of the worst mechanics this game has ever seen until WHM's pre-hotfix Stormblood lilies and pre-rework Plenary Indulgence. I had more fun with Bard the Bowmage and MCH's garbage HW Wildfire than I did with Aethertrail Attunement. Stormblood managed to make Summoner slightly palatable, I managed to stomach leveling it to 70, but Shadowbringers brought it full circle to HW levels of annoying to the point I dropped it as soon as I got it to level 71. Why suffer when RDM exists and doesn't play like absolute crap like pre-rework SMN does. I don't think there is any job in this game, currently, that plays as badly as ShB SMN does, other than SCH which ironically is another pet job.

Now they are coming for my Summoner as well! Sad times.

How is Endwalker SMN dumbed down exactly? Lmao, less buttons to press? It's not like you'll be able to fire off Ruby Rite, Ruby Catastrophe or Slipstream randomly at will without using swiftcast or knowing where you can stand in the fight beforehand like BLM requires. You'll want to get out of the gem phase as quickly as you can as lingering in the gem phase for too long can cause Bahamut and Phoenix to come off cooldown and those two staying on cooldown is a huge potency loss.

If cast times and recast times are unchanged With 0 spellspeed, and not using swiftcast on anything, it takes you, at minimum, 30.1 seconds to get through the gem phase while Bahamut and Phoenix both last 20 seconds. Bahamut and Phoenix both start going on cooldown as soon as you summon them and you cannot go back to gem phase until they disappear. By the time Bahamut and Phoenix disappear and your gem phase is over you only have at max 10 seconds of leeway before Bahamut/Phoenix are back up. If you fumble your rotation too many times you run the risk of losing potency. The two Ruby spells, Crimson Cyclone/Strike and Slipstream are going to be SMN's biggest hurdles to perfect play and optimization. The skill ceiling will still be there, it'll just be more like BLM where you need to know where you can stand instead of doing finger gymnastics like pre-rework SMN. And then the fact you can only weave Searing Light before or after your gem phase.

[Rolder50]

How is Endwalker SMN dumbed down exactly? Lmao, less buttons to press? It's not like you'll be able to fire off Ruby Rite, Ruby Catastrophe or Slipstream randomly at will without using swiftcast or knowing where you can stand in the fight beforehand like BLM requires. You'll want to get out of the gem phase as quickly as you can as lingering in the gem phase for too long can cause Bahamut and Phoenix to come off cooldown and those two staying on cooldown is a huge potency loss.

If cast times and recast times are unchanged With 0 spellspeed, and not using swiftcast on anything, it takes you, at minimum, 30.1 seconds to get through the gem phase while Bahamut and Phoenix both last 20 seconds. Bahamut and Phoenix both start going on cooldown as soon as you summon them and you cannot go back to gem phase until they disappear. By the time Bahamut and Phoenix disappear and your gem phase is over you only have at max 10 seconds of leeway before Bahamut/Phoenix are back up. If you fumble your rotation too many times you run the risk of losing potency. The two Ruby spells, Crimson Cyclone/Strike and Slipstream are going to be SMN's biggest hurdles to perfect play and optimization. The skill ceiling will still be there, it'll just be more like BLM where you need to know where you can stand instead of doing finger gymnastics like pre-rework SMN. And then the fact you can only weave Searing Light before or after your gem phase.

I’ve been watching people theory craft Summoner rotations. They typically boil down to…

Precast a ruin and weave searing light
Summon Bahamut
Mash Astral Impulse until he leaves, weave in your energy drain stuff and death flare
Summon a Primal (I’ll use Garuda)
Use slipstream
Mash Emerald Rite until you run out
Summon another (I’ll use titan)
Mash topaz rite and mountain buster until he’s out

And so on.

The ONLY choice you have in any of this is which primal, but no matter which you pick, be ready to button mash 1 and 2! Fun!

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

The ONLY choice you have in any of this is which primal, but no matter which you pick, be ready to button mash 1 and 2! Fun!

It will be fun. I play RDM, DNC and MCH after all and they're all on par of 121212. Allison, who is my current main, and all 3 of my other alts, one of which is a freshly created character just to experience SMN from lvl 1, are all standing at the flood gates ready for it to be opened and get on Endwalker SMN for a multitude of reasons. I care not for convoluted substance or an exciting rotation and value style, weight and execution significantly more and these SMN changes are exactly that; style, weight and execution. I just got done going on a grimoire collecting and SMN glamour plate creation spree. And I could not be more ecstatic for these SMN changes with Topaz Rite, Topaz Catastrophe, Mountain Buster, Earthen Fury, all being good looking earth magic which is so woefully rare to see in games, and Tri-Disaster all of which are vfx I yearn for in games.

I do not think I would have given this game a second glance, until EW was on sale next year, if this SMN rework did not happen. I was also not expecting to resub before Nov 12th but here I am. For every ShB Summoner main that quits there will be players like me that are content, or even excited, with the changes and will take your place.

As you can tell, it does not take much to please me.

[lulunami]

I just don't understand why they didn't build on 4.0 version that was generally praised instead they screwed it up with 5.0 so bad they felt they had to just burn it down.

The original 4.0 SMN was very unpopular on launch so it always had a stigma. The 4.0 salvaged version had a lot of Aetherflow and DWT timer management (you had to DWT/Bahamut before 15s left on Aetherflow timer) which culminated in a 2 minute long rotation to summon Demi-Bahamut. Dying before summoning Bahamut was a large DPS loss. 3.0 SMN was not the best designed job, but it was better than 4.0 or 5.0.

SMN has always been a pretty easy job to play in terms of cool down usage. Burst damage was mostly gated behind a 1 minute Aetherflow timer. DoT management was pretty easy. The most difficult part of SMN has always been controlling the laggy pet.

[ChazNatlo]

There is a whole section of my other comment where I talk about there being an optimal way to take choices, resulting in you doing the same thing over and over again (which was a point in Larry's video). Why did you choose to ignore it?

I mean, assuming you want to get all three Gem summons out, in a static environment (Say a training dummy) it really wouldn't matter which order you do them in, so long as you get them all out before the next phase. Good or bad, in a vacuum they are interchangeable as far as ordering goes. Optimal ordering only comes in based on a fight, where you'd want to pick and choose which Summon you're using based on what the boss is doing (Or in a "Know the fight" scenario, what they're going to be doing next.) the idea is that this can change.

Course, that would rely on an attack being so long or a phase being so short (without the boss having invincibility windows) that it'll matter, but I'm a filthy casual, so I'm probably off the mark here.

Thank you for briefly summarizing the core issues of the class-in most other FF titles by the time you hit level 70 as a Summoner you usually have an entire pantheon of gods at your disposal.

Just a nitpick, but I usually beat my FFs at around level 60, if I'm not grinding for perfection to fight the super bosses.

[MellowMink]

I'm a Summoner main and I really love the new changes! I like Larryzaur's videos on it too.