New summoner is unacceptable

[Skiros]

Like more than half of the opener, the busiest part of your rotation, is just pressing 1 (ruin). The job practically plays itself, with virtually zero room for optimization. There is virtually no fail state either. It's also basically a one-hotbar job.

I sincerely hope Square Enix does not think this is the way to go for all future jobs. This is embarrassingly unacceptable even from a casual perspective.

Edit:

OK, like I'm having a seizure from reading some of the comments in this thread.

I like the aesthetics and theme of the new Summoner. What I don't like is that it basically feels unfinished and is about as complex as an amoeba.

I don't care that much about DoT management. I don't care that much about pet micros. I don't have an attachment to old SMN.

Removing those aspects is fine in itself, if they actually offered a meaty replacement. But they did not. SMN right now is a barebones one-hotbar job with zero complexity to speak of.

Why are we not adding more skills in each Summon window that is more than just press 1 or Gemshine? How about using Fire, Wind, and Earth attunements to meaningfully change what you can do in a Bahamut window? What about varied gameplay within each Summon window? For example, in Ifrit, on top of the gapcloser that we have, why not make the grimoire turn into a flaming sword that you can use to attack the enemy, for which you have to be in melee range for, but also keep the Fire Attunement Gemshine? In Titan, what about a skill that allows you to apply earthy shields onto the party that deals reflected damage to a boss? In Garuda, how about creating a vortex that gives you a boost to wind damage if you stand in it? Those are little things that will not make a baseline acceptable gameplay too hard for players, but add more optimization decisions to the rotation (by thinking about when Titan is best used in an encounter to maximize reflected damage, thinking about when you can stand in melee range, and thinking about when you can stand in a Ley Lines-equivalent during an encounter). They are optional, but they will be fun to think about. A proper summoner theme vis-a-vis the traditional FF style and complexity does not have to be mutually exclusive. And complexity does not have to be mutually exclusive with accessibility, by making sure that the room for optimization is optional and largely do not rely on button bloat.

Current SMN is just a braindead job that any monkey with two brain cells can play. Not only that but it just feels like it's unfinished. This is the real problem. Again, the problem isn't the lack of DoTs or clunky pet AI. The problem is that this new iteration is unfinished.

Edit 2:

The more I play current SMN, the more I just feel a sense of pity. The base design of 6.0 SMN is really great. But it desperately needs more than the base. What we got in 6.0 feels like what you get at Lv50 or Lv60. It does not feel like a Lv90 job. There is so much potential, but they just squandered it.

Edit 3:

I've farmed the extreme trials a few times on SMN and I do think that Lv90 SMN is capable of being interesting. That being said, it is highly dependent on the encounter design and what you want to do with the job.

I think it's pretty fun as a progression job for the purposes of clearing week 1 savage, as you derive almost no utility from using Swiftcast for damage (and hence can use it for resurrection much more easily) and the mobility of SMN is very useful for progression (compared to Dualcasting on RDM), so much so that I daresay it could even be a more viable pick than RDM, since SMN's damage *seems* to be quite significantly higher (which matters quite a lot for clearing week 1). It's a very noob-friendly progression job due to Radiant Aegis and its insane mobility.

It is also fun in dungeons and fights with regular forced downtime. Note that dungeons are pretty much fights with a string of forced, irregular downtime. The reason is that downtime forces the summoner to abridge their rotation and prioritize the hardest-hitting moves (the Summon attacks), and what is most optimal to be abridged and what is most optimal to utilize to its completion vary depending on the duration and position of the forced downtime, not to mention the interaction between abridgement and juggling summons so that you are not casting when you need to move.

However, it is going to be dreadfully boring in most savage fights, especially fights with next to no downtime or downtime that is so long that you cycle through a full summon window anyways. From the last tier, that would be E9S, E10S, and E12S p1. Even with E11S and E12S p2, I can imagine that half the downtime is "regular" enough that the decision on how to abridge the primal summons is straightforward enough. In this sense, ironically SMN seems to be more interesting in dungeons than in most savage encounters because of how the job works.

I stand by my initial thoughts on how the devs can improve Summoner, and that is by adding skills within each primal Summon window that imposes some mild handicap on the player in exchange for slightly increased damage. Such as a vortex that the Summoner stands in to increase wind damage dealt (like a Ley Lines). This will make optimization more interesting and build on the design philosophy of Summoner, which I believe is for players to consider when and how to summon the Primals. In essence, you have like 20 or so fixed actions that you have to execute between each Demi-summon (Bahamut/Phoenix) window and your decision is to order the actions so that you get a rotation that maximizes your uptime and damage. But current Lv90 SMN does not have enough differentiation between each primal Summon for the decision to be less straightforward. In other words, Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan are too alike (even with Astral Flow) for the player to want to think hard about how the order in which they use the actions, particularly on fights where the boss is largely standing still and not moving.

The job also needs to make the Demi-summon windows much more interesting, without making them feel like the pointless busywork that MCH's wildfire window has. I think a potential solution would be to extend the duration of Attunement effects and allow them to persist after summoning Bahamut/Phoenix, and let Attunement affect what you can do in a Summon Bahamut/Phoenix window. IMO the approach I prefer is to allow Gemshine and Precious Brilliance to be cast-able in Bahamut/Phoenix provided you have an Attunement stack, and be stronger than Ruin (Impulse/Brand), with the downside of requiring some sort of handicap (melee range for Ifrit, a long cast time for Garuda, and slightly lower potency for Titan). Shortening the CD of Enkindle to 8s would be helpful IMO as well.

Currently, my impression of Summoner is that it is going to be dreadfully boring on fights with little to no downtime (in terms of targetability), even if the mechanics are difficult. All jobs suffer (in terms of enjoyability) from this to a certain extent, but I don't think any job suffers from low-downtime fights as much as Summoner (and machinist): melees have to consider how to keep perfect uptime even when the boss is targetable for many fights, other casters have enough casts that they need to consider how to move and use movement options in order to maximize casting uptime. The phys ranged have some RNG aspect to them so that even if they don't need to concern themselves with uptime, they still have little things to keep track of each pull (except MCH). The heart of the matter is Summoner's phys-ranged-like mobility, but I don't think sacrificing that mobility is necessary if the devs substituted the typical caster decision of when to cast with something else that requires thought as well.

[Roda]

It feels like a melee class with just its 123 combo and nothing else.
Our job gauge is a bunch of binary "you are allowed to use this" indicators or "you are allowed to use this for x seconds".
There's no REASON to be pushing ANY of our buttons outside "you have nothing better to do"

There's no build up, nothing to manage.. Just push ur buttons, 1 button simon says.

It really feels unfinished. :T

[Catwho]

I'm giving it more time. It's definitely more simplistic, but I've been playing different content at various levels and I'm going to withhold final judgement until I hit 90.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

Like more than half of the opener, the busiest part of your rotation, is just pressing 1 (ruin). The job practically plays itself, with virtually zero room for optimization. There is virtually no fail state either. It's also basically a one-hotbar job.

I sincerely hope Square Enix does not think this is the way to go for all future jobs. This is embarrassingly unacceptable even from a casual perspective.

Sounds great. Can't wait to try it this evening.

We all knew it was going to be a LOT more simplistic due to complaints and memes about 2 minute openers etc. right?

[Derio]

So far its decent. I think it will be better once I get it to 90. I say just give it time.

[Daralii]

So far its decent. I think it will be better once I get it to 90. I say just give it time.

The only real change from 80 to 90 is that you get the elemental Astral Flows.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I much prefer it, I do hope that in next expac they add a little more complexity in but seeing as this rework has changed so much already its not a bad base to start with imo

[Shougun]

Lightly messed with it so far but I thought it was fun. Though certainly when you change something so much you can depart from what some people like, so that is unfortunate reality (though that isn't my reality, so far I am happier than before). I do believe some jobs should be easier to play and some harder- so even if it was true that summoner became more straight forward I don't think that is inherently a problem (in and of itself, though it could be a symptom if other issues exist).\

Due to diverse types of players wanting different things having variety can be valuable if not sometimes a little frustrating for those who wanted X theme but Y playstyle. Yet say now that DoT concept is gone here, perhaps we should look forward to a job dedicated to DoTs and other afflictions.

Honestly I did like how few skills were on my job bar, personally it's not about the simplicity per say but I don't like having to go to the alt section of my keyboard and think two rows of abilities is perfect (I'm all for stacking skills and making things many purpose, like a MOBA - I'd, personally, rather have a skill that can do four different things and interact specially than have four different skills... lol).

[_Pigzig]

time for another rework? lol

[Genbe197]

Its pretty fun spammy job miles ahead of the dot mess that it was.