Summoner feels really, really dumbed down now

[Feidam]

I actually love the new summoner. It’s not the dot mage from 2.0/3.0, but it’s much much better than the overly tedious 4.0/5.0 smn. I mained smn until stormblood then ditched it after that mess. Happy to be back on my original main.

[Navnav]

SMN is actually EXTREMELY well designed. It is missing some oGCDs and maybe another GCD to press during your skittle phases, but otherwise it's good.
I would say SMN is the perfect framework for introducing talent trees or similar into the game, or at the very least it has an excellent framework to improve upon in furtue expansions.

[ThorneDynasty]

Most other Summoner characters double as healers anyway, so makes sense you have to draw from Rydia for inspiration considering it's a caster DPS job. Makes more sense than rolling Ranger and Bard into one job.

Although if you filled the empty space on summoner hotbars with a few shorter cooldown and GCD heals, maybe got rid of Ruin IV and/or Fester, added a heal/shield effect to summoning Garuda/Titan, you might be half way to having the best playing healer in the game.

[dinnertime]

Most other Summoner characters double as healers anyway, so makes sense you have to draw from Rydia for inspiration considering it's a caster DPS job. Makes more sense than rolling Ranger and Bard into one job.

Although if you filled the empty space on summoner hotbars with a few shorter cooldown and GCD heals, maybe got rid of Ruin IV and/or Fester, added a heal/shield effect to summoning Garuda/Titan, you might be half way to having the best playing healer in the game.

I mean... We have Scholar that was supposed to be Summoner Healer equivalent and it was well designed in 2.0 and 3.0, but got badly butchered from trying to separate it from SMN which is ironic because in the end, SMN was the one that got reworked to the point it's nothing like the other versions.

[Sequora]

For Rydia, Bio actually was a substantial spell for a large chunk of the game and probably why they gave it to SMN in the first place all those years ago. In FF4 on snes, it was between the -ra and -ga spells in damage but cast instantly. So once you picked it up, it was her hardest hitting spell for about 20 levels and had no wait on the cast. It also tended to beat all her summons until you got Leviathan due to cast times and MP costs.

So while I can usually understand most ex-wow players or XIV only players comparing SMN to other MMOs there was always a baseline of Rydia in its design. Even knowing the extremely basic healing, since she did too until she grows up.

You give them too much credit. They wanted to add a new job with ARR and summoner was the highest requested. They had a bunch of leftover assets from 1.0 Thamuturge that weren’t being used. It also fit that other games with a pet casters often use disease magic as well.

Saying it fits thematically because one summoner in the series could use it is such a stretch.

[rewd]

Saying it fits thematically because one summoner in the series could use it is such a stretch.

If people like to use the "It's not a FF summoner" argument when it benefits them, they also need to be ready to get the same argument when it works against them.

[aveyond-dreams]

If people like to use the "It's not a FF summoner" argument when it benefits them, they also need to be ready to get the same argument when it works against them.

You have argued "Summoner = poison mage because Rydia!" multiple times across several threads. Exceptions do not a rule make. The time has come to accept this and move on.

[ty_taurus]

You have argued "Summoner = poison mage because Rydia!" multiple times across several threads. Exceptions do not a rule make. The time has come to accept this and move on.

Oh I have an idea. Why don't we add Bio back in as a spell and then have it get replaced with Summon Ifrit at level 30. That would make it even more faithful to Rydia! Maybe that would make him happy.

[rewd]

You have argued "Summoner = poison mage because Rydia!" multiple times across several threads. Exceptions do not a rule make. The time has come to accept this and move on.

The thing I've always argued is that the "FF Summoner" argument many people like to use is not a real argument because there is no "FF Summoner". Characters like Rydia could use black magic (as well as some basic white magic spells, as her younger self), while other iconic summoners such as Garnet and Yuna were proficient in white magic instead. Not to mention summons themselves can work in different ways: Rydia's summons are basically just fancy animations, while Yuna's resemble more a pet-style gameplay as you can directly control summons for a set period.

You might need a refresher, although you should be aware of it as you directly replied to it...

The game is called Final Fantasy XIV, not Final Fantasy The Norm. They can and should take some freedom when it comes to job design (as they already did, many times, with plenty of jobs).

A norm, when it comes to Summoner, doesn't exist. Summoners work in different ways in different games. The only thing they have in common is - not suprisingly - that they summon things.

People always liked to use FFXI as an argument as to why XIV's SMN is 'wrong' because it was missing XI's big summons. I'm sure the same people aren't using XI as an argument as to why Carbuncle needs to attack again, although that's what it does in XI too. Weird, uh.

Not to mention that new SMN is far from the 'norm' too, unless we want to act like a summoner becoming a geomancer is how it has always worked in Final Fantasy.

"Classic FF summoner", "norm" and all that are arguments that should have died a long time ago.

When I mention Rydia, it's because I'm reiterating the fact that summoners in FF don't follow one single, strict paradigm. Summoners are essentially mages that can hold their own even when they are not summoning: Rydia is a great black mage (and damage over time spells are part of her arsenal), while Yuna, Garnet and Eiko specialize in white magic.

You might need a second refresher:

Your comment is overall wrong.

Summoners don't feel like elementalist, first of all because summons are something you don't spam (unlike new SMN). Secondly, because summoners have their own capabilities outside of summons. Yuna and Garnet are specialized in white magic for example, Rydia (the first "true" FF summoner) in black magic instead, and as such she could use damage over time spells.

Lastly, DPS jobs are objectively getting easier.

I shouldn't have bothered with this because people luckily realized that you are not worth their time, but I figured I'd let them know that you are apparently so desperate that you started spreading lies now.

[mathias-merodach]

Except that FF14 summoner is an exception even among the exceptions. In most games throughout the series, Summoner is either something everyone can do or it is some small, tribal thing sequestered away from the world or limited in some manner. Rydia and those of Mist? Small village and hidden away. The next time that summoner becomes something that isn't just granted by a job Crystal to the party (Ala 3, where there were two different summoner classes, and 5), in the mainline series is 9 where it again comes from a small sect of the planet's population. Even within 9, the two summoners you have specialize in two different kinds of white magic, vs Rydia's black, and do not have access to all the same spells or summons. And that's not counting Golbez/Theodore who is also a summoner in 4 and is noteworthy for surviving the death of his where Rydia's mother didn't. Then we have 10 where it is a religious training process where only a those select go through. This is also another difference as Garnet survives the loss of all of hers where, had she been from 4, she would have expected been killed from it. 14 Summoners? They come from arguably the most powerful and militarily focused Empire on this planet with technology far beyond what any other previous game's Summoner group has known. In addition, 14's Summons (aka Primals) actively affect and harm the environment from their very existence whereas in every other game they are just... there. Like, in 9, literally a castle just asleep that people live, train, and rule from. Or 6, where they, as Espers, sit around in a village in the own world and can actively fall in love with humans. So to say that 14's summoner should feel like all the others is just trying to force consistency upon a class that hasn't had much in the way of consistency across over 15 games outside of calling for something to do a thing.