Summoner rework is a huge dissapointment

[Jirah]

If... by happy, it's all the casuals that don't raid. Yeah, sure. SMN is so unfun during raid that it's unplayable lol. Removing some of the issues would already make the job more interesting. Right now, not only SMN is at the worst spot. It is the most unfun caster in raid.

In no hardcore raider, probably takes me like a year to get the clears, I’m reminded of the funniest examples

“I like simple jobs so I can focus on mechanics”
Comming from someone or most that only do core where the mechanics themselves don’t even try to be threatening, I’m often left wondering wtf are they talking about

[rPilcrow]

So, I tried SMN a while ago and dropped it, but picked it up after the rework. That's fine, I've done the same for other classes.
Anyway, I gave it an honest try and it's just really, really bad.
Mind, this is a casual leveling perspective - I'm at Lv60 - but the impression I get is it isn't much different at 90, and even then you can't judge a job just by its levelcap state.

So, deathflare looks good and I wish BLM's despair looked like that, and that's my praise.

There's no meaningful difference between ruin or gemshines, not even bare minimum color differences, and no individualty between the primals - just slightly different AoEs that are frustrating to use for the few seconds they're there.
You don't get many buttons to press that aren't Ruin, few decisions to make, and what is there is bad - the shield doesn't work while the primals are out which fortunately (?) isn't long, and physick is still REALLY BAD. I guess you can rez at least?
There's also a weird 15 delay on Aethercharge.. which turns out to be for the trance, which unlocks like.. two buttons; deathflare and ruin+ spam. Maybe pheonix changes that?

It overall doesn't feel like I'm a summoner summoning things so much as a very generic mage who casts one spell but occasionally throws either a chicken nugget or abstract sculpture at something and then continues to cast more of her very generic spell. This might be because I can only associate ruin spam with those dudes in that one yanxia fate chain who all just cast ruin, but that's beside the point; this feels really bad.

Also, I've heard the summons pre-EW were janky, but the rework summons are definitely janky; Ifrit and Titan do their AoE the moment they get into range, which often hits only one target in a pack, and they move REALLY SLOWLY so it's easy to kill the target before they do their AoE. They MIGHT retarget before they despawn.
You can compensate for this, sure, but it makes wall-to-walls a lot of waiting to stop at best (and in some cases your summons will despawn before they do ANYTHING) despite being a super mobile caster.

This might change at higher levels (I'm kind of tired of this; can we get the good gameplay earlier on for once?), but I don't know. It definitely affects you from ~lv30 to at least lv60+ and there's no other word for it other than jank.

Ultimately, leveling from 50 to 60 felt a lot like playing BLM pre-50, except without the promise of QoL and complexity like triplecast, ley lines, or even AM. I might huff tons of copium and level to 71 for the bozja preview hoping it gets better, but I'm not really certain. I think I might just level something else instead.

[Anvaire]

If... by happy, it's all the casuals that don't raid. Yeah, sure. SMN is so unfun during raid that it's unplayable lol. Removing some of the issues would already make the job more interesting. Right now, not only SMN is at the worst spot. It is the most unfun caster in raid.

Speak for yourself, Im raiding savage with it and wouldnt say its unfun at all. It does need some adjustments, but not re-work 52 as some people seem to want. The thing is, its hit the fantasy most people seem to want, just is too mechanically rigid with the added caveat of not really changing much during levelling.

[Vainbaal]

There's also a weird 15 delay on Aethercharge.. which turns out to be for the trance, which unlocks like.. two buttons; deathflare and ruin+ spam. Maybe pheonix changes that?

Sadly Phoenix is a 1:1 copy of Bahamut, Deathflare in Phoenix is now a placeable regen, Enknindle Bahamut does the exact same thing for Phoenix and does the same damage, and is a slightly stronger Ruin III due to the loss of a Deathflare from Bahamut.

Also, I've heard the summons pre-EW were janky, but the rework summons are definitely janky; Ifrit and Titan do their AoE the moment they get into range, which often hits only one target in a pack, and they move REALLY SLOWLY so it's easy to kill the target before they do their AoE. They MIGHT retarget before they despawn.

All three of the level 90 Summons are just reworked Garuda-Egi (The level 45 Ability) with a delay, with an additional +100 potency in damage, meaning if the target dies before the summon does its attack animation it will wait for you select a new target and will leave without attacking if no target is selected. The Summons will now target on top of the selected mob the exact same AoE range of Garuda-Egi, a 25 diameter. As for the "Jank" gameplay from ShadowBringers it was not really that bad as other claimed, just the pet had Stack Que of orders it had to complete instead of an Array build, leading to a second or two delay on the pet perform the submitted action and DoTs were not hard to keep up. But this new job is 100% rigid and does not look like any real additions can be added in without out swapping out abilities in future contents. Or doing a rework of actions to change up current gameplay or doing another overhaul to restructure the gameplay from the ground up.

This might change at higher levels (I'm kind of tired of this; can we get the good gameplay earlier on for once?), but I don't know. It definitely affects you from ~lv30 to at least lv60+ and there's no other word for it other than jank.

The only really changes to gameplay you can expect is gaining the single use of Ruin IV within the time limit of one minute, the use of Searing Light Buff, and 86 actions, which does not really affect the gameplay at all since its design is to extend out the primal actions mostly for Ifrit (dash+slam attack) and Garuda(3 second hard cast of ground AoE DoT) so to eat up the 1-minute timeframe between the Demis. (Note I am leaving Bahamut and Phoenix out since they just add 1 more button to press in Dreadwrym Trance and remains a Ruin III spam so no real game changes at 70 or 80 just a free turret). These changes do not feel that well for how late they are added in and does not build upon the gameplay of those who are leveling the job.

[Aikaal]

Speak for yourself, Im raiding savage with it and wouldnt say its unfun at all. It does need some adjustments, but not re-work 52 as some people seem to want. The thing is, its hit the fantasy most people seem to want, just is too mechanically rigid with the added caveat of not really changing much during levelling.

it's always a matter of perspective. Me getting owned because I can't delay CDs or Bahamut without significant damage loss is a big turn off for me.

Me picking RDM and just doing better damage on fights I had not played on the job also feels bad. As much as people hate the whole raise support. I sure doubled raise both dead healers... twice to get the door boss down this week. It'd have been a while with a SMN. With a RDM, it was a clear. SMN just feel it lost the caster identity with 7 casts per 2 minutes. It's just not enjoyable, I'm having a ton of fun on BLM and RDM because I get to play around my mobility.

Honestly, it's on the right path, you are right, the rotation is too rigid. They do need to bring back more casts and just make Ifrit better DPS than Titan. Titan GCDs does more Potency with a shorter, instant-cast GCD. Like; "What were they thinking?" moment.

[Anvaire]

it's always a matter of perspective. Me getting owned because I can't delay CDs or Bahamut without significant damage loss is a big turn off for me.

Me picking RDM and just doing better damage on fights I had not played on the job also feels bad. As much as people hate the whole raise support. I sure doubled raise both dead healers... twice to get the door boss down this week. It'd have been a while with a SMN. With a RDM, it was a clear. SMN just feel it lost the caster identity with 7 casts per 2 minutes. It's just not enjoyable, I'm having a ton of fun on BLM and RDM because I get to play around my mobility.

Honestly, it's on the right path, you are right, the rotation is too rigid. They do need to bring back more casts and just make Ifrit better DPS than Titan. Titan GCDs does more Potency with a shorter, instant-cast GCD. Like; "What were they thinking?" moment.

to be honest, im not really sure why there is a desire for one arcanum summon to do more damage than the other. I agree when it is a mechanical consideration, i.e Ifrit needs to do more because its casted. But when its lore related, it kind of... irks me.

In terms of titan doing more, I wonder if it was because historically titan has always been the one not used, perhaps the devs thought that they needed a carrot to get people to use it. I certainly remember YP making a big point pre-0endwalker that we ould need to use all summons to get maimum dps.

Damage aside, Titan is my favourite of the three mechanically because it is actually different and provides variation from spamming the same button, allthough i would have to concede that its a small minute variation. Either way, mechanically the job needs some adjustments. I hope it happens in 6.1.

[Aikaal]

to be honest, im not really sure why there is a desire for one arcanum summon to do more damage than the other. I agree when it is a mechanical consideration, i.e Ifrit needs to do more because its casted. But when its lore related, it kind of... irks me.

In terms of titan doing more, I wonder if it was because historically titan has always been the one not used, perhaps the devs thought that they needed a carrot to get people to use it. I certainly remember YP making a big point pre-0endwalker that we ould need to use all summons to get maimum dps.

Damage aside, Titan is my favourite of the three mechanically because it is actually different and provides variation from spamming the same button, allthough i would have to concede that its a small minute variation. Either way, mechanically the job needs some adjustments. I hope it happens in 6.1.

In terms of lore, the Primal strength is based on the devotion of the summoners and/or the amount of aether you drop to summon them. I don't think it's valid to say Ifrit should be weaker. Its not about Titan having the most DPS now and he used to be unused that is the issue. The issue is Titan is the most easy brainless out of the 3 and deals the best DPS. Garuda/Ifrit requires your swiftcast to optimize damage and it voids your raise support. It's just simply not enjoyable. Especially when people go and say you're paying the raise tax as SMN but legit can't save wipes because you could just swift 1 raise but if there's 2-3 deaths, you can't wombo triple raise and save the clear on RDM. RDM who deals slightly more damage also. RDM still being in a bad spot for not having BLM DPS but is much more enjoyable to play and just... better imho. I still do P3S on SMN but x_x

The issue is visually wise, its pretty good to summon them, you feel great and mechanically wise, the elemental gem summons is a pretty boring mechanic.

[SweetPete]

I just don’t understand why they didn’t give us Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva to finish off the elemental summons at least. Having just 3 sucks. We definitely should of gotten the other 3 after Phoenix. I really hope they add them before 7.0 and not seriously make us wait 2 years just to give us a trait that changes Titan, Ifrit and Garuda gems to the other 3 at level 100.

[CKNovel]

Speak for yourself, Im raiding savage with it and wouldnt say its unfun at all. It does need some adjustments, but not re-work 52 as some people seem to want. The thing is, its hit the fantasy most people seem to want, just is too mechanically rigid with the added caveat of not really changing much during levelling.

You can raid savage content and still be casual. Being casual is no insult, it's just a way of playing the game.
SMN plays itself, which fits a lot of checkmark for a casual job.

You don't need to invest a lot of time to reach the SMN skill ceiling.
To more experienced/invested players, it's disappointing that a job offers no resistance at all, nothing to learn.

[Anvaire]

In terms of lore, the Primal strength is based on the devotion of the summoners and/or the amount of aether you drop to summon them. I don't think it's valid to say Ifrit should be weaker. Its not about Titan having the most DPS now and he used to be unused that is the issue. The issue is Titan is the most easy brainless out of the 3 and deals the best DPS. Garuda/Ifrit requires your swiftcast to optimize damage and it voids your raise support. It's just simply not enjoyable. Especially when people go and say you're paying the raise tax as SMN but legit can't save wipes because you could just swift 1 raise but if there's 2-3 deaths, you can't wombo triple raise and save the clear on RDM. RDM who deals slightly more damage also. RDM still being in a bad spot for not having BLM DPS but is much more enjoyable to play and just... better imho. I still do P3S on SMN but x_x

The issue is visually wise, its pretty good to summon them, you feel great and mechanically wise, the elemental gem summons is a pretty boring mechanic.

I find Titan the most fun out of all three tbh, and Garuda the least. In terms of raid tax, I know its controversial but i wouldnt mind if raise was dropped from SMN all together. As you said its punishing to use, so personally i only use it when absolutely necesary. Being honest, the current summoner is cool to look at but the substance is a bit lacking due to its mechanics. I still have fun though as anoying as parts are. There is some optimisation around the order of the summons. I find in P3S im constantly switching them up to see which is the best to use. But long term, it needs some adjustments.