[Suggestion] My solution for Summoner

[Vandso]

Cutting to the chase: what is the biggest problem with the current Summoner? The rotation is boring. Why? Because the player doesn't have to think about the rotation! Theoretically, the new Summoner should be a job whose rotation is based on decision making over complexity, but the options available don't make that much of a difference so that the player wants to make a decision. The difference between choosing Garuda over Titan is almost negligible. For decisions to make sense, they need to be both punitive and rewarding. But of course this is not the only problem. Here's how I'd fix Summoner:

Aetherflow Mastery
Trait
Upgrades Physic to Whisperwind and Resurrection to Aurablast.

Whisperwind
Abilty
Cast Time: Instant
Recast Time: 1s
Mana Cost: -
Range: 25y
Area: -
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 200 and restores HP equal to the damage dealt.
Aetherflow Gauge Cost: 1

Aurablast
Ability
Cast Time: Instant
Recast Time: 1s
Mana Cost: -
Range: 25y
Area: 5y
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to the target and all enemies nearby and restores HP equal to the damage dealt.
Aetherflow Gauge Cost: 1

What this does is take away two abilities that Summoners shouldn't have and replace them with something useful. Also, it gives purpose to a meaningless mechanic such as Aetherflow. Now Summoners have the choice to spend Aetherflow charges with Fester and deal more damage, or save Aetherflow charges to use Whisperwind in case they take damage. And before you say that Summoners don't heal (I'm looking at you, Yoshi-P), I'll ask you to play FFIII/FFIV/FFV/FVI again.

Summon Ifrit II
Additional Effect 2: Decreases damage taken and movement speed by 15%.
Duration: 20s

Summon Titan II
Additional Effect 2: Increases damage dealt and damage taken by 15%.
Duration: 20s

Summon Garuda II
Additional Effect 2: Increases movement speed and decreases damage dealt by 15%.
Duration: 20s

Now, instead of randomly choosing summons, the player will have to be constantly aware of the situation he's in, because he won't want to be on Titan when he takes damage, he won't want to be on Garuda during a dps check, and he won't want to be on Ifrit when he'll have to move around. The player, however, will be rewarded for his situational awareness, and this alone can make the rotation much more dynamic and fun.

QoL Sfuff:

For the love of God, make Carbuncle be permanently active and change Summon Carbuncle to Place. All the other Pet Actions are useless (instead of maybe Heel) and I can't even use a hotkey to move my fricking rabbit. If you don't want to add abilities based on Carbuncle positions fine, but at least leave me of the burden of having to summon Carbuncle whenever I die.

And lastly, the Summoner's questline sucks ass. I could write a story ten times better but this is a topic for another post.

[Espon]

These changes don't seem to fix anything and just makes things worse. Summoner's main issue is that it really doesn't change much between between level 30 and 90 as most skills are just upgrades with higher potencies.

I rather not not lose Resurrection in exchange for two crappy abilities I'd never use over Fester and Painflare because they got a tiny heal attached to them.

You're already stuck in place when using Ifrit due to long cast times, so why the movement decrease?

Unless you have the fight memorized, Titan will sometimes get you killed when heavy raid damage comes unless you got a Radiant Aegis ready.

[Ggwppino]

Honestly I would not go to change the GCDs but I would go to add OGCDs. The smn currently does not have many. I would thematically change Fester to something more coherent. I would free the carbuncle from the transformations and I would add some OGCDs in addition to the shield, perhaps even offensive. I would free up the phoenix OGCD heal which currently works only because the level designers are doing a big job to make the heals more or less always match a boss aoe. In reality I would also free the phoenix hot again for the same reason. Perhaps a similar stack concept could be used for fester to be able to use these utility abilities after summoning phoenix. So the smn is both justified for its dps by adding utilities to it, and making it a little busier by adding more weaves.

[Dahlinea]

Honestly I would not go to change the GCDs but I would go to add OGCDs. The smn currently does not have many. I would thematically change Fester to something more coherent. I would free the carbuncle from the transformations and I would add some OGCDs in addition to the shield, perhaps even offensive. I would free up the phoenix OGCD heal which currently works only because the level designers are doing a big job to make the heals more or less always match a boss aoe. In reality I would also free the phoenix hot again for the same reason. Perhaps a similar stack concept could be used for fester to be able to use these utility abilities after summoning phoenix. So the smn is both justified for its dps by adding utilities to it, and making it a little busier by adding more weaves.

For example, what I would like to see in this direction is every time we summon G/I/T, Aetherflow gets recharged with elemental type stacks of that summon and Fester change to an ability of the summon, much like we have now, but oGCD in nature. Then add two variations of colored ruin spells, one with cast time and the other insta cast but with lower potency to compensate for the mobility we get. Lastly, make sure we stay 'attuned' to the element of the summon for a fixed time before we can summon the next, so we can have time to use these new resources.

[WalksIntoMordor]

These changes don't seem to fix anything and just makes things worse. Summoner's main issue is that it really doesn't change much between between level 30 and 90 as most skills are just upgrades with higher potencies.

I rather not not lose Resurrection in exchange for two crappy abilities I'd never use over Fester and Painflare because they got a tiny heal attached to them.

Yeah... Summoner can use a bit more stuff, to change it up earlier on, but Res isn't the issue. If anything the idea that they want to dump it as it is annoys me, because it's a useful ability to have. Physic IS useless, but only because it doesn't scale to the main stat. If it did, it'd still see LITTLE use, but have edge case scenarios where it could be helpful (i.e. I accidentally got stuck away from the healers by a barrier AOE, and need to heal a bit to get through the next raidwide).

The idea that you don't have to think about which Summon you're using is LUDICROUS, because they ALL need to be used to optimize damage and the use case for each can change in different situations. Perfectly executed, I'm using all three and all charges of Gemshine and my Ruin IV before the next Phoenix Bahamut comes up, and keep repeating. I run the new Alliance raid on Summoner and believe me when I say that I give a lot (relatively speaking) of thought to which summon I used based on where we are in the fights of the first half, and even in the later fights it still matters a lot when you choose to use Garuda and Ifrit (because of the Slipstream and Ruby Rite cast times - even with Swiftcast, you have two others to figure out). The first boss' arena changes and the gaps in the design of the second can very much make using Ifrit's dash in dangerous at times, so you need to be ready to negotiate those obstacles. And long cast times on Ruby and Slipstream also mean I could have to interrupt my own casts to move if I started before a directional AOE was shown.

Summoner needs a bit more to weave in in various places, and have that spread through lower levels. But what it HAS doesn't need to change - it needs stuff ADDED to it (save the flavoring on Fester, that needs to change please and thank you).

[tearagion]

The idea that you don't have to think about which Summon you're using is LUDICROUS, because they ALL need to be used to optimize damage and the use case for each can change in different situations. Perfectly executed, I'm using all three and all charges of Gemshine and my Ruin IV before the next Phoenix Bahamut comes up, and keep repeating. I run the new Alliance raid on Summoner and believe me when I say that I give a lot (relatively speaking) of thought to which summon I used based on where we are in the fights of the first half, and even in the later fights it still matters a lot when you choose to use Garuda and Ifrit (because of the Slipstream and Ruby Rite cast times - even with Swiftcast, you have two others to figure out). The first boss' arena changes and the gaps in the design of the second can very much make using Ifrit's dash in dangerous at times, so you need to be ready to negotiate those obstacles. And long cast times on Ruby and Slipstream also mean I could have to interrupt my own casts to move if I started before a directional AOE was shown.

It's not ludicrous, here's why:

1) Optimizing Damage - Look at your party's raidbuffs. Are there enough 15s raidbuffs to make Slipstream snapshotting worth it over Titan first? Congrats 1/6 gem summons decided.

2) Being Able to Move - You will need to cast for 3s in Garuda (if you're not Slipstream snapshotting in buffs), and 3s*2 in Ifrit. For Garuda you have 4*1.5s of swiftcasting to buffer, for Ifrit you have 2*2.5s of swiftcasting to buffer, and for both you have a Ruin 4 and a slide-cast Ruin 3. This is enough movement for 99.9% of mechanics in the game.

3) Boss Movement - If you know the boss will move in the next 15s don't cast Slipstream.

1 is a binary and simple decision, not worth considering.
2 is extremely easily reacted to, and effortless if you know what the boss will do ahead of time.
3 is a binary and simple decision.

"Perfectly executing" a SMN rotation is a joke, the whole job is a joke. Sprinkling in some oGCDs won't fix how thoughtless and garbage the core rotation is. It basically needs another rework to not be the job-for-lobotomy-patients.

[MellowMink]

I strongly disagree that Summoner shouldn’t have Resurrection, and if you do get rid of that, then Red Mage should have their raise spell removed as well. I’ve saved a lot of runs as a Summoner because of my ability to raise before; I’ll be genuinely annoyed if that’s removed.

[stellahawke]

I strongly disagree that Summoner shouldn’t have Resurrection, and if you do get rid of that, then Red Mage should have their raise spell removed as well. I’ve saved a lot of runs as a Summoner because of my ability to raise before; I’ll be genuinely annoyed if that’s removed.

the devs all ready know this rework is controversial. and know that if they take resurrection out would be to far. doing this will basicly make the class useless and the only classes people will really bring in end game content would be redmage and blackmage. redmage cuase its utility and blackmage cause damage. smn has none of that.

also the skills have a huge flaw. that lack of aetherflow in the actual game play. you only have 2 so why use it on healing then do more damage. it is basically a button one will never use in actual gameplay. cause if there is not enough healing that is the healers fault.

on a different note


an actual fix would be more hard casts, phoenix and bahamut have different rotations, old ruin 2 a version of old ruin 4 with stacks to mitigate the hard casts, and more ogcds. i would be ok with smn instead of picking all 3 smns at once in-between each demi. you pick one primal to use during it. like. you start out with 1 primal > bahamut > phoenix > 2nd primal >bahamut > phoenix > 3rd primal > bahamut > phoenix >pick any of the 3 primals to start again. (along with ogcd weaving skills. and having more open gcds during primal so its not as ridged so it can be pushed back abit without heavy damage loss for specific mechanics.)

doing it this way makes the actual choice of which primal to use that much more impactful and you can still stick to the legacy of the old smn but also rid of the ruin span during the down time (even though current smn is just ruin spam in different names) also this removes alot of the flashbangs but keeping the flashiness of it

[Hanayumi]

Devs already mentioned they kinda just want to get rid of Smn res, last I heard theyre waiting to see how well the 6.0 change to smn does before removing anything.

[Ggwppino]

"Perfectly executing" a SMN rotation is a joke, the whole job is a joke. Sprinkling in some oGCDs won't fix how thoughtless and garbage the core rotation is. It basically needs another rework to not be the job-for-lobotomy-patients.

Yes but Also in shb smn Is not difficult at all: we had 4 instant spell + 4 ruin 4 (and an entire instant phase). Only "difficult" was the dot but we had tri-disaster for a instant reboot or the hated ghosting. Currently the smn Is ok, but is ok to be a class at 70. Smn needs more freedom (starting from releasing the carbuncle from transformations to releasing phoenix hot + heal have an effective commitment even to utilities without being brainless), add more ogcds to make the phases more busy, add benefit add actions that actually bring benefits to the rotation such as carbuncle actions that released ruin 4 and therefore force us to have more attention (currently except the 4 fester under buff there is nothing else that effectively benefits the rotation if not thinking if the boss moves or not) maybe one or two ogcds that allow after x stack to be able to unlock a spell that reduces the cast time by 2.5 seconds for x time but at the same time introduce cast time to titan and bahamuth ( first example that came to my mind) stupid example but its what I mean by benefits to rotation (in this case of movement) or literally introduce an old shb ruin 4 which is a dmg burst ogcd. however, all without having to upset a class that after all is not bad, it's just that it is 10 levels less than the others.