Summoner utility

[Saimeren]

I'll be honest I do not like the rework for summoner, but we got it and we can only hope for tweaks and improvements, right?

One of those improvements would be to take out Phoenix from the summoning rotation, I said take out, not remove it. So we'd still be able to summon Phoenix, but when We Want it. Right now the HoT, everlasting flight, and single player buff, Rekindle, just gets wasted. This is simply because the rotation dictates it, not because it's required for the fight. I'm not sure if It should also change our dps spells. I would also like to add a new spell to ressurect a single party member. Currently ressing someone is a dps loss for summoner. This would alleviate it.

I would also like RUIN II insta cast back. This spell would then can get upgraded to ruin IV as we execute our rotation.. This would help when we have Ifrit up and we don't want to spend our melee spells, Crimson Cyclone and Crimson Strike.

I'm still hoping we get some more summons like FF XI.

Kind opinion please.

While I understand that Phoenix' heal can be wasted if you don't find a situation to use it within the summoning period, I also feel that Summoner's shouldn't be relied on to heal. It's there as an emergency/relief heal. You throw it on yourself/healer/tank as a relief heal so that it lessens the amount of incoming damage for that period. It's not meant as an "all the time" emergency heal.

I also don't feel that we should be rezzing people. That's the healer's job. After that, it's the Red Mage's job. If a Summoner is having to stop their rotation to rez someone, something has gone horribly wrong. It's a last ditch effort ability to try to salvage your run. And honestly, that's all it should be. And at that point, you're not all that worried about your dps. You're worried about saving the run by rezing a healer and hoping they can get the other healer up before the entire party wipes.

As for your ruin II/IV. I simply save my Ruin IV for my Ifrit attunement phase. If I need to move and can't get into melee range then I have it available. Is it dps optimal? No. Will it allow me to cast something in case I get stuck in Ifrit attunement and have to move? Yes.

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Here's what I would personally like to see when it comes to Summoner utility.

I think they should take a page from GW2's book with their Elementalist and give our attunements additional effects when summoning the Primals.

Here are a few examples:

Summoning Ifrit will cause him to do his standard 700 potency attack, and will also apply a DoT to every target it hits with that attack. Numbers can be tuned and adjusted as necessary.

Alternatively, Ifrit could apply a buff to you for 15 seconds that allows you to deal an additional X% of fire damage with each attack for the duration of the buff. (15 seconds) It would be counted as an additional spell cast, rather than just buffing your spells. (Using Ruby Rite will hit for 10K and then "Ifrit's Might" will then hit for 500 damage. (Assuming the number we chose is 5% of your attack) Both attacks can crit.

Summoning Titan will simply give the Summoner a 20% damage reduction buff for 15 seconds. Doesn't have to be anything fancy outside of that. Titan is a tank, so he applies a damage reduction buff to us.

Summoning Garuda will increase our movement speed to the speed of Peloton for 15 seconds. Again, doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

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Conversely, if they decide to add additional Primals to the phase after Phoenix, it could look like this.

Ramuh - Causes your attacks to strike a second nearby target for 20% of the original attack for 15 seconds. Will work on AoE making Ramuh an AoE beast.

Shiva - Reduces the attack speed of any mobs hit by her summoning spell by 20% for 15 seconds, acting like an Arms Length.

Leviathan - Increases all healing received by 20% for 15 seconds. (Water is generally depicted as a healing element)

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You'll notice that all of these are 15 second buffs. Which means that in a lot of cases, you'll be able to overlap them with other attunements. I would say that they would work with other attunement spells, but NOT Primal summoning spells. Since those would be "pet spells" and not "caster spells". (It would be too OP to have Ramuh's AoE buff work on a 700 potency summon spell.)

This will add a bit more complexity to the job since now you'll have to know which summon to use during which situations. Knowing when to use your defensive Primals vs your offensive Primals will be the key to a good vs less than good Summoner. Knowing the fights and knowing what your team can and can't handle will go a long way to making you a better Summoner for those that want it. Otherwise it wouldn't really affect the people who don't care.

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Just my two cents on the direction I would love to see Summoner go. Heck, you could even reduce all these numbers and make them party wide buffs, much like Bard songs.

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A couple additional side notes:

Firstly, I think that our L86 spells (Crimson Cyclone/Strike, Mountain Buster and Slipstream) should be given to Summoners at a super low level. I'm honestly thinking L50 after we've gotten all 3 of our Primal summons. Having those three spells really fleshes out the rotation and makes summoner feel good. Summoner pre-86 kind of sucks to play. Allowing us to have these additional abilities at L50 will really open up the job a lot earlier on.

Likewise, I would give all the previously mentioned utility abilities to Summoners at L86. That way you're upgrading all of your Primals again when the Endwalker upgrades happen.


Secondly, and I know this will be an unpopular opinion; Carbuncle should NOT be given attacks. The pet A.I. in this game is beyond trash and before the re-work would cause a lot of issues for Summoners. Remember the days when you'd push your pet's spell button and the pet just wouldn't use the spell? I don't want to go through that again. It's bad enough that our shield is tied to the Carbuncle. Carby should stay as an aesthetic pet/minion as a memento of what the job used to be, and that's it. Unless they're going to put some serious work into fixing their pet A.I., then we shouldn't have pet's thinking for themselves.

And lastly; They could easily fix Physick. All they need to do is give Summoners a trait at L35 that upgrades Physick to Physick II which will allow it to scale off of Intellect rather than Mind. Or, give us a trait that increases Physick's potency to 8,000. Currently a Summoner's Physick would have be have a potency of 8,000 to match a Scholar's 450 Physick.

If they don't want us spamming it in dungeons/raids, they could easily just double or triple the MP cost on it. That way it would be an emergency heal, rather than a crutch.