Thread: Summoner 7.0 Suggestions

Hello, I just wanted to rapid-fire throw out some suggestions I had for Summoner as I'd like to post in a place where Square Enix may read it. Feel free to add any constructive suggestions you have too and of course be kind to other posters and the devs in this thread!

1. MOST IMPORTANT: MORE PRIMALS (Shiva[?], Leviathan, Ramuh)
Adding more primals. I'm sure this is the biggest suggestion from everyone, but what I'd request is that we don't limit certain primals to happening after bahamut or phoenix phase, like bahamut phase only allowing ifrit, titan, or garuda, then phoenix phase only allowing new primals like leviathan, shiva(?), or ramuh.

Edit: I wasn't very clear on this before, but I meant to recommend that we be required to use all 6 throughout the two minute window, but we simply need to plan out the order for movement and mechanics so that you have movement options when you need them! Though I'd understand if we simply had a choice of the 6 primals to use every minute.

2. Support/Utility Astral Flow.
My second suggestion is a bit strange, but it comes from acknowledging the older roots of the Summoner job. In FF3, Summoners had the choice of summoning two different versions of their eidolons: white and black summons. Black summons were the classic "summon a big monster for a huge attack", but white summons were something a bit more lost to time in the series as game developers started designing support summons instead. White summons usually summoned the same eidolon as black summons, but they'd instead command them to put out a buff, debuff, heal, etc. to basically be a more supportive version of the summon.

Basically, I would like to add a more support-oriented astral flow that would give you a support/utility option with each primal. You could map rekindle onto this button and even replace physick with an int-based smn-specific heal. You could even map radiant aegis onto this button as well, and possibly have carbuncle execute these support skills outside of bahamut/phoenix phases as carbuncle has always been a support-oriented summon in the games. I think it'd add an extra layer of choice to summoner gameplay to not only have movement and damage to consider, but also the kind of utility that each summon would bring.

This is my more far-fetched suggestion, but I think it'd be an interesting way to make use of some useless buttons and bring summoner closer to its early FF summoner gameplay roots.

Thank you all for your time! I hope the the FFXIV devs can read some of our suggestions and pad out summoner gameplay! I really think the rework is a wonderful direction for summoner, and I wanted to put out some input on where I'd like for the class to go in the future.

I clarified in my earlier post on the 6 primals bit as I wasn't very clear on that what I mainly suggested was to need to use the 6 primals but in any order. Thanks for the feedback/suggestions! I have to admit my suggestion for utility options mostly came out of disliking how dps is the only thing that matters with PVE job design. I'm hoping that savage dungeons will help push the devs to design for more utility and non-healer/tank support options. There's only so many ways to design how to deal damage, and I'd really love for the team to begin considering utility in a different light and to let non-tank/healer utility have more of an impact in fights.

Originally Posted by AriaValkyrie

Oh hey I can add some flavor for what I was imagining the other three elemental summons would be! From a design standpoint, at least.

Ramuh/Amethyst; Grants four lightning attunement, one Ramuh's Favor.
Rite/Catastrophe are full casts, that either grant or inflict Increased Sentence, Static Condensation, or something to that effect
Astral Flow is a long cast that mimics Judgement Bolt, consuming Increased Sentence or Static Condensation to do increased damage

Leviathan/Sapphire; two water attunement, two Leviathan's Favor
Rite/Catastrophe are insta casts @ 2.5s, give a short duration water dot. Could give the favor to not deal with stacking favor.
Astral Flow is spinning dive, line aoe. Use between rites to not clip the dots.

Shiva/Diamond; two ice attunement, one Shiva's Favor.
Rite/Catastrophe are also insta casts @ 2.5, grants Dreams of Ice, increasing ice damage dealt
Astral Flow is a melee combo with Ice Brand and Glacier Bash, two conal aoes.

Was picturing something to that effect a while ago for the other summons.


I could dig having supportive options on all the summons, too. Could also determine which summon you end up using where if they're useful enough.

I love these ideas!!! I agree it'd be really interesting to have more combos/feedback between the rites and astral flows! It'd give great incentive to execute those primals perfectly within the time you're given for each primal!

Here's a snippet from a comment I left on another Summoner utility thread a few days ago.

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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 attack as 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 overall damage. (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