Shouldn't all Summoner's summons work just like Phoenix and Bahamut?

[Vandso]

You summon them and they stay in the battlefield to auto-attack your target instead of going away. And then you would have to use another skill (which would be the equivalent to Enkindle/Rekindle) in order for them to use their AoE attacks. They only leave after 15 seconds and you have this much time to spend all your gems and your summon-related skills. This would make the job feel way more like a summoner than just a mage.

Also, Ifrit would be the one doing the gap closer, not you.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

It's a mix of styles of FF summoners.



In most games thry just appeared to do an attack and then vanished, while in some later ones they stayed around.

[Atelier-Bagur]

If I had it my way, there would be more situational choices for each summon based on the encounter and each one has their own robust pool of skills and rotations to use. But because the job design tries to be super simple and linear in skill usage, at the very least come 7.0 I hope they give each summon a more robust rotation to use their skills.

[Vyrerus]

Ever since Heavensward, SMN has taken the path of not just summoning the Primals or their Egis, but channeling their power through their own body, hence the Dreadwyrm Trance that eventually became Summon Bahamut.
Basically the way it is now, we summon the primals, the actual primals, and it aligns our aether to their type, and we channel that type of aether for a short amount of time or until we summon the next primal.

Ever since FFIII, Summons have performed different roles depending on what the summon is. Or what job/character is performing the summoning.

FFXIV is just continuing the trend of summoning being different every entry.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I'd rather they go the other way and Bahamut and Phoenix not stick around. They clutter up the battlefield, especially with multiple summoners around.

Yes, I have pet size set to small. They're still pretty big.

[Jeeqbit]

The type of summons I prefer disappear after use like in FF7, FF8 and FF9.

https://youtu.be/afe4sj_wNR0
https://youtu.be/8ryH9-BBQqM
https://youtu.be/AvErgY6HpX8?t=23

This was a change I was very happy with.

[KitingGenbu]

Honestly, FF11 kinda spoiled the 'idea' of what a summoner should be in a mmorpg I think. That idea could never fit in this game so going back before 10 its 'rework' kind of fits the current game better. Only thing I'd say is just make bahamut/phoenix more customizable in terms of aesthics like a glamour ramuh over bahamut or something like that. And just outright get rid of carbuncle, him just standing there by your side all the time gets kinda creepy after a while.

[Renathras]

It's a mix of styles of FF summoners.



In most games thry just appeared to do an attack and then vanished, while in some later ones they stayed around.

This.

Me personally, I'm partly with:

If I had it my way, there would be more situational choices for each summon based on the encounter

I personally like the "one and done" summons rather than the "stay on the battlefield" ones, since you get the classical Final Fantasy feel of summoning this big attack and you get your personal abilities changed for a short time to kind of go with that and mix things up with different elements/themes to prevent it feeling like you're just casting the same spell over and over. I personally like that a lot.

I do think it would be cool to have some differences in the summons...but part of this is FFXIV's rigid combat system. For example, it would be cool if we had, say, Shiva and Ifrit (DoTs) for single target attacks, Leviathan and Garuda (DoTs) for AOE attacks, Titan to give the party a shield (like FFTactics Golem), Ramuh for party buffs, and maybe something like Moogle/Faerie (both have been used in the FF series for this) for party healing. Then this builds some gauge over time that lets you use "the big summons" of Bahamut, Phoenix, Alexander, and so on, either in a rotation or with different effects as well.

...problem is, FFXIV's combat system is too rigid for this. While FFTactics Summoners could summon elemental attacks, bigger elemental attackers, one-hit KO chance (Odin), big nonelemental attackers (Bhamaut), healing (Moogle/Slyph and I think Unicorn?), and defensive (Golem) utility summons...well, that wouldn't work as well with FFXIV's super rigid combat system today, where SMN isn't even allowed to cast Radient Aegis on others (except in PvP...). I mean, sure WAR can be a Tank and Healer and marginal DPSer, but...that's not supposed to happen, and RDM is hardly replacing the party healer anytime soon other than picking people up off the ground.

So my second best choice would be to have several "lesser" Primals (like Titan, Ifrit, Garuda, etc) and you can pick to use whichever. My ideal would be to allow people to use the same one several times, even. Like say there's a high movement fight. Maybe I want to go Titan, Titan, Titan. Maybe Ifrit does more damage, so if there's a fight (or phase of) where I can stand still, he'd be the optimal one to use. Maybe Garuda places a 40 or 60 sec DoT on the enemy such that I want use her every other/third/whatever summon. And after using a set number of these (say 3), you summon the big ones (Bahamut, Alexander, etc) to do some bursty damage. The fight would start with the big one ready to go (just like now) for the opener, of course.

I'd like the flexibility that would offer, and also being able to use a fourth "lesser" Summon in some cases, like when the party needs to hold burst for 10-20 sec, something SMN can't deal with now without getting out of sync with the rest of the party.

I think that's what I'd like at the moment.

In lieu of THAT, to have the other three ARR Primals (Levi, Ramuh, Shiva) after Phoenix. Ideally with a bit different playstyle, but even if it was just Titan/Garuda/Ifrit reskinned, I think it would still be a nice aesthetic change of pace.

[Jeeqbit]

Yes, I would like at least glamours of the other primals, then every summoner would be different from eachother.

[Kaliesto]

This is just a wish list thing, but I hope when lvl 100 summoners becomes a thing that summons fuse with the Summoner to do some crazy antics, kind of like RPR's reaper form.