Summoner: if summoner is the first new class to be released what would you expect?

[Duelle]

ah i see now why some people mentions in other smn threads thats the Primals might not take full aoe dmg. I didnt know wow had that.

Verily. It was done as a way to combat what used to happen in vanilla and TBC, where hunters were prohibited from bringing their pets because it would die in 2 seconds from AoE damage. It's funny because after that was implemented, on progression runs I would die before hunter pets, and I was a ret paladin with a big hammer in my hand wearing heavy armor. XD

The problem i see with that now is that defeats bringing any melee DD to ifrit cause whm will need to heal them over time while a Primal takes 80% less from aoes. Thats only an example i know by the time summoners out all Primals will be wanderers.

This is why I'd put part of the responsibility on the SMN themselves. The summoner having an ability like Symbiosis means they have the responsibility of helping keep their pet alive.

As far as the healers go, WoW's healing design played very nicely with pet classes because of smart heals, AoE heals and auras weren't insanely rare nor did it affecting pets cause inconvenience. Prayer of Healing could hit pets and no one lost anything. Chain Heal could bounce off pets, which never caused drama (no "omg my chain heal bounced off your pet and was wasted!?!?!?!?!!"). Pets also benefited from Healing Stream Totem, and again, no problems. I'd like SE to take notes from that so that their game can be friendlier to pet classes without the stupid loopholes that existed in FFXI.

On avatar deaths, I would preffer to discourage people from using their avatars as fodder like they were in XI. I am willing to meet you in the middle, though, and could suggest that Broken Pact takes effect only if you try to switch to another avatar after the one you just had out dies. If you had Phoenix out and it dies from mob damage or from pulling aggro, you get a debuff called Weakened Pact, with a 10% stat pentalty for one minute. The debuff vanishes the moment you resummon Phoenix, thus not giving you much of a pentalty. If you try to summon Leviathan instead, then you get hit with Broken Pact unless you used Natural Order to suppress the penalties.