Thread: Another Bahamut? Why not Odin? (SMN 7.0 job action PLL feedback)

Specific ideas for Evocations: Evocations need to justify their casting times, but should not be so damaging as to make using them to wholly replace ruin spells the “correct” option. Additionally, since the baseline Ruin isn’t going anywhere in this hypothetical, they are permitted to have effects that have been gradually removed from PvE content.
Carbuncle/Neutral - Evocation & Evoke Disaster: My basic idea for both of these is to have the same baseline potency as the ruin equivalent, but add a small damage over time effect - this allows more continuity with Scholar from baseline Arcanist, and, by virtue of not stacking, doesn’t mandate replacement of Ruin/Outburst while the DoT is up. Evoke Disaster should also ideally be a line or cone AoE so it has a greater difference in use case vs. Outburst.
Ifrit - Infernal Nail & Infernal Breath: Infernal Nail would ideally be summoned in the hand and hurled like a javelin; Infernal Breath would ideally consist of the summoner channelling fire aether into their own chest/lungs for the “charging” portion of it’s animation.
The nail would apply a bind effect and DoT to the creature impaled on it, though the bind would not affect bosses unless the summoner was their primary target at time of casting; something that shouldn’t happen in group content but does open up room for tactical nail use to claw victory from the jaws of defeat. Breath, meanwhile, would be a large, conical AoE for the same base damage as the Outburst equivalent plus a small DoT - trading away mobility and range for the potential to hit more targets if perfectly timed and angled.
Titan - Landslide & Geocrush: Landslide would interrupt on hit and also apply a knockback to only those enemies who were targeting/aggroed onto the summoner - this is the same restriction I placed on burning nail to keep something that would be fun in solo content from being obnoxious in groups. It would, despite taking the normally single target Evocation slot, deal damage in a linear AoE. Geocrush would be a circular AoE that pulled foes toward its centre and rendered them heavy, potentially allowing the summoner to set up pins and go bowling in solo content.
Garuda - Take Flight & Wicked Wheel: In keeping with Garuda having a clear identity as the fast/mobile summon, slipstream aside, these aren’t actually slow casts. Take Flight would be an OGCD forward dash in the vein of Hell’s Ingress, Wicked Wheel an AoE on self that applies a bleed DoT.
If I were to make properly using your added mobility in this phase more rewarding, however, I would add a trait, Razor Plume, that spawns a razor plume when you use any damaging spell in this phase. This plume can be hurt by AoE attacks against the party and dies if struck, but if it survives until the end of the phase it will fly at the summoner’s current target and deal damage. This does potentially allow a summoner to leave Garuda phase early to “cash in” plumes.

Don’t mind me. Replying here so I can find this thread quicker.

Players wanted a second set of Gem summons in Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan with a Capstone summon of Odin or Alexander or something similar. Instead we are getting Bahamut Glamour as a capstone. It's pretty underwhelming since you can clearly see that outside of fancy Hydaelyn sigils and effects it has the same skeleton mapping as reg Bahamut.

Design is rather similar to Stranger of Paradise Bahamut down to the Sword Wings. Of which there are 14 giving reference to not only FFXIV but also the Convocation so neat touch there. Given they did away with job quests because they I guess don't want to write out questlines and give their new writers something to do to build their writing skills there will be no real lore behind it much like with Endwalker skills.

To add insult to injury Pictomancer has been given the ability to summon not only Moogle but a discount version of Madeen fused with a Moomba from FFIX. And to add onto that Blue Mage has Megaman'd at least 21 summon attacks in it's massive 120+ spell list. Makes you wonder who the real Summoner is here?

Players that play Summoner have every right to be disappointed IMO. Unless Solar Bahamut is gonna be doing Quad damage of regular Bahamut I'm not seeing anything special.

But such is the case with a lot of the new skills for Dawntrail. Another Fireball, another explosion, another Dragon, another finisher, etc.

If I was designing Summoner it wouldn't be another Bahamut. It would be Alexander, Odin, or even something crazy like a double Zodiark and Hydaelyn summon.

I don't understand the job design in this game sometimes.

Blade Bahamut look like booty, They need to a different Ost to make him feel powerful or else it a lame pet.

I mean if they wanted a crazy level 100 holy fuck to go wild over summon, Knights of the Round is right there and as a gameplay skill of getting a phase with 12 spells or you can clump some knight together to make it shorter but it almost makes itself.
The spectacle, the job fantasy, the feeling of reaching a milestone ability.

My thoughts and opinions can be summed up into one image.


Just with the way development cycle goes, they're probably already looking at 8.0 because when 6.0 dropped, they were already developing 7.0 and then people have been blowing up about feedback. Like how SMN should be having all kinds of summons; especially for the fact that we have been going from area to area beating up primals.
SMN should keep their raise but make it more in line with Phoenix. Maybe rename it to something thematic and slightly different from "Phoenix Down". But it at least would have something to keep in line with it. The workings of ninja mudras and pictomancer's sketches and other job gauges shows that there is potential for more complexity or potential that could be there with going through the various summons and what attack phases could be made with that. Would it be antithetical to the 2 minute meta? Probably. But it would at least give variety and more of that feeling of actually being a summoner than the feeling of someone that went to Sharlayan for a course in summoning and dropped out half way through.

my main gripe overall with 7.0 SMN really comes down to the lack of rotational development from its 6.x variant.

I'll preface this to note that I've generally wanted SB/SHB SMN back over the current variant, as the rework for the class did perhaps the worst thing a rework did, being to oversimplify the class to the point that legacy SMN players just did not have a lot of value continuing to play the class. yes, it cleaned up the job identity to put more focus on the job fantasy and also was a good starting point to work from in a future expansion...

and here is where the problems start for what we saw in the job actions;

overall, aside from the extra buff post sol baha, and the attack that happens after searing wind, the loop itself was not all that expanded upon, if anything depending on if the searing wind follow up is a GCD or not, that removes using ruin III in the main loop. (its probs an oGCD given the blue aura and how quickly its done after wind in the trailer), it also looks to still stay in that weird quagmire of being in the middle on being a phys ranged or a caster with how few casts the class has STILL.

looping demis going from Baha > phoenix > Baha to sol > Baha > sol > Phoenix really screams that this change was made for a 3 min job but then they had to rush it and cram it in so it can work within a 2 min meta once they knew that they didn't want to change much overall with 7.0,

Overall way i see the current state of the class in 7.0. Class is firmly in the bin, esp with the prospect that a bunch of SMN players will likely pick up Pictomancer due to it being one of the new classes and looking a lot more mechanically interesting.

Bahamut is kinda the ultimate most iconic summon and has very frequently had multiple forms. I think it is cool. Leviathan Ramuh or Shiva don't really have the same impact. No other summon really does.