Suggested Ways to Improve Summoner

[GoldenGrin]

I am very excited for Dawntrail, but as a Summoner main, I find myself disappointed in the information coming from the media tour on the job. SMN was my first job in XIV when I started in 4.4 and it's been my WoL's canon job in my mind through the MSQ for each expansion since. I raided through all of Eden (even on 5.0 SMN) and enjoyed the complexity and skill expression the job had. I think the Endwalker version of the job captured the job fantasy well, but it has robbed the job of skill expression and feels very simple and boring to play now.

It feels like the dev team might not know what they want to do with the job or how to expand it, but I would hope that we will not have to play this same version for another 2+ years waiting on the 8.0 job reworks.

Looking at Pros and Cons -
Endwalker/Dawntrail SMN Pros -

• Straightforward rotation. Easy to learn.
• Establishes core rotation early.
• Expresses Job Fantasy Well

Endwalker/Dawntrail SMN Cons -

• Very little skill expression
• Samey feeling of Demisummon phases
• Phoenix feels less exciting than Bahamut
• Carbuncle feels vestigial.
• No longer feels like a casting job.

My following post will discuss some possible adjustments to counter these cons.

[GoldenGrin]

Gem Summon Phases
Currently, Summoner’s rotation is extremely tight. The Demi-Summon > Gem Summon phases only leave room for one Ruin 3 and one Ruin 4 cast. At all other times you are using summon casts and it makes the basic spells feel pointless at lv 90 play. Additionally, lack of OGCDs fills the job with mostly dead air until you hit your burst phase to cram in 4 festers under buff windows, while the other 100 seconds of rotation is GCD focused.
I propose relieving this tightness by pulling back on the summon phases and changing them slightly.

• Summon Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan become full cast GCD spells and keep their meaty potency value. This makes the summon still feel big and impactful.
• They now share a CD to give you time in their ‘form’ Still has to load gem charges from Demi-phase.
• Each Summon Spell grants a stack of Ruin 4
• Instead of granting a number of new GCDs, your summon phases instead change ruin 3.

• Ifrit - Power phase. Ruin 3 gains potency and grants Hellfire charges. Once you have x charges of hellfire, you press Astral Flow to cast Hellfire with damage based on your charges.
• Garuda - Speed phase. Ruin 3 becomes instant cast like Emerald Rite does now, becoming a movement phase. Keep slip stream for Astral Flow.
• Titan - ‘Melee’ phase. Ruin 3 becomes full cast time and combos with Astral Flow follow-up skill at a ‘generous’ melee range.

[GoldenGrin]

Demi-Summons
That brings us to the demi-summon phases. WE’ve come a long way from needing Dreadwyrm Aether and needing to optimize wyrmwaves with Addle casts, but there’s still some ways we can make these phases feel big and impactful
Demi-Bahamut / Solar Bahamut
I think Solar Bahamut should be a straight upgrade to Bahamut. The team obviously worked on the models and animations so use them, but I don’t think we should cycle.

• Turn Death Flare into Akh Afah - This is a classic dragon skill and with the removal of ED and our Carbie during Demi-phases, we need something to do in our burst window. Each astral impulse can give us an Akh Afah stack or just give it a short cd for us to optimize how many we can get under buffs.
• Akh Morn can stay the same.
• Make Astral Impulse a 1.5 cast time to keep the caster feel during burst.
• Give a follow-up button to Solar Bahamut so it feels new and better than just a potency and animation buff to Bahamut phase.

Demi-Phoenix
I really enjoyed the combo aspect of Phoenix when it was first introduced in Shadowbringers and I was sad to see that go in EW. It made phoenix feel different so I suggest we double down on that.

• Make all of phoenix’s damage come from it’s GCDs and it’s auto-attacks.
• 3 hit combo of Fountain of Fiare > Brand of Purgatory (maybe the initial potency is buffed by FOF) > Revelation. All instant cast so that phoenix feels distinct from Bahamut.
• Endkindle Phoenix now is an AOE Rekindle, adjusted for balance.

I hope some of these suggestions spark discussion and interest and maybe inspire some change for the job. I love Summoner and I love FFXIV, I just want to see my favorite job fit well into the future of this game so I can keep playing it for years to come.