Returning Summoner question

[AlphaXXI]

You spend most of your time rapid-casting weak Magic Missiles, and when you do get to summon, everything's instant so you don't get the visceral experience of a charge-and-release cast, plus your main 3 still look like deformed digimon for the whole leveling experience and whenever you get synced down.

Them looking deformed is more of an issue with old summoner than new summoner if we're being honest, and they're not going to change when you obtain the full forms. As for the weak magic missiles, yeah, that's an issue. And that could be fixed by giving each elemental phase more unique actions with specific effects instead of a (barely for the most part) recolored ruin. As for the act of summoning needing a "charge and release", if anything the demis should get a cast time, since they're the culmination of the rotation (and you get the most instant stuff from them). Because the elemental summons are there as fodder to get your rotation going, and as you said prior to level 90 they're nothing to write home about, it wouldn't make thematic sense to make such a big deal out of them.

I also think Solar Bahamut needs to have buildup, like a gauge of umbral aether that's required to shift Bahamut from astral to umbreal. THAT would create a "charge and release".

And aetherflow being linked to Energy Drain is just weird, when it has a different effect for Scholar. Would make more sense and honestly feel less vestigial to get it directly from trances. Especially when the low-level carbuncle-themed equivalent to bahamut trance does almost nothing. And give SMN the old energy drain back (along with shadowflare if you're not going to go back to the other DoTs).