SMN: why developers hate SMN so much?

[Flana]

To the topic of the thread, it should be obvious by now. The devs don't hate Summoner.

They don't care about Summoner in the first place. There is 0 passion in this job's design. It's been the most shallow flash additions without any care or concern about how the job functions since Stormblood. Endwalker is just the terminus of that design, all flash and no substance. No one there cares about this job.

In all honestly I'd prefer if someone actually hated SMN. At least then we'd have someone from the dev team with strong feeling for the job in one form.

[Raikai]

It's kind of funny that people complain about SMN didn't get any new thing in practice other than a follow up Searing Light. But when you come to see the bigger picture, everybody across the board got similar things. One or two follow up attacks for plain damage - even BLM. You'd think they have this fancy new fire gauge and resource to manage until you realize that Flare Star is just a glorified follow up attack of Despair.

The issue though, is that this aspect becomes extra jarring for summoner, because they were more thirsty than everybody else for 'new toys', since they had already a duplicate tool in Phoenix working exactly like Bahamut.

Ideally in 8.0 changing old things (best case, not-hold-my-breath scenario), Solar Bahamut would become a direct upgrade from Demi Bahamut and they have to completely overhaul what you do with the Firebird Trance. Anything that isn't copy paste of Demi Bahamut!... They have 15 seconds to think about something, c'mon it can't be that hard.

[gumas]

My take on smn is to have 3 limited summoning "crystal", basically just a slight change from current summoner

So you still cast the big bad summon as usual (bahamut, phoenix), the change start after that, when you cast ifrit titan garuda

Instead of fixed 3 crystal to cummon ifrit titan and garuda, this time you have 3 summon crystal to summon whatevers summon you have in your disposal (level) this range from ifrit titan garuda leviathan ramuh etc. So you can summon ifrit 3 times, or garuda 2 times and ramuh once, and so on, basically the limit is 3 times (before you rotate back to bahamut and phoenix to generate another 3 crystal) you can summon whatever you want depend on the situation, it make more sense because we have explore a lot, see and fight against many primal, as a summoner our book should contain all the primal we have fought until now.

With many primal on our tools, the summon now change from the current one and offer more variety, for example ifrit spell now deal the highest damage but it come with cast time and only single target, you want aoe? Then summon ramuh, his lightning will chain all enemy and it come with dots, you want instant cast? Summon garuda then, you can cast spell while moving and even give you increase movement speed buff, and so on

So you are fighting boss? And he has no adds? Ifrit all the way then, your party is mobbing? Ramuh it is, your tank is sprinting and getting all the mobs? Garuda will make you fast and you can attack while moving too

[ShunTheWitch]

I actually hate how summoner plays now and just want something more like wow warlock/hunter again, or like 11's
11 actually had well made pet classes put together, some weird but still functional, I came to play 14 with friends because they, completely unaware of the summoner rework told me it was going to be fun, instead I get a glorified caster who only plays like a "summoner" if you forget that summoner didnt become a proper character archetype in FF until 10, where summons were a separate entity from the summoner and it got later expanded in 11 and then espers in 12 worked much the same.

we shouldn't be playing with legos, we should be choosing summons based on what job is infront of us/
Ramuh could be something of a mini dancer, buffing an ally you choose and when you cast your abilities it, like lightning, fluctuates the damage buff for your ally, when you start to hit your lower dps spells, your ally deals more damage, when you deal your higher dps spells, they get less.

Shiva would be ideal for mobbing while also crowd controlling mods, meaning that you can pull her out if you dont need more aoe damage than you need your tank to survive a bit better/if you want to take pressure off your healer

Leviathan should be the one you swap to for support, shielding allies while still dealing respectable damage, or letting him and the closest ally have his thorns effect where when they are hit the enemy takes damage

Titan would raw tanking, a bit of aoe damage but with a taunt much like any other tank, however since he's just a summon hes not the best tank and would work best for coordinated take swapping either when needed to actually deal with a boss's mechanics or just to *again* give a way for you to take pressure off the healer or tank for a second

Ifrit should be pure single target dps, offering no utility just damage and only a smidge more than ramuh, so while ramuh could be better with certain party members or a coordinated partner but ifrit would always be a safe bet, give him maybe one or two AOEs but otherwise they're meant for taking a boss like ramuh.

Finally garuda should be focused on aoe damage, lingering damage and generally good at clearing up mobs, simple as.

All of this should be handled by an ability bar and mana resource that is tied to the pet itself so instead of the currently useless pet bar we have that does fucking nothing, we actually get a reason to fiddle with it.
and no more of the egi shit, we already call up these guys in their full form for the late game spells let us after 60 or something just have the full visual of a primal working for us.

Because I want anything other than a flashy caster that summons a turret which barely has enough braincells to be classified as a vegetable.
Summoner was such a raw disappointment that I main Scholar because atleast my pet actually interacts with me and my teammates Selene has become more of a party member than my Bard main friend who floor tanks all day.

[Wildheaven182]

Easy answer, summoner represents their incompetence at game design.

[Alice_Rivers]

When the devs have to put increased enmity on a non-tank job's abilities to keep pace on enmity because the potencies are too low to do so in the first place... SMN is boring and repetitive to play and is unsatisfying. The effects are dull, and the damage numbers are not helping, DNC feels more fulfilling.

I'd love to see each summon be it's own moveset, drawing from the extreme trials. That'd break up the monotony of SMN gameplay.

[Galvuu]

snip.

People did notice it, and did voice their dissatisfaction at DT being "ShB 3.0". Downright laziness and creative bankruptcy, but we already kicked the "job design" can down the road to 8.0. Can't wait to see when they announce that job changes will be further delayed... probs for the same date where they build upon this version of SMN, that was meant to be a "foundation". Foundation of their apathy, maybe.

[Zarkovitch]

Here the solution for solar bahamut, crit direct hit on all his move. We all know its the easy fix.

[Ramiee]

Here the solution for solar bahamut, crit direct hit on all his move. We all know its the easy fix.

And adjust the buttons to make you do something else. Maybe like old phoenix phase where you did 1-2 1-2 or something else. Make the demi-summons have slightly different inputs for the GCD spam.