Feedback for Summoner

[WarGiver]

I held off giving my opinion in full of the current state of SMN since DT to truly give myself a chance to ensure I am not just saying this as a knee jerk reaction, or speaking without reason. So this is with as much thought as I can to express the main issues I have as a SMN.

For the most part the general flow of SMN is nice, the weaving the 6 Demi actions when one is called is tighter then I would like, like a third a second window, but not unreasonable.

My first issue is with the Ifirt Primal. Specifically "Crimson Cyclone" this fills the role of a gap closer, and part of the main rotation. but its only usable for a 12 second window every minute. It is not reliable as a gap closer. Many times I am standing in a tower to soak something and the DPS its offered 490 plus its follow up Strike of 490 is entirely unavailable, I need to replace them with ruin a 360 potency spell and abandon them in that rotation.

As a Gap closer, given its limited availability when we can use it, well, its a failure in that role. Given the general flow of SMN over all, sitting in a soak mechanic having a button light up that I cannot press or the raid wipes is very distressing.

I do not disagree that it is thematic given the Ifrit fight. I do feel its on point with the over all feel and lore, but as gameplay. I have to say that it feels... bad for a job that is already known to be weak in DPS to have to sacrifice more DPS just to not wipe the party by using a skill that the UI is telling them to use.

I think it would feel better if instead of the SMN charging forward they send a clone of Ifrit to do it. That would still be fully in theme, Ifrit does make clones of himself. And the follow up strike is just another clone. As to a gap closer a new skill, perhaps zero damage one as a pure gap closer would feel right for a SMN to have.

I do get that Red Mage has their own equivalent in Corps-a-corps, but a Red Mage has an entire melee combo in their rotation, for them its rush in do multiple skills and rush (Back flip) out.

[WarGiver]

Now for the Dragon in the room. My personal feelings on getting another Dragon instead of replacing the three Primals on the Phoenix part of the rotation with other ones (even if its just a reskin) put aside, I think that "Solar Bahamut" is in essence a design mistake and not a single small one.

Before we have Solar Bahamut we have two Demis, Bahamut and Phoenix, one is the Burst Damage phase (Bahamut) and one is a lesser Damage phase with some recovery (Phoenix). Solar Bahamut, however, does almost the same healing (Solar does 1000pot in its two rotations and Phoenix does 700pot), and it deals more damage then normal Bahamut.

The fact that it is in essence doing the same job, and doing it better then both Demis makes them feel lessened by the mere existence of Solar. What is worse is that because Solar is called twice as much as the other two it makes them even more so weakened. I do not think getting rid of Solar is the right choice, but properly replacing Dread Bahamut entirely in the rotation would make the optics and feels of it better. I do not think Solar would need any tweaking down for that either, if you really think on it functionally its more like we are replacing a Dread Worm with Phoenix with this suggestion, We are still summoning Solar Bahamut just as often, without it standing next to Dread Bahamut it would feel less bad. The only issue is the obvious one that Phoenix cannot cover the damage difference. and SMN would suffer another hit to its output. So something would need to be buffed in exchange.

Yoshi-P himself said that the team went too far in removing stress, and part of that is that everyone has so much self sustain. Having another source of self sustain in "Lux Solaris" is just part of that. While I do not want to advocate for removing sustain from a job, especially my main. If getting SMN to feel proper requires that so be it.

To summarize: Solar Bahamut makes Dread Bahamut redundant by existing, its literally an upgraded form that is still used. Its healing removes the identity of Phoenix as different from Bahamut. Its Healing also is part of the eliminate stress problem as outlined by Yoshi-P. Being used twice as much as either of the other Demis even more exasperates all of the above.

I do get that Solar Bahamut is meant to be a reflection against the Lunar Primals and Lunar Bahamut in particular. Comparing a summoning by beings tortured into insanity with ourselves, a well refined and disciplined mind. One that has been exposed to Dragons that have many times evoked that the Primal Bahamut is basically an insult to the noble protector that the real Bahamut was. This is meant to be story telling via game play. We turned our false image of Bahamut, the Primal, and forged it into something that respects the original being. The fact we still pull out the Dread Dragon, when we have the Solar one is kind of like summoning Titan-Primal, then following up with summoning Titan-Egi.

[Zarkovitch]

DT SMN was the biggest slap on the face for EW SMN enjoyer. Why they add follow up on raid buff and bahamut mk.2 when there room to do more fun things. We expected room for fun stuff due how the rework have strong base to do fun stuff. New 3 egis and mega primal would be so cool. But noooooo, let add a bahamut mk.2 and follow up on raid buff. The devs have so much lore and tools to choose, we got lame garbage and unispired ideas from devs who didnt play any final fantasy. The damage of my ex-main Job is garbage, why SMN is below red mage dmg. RDM is luck proc job, we should do more dmg on unlucky rdm. They are treating SMN as basic starter friendly role, No, SMN is not a phys range when others caster like blm and picto is getting more and more freebies casting tools. I will not be shock seeing them having the smn treatments with spells and be good in dmg. Bruh, the balance of this game is so cooked, it make EW balance a genius.

[Carighan]

DT SMN was the biggest slap on the face for EW SMN enjoyer. Why they add follow up on raid buff and bahamut mk.2 when there room to do more fun things. We expected room for fun stuff due how the rework have strong base to do fun stuff. New 3 egis and mega primal would be so cool. But noooooo, let add a bahamut mk.2 and follow up on raid buff. The devs have so much lore and tools to choose, we got lame garbage and unispired ideas from devs who didnt play any final fantasy. The damage of my ex-main Job is garbage, why SMN is below red mage dmg. RDM is luck proc job, we should do more dmg on unlucky rdm. They are treating SMN as basic starter friendly role, No, SMN is not a phys range when others caster like blm and picto is getting more and more freebies casting tools. I will not be shock seeing them having the smn treatments with spells and be good in dmg. Bruh, the balance of this game is so cooked, it make EW balance a genius.

Yep. the whole - very obvious - point of the rework was to make it so that future expansions only need to add sets of minor summons and/or new major summons. Instead of the former we get nonsensical ability upgrades and follow-ups that nobody needs at all, and instead of the latter actually adding a new major summon, we get Bahamut 2.0, Lame Graphics Version.

[Ggwppino]

DT SMN was the biggest slap on the face for EW SMN enjoyer. Why they add follow up on raid buff and bahamut mk.2 when there room to do more fun things. We expected room for fun stuff due how the rework have strong base to do fun stuff. New 3 egis and mega primal would be so cool. But noooooo, let add a bahamut mk.2 and follow up on raid buff. The devs have so much lore and tools to choose, we got lame garbage and unispired ideas from devs who didnt play any final fantasy. The damage of my ex-main Job is garbage, why SMN is below red mage dmg. RDM is luck proc job, we should do more dmg on unlucky rdm. They are treating SMN as basic starter friendly role, No, SMN is not a phys range when others caster like blm and picto is getting more and more freebies casting tools. I will not be shock seeing them having the smn treatments with spells and be good in dmg. Bruh, the balance of this game is so cooked, it make EW balance a genius.

Look, Solar bahamut is proof that even if I wanted to add 15 different summons, they would only be a reskin of the 3 primary bases.
It is precisely the concept behind the new smn that is totally wrong.

[Anvaire]

I think the DT SMN Changes highlight an unintended weakness with the rework. Essentially in DT they added 2 additional abilities, the Searing light followup which they added to every roles Buff ability and the AOE heal from Solar bahamut. Everything else is the exact same.

It speaks to the devs either not caring or not putting enough thought into it. Solar bahamut being an amended Shadowbringers fate boss doesnt help either.

Personally i think we would have this issue regardless of what demi was added. Because unless they hange the way demi's work, any new demi will feel the same. I suspect if they added three new arcanum summons, unless they changed these up, they would also feel the same. I suspect we would get an Ifrit, garuda and Titan clone.

Ultimatley while i do like the flow of the job, it really needs more cast times, and for each demi or primal to feel unique. Restoring demis back to how they were in Stormblood, would help as a baseline, and then deviating the rotation would also help.

I suspect though in 8.0 there will be a similiar discussion. More identity does not neccesarily mean more complexity, despite that being exactly what smn needs. On an identity front, its very close to hitting the mark of what a summoner should be. On a gameplay front it is severely lacking.

[Connor]

While we’re here I’d like to say I also really dislike Crimson Cyclone.

To begin with, who the hell looks at the Summoner’s grimoire and thinks ‘oh yeah they should like, wreath it in flame and… zoom forward to bonk the enemy on the head with it! .’ This job is supposed to a caster, don’t give me melee crap to do! Maybe I want to, y’know, cast?! And we already have Titan / Garuda for ‘mobility phases’, do we really need a third mobility phase? We barely have to cast anyway lol…

I’d address Lux Solaris but honestly I’ll just end up ranting. It’s honestly exhausting trying to come up with the justification for it’s existence in its current state
‘Let’s make a healing skill but it’s only available during a short window right when the job’s biggest burst it also going but we’ll just throw in an AoE attack every 120s to make it look like we’ve done something interesting’. Star Prism’s accidental healing is guilty of the exact same thing. This skill needs… improvements , lol

Physick . Why are you still here? Do you need something? We asked you leave but for some reason you’re still here, sitting in our toolkits, scaling off Mind. Just get out …

Solar Bahamut would’ve been fine if it was a Bahamut upgrade. As a separate summon? It feels purely lazy, like they literally couldn’t be bothered making a new Demi summon model so they just reused Bahamut but this time with sci-fi laser swords (?)

[Carighan]

To begin with, who the hell looks at the Summoner’s grimoire and thinks ‘oh yeah they should like, wreath it in flame and… zoom forward to bonk the enemy on the head with it! .’ This job is supposed to a caster, don’t give me melee crap to do! Maybe I want to, y’know, cast?! And we already have Titan / Garuda for ‘mobility phases’, do we really need a third mobility phase? We barely have to cast anyway lol…

Funny, because I consider that the one of all five "extra" buttons that is actually implemented well because it does something that's not just "another cast for some more damage while trying not to doze off". The secondary extra skill is at least marginally interesting on Phoenix and Fake Bahamut, granted. But the main extras are just "deal some more AoE damage", at least one is melee range.

[Azurarok]

Ifrit's one of the only things that add a hint of complexity to the job. You hit it, you're now committed to 2 long casts and a gap closer with a close range follow-up. It and Garuda's puddle occasionally makes you stop and think about what order you should be using the summons

Could've made the rework much more interesting had they added more summons with different limitations like that

[seolhyun]

idk i think SMN just needs another remake. i want the summons to use their own abilities, it feels more like a blue mage atm where we are copying their spells. i also think the summoning should have a cast time tbh, feels weird to slap ur book and a primal pops out. and make the trance phases feel different again.