Feedback for Summoner

[remiff]

The problem with the Summoner is that it was sold to us as a strategic job where each summon choice would matter, but that’s clearly not the case.
The only real "risk" of the Summoner is Ifrit's gap-closer.
The Summoner is absolutely not a strategic job—its elemental summons are all the same, except one is green, another is yellow, and another is red.

The Summoner rework, aside from the visuals, is nothing more than a lazy overhaul focused entirely on aesthetics.
It lacks resource management, interesting mechanics, and has significant downtime between elemental summons, making the rotation even slower and duller than it already is.
It requires no strategy, no real thought, and no meaningful resource management—it’s pure brain death.

This job desperately needs a rework of its mechanics and should feel much faster.
Downtime between summons should be reduced, Carbuncle should be useful again and have its own kit, rather than being replaced by summons.
Resource management needs a complete overhaul, and Aetherflow stacks should be removed entirely—they make no sense and add no flavor to the rotation.

[WarGiver]

The more that I think on it the more I think the Sword Dragon (I refuse to treat it with respect until this mess is fixed) should have replaced Bahamut entirely, it didn't.

SMN is so low on DPS that we honestly are in the same range of damage as Physical Ranged, and last I checked they don't have cast bars. So tacking on GCDs that come up where you actually will wipe a raid if you use them because the boss is in a minute long stretch of mechanics that are either soak or dodge, making you choose between failing or doing DMG.

All I want is for SMN to feel satisfying, I want it to FEEL like you are calling down Primals (well shades of them) to blitz your enemies. I want it to feel good. Feeling like you are a lame duck that has to stop using your primal powered abilities and you are doing so little damage that you feel like a liability feels wrong.

What is more is when 7.0 launched they realized early that SMN (and SCH) had a bug (both DPS) where a trait that should have helped its DPS didn't work, and they knew about it, and did not fix it in ANY patch until 7.1. This was not a balance issue, SMN was suffering from damage output because of a bug. And yet it was treated as a minor issue and ignored, and to fix this bug it was left until the other balance issues were changed.

SMN just feels like SE wants it out of the picture.

[Carighan]

Well we also got the mobility of a PRanged (granted, so does Black Mage right now) so it's kinda expected we do similar damage?

[Sayurichan]

All I want is for SMN to feel satisfying, I want it to FEEL like you are calling down Primals (well shades of them) to blitz your enemies.

Curious : How would that look like different from what we have now? Because if I'm not mistaken, SMN already gets to summon a new primal every 4-5 GCDs, with most of them starting with a rather big skill effect. What would you change in that regard to make it "feel good" more "like you are calling down primals"? Having Titan/Ifrit/Garuda come down do their mega blasts every GCD would look rather silly, get old really fast, and would be rather irritating (hi, RDM LB3). Or when you say "feel good as if calling down primals", are you talking just about dps numbers?

[Carighan]

Curious : How would that look like different from what we have now? Because if I'm not mistaken, SMN already gets to summon a new primal every 4-5 GCDs, with most of them starting with a rather big skill effect. What would you change in that regard to make it "feel good" more "like you are calling down primals"? Having Titan/Ifrit/Garuda come down do their mega blasts every GCD would look rather silly, get old really fast, and would be rather irritating (hi, RDM LB3). Or when you say "feel good as if calling down primals", are you talking just about dps numbers?

Yeah the "feel satisfying" is what the reworked Summoner gets right. It does actual FF-style summons, and they all do their super-move when you summon them, too!

[Khryseis_Astra]

Curious : How would that look like different from what we have now? Because if I'm not mistaken, SMN already gets to summon a new primal every 4-5 GCDs, with most of them starting with a rather big skill effect. What would you change in that regard to make it "feel good" more "like you are calling down primals"? Having Titan/Ifrit/Garuda come down do their mega blasts every GCD would look rather silly, get old really fast, and would be rather irritating (hi, RDM LB3). Or when you say "feel good as if calling down primals", are you talking just about dps numbers?

Not sure about the OP, but working in Levi, Shiva and Ramuh for a full elemental cast of gem summons would make current SMN damn near perfect for me. I think having only the same 3 gems in between 4 demi phases now (2 of which are both Solar Bahamut) can make it feel a bit repetitive. I like the way the rotation flows, but I want more summons.

[Carighan]

Not sure about the OP, but working in Levi, Shiva and Ramuh for a full elemental cast of gem summons would make current SMN damn near perfect for me. I think having only the same 3 gems in between 4 demi phases now (2 of which are both Solar Bahamut) can make it feel a bit repetitive. I like the way the rotation flows, but I want more summons.

Yeah same.

Just give me a second "set" of minor summons. I'd be alright if they alternate, for my dream implementation give me a random pull each time and I can see the moment I start the major summon what I'll have for my minors afterwards so I'm mentally prepared.

Extra bonus points if they are slotted into "types" and the randomness is "per type" not "per whole set", so I can do stuff like get Titan + Leviathan + Shiva, but then next cycle Ramuh + Ifrit + Shiva, etc. If each of these has slightly different mechanics, that'd be one hell of a variety roulette, and also be perfectly fitting for the low-APM playstyle overall.

[fulminating]

It probably would cause a few issues, but deleting the 1min demi would give ~105s, or 7 15s slots to fill with more summons. I still feel very vindicated by the state of smn, but this should probably help it feel less on rails. It would probably want some kind of skill chain/magic burst lite optimisation built in, but short of mimicking monk and the nadias I don’t have any suggestions.

[Carighan]

It probably would cause a few issues, but deleting the 1min demi would give ~105s, or 7 15s slots to fill with more summons. I still feel very vindicated by the state of smn, but this should probably help it feel less on rails. It would probably want some kind of skill chain/magic burst lite optimisation built in, but short of mimicking monk and the nadias I don’t have any suggestions.

Don't need to do that, albeit if they ever got something like 9-12 minor summons, you can select your set of three (so long as it's 1 slow + 1 normal + 1 fast), and each selection leads to a different Demi but they only differ in utility skill(s) not damage output, that'd be interesting. No clue how to do that without a custom element replacing the UI hotbars though, although that in itself would also be awesome.

[mallleable]

The most simple fix to SMN that they can do right now is just slap 1.5 to 2 second cast times on all summons. It will mean all the summon's opening signature attack can hit way harder, and it will make SMN feel more like a caster again.