Summoner Rework Ideas

[AeriFyrein]

Posted this elsewhere and was recommended to post here as well, so:

Don't know if it would really be feasible without a fair amount of behind-the-scenes changes, but I believe one of the fundamental changes that Summoner needs to make it feel better would be to have two pet slots - one for a permanent Carbuncle, and one as the temporary egi/demi/other summons.

A permanent Carbuncle could allow for it to have a separate, extreme range auto attack of its own, such as setting it at like 50y, which would mean that it would never run into the issue of being just slightly out of range during an encounter. It would still only attack whatever your own target is, but as your character would still need to be within whatever normal range of spells was to begin combat, it wouldn't be able to just attack anything willy nilly out of normal combat range.

This would give the Summoner what is effectively a permanent DoT spell - for people that really want all those DoTs back! - while also enabling more interaction via Carbuncle itself. Wouldn't have to worry about things like Radiant Aegis or Searing Light being crippled from Carbuncle leaving the field temporarily during other abilities. This could also mean that many spells, such as Ruin, being changed so that they are coming from Carbuncle rather than the Summoner itself, essentially making it more of the fantasy of the summons themselves doing virtually all of the attacks/abilities, with the Summoner only sending out commands (and hitting things with its book, perhaps).

Having a second temporary pet slot for all of the other summons means they'd be able to have more control over the duration they are out, as well as helping to prevent any ghosting, since they wouldn't need to rely as much on Carbuncle coming back out. For example, sending out an Enkindle Bahamut command just before Bahamut would normally despawn could instead be made to have a slight delay to ensure the ability executed properly, and since it is no longer fully linked to Carbuncle reappearing, it would not affect any other parts of combat.

This could also make the job significantly more fast-paced, as things could be set so that it is somewhat of a combination of the attacks currently in use. You'd not only have your typical Ruin-type spam spell to use (which would now be cast via Carbuncle), but when you have one of the other summons out, the command abilities for those summons could be oGCD weaving spells rather than normal GCDs you would use instead of Ruin. The Ruby/Ifrit commands (and/or any other summons that weren't instant cast) would thus become a choice of an even heavier hitting spell than it currently is, since you would need to completely give up using Ruin + weaved command.

[AeriFyrein]

At the same time, they could introduce (at least) two additional regular summons: one Ifrit-like, high damage summon with cast times that would focus on AoE (so somewhat of an Ifrit/Garuda mix), and an additional lower damage, instant cast summon, which would allow you to still gain three charges to summon Bahamut during combat phases that require heavy movement.

The Demi summons could also be changed such that they are somewhat of a choice of which to summon. Make it so that you can't summon the same Demi twice in a row within X minutes. One could have slightly higher single-target damage with no support effects, which would end up as the main boss summon, and the others could be more AoE/support focused, so that they would be more useful for dungeon trash fights, and provide more of a choice to use during boss fights for whatever support effects they provide.

Overall, this would give both a much greater 'Summoner' class fantasy, as nearly every actual effect would be coming from the summons themselves - pretty much the only spell that would be cast by the Summoner itself, other than commands, would be Aethercharge/Dreadwyrm Trance/Summon Phoenix/Solar Bahamut, Energy Drain/Siphon, and Resurrection (and, y'know, Physick, 'cause that's super important). Ruin/Fester/Painflare would all come from Carbuncle. All of the Gemshine/Precious Brilliance spells would be coming from the secondary summon

Nearly every summon would be able to stay on the field for at least a short duration, until their charges were used up, instead of just being a single attack when you summon them, so you'd actually feel more like you were summoning them. Ghosting would be less of a problem, since Carbuncle and the other summons are all no longer linked together. You'd have more interaction via weaving the summon commands, but as you would still mostly only be doing single weaves, it should still be viable for players on higher latency.

As many abilities would still utilize the same button changes as they currently do, adding a couple additional summons wouldn't create much button bloat for the job. Given the total number of summons available in the Final Fantasy universe, this would also open up ways to better add more summons for future level increases. For example, you could have the next expansion add variants for the Egi summons so that you would alternate between them for each rotation: Titan/Garuda/Ifrit on the first rotation, then Ramuh/Shiva/Leviathan the next, all of which are just slightly higher damage than their counterparts, then back to the first set.

[AeriFyrein]

These change would also affect the Arcanist class, meaning it could be rolled over for Scholar, keeping Eos out permanently. Seraph skills could be altered to apply a second HoT/heal effect of smaller potency (to equate to the total higher potency compared to Eos alone), but as Seraph would no longer be tied to the same pet slot as Eos, it could effectively remove ghosting entirely from that job as well.

[Keichi]

Mhh, i would prefer no real rework of the summoner anymore and more expanding of what whe have now.

1) multiple pets:
Dont really see the advance of it. Except, of letting the carbunkle do anything again. But controlling 2 pets at the same time could probably be more problematic with the controlling. In addition should the the summoner have attacks that comes from himself to. So, that he didnt stand around and do nothing, like a Tamer in Digimon.

2) ST and AoE pet
Whe practicly had that before the rework. Ifrit was the ST pet and Garuda the aoe. In the praxis did most summoner keeped Ifrit and barely used Garuda (and no one used Titan, who was supposed to be a tank).
In addition is there no real difference to now and no real choice, if you still has to summon the others and can not summon the same pet multiple times.

What maybe could change is the duration, each summon stay. Ifrit is over to fast, to really feel him.

3) DoTs.
I dont understand the love for dots. But, i think the reason they removed most of them (esspecialy a dot based class, aside of Bard) was, that it messen up something by the bosses. When to many dots was used. In addition are dots to slow for normal fights.

In overall read most of the suggestion a change in the direction, how the summoner was before the rework. Only, with 2 pets instead of 1.
The summoner how he is now is even summoning his servants more often, as the old one. What create the image of a summoner to.