Another Summoner suggestions and feedback

[Larr]

TLDR:
> Make summoner actually cast more and think more carefully through burst:
Summon Bahamut // Solar Bahamut changes:

- 1.5s GCD Cast time, 2.5 Recast

> Change the feel between the big summons
Summon Phoenix changes:

- Instant GCD followed by oGCD
- Turn Brand of Purgatory into a oGCD proc to be weaved after Fountain of Fire

> More casts and more thoughtful choices during the egi summon-phases having all three ranges of speed (Garuda Fast - Titan Mid - Ifrit Slow)
Summon Titan changes:
- 1.5 GCD Cast time, 2.5 Recast

Energy Drain:
- Increase the amount of Ruin IV (1 to 4 for example)

Context:
Soo back when Endwalker dropped I was excited to try the new changes and one the first jobs that I tried on a dummy after Monk was Summoner due the big rework, at first as person that is terrible at handling changes, I didn’t really liked and found it a bit disappointing how the new summoner played out at lv80 but as it progressed to lv90 it got ok, enjoyable. The biggest strength for me personally was that my boyfriend really liked the new Summoner and him being happy also made me happy! The ease of use favored me when I needed to help friends in party finder while being off-role while being fun, the job seemed to have a solid core for future changes which while the current state wasn’t my favorite, and I didn’t really had intricacies for execution that I look for in job to make it a main job, like it was my intention when I started playing in Shadowbringer. (I main Monk for melee DPS, and wanted to have Summoner as caster, Scholar as healer and Paladin/Dark Knight as Tank)

As the time passed we reached to Dawntrail, to my disappointment, despite being a person that generally hate changes, Summoner didn’t change at all! While Solar Bahamut looks pretty cool, it doesn’t really change or add anything on how you play the job, and the core foundation of Endwalker Summoner remained, with change to Swiftcast down 40sec at 7.0 some quality of life added to Ifrit on 7.1, making the job that already had tons of mobility even more mobile and flexible was a bit sad compared for how intricate and interesting Pictomancer is designed, while it’s cool that we got a amazing new job I feel sad, because I wanted more for summoner. I feel like a lot people would be happy with more summons, pretty sure tons of people already voiced that, and I would like that too, but I came here mostly to post some suggestion for changes on what we have now and what I personally think that would be more interesting to play while maintaining the ease of use of the job while addressing some of the issues.

[Larr]

I will first focus on the level cap and suggest something for the leveling process that honestly feels like the job doesn’t really progress until the level 82.

General Demi-Summons changes:
Allow it be casted without a target
Wyrmwave/Scarlet Flame only starts after the first GCD
30s duration with 6 stacks of Astral Impulse/Astral Flare - Fountain of fire/Brand of Purgatory
More stacks of Ruin IV (Maybe up to 4?)

The first thing I would like to address is the downtime situations that can happen in some fights, especially Ultimates that can cause your Demi-summons to drift out of your burst, making the job a bit weaker compared to the other casters by making the Demi-Summons to be used without a target, that would add some flexibility and optimization varying the length of downtime, making it easier to align your big summon to your buff windows if the downtime would cause those to drift, but that change alone still would be a loss unless we change how the ability works for charges instead of time alongside with Auto-attacks from the summon. (Changing from 15sec duration to 30sec of duration with 6 charges of Astral Impulse/Astral Flare - Fountain of fire/Brand of Purgatory for example) That would likely erase spellspeed summoner or make it even more powerful on fights like UwU/UcoB at cost of 1 Astral Impulse, but also would address the issue of losing a Astral Impulse if you have a high ping or clip a gcd at slower speeds..

One of the issues for me of current Summoner is that it doesn’t really feel like a caster to me due the huge amount of movement available with little time actually casting, with that in mind I would make the casts from Bahamut, Solar Bahamut and Titan a bit slow cast (1,5s cast with 2,5 recast). That would add some feeling that you are actually casting more through the fight, would make it a bit more difficult to play due the reduced amount of weaves and mobility. That would also enable summoners to plan their uses further increasing the range for small gains in long downtime phases like TOP or just help them keep their bursts aligned with Buffs without much losses like in phase 1 of FRU.

To make up for that reduced mobility I would add more casts of Ruin IV available for the job, so in case of a movement intense phase where you are in Bahamut/Solar Bahamut you still can have casts Ruin IV for its mobility or mitigation.

[Larr]

And as last change I would make Phoenix retain its current mobility with a bit of change on how its executed, bringing back something that I liked from Shadowbringer Summoner that you would alternate between the GCDs Fountain of Fire and Brand of Purgatory, but instead of being 2GCDs make it a GCD>oGCD just to change the feel in comparison to Bahamut/Solar Bahamut and not affect your AoE rotation. Further increasing how combat plays out depending on which summon you are currently using.

As for the leveling experience I would like to have the traits from level 82 be available earlier and more progressively through the leveling experience because you spend too much time just casting mainly one thing, with all of their abilities feeling way too similar except the Ifrit phases.

I don’t know if those changes would be good for most players, it might have too little weave windows, but it is something that I feel that the job lacks and those changes would make the job more interesting and fun to play for me.

[Khryseis_Astra]

One of the issues for me of current Summoner is that it doesn’t really feel like a caster to me due the huge amount of movement available with little time actually casting, with that in mind I would make the casts from Bahamut, Solar Bahamut and Titan a bit slow cast (1,5s cast with 2,5 recast). That would add some feeling that you are actually casting more through the fight, would make it a bit more difficult to play due the reduced amount of weaves and mobility. That would also enable summoners to plan their uses further increasing the range for small gains in long downtime phases like TOP or just help them keep their bursts aligned with Buffs without much losses like in phase 1 of FRU.

I think it’s a good thing that we have a range of casters, from instant/fast to slow, and I enjoy SMN’s speed. If it casts spells, it’s a “real” caster, regardless of how long the spells take to cast!

From that viewpoint, I obviously don’t get why people think making SMN have longer cast times, aka get slower, would somehow make it more exciting. lol I’d also like to see the job get some more complexity, but waiting on longer cast timers is definitely not how I would do it. I’d rather have SMN have more gem summons so there’s more room for choice, expression and optimization. Low skill floor, high skill ceiling. Pick the summon thats best for the mechanic you’re facing. That’s the kind of planning I’d like to see, not having to calculate how many seconds into the fight I need to use X, because it’s cast time is now Y seconds long instead of whatever it was before. Honestly that would bore me to tears.

Maybe that is fun for some people, but I’d rather have a kit where I can react to things as they happen than constantly have to plan things out based on timers. Making SMN slower would take away what flair it has imo.

[Supersnow845]

I think it’s a good thing that we have a range of casters, from instant/fast to slow, and I enjoy SMN’s speed. If it casts spells, it’s a “real” caster, regardless of how long the spells take to cast!

From that viewpoint, I obviously don’t get why people think making SMN have longer cast times, aka get slower, would somehow make it more exciting. lol I’d also like to see the job get some more complexity, but waiting on longer cast timers is definitely not how I would do it. I’d rather have SMN have more gem summons so there’s more room for choice, expression and optimization. Low skill floor, high skill ceiling. Pick the summon thats best for the mechanic you’re facing. That’s the kind of planning I’d like to see, not having to calculate how many seconds into the fight I need to use X, because it’s cast time is now Y seconds long instead of whatever it was before. Honestly that would bore me to tears.

Maybe that is fun for some people, but I’d rather have a kit where I can react to things as they happen than constantly have to plan things out based on timers. Making SMN slower would take away what flair it has imo.

If SMN doesn’t actually cast them what could each of the gems offer that would actually allow you to make a choice. Because as it stands right now SMN’s post solar bahamut gems are set in stone anyway because of burst and the post off minute window gems and basically dictated by ability to stand in melee range/cast or put slipstream down

What could the gems offer that doesn’t amount to “x gem must go here because of its unique ability that can only fit here in the timeline”, not to mention that searing lights long duration basically hard determines the post solar window anyway