Summoner would not work with FFXIV current state.

[Speeral]

Crazy idea...

Rather than the traditional FFXI style sommoning,, what if the Summoning magic had incremental effects?

For instance:

SMN begins to summon Shiva. Total casting time = 30 sec

• 0:00: Casting begins and a large spherical field (see: Limsa's opening story) appears. snow begins to fall inside field and ice elemental attacks are enhanced.
• 0:05: A friendly Ice Elemental appears and begins to attack the mob.
• 0:10: Enemies within the field suffer the Frost effect and Paralyze.
• 0:15: A second friendly Ice Elemental appears and begins to attack the mob.
• 0:20: Party members within the field gain Ice Spikes and enBlizzard
• 0:25: A third friendly Ice Elemental appears and begins to attack the mob.
• 0:30: All Party and Mobs within the field are transported to Shiva's realm where Shiva appears and unleashes Diamond Dust. When the sequence is complete, the field and all it's effects end and the game returns to normal.

*Note: The final sequence would only be visible to party members within the field, all others would see the 'bubble' frost over and become opaque

I would make this magic rather fragile so that if the summoner gets hit or moves, the field and its effects immediately end and the spell must be restarted. This would also force tanks to work very hard to keep mobs within the field and yet away from the summoner. Also the summoner's emnity could increase gradually as the spell is being cast, thus making it more difficult to maintain the spell.

great idea for a single player game not for a party in the middle of a battle, hey guys where the mob go?
oh ya its in shiva's realm . . . I like the idea needs tweaking though.

[Zantetsuken]

great idea for a single player game not for a party in the middle of a battle, hey guys where the mob go?
oh ya its in shiva's realm . . . I like the idea needs tweaking though.

The mob doesn't "Dissapear", rather its just obscured from view outside the field and it only happens is when the spell hits the 0:30 mark.

It doesn't even need to work that way, rather the sequence could just be something that is visible on the client-side only, but I like the idea of making a solid frosted-over sphere to sell the concept better.

[Speeral]

The mob doesn't "Dissapear", rather its just obscured from view outside the field and it only happens is when the spell hits the 0:30 mark.

It doesn't even need to work that way, rather the sequence could just be something that is visible on the client-side only, but I like the idea of making a solid frosted-over sphere to sell the concept better.

Im down with the total idea I just want it to fit into however the combat system evolves. So even if Shiva is summoned and has its own battle actions, as long as it fits and doesn't throw off how fights are going its all good. even if the combat area itself freezes over to allow shiva to exist and turn into a mini dynamic area would work in you're design idea. That's my two cents.

[Zantetsuken]

Im down with the total idea I just want it to fit into however the combat system evolves. So even if Shiva is summoned and has its own battle actions, as long as it fits and doesn't throw off how fights are going its all good. even if the combat area itself freezes over to allow shiva to exist and turn into a mini dynamic area would work in you're design idea. That's my two cents.

Think of it more as an uber-spell rather than a pet job. The last attack part functions like an old-school (pre FFX) summon. Shiva would appear pull off a single, ultra-powerful ice attack (more powerful than any version of Blizzaga or Freeze at the same rank/level) and then vanish. This would not interrupt the battle, but merely the perspective of the players within the sphere of influence.

In short, the idea is to revive traditional FF one-shot summoning, but this time make it much more dramatic with multiple battlefield changing effects as it is being cast.

The avatar-as-a-pet idea is something that works OK in single player FF games, but in an MMO environment, they fall flat. I'd ave the pet concept for a Beastmaster or Puppetmaster like class.