(Un)Official Arcanist/Summmoner Feedback Thread

[Kevee]

even if it isn't summoner

You don't get to decide that. If it wasn't Summoner, they would not have named it as such. What even defines a summoner to you, anyways?

It is the least summony summoner to date

The summon is our strongest "attack." We even get to interact with it!

That's pretty summony summoner to me.

[T0rin]

The summon is our strongest "attack." We even get to interact with it!

That's pretty summony summoner to me.

Our strongest single attack to be sure, that adds some fairly minor amount of micro-management. I do enjoy that bit of it, for the same reason I enjoy all the other rotation related stuff. But, in terms of being a class that is strictly focused on summoning big monsters that fight for you, not so much.

Even when there was no dedicated summoner, the summons were still big and impressive, ala FF:VII.

Even if nothing changes, I won't stop playing the class anyways. It just seems that the summon aspect was kind of an afterthought, mainly due to the 'presence' the EGIs have, and the fairly small amount of stuff you can have them do. They are always a good chunk of my DPS though.

[Kevee]

Even when there was no dedicated summoner, the summons were still big and impressive, ala FF:VII.

Well, there are some counter-examples like ChocoMog from FF7. Unicorn summons, Carbuncle summons, etc. These are fewer, but "big and impressive" doesn't define Summoner.

Yeah, but at least the Egi's are useful unlike summons in other FFs. I mean, there's a niche use like Phoenix, but pretty much all the time it was better to not summon.

[pandabearcat]

Well, there are some counter-examples like ChocoMog from FF7. Unicorn summons, Carbuncle summons, etc. These are fewer, but "big and impressive" doesn't define Summoner.

Yeah, but at least the Egi's are useful unlike summons in other FFs. I mean, there's a niche use like Phoenix, but pretty much all the time it was better to not summon.

Yea but Kevee you aren't thinking outside the box.

What if you have a big brother that wanted to impress you with how pretty a game is? If it weren't for FF7's amazing summons I probably wouldn't have started gaming. And then where would your bestest pal be?

What if you really need to go to the restroom, and didn't want to press start? Summons are great for that.

Also say what you will about FF10's summons but I loved all of them (except ifrit, it even looked ugly and sucked in that game too >.>).

[Engineer]

You don't get to decide that. If it wasn't Summoner, they would not have named it as such. What even defines a summoner to you, anyways?.

A Summoner to me is a Job that is focused on Summoning, and performs through the beings they Call upon.

Here is the description of the job in XIV.


"In times immemorial, there lived mages who had not only the power to summon the primals, but also the means to transmute the primals' essences, thus binding them to their will. Known simply as summoners, the existence of these men and women and their arcane art have been all but lost to the ages.”


now that description tells me that the job is pet focused like all FF Summoners , but its a DoT focused job.

[Supersun]

It is the least summony summoner to date

Considering that in like 99% of Final Fantasies summons simply popped out, did one move, and vanished, making them nothing more then a glorified spell with a 5 minute cutscene, the current Summoner in FFXIV I'd argue is more like a summoner.

Conceptually it's one of the best Summoners to date since they give you the ability to control it if you want. The only other ones you could really do this in were X (which replaced your party), XII (which replaced your party), and XIII (which replaced your party). So, no they aren't on the level of X's, XII's, or XIII's summons, but kicking your group out of the current fight just so you can use a big bad summon doesn't exactly work, and it would be kind of hard for SE to create a summoner with that level of summony in an MMO.

Really, people complain about 2 primary things. Either Aesthetics or the proportion of damage between the summoner and the summon. The first one the FFXIV team probably just decided that they didn't want 1000 GARUDA, LADY OF THE VORTEX, flying across the city. In most Final Fantasies summons were unique and in FFXIV they wanted to keep them unique as well, and unfortunately this is an MMO and you aren't a special snowflake. Sorry if your summoner specifically can't be the only one to summon a full primal (until FC summoning later).

Second, for your summon to do more damage then it currently does they would have to seriously nerf arcanist's current damage while the summon is out, and all that essentially does is makes arcanist the afk job since you can go grab a coke while your summon does all the work (wouldn't be surprised if you ask the summon to grab you that coke). That or people were expecting a ton of special treatment like getting to ride your Garuda around XIII style which isn't happening either.

Seriously, most of the complaints haven't actually been fully thought through if their vision of what summoner is of whether it's even possible in an MMO setting or whether it's even fun. I mean look at what the summoner itself is doing in most final fantasies. Essentially just sitting there doing nothing while their summon is out. That's not fun in an MMO setting. I mean with all the limitations they have to keep in mind I think they have done a good job so far. That isn't to say there couldn't be improvements or that there won't be improvements, but summoner as it currently stands is fine imo. People are just complaining that they can't have the impossible.

[NeonC]

I think if you want the old school Summoner feel, maybe they could create a stance where your pet leaves and you have to cast a series of spells. For instance, Place a a pair of glyphs or summoning circles on the ground, summon egi then start the chant...boom huge game altering spell.

[Kevee]

I'd rather have summons go back to pre-10 use.

Like, a spell.

But let me skip animations.

And make them do real damage compared to other avenues.

So the first time I could go, "Wow, that's cool!"

And then skip it the rest of the time.

Then have one that's very long compared to the rest, like Eden, so I can go grab a drink or something.


I liked most of the FF10 designs, but the functionality of the summons was nowhere. They were always just a meat shield, sometimes. Most of them were disappointing in actual play, too, until they used signature attacks.

[Kikosho]

One thing SE can do is just animate spells differently when on SMN by having a summoned beast actually apply the spell and it practically becomes exactly as SMN from FFIII-FFIX. Hellfire/Diamond Dust/etc were all just prettier Firagas, Blizzagas, etc. to begin with.

Either way, I like the SMN play style though it very much reminds me of what the original 1.0 THM used to be like (Fester is essentially Shadowsear with dots being tied to it's damage as opposed to low HP).

[Haterade]

This thread went from theorycrafting to "I want pretty colors" real fast