(Un)Official Arcanist/Summmoner Feedback Thread

[Kevee]

Will we be getting more Pet when new Primal come out to trade in or add to, I'm not sure if you can answer this but a understanding on the topic would be nice. Leviathan coming out in 2.2, would be cool if we got as a pet, or companion, Maybe?

I would guess it's only going to be when the level cap raises.

Not fair to give only SMN more skills.

[Saiken]

I am of the same opinion with Kevee that SMN is in a good place right now, but there are a few things that I am worried about.

Same with Spellbinder, I am afraid that any additional pets that will be added to SMN will be underwhelming with the presence of Garuda-egi. Simply because it is, currently, the only pet that actually has any synergy with us, the summoners. However if, say, one of the new pets adds extra potency to our dots (most likely shiva, but could be any of them really), such as an additional 15-30 potency, then that one other pet would have use, but then might actually be the new go-to pet, instead of garuda. What I truly enjoyed about FFXI SMN was that there was a reason to use every single pet(if you were actually good and knew what would be the most beneficial pet ability to use each fight). Such as Garuda giving haste/blink/speed boost or Predator Claws, Shiva for her superior magic merit ability/sleepga/paralysis, and the list goes on.

I have a suggestion that might help with this. Keep the way ACN and SMN themselves perform, as a whole, the same. However an expansion of pet abilities should be made. What I mean is have a sort of hybrid between how SMN in FFXI works and how SMN in FFXIV works. Keep us as a dot-based class, but have some more supportive abilities from the pets(because that's what they are in ffxiv).

Some minor changes to abilities such as: Give garuda either a speed boost(that is limited in duration but works in combat, like say 10 seconds with a 30 second cd to all party members), a "blink" effect like in ffxi, or an evasion bonus to all party members; this would be instead of her knock back (which has caused more problems than benefits imo). Oh poor ifrit... he needs basically a complete overhaul. Instead of Radiant Shield instead it should be either a damage boost for 10-15seconds for the entire party(1min cd) or an attack that adds another dot(based on our magic potency of course, which all of his attacks should be as well...). Flaming Crush is fine... but maybe add a Defense/Vulnerability Down effect to all affected targets; the other party members would particularly enjoy these aspects of his abilities as they will add to their own dps as well, not just ours. His stun, please make it faster and on priority... like no matter what he will execute it as soon as you command him to use it so long as he is within range. Personally, I am fine with Titan, but maybe have an ability for AoE Stoneskin.

The for any other pets they would add to ffxiv smn, I just hope they give them something to be worthiwhile to use because, as Spellbinder said, if they don't bring something of use that will be of similar DPS as what Garuda does for us, then they will be useless and never used.

As for enkindle, All I want is to have the potency increased by 50 and the CD reduced to 3min(being similar to BLMs Convert as that is the primary time when BLMs use flare if they don't want to suffer dps loss).

Not fair to give only SMN more skills.

it's only unfair if the new pets are actually worth using, as I've said above. Otherwise they are just there for show and are put away in favor of garuda =\


(this all coming from relic drk/mythic smn from ffxi ^^

[Sylari]

I think it's a bit odd to lump titan into that discussion since Titan's usage is completely different.

Also I think you're overstating the problem with Garuda is a bit. Yes, contagion is awesome... but the problem is more an issue of Ifrit first being extremely vulnerable and having obnoxious uptime issues due to being in melee range, second Ifrit having the useless radiant shield over a real attack and third (and least importantly) the minor extra damage on Inferno not being really worth the loss in upfront damage.


On that same note one of my least favorite things about summoners (from a design angle) right now is how utterly terrible Enkindle is as a capstone skill. From the way the fluff describes it and the way it slots into the job it really feels like it should be the class' signature skill. Instead it's a moderately hard hitting nuke with a flashy animation on an incredibly silly cooldown (so much so that unless there's a burst window you need to aim for it's literally negligible damage over the course of a long fight).

[Saiken]

Yes I understand those points, but I was trying to share ideas on what could be done to make the other pets viable and possibly even use multiple of over the course of a long fight. My thoughts were trying to give each pet their own niche, garuda already has a good one. for ifrit, I was trying to imply that he could help with damage in his own way, and not just ours either. The way I was presenting how ifrit could work is that he "destroys" the enemy defenses and boosts the power of everyone's attacks, which would lead to increased dps for everyone.

Yes, I agree that, as the lvl50 ability that SMN gets, Enkindle is very underwhelming. What I proposed was a minor change to it to allow us just a little more freedom in using it to be comparable with BLM. Yes, BLM can pseudo-spam Flare, but their single target dps will be fairly poor, not only to mention that their AoE dps will not be that great either probably only above average and would only be noticeably better with a very large number of enemies, which is not the case in most useful situations. Most good BLMs will only use flare on boss fights when they have Convert up, otherwise they will suffer a very large dps loss. Yes I know double flare and all that, but again that's once every 3 min and is, as Kevee has said, a gimmick used which main purpose is to clear large numbers of trash mobs quickly. And thus, that is why I say have enkindle's timer reduced to 3min(similar to convert, which is when most BLMs will use flare) and increase the potency of enkindle by 50(which when used with Spur and Rouse might hit harder than flare).

I also have mixed feelings about Bane as well. Yes I do agree that the tooltip saying all enemies within 5y will be affected should have been the case, but seeing as how the class works I am also in agreement with how it only affects 3 additional targets. Otherwise the other DPS classes would complain far too much over how overpowered we would be if that were the case and then we would see some hard nerfs. However if, say, they did change bane to affect all targets, I could see them reducing the potency of the other affected targets by a percentage(such as the additional affected targets will be under 75% potency of the transferred dots, or something to that effect).

I do agree as well that Ifrit's Enkindle is very... poor. Especially because it is conal. I also agree that the AI for Ifrit needs to have it's idle-positioning towards one of the back flank areas(I do not suggest directly behind because many bosses/mobs have rear conal attacks, this way he would be somewhat safer), but this might be somewhat tricky to program, might not I am uncertain of that side of things.

That being said, I do share similar views on how Kevee views this job, in that it is in a very good spot(for the moment) as a dps. I simply think that minor changes, like what I have posted, would be fairly sufficient to help SMN.

[Madoka]

Enkindle really needs either a drastic drop in it's CD or a drastic boost in it's potency. I mean really, if we're fighting a boss for 5 minutes our DoTs are doing 40k+ during those 5 minutes alone. The 1k spike from enkindle is hardly anything to write home about when we're throwing out 300 potency festers three times a minute anyway.

Even on groups of enemies Garuda can do more in a minute and a half with her 30s CD AoE skill. It's very silly

[Kevee]

Enkindle really needs either a drastic drop in it's CD or a drastic boost in it's potency. I mean really, if we're fighting a boss for 5 minutes our DoTs are doing 40k+ during those 5 minutes alone. The 1k spike from enkindle is hardly anything to write home about when we're throwing out 300 potency festers three times a minute anyway.

Even on groups of enemies Garuda can do more in a minute and a half with her 30s CD AoE skill. It's very silly

It needs neither.

Either you drop the CD and drop the potency, or raise the CD and raise the potency.

We do not need more DPS.

I do not want the CD/potency to be dropped because that adds more micromanagement for no gain, and it would actually be a DPS loss because you can only effectively use 1 oGCD between the GCD, or else you delay the next GCD.

[Saiken]

@Madoka

it's not meant to be part of our regular rotation. Its meant for specific group burst damage, like flare(hence why I say enkindle should be on a 3 min cd). I do agree that it does need just a small damage boost. But this is off track; enkindle is the least of our worries as SMNs. I'm still more worried that all pets other than garuda are going to be overshadowed by our ethereal bird =\

[Madoka]

I'm not complaining about our DPS, I just find Enkindle kinda worthless as it is. Inferno's a huge let down, Aerial Blast a moderate letdown and Earthen Fury is actually pretty nice since it's circular but you know when we use Titan. I have a macro that does rouse, spur and enkindle and sometimes it skips enkindle and I don't even mind. I'm probably messing up the animations or something when it does that though.

I just feel like a skill with a 5 minute CD should feel like it's worth waiting 5 minutes to use but that's my own opinion

Actually I just thought of something interesting. What if they made the egis get slightly stronger when you beat their extreme versions? I was kinda hoping they would after beating the HM ones actually. Even just like 5-10 potency on the attacks, or a few extra seconds on defense curl/radiant shield or something

[Soralis]

sadly i wanted a smn badly in ffxiv and when it came out i was dissapointed a lot, i wanted a summoner not a dot class like spirit master from aion or warlock from wow, i hate those, i wanted my summoner as a final fantasy summoner not a pet class, i wanted him to cast summons as spells, not control them as pets like a hunter, if it is up to me fixing ifrit won't help with anything that i see as a summoner class, fixing bane won't help anything, i just want a full overhaul of this class, i don't know what did the people who made this class smoking, did they ever PLAY ANY FF GAME? did they ever SEE A SUMMONER? i am confused and sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
copy pasting this from another thread, this is not helpful to anyone just wanted to say my opinion on everything, all in all i would like to summons do more damage and not me

[Kevee]

sadly i wanted a smn badly in ffxiv and when it came out i was dissapointed a lot, i wanted a summoner not a dot class like spirit master from aion or warlock from wow, i hate those, i wanted my summoner as a final fantasy summoner not a pet class, i wanted him to cast summons as spells, not control them as pets like a hunter, if it is up to me fixing ifrit won't help with anything that i see as a summoner class, fixing bane won't help anything, i just want a full overhaul of this class, i don't know what did the people who made this class smoking, did they ever PLAY ANY FF GAME? did they ever SEE A SUMMONER? i am confused and sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
copy pasting this from another thread, this is not helpful to anyone just wanted to say my opinion on everything, all in all i would like to summons do more damage and not me

Have YOU seen any FF Summoner?