A little worried, not about servers though, about Summoner!

[Mudtrumpet]

My main is a SMN and so far out of all the dungeons and the HM primals only BRD out dmgs me(threat wise) then there is my pet. I played a lock since wow launch I have almost 10 yrs xp with this class style. The problem is not the class but the user, this class requires so much effort that if you don't maintain dot and pet control you will be quite frankly garbage at this class. Learn to clip dots at the right times to keep 100% uptime and use Raging strike with fester for 1200+ fester crits.

[madolyn]

my first clear ever was with a summoner.

[shinros]

See this is my problem summoner is dot class. Why is that so? we are called SUMMONER we should of been about the pets our skills should of centered around PETS not DOTS. In world of warcraft we have a warlock class that summons loads of demons so I went demonlogy spec since it dealt with these awesome pets and improved them and gave them new commands.

I did not pick summoner to play an affliction warlock or shadow priest I wanted a pet class. Funny enough black mage is the actual warlock of the game lore wise.

[Lokiie1984]

I'm surprised nobody answered this. I'm sorry, what? SMN as a healer? Since when? Summoner is a pure bred DD.

You might be mistaken for Arcanist, which can heal fine to 30 and which they are going to allow to queue for healer.


Also, i'm not a summoner nor have i leveled arcanist that far, however in my few levels as arcanist i have seen little to none people using cross class abilities. Aero + Thunder to DPS rotation and Surecast when your pet falls and you are taking dmg. These may be little things, but they are tools you need. On the low level dungs i use Miasma+bio+thunder+aero on all mobs around while tank is fighting his target. These abilities won't take enough hate to shift aggro to you, but it will take a hefty chunk of the adds while your party is busy killing the tank's target. When he's done he just has to finish off the rest of the mobs.

This is exactly how i have always played a dot class. From the Wow Warlock to the arcanist (haven't gotten the summoner unlock yet.) I remember in wow the dps meters never seemed to register dot dps right, or something. I used to get yelled at a lot in instances for low dps but by the time they killed that first mob i had reduced the rest of em down to half life if not below. And it seems to work in a similar fashion here, at least from what i have seen so far.

I have used this method to decent success both solo and in groups so far, the only issue i ran into was a case where the tank could hold aggro and i ended up tanking the adds. The easy fix was to just slow down how fast i dotted em though. So it seems to me that any all dot classes will have to deal with the same stigma as wow's warlock had. Dps meters may not show the damage so people with assume you suck or the class sucks. Then add in the fact that most people don't understand dot classes and it gets even worse.

But that is no reason to give up a class/job that you enjoy playing. Don't let any one besides yourself dictate how you should enjoy the game. And don't forget that this early into the game, we can always count on class balancing to sweep through like a wild fire and even out the numbers.

[Ryuko]

That's commonly known as the attribution effect, meaning that we tend to assume certain things about our world in order to not over think every little detail about our daily lives.

It's a surprisingly effective method that helps us configure our reality in such a way that everything makes sense. Unfortunately, it also has a strong correlation with the self-fulfilled prophecy that you described so well; meaning that while attributions help us understand the world better, it can also create a certain bias against something.

People will inherently search for those key signals that help them reinforce their beliefs, because otherwise they would have to reconfigure their belief system about the world; and as you are probably aware, many of us have a strong resistance of change.

I'm not really sure why I wrote that up in here, but I thought you'd like to know the technicalities behind it. What's happening now with Summoners is something we have to deal with everyday outside of FFXIV, and unfortunately we are not always aware of it.

I did appreciate the explanation. You learn something new every day.

As far as people asking 'why' summoner is a DoT class... Well, FFXIV is a fast-paced game. If you compare Summoner in XI to Summoner in XIV (not that I'm keen on making comparisons), you will realize the difference. In XI, we were able to use one avatar ability a minute. The timer could be reduced to less than a minute with certain gear, and eventually that 'ability' was split into two separate groups with two different timers... but summoner itself did not require much 'action'. We were supplemental backup healers in order to fill the 'time' and 'space' of not being able to do anything else with our avatar for that one minute. The way summoner functioned was not exceptional. A lot of DPS did a lot of waiting around (auto-attack) before they had enough TP to use a weapon skill. Black Mages waited for the right moment to trigger a magic burst... etc.

XIV is very different. You want to fill every moment with SOMETHING. We already have a straight-up caster. So, what's left? A DoT-heavy one. Our DoTs are there to fill the time... and when we aren't refreshing the DoTs, we have a very weak nuke to fill the time between refreshing DoTs. When you think about it, it really all amounts to the same thing... Getting us to spend ALL of our time doing something, rather than being able to stand there and wait for pet timers. Granted, the PLAY style between a burst caster and a DoT caster is very different, but we both must 'fill' our time with casting regardless of where that damage is actually coming from.

Our pets are 'weak' because the class was designed to have us constantly working. Perhaps putting more emphasis on our pets would be deemed 'unfair' since our pets are not immune to any AoEs, and even if we command them to 'move' the second we see an AoE marker on the ground, they still won't get out in time. It would not be pleasant if my damage relied too heavily on my pet because my pet can easily get hurt. (Sure, we can heal it... but there are fights where things get very hectic.)

[ZyloWolfBane]

I only really feel pressure during AoE heavy fights like HM garuda, especially when there's two Summoners. I can't help but feel like there's nothing that our class actually brings to a group that other classes can't do and better.

[Shirosama]

I'm surprised nobody answered this. I'm sorry, what? SMN as a healer? Since when? Summoner is a pure bred DD.

You might be mistaken for Arcanist, which can heal fine to 30 and which they are going to allow to queue for healer.


Also, i'm not a summoner nor have i leveled arcanist that far, however in my few levels as arcanist i have seen little to none people using cross class abilities. Aero + Thunder to DPS rotation and Surecast when your pet falls and you are taking dmg. These may be little things, but they are tools you need. On the low level dungs i use Miasma+bio+thunder+aero on all mobs around while tank is fighting his target. These abilities won't take enough hate to shift aggro to you, but it will take a hefty chunk of the adds while your party is busy killing the tank's target. When he's done he just has to finish off the rest of the mobs.

i actually use both thunder and aero in my rotation

[ArmorKing]

Between the Teratotaur in Qarn and now story Garuda I'm probably just going to try switching to BLM for a bit. There's too much to keep track of and too many instances where you need burst damage and simply can't deliver, and I feel like I'm doing a disservice to my DF parties.

We ran Qarn with a WAR, WHM, SMN, SMN, and that first boss was a joke with one of us using Titan to go play with the bees. With Swiftcast, we had Titan on demand and never once had to deal with final sting.

Of course, everything was hunky dory until the final boss, where the pets were just too clunky, derpy and slow to deal with the fast paced reactions needed for all the positioning needed. I guess with enough experience and knowing what to expect would smooth that out a bit.

As for Garuda, I went SMN on that fight as well, doing the usual DoT bonanza until the feathers showed up. Between Ifrit's AOE and Bane, it's manageable. What I'm wondering is, is if the feathers are susceptible to CC. I was thinking of trying a Swiftcasted Tri-Disaster to bind the feathers as soon as they spawn and have them sit in time out until they explode...

[Shiyo]

Well every since the pre-P4 announce of Arcanist being in. It was always my plan to play one. So here it is EA over, game launch. My Summoner is 50. Done all my story quest. What I am finding out though is that Summoner/Arcanist is probably going to end up as an unwanted job for some of the dungeons.

Now before anyone thinks this is a complaint or whining about Summoner DPS. It isn't. It's just that shortly after getting to 50. I decided to run that one dungeon for the Grand Company promotion. I can't remember the name it was like A something. But the whole dungeon seems to be a DPS race from what I'm told.

Summoner is the only DPS that can res in combat, it provides nearly 100% uptime slow on bosses that doesn't seem to be effected by DR(I think), 15 seconds of blind every ~30 seconds, 20% damage reduction for 30 seconds every 3 minutes and 15% mnd/str/dex/int to bosses every ~45 seconds while also providing excellent damage with DOT's and amazing spread damage with bane.

The class is great, it does great damage and brings unique support no other DPS can bring, having 1 summoner for 8 mans is incredibly nice for learning new counters because it's the only DPS that can res healers.

[CyrilLucifer]

We ran Qarn with a WAR, WHM, SMN, SMN, and that first boss was a joke with one of us using Titan to go play with the bees. With Swiftcast, we had Titan on demand and never once had to deal with final sting.

Of course, everything was hunky dory until the final boss, where the pets were just too clunky, derpy and slow to deal with the fast paced reactions needed for all the positioning needed. I guess with enough experience and knowing what to expect would smooth that out a bit.

I had this same exact experience, with this same exact party. Two SMN really doesn't work in Qarn's final boss. I was killing the poles faster than the SMN were and I'm a bloody WHM. Though, obviously Qarn isn't indicative of end-game SMN.