SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

[Samuraiking]

That's funny, "meant to be played"? And here I thought the people at SE are the only one who knows, since the game world is their creation entirely. Oh well, armchair developers and all that. Carry on.

You do understand that the FFXIV team(2.0, probably 1.0 as well) wasn't the original team that created SMN in FF3 or any of the later renditions. Most of the summoners in FF games since then have all followed the basic tradition of what a SMN is, someone who summons monsters to do all of their fighting for them, not a poison and disease spreader that calls out a floating ghost to poke things. The FFXIV team did NOT follow it and tried to change it. If we are talking about patent rights, they own summoner, sure, but they are a company, the original team isn't there and they are changing the heart of FF and its classes away from what the original teams meant it to be.

Anyway, I'm not gonna sit here and argue semantics. They labeled a completely different class(Necromancer/Warlock) as SMN and it's not cool.

[luizf_sp]

If I allocate all my points to INT (SMN as the main job) and use my SCH with cleric stance, how gimped is my heal compared to a SCH with all his attributes points allocated to MND?

I know about the 20% less heal potency with cleric stance, but some endgame numbers will help..

[Veis]

As a raid summoner I love the class...

[Crevox]

First off, SMN or summons, outside of XI, have not been pet classes/pets. Yes in X, XII, and XIII they stuck around a little longer, but be honest, you were not usually using them for that part, but for the massive burst damage or unique effects they provided or to exploit elemental advantages. And it was not very often either due to MP restraints or some thing else that limited their use.

Even summoning a powerful creature simply to use an attack would be a more interesting gameplay style than this, and more along the lines of what SMN should be.

Says who?

How is it "not, in any way?"

Do you know WHY Square Enix added jobs to the game in the first place? A long time ago, there were no jobs; we just had the base classes. Eventually, they added jobs in order to make it feel more like a FINAL FANTASY and so players can enjoy and play the jobs they wanted to be in an MMORPG. People didn't want to be a "Conjurer"... they wanted to be a "White Mage." In addition to that, with the changes, they remade all the class skills, and made them similar to the job so it would transition into the job and make sense. Conjurers use to know Fire, Blizzard, Aero, Stone, Thunder, Water, Burn/Rasp/etc, and Flare/Quake/Flood/etc. However, with the changes, they are now much more similar to a White Mage, and you can even become a White Mage, and gain the classic skills like Holy and Regen and really get that classic FINAL FANTASY feel and be the job you always wanted to be. They even added some new cool skills like Medica and made it fresh, going forward with the class and making it new and exciting.

They changed the base classes and implemented jobs for fan service. They did it to make it so people could play the job they wanted to play, and enjoy the game much more. However, with SMN they just completely dropped the ball; it's nothing like classic FINAL FANTASY in ANY way. They could've done it so many different ways, as people have already mentioned (summon and done, powerful pets, etc) but we don't have a summoner in this game; instead, we have an Arcanist. Summoner is a direct upgrade of Arcanist and might as well just not exist, as I've already proven in the main post. As long as it learns skills like Fester and Tri-disaster, it shouldn't have the name of Summoner. If they wanted a DoT class that transitions into a job, that's perfectly fine; but don't name it something that it's not. They could've named Summoner ANYTHING, but instead they decided to name it something that it's not. Summoners do not go around DoTing things and enfeebling them with Miasmas and lung toxins. It's just lazy, because they wanted to rush the game out the door and they saw the potential to kill two birds with one stone: add a DoT caster gameplay style and add Summoner for all the people that wanted it. However, the people that wanted Summoner did not get what they wanted. The only reason I'm still playing Summoner is because even though it's not what I wanted, it's tolerable, and I hope for future changes/updates that will make it more like a Summoner that we actually wanted.

As a raid summoner I love the class...

Sadly that's not the point, at all; you should read the main post at the very least.

[Kevee]

Even summoning a powerful creature simply to use an attack would be a more interesting gameplay style than this, and more along the lines of what SMN should be.

There is no "What a SMN should be." What a "SMN should be" has changed in every FF since 10. "What a SMN should be" is what SE defines it as.

Do you know WHY Square Enix added jobs to the game in the first place? A long time ago, there were no jobs; we just had the base classes. Eventually, they added jobs in order to make it feel more like a FINAL FANTASY and so players can enjoy and play the jobs they wanted to be in an MMORPG. People didn't want to be a "Conjurer"... they wanted to be a "White Mage." In addition to that, with the changes, they remade all the class skills, and made them similar to the job so it would transition into the job and make sense. Conjurers use to know Fire, Blizzard, Aero, Stone, Thunder, Water, Burn/Rasp/etc, and Flare/Quake/Flood/etc. However, with the changes, they are now much more similar to a White Mage, and you can even become a White Mage, and gain the classic skills like Holy and Regen and really get that classic FINAL FANTASY feel and be the job you always wanted to be. They even added some new cool skills like Medica and made it fresh, going forward with the class and making it new and exciting.

They changed the base classes and implemented jobs for fan service. They did it to make it so people could play the job they wanted to play, and enjoy the game much more. However, with SMN they just completely dropped the ball; it's nothing like classic FINAL FANTASY in ANY way. They could've done it so many different ways, as people have already mentioned (summon and done, powerful pets, etc) but we don't have a summoner in this game; instead, we have an Arcanist. Summoner is a direct upgrade of Arcanist and might as well just not exist, as I've already proven in the main post. As long as it learns skills like Fester and Tri-disaster, it shouldn't have the name of Summoner. If they wanted a DoT class that transitions into a job, that's perfectly fine; but don't name it something that it's not. They could've named Summoner ANYTHING, but instead they decided to name it something that it's not. Summoners do not go around DoTing things and enfeebling them with Miasmas and lung toxins. It's just lazy, because they wanted to rush the game out the door and they saw the potential to kill two birds with one stone: add a DoT caster gameplay style and add Summoner for all the people that wanted it. However, the people that wanted Summoner did not get what they wanted. The only reason I'm still playing Summoner is because even though it's not what I wanted, it's tolerable, and I hope for future changes/updates that will make it more like a Summoner that we actually wanted.

What is a "classic Final Fantasy" Summoner? Rydia used black magic, summons were useless for Garnet and Eiko, summons were useless or meat shields for Yuna, FFXI was a joke, and if you want to go beyond that it was vastly different in XII and XIII. You keep on mentioning that it's not a Summoner. What is a Summoner? There's no single definition. They can define it what they want.

They did do it in a different way.

We have a Summoner. It's what it's defined as in the realm of FFXIV. We summon an Egi to help us.

[Crevox]

summons were useless for Garnet and Eiko, summons were useless or meat shields for Yuna,

So your opinion dictates they are useless in game balance and thus completely irrelevant? Cool.

There is no "What a SMN should be." What a "SMN should be" has changed in every FF since 10. "What a SMN should be" is what SE defines it as.

And yet they all follow a similar theme: you summon a powerful creature to fight for you, and it is your strength. No matter which way it is, whether the summons perform a giant nuke and leave or stay and fight, that is the concept. This is the only game where that is not the case, and it specifically states that egi are weak essences of the actual primal. Beyond that, the gameplay is not oriented around them at all.

[Kevee]

So your opinion dictates they are useless in game balance and thus completely irrelevant? Cool.

It's not an opinion that they're useless.

They are completely irrelevant.

And yet they all follow a similar theme: you summon a powerful creature to fight for you, and it is your strength. No matter which way it is, whether the summons perform a giant nuke and leave or stay and fight, that is the concept. This is the only game where that is not the case, and it specifically states that egi are weak essences of the actual primal. Beyond that, the gameplay is not oriented around them at all.

"powerful"

You don't know what that means.

Gameplay has never revolved around summons, besides Summoner from FFT.

[Crevox]

It's not an opinion that they're useless.

They are completely irrelevant.





"powerful"

You don't know what that means.

Gameplay has never revolved around summons, besides Summoner from FFT.

And now is when I stop bothering to take you seriously.

[Hawklaser]

Gameplay has never revolved around summons, besides Summoner from FFT.

Only reason gameplay of the summoners never really revolved around summons is because MP or some other mechanic prevented them from being frequently used. So you usually did not use them outside of boss fights until could circumvent the MP issues, which often by then it was just as fast, if not faster to just use normal offensive magic to kill things. And if your healers were also your summoners, you usually did not use the summons because healing was often more important. But yet the summons have always felt powerful or impactful, even if incredibly niche. If you look back at FFT you did not have to worry about keeping MP up(outside of longer fights) and could always have them not be healers so you could use their summons at will.

Only issue with SMN in XIV, is that the summons evidently lack that feel. If had been called anything else it appears to be a non-issue. Which comes back to the question of how to capture that feel without making the class fall into that useless useful zone, making it too strong, or Nuke mage version 2? XI's SMN is a good example of the Useless useful zone, and too strong combined, as most only wanted a SMN around as a healer in a pinch or just for their incredibly strong 2hr ability.

[Kevee]

Only reason gameplay of the summoners never really revolved around summons is because MP or some other mechanic prevented them from being frequently used.

It's because, functionally, using Summons is 99% of the time useless. Either do to lack of damage, better damage options, long animations, have more important things to do(healing), or due to complications which arise from those(I'm looking at you, FF9).

The only time summons have actually been strong is from a lore perspective.