Summoner is a joke. Fun as hell... but a joke.

[Nerva Matapan]

I thought RDM was caster easy-mode, but my God - summoner is just silly. 95 percent of the abilities are instants; 75 percent of the spells are linked to two buttons (single target or AOE). Running around in circles and slapping monsters with your book wouldn't be significantly more complex.

I'm not in any way saying this isn't fun - it is. It's very freeing, much the same way as dancer (although dancer at least requires some thought to conserve/spend resources). But SMN is just ridiculous. It feels like FFXIV - practice mode.

[causality]

It's fine this way. Remember, this is a game marketed to casual players. If someone wants to play something more difficult then they'll always have that option available for the later.

[rabureta]

SMN is slow, though. BLM gets teleports, and RDM gets dashes and backflips, but SMN has to hoof it at base speed, which can get painfully tight when you have to run out to Africa to resolve a mechanic. God help you if you're caught in Ruby when it happens, since your only swiftcast is, well, swiftcast, and you probably used it on Slipstream to fit Slipstream in your pot window.

Don't get me wrong, I love SMN, but goddamn do things like Fourfold Fires and Gale Spheres make me wish I were playing BLM instead sometimes.

[Kitsune Dzelda]

Points added to your BLM if you decided to set your Ley Lines in a place where mechanics are going to happen, but ran off to join the folks, and slipped between the Lines soon as it goes off to act as a mobility aid.

People really underestimate Ley Lines mobility aid.

[Sardorim]

Summoner is the most popular and played Ranged Magical Damage job for a reason.

You need to understand that most players are super casual. This is something even Blizzard is starting to realize. Catering to the 1% or those that want 9,001+ different buttons to press is a recipe for disaster. FF14 being super casual friendly is why it's such a success nowadays.

[Holmgäng]

Originally posted by Nerva Matapan:

I thought RDM was caster easy-mode, but my God - summoner is just silly. 95 percent of the abilities are instants; 75 percent of the spells are linked to two buttons (single target or AOE). Running around in circles and slapping monsters with your book wouldn't be significantly more complex.

I'm not in any way saying this isn't fun - it is. It's very freeing, much the same way as dancer (although dancer at least requires some thought to conserve/spend resources). But SMN is just ridiculous. It feels like FFXIV - practice mode.

Its not even fun. But tbh game has been buchered a lot since shb. Very sad

[Cyiel]

Originally posted by UBC-100:

Originally posted by Nerva Matapan:

I thought RDM was caster easy-mode, but my God - summoner is just silly. 95 percent of the abilities are instants; 75 percent of the spells are linked to two buttons (single target or AOE). Running around in circles and slapping monsters with your book wouldn't be significantly more complex.

I'm not in any way saying this isn't fun - it is. It's very freeing, much the same way as dancer (although dancer at least requires some thought to conserve/spend resources). But SMN is just ridiculous. It feels like FFXIV - practice mode.

Its not even fun. But tbh game has been buchered a lot since shb. Very sad

Fun is subjective.

[Sardorim]

Originally posted by UBC-100:

Originally posted by Nerva Matapan:

I thought RDM was caster easy-mode, but my God - summoner is just silly. 95 percent of the abilities are instants; 75 percent of the spells are linked to two buttons (single target or AOE). Running around in circles and slapping monsters with your book wouldn't be significantly more complex.

I'm not in any way saying this isn't fun - it is. It's very freeing, much the same way as dancer (although dancer at least requires some thought to conserve/spend resources). But SMN is just ridiculous. It feels like FFXIV - practice mode.

Its not even fun. But tbh game has been buchered a lot since shb. Very sad

It must be fun if a lot of people are picking Summoner.

[Geralt]

Summoner USED to be more complex and have way more to it. They recently changed it and oooft, it's bad. They absolutely stripped it down to nothing.

[Axetwin]

Originally posted by rabureta:

SMN is slow, though. BLM gets teleports, and RDM gets dashes and backflips, but SMN has to hoof it at base speed, which can get painfully tight when you have to run out to Africa to resolve a mechanic. God help you if you're caught in Ruby when it happens, since your only swiftcast is, well, swiftcast, and you probably used it on Slipstream to fit Slipstream in your pot window.

Don't get me wrong, I love SMN, but goddamn do things like Fourfold Fires and Gale Spheres make me wish I were playing BLM instead sometimes.

The counter to this is, Summoner is more naturally mobile than Black Mage. It's far easier to move with the pack, and knowing when to use Ruby is the only real consideration the job has. Which means there's basically no reason why you should get caught in a spot you shouldn't be.

[Stormy Dawn]

Originally posted by Axetwin:

Originally posted by rabureta:

SMN is slow, though. BLM gets teleports, and RDM gets dashes and backflips, but SMN has to hoof it at base speed, which can get painfully tight when you have to run out to Africa to resolve a mechanic. God help you if you're caught in Ruby when it happens, since your only swiftcast is, well, swiftcast, and you probably used it on Slipstream to fit Slipstream in your pot window.

Don't get me wrong, I love SMN, but goddamn do things like Fourfold Fires and Gale Spheres make me wish I were playing BLM instead sometimes.

The counter to this is, Summoner is more naturally mobile than Black Mage. It's far easier to move with the pack, and knowing when to use Ruby is the only real consideration the job has. Which means there's basically no reason why you should get caught in a spot you shouldn't be.

Yeah. I have to agree.

Summoner has the highest mobility bar none. If you are caught in Ruby phase for a movement based mechanic that is your fault as the player, not the design of the class.

I don't know. I really like Summoner now. It's been my main since around the halfway mark of Heavensward and it continues to be. Summoner was just a DoT class before, which while I didn't hate, I'd hesitate to say it was complex before and brain dead dumb now. There is nothing complex about managing DoTs - it's just annoying at worst. It didn't require greater skill or anything.

That said, I would appreciate if they reintroduced a DoT class. Summoner may have been gutted the most, but many classes have lost their DoTs over the years, and it's kinda disappointing. Bard is the only class that really has any degree of management to it, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it lose one or both in Dawntrail. Be nice if the likely new caster class was DoT focused.

[Dex]

I love the new Summoner, so fun, and feels like a Final Fantasy Summoner all the way.

[Kiana]

Originally posted by Tsurayu:

That said, I would appreciate if they reintroduced a DoT class. Summoner may have been gutted the most, but many classes have lost their DoTs over the years, and it's kinda disappointing. Bard is the only class that really has any degree of management to it, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it lose one or both in Dawntrail. Be nice if the likely new caster class was DoT focused.

The main problem with DoTs as a job's core identity is how much of the end game is designed around burst phases and buff windows. If a job is all about sustained damage, to the point that is struggles with tight DPS check phases, that basically rules it out of any savage fight with an add phase.

Which wasn't just a problem for SMN, but also PLD and BRD at various points in the game's life. (Though I really wish they had settled on a solution for PLD that wasn't 'turn Goring Blade into a random extra button during your burst window'.)

On that subject, though: BLU is a phenomenal DoT job, largely because it's not locked into the same 2-minute window design space. Level 80 gave it Breath of Magic and Mortal Flame, which are so ridiculous that they had to be limited to 1/party to not utterly break fights. 120 base potency for 60 seconds for the cost of one GCD, which can be buffed by a pre-pull Bristle and a Moonflute at the start of the fight? Hilariously good. Getting to be the designated moonflute DoT monkey also basically guarantees you're top DPS of the party.

[Катюша]

Unfortunately, they've been dumbing down classes for years. Summoner is just the ultimate form of that, where they went far too extreme.

They definitely need to rework it again, as far as I am concerned.

[The_Hagen]

I personally like summoner as it is now at level 90 however I think they need to add something in the lower levels cause until you’re at like 86 it’s pretty click buff or summon button spam the appropriate button till you spent your charges or buff timer goes off

[Axetwin]

Originally posted by Kiana:

The main problem with DoTs as a job's core identity is how much of the end game is designed around burst phases and buff windows. If a job is all about sustained damage, to the point that is struggles with tight DPS check phases, that basically rules it out of any savage fight with an add phase.

I feel like a fix for burst phases would be to give a dot heavy class a way to blow up all the dots they currently have running on a specific target (or targets). A skill that ends all dots on a target dealing their full damage all at once, and it could have a 90 second cooldown.