Summoner---> (warlock?)Follow

Hey everyone!

I am just wondering what made SE/Yoshida turn Summoner into a dot class throwing diseases/curses?
Reason I'm asking is that pretty much every other job resembles FFXI (and most other FF games).
Paladin is still a shield wall, black mage is still a nuking maniac etc. but Summoner is now something that plays just like my Warlock on WoW? Anyone know the reason behind this? And am I alone when I think it kinda ruined the Job?

Heard this argument more often than I can count: you can't summon primals/avatars that look like them since its against the lore; destroys the planet/lifeforce etc... But how come we are able to Summon THE primals through a FC? Wouldn't that make us just as bad?

If this has been posted before, do point me in the right direction! :D

Don't forget Necromancer from Everquest!

No, you're not alone, but I personally do not agree with you. And there are plenty of Summoners that are more than fine with how it is.

I personally and deeply despised FFXI's incarnation of Red Mage or rather how it was utalized by the public at large. What I was told was promptly to deal with it, even though it deviated heavily from the concept of the class as it was conceived earlier on.

This situation is no different. I'm sorry your immersion and attachment to the class is broken, but I feel the reasons why they kept it the way it is, is fitting.

Summoners, the ones in the previous games, were rare, exceedingly so. In ARR they are quite possibly very common now. There had to be a clear distinction between the Godly Primals that prove to be force to be reckoned with to entire armies, and the creatures that were easily beckoned out by 'Summoners' who are as common as any adventurer.

As far as your last question - we don't know. But you can be sure it will be explained and justified in the lore when the feature comes out. Maybe such a thing is controversial, maybe it becomes a last resort weapon against something.

Back to the art of Summoner and its changes, I find myself enjoying Arcanist/Summoner much more because of them. Summoner in FFXI for the majority of its ongoing history became regulated to being a pseudo-white mage, even with their Summons looking completely like their Prime counterparts.

This change of scope for Summoner is refreshing, and makes it so the summoner themselves are not weaklings in combat. I find myself much more engaged with this version than it's previous FFXI incarnation.

The classic concept of summoner just doesnt lend itself well to an MMO. That's the best way I can think to describe it. I hated FFXI's version of Summoner, mostly because it was the fact that EVERYONE could summon these large mystical beings of power so it wasn't special at all. Attacks were underpowered because it was a pet class, to the point that a beastmaster with a crab beat out Ifrit. Attack animations were short and underwhelming, including Astral Flow. SMN was out damaged by BLM, out healed by WHM and even RDM, was out melee'd by virtually everything, was next to useless without Refresh and Refresh+ gear (much of it difficult to obtain), and slow. That's not counting the various bugs that plauged the job for nearly a decade before being fixed. It got the short end of every stick available.

Given FFXIV's version, I'm thankful for what it is compared to what it could have been.

awesome replies! Thanks ^^ gave me something to think about :D

Tried to post this in the "official" forum, but it still got the gloom it had when it was called The Beta forum :P a mistake I won't repeat again >_>

You're mad about Summoner? How about the other side of the tree: making Scholar a pet class?

Really, the whole Arcanist line seems a bit strange to me. Maybe because it was added in so recently they weren't really thinking it through as well as they could have...

As much as I loved SMN in 11, the above comment is why I decided to go SCH in 14. My smn/whm was pretty much just a 'last resort' WHM. So naturally I got used to being a healing pet class. I have not tried SMN in 14 yet but i'm sure i will give it a try once/if they add shiva as a Egi, love my ice queen.

I see the changes to classes I thought I knew, but this is Final Fantasy and nothing stays the same. My favorite Summoner of all time is Rydia(sorry Yuna fans) and Rydia was awesome because she was a DD powerhouse. Able to call Bahamut and do megaflare for 9,999 on every enemy onscreen. Or she could cast Meteor and still be a power in her own right. SMN in FFXIV appears to have gone the route of the magical side of RDM. After all, RDM is known as a warlock and DoT's are RDM's bread and butter too. I'm not sure where the old classes will fit now. Some RDM's are getting excited because of how uber BRD's are supposedly. I'm not impressed by that one bit as every single BRD I've seen so far has sucked. They are rangers in disguise and don't know how to play a hybrid. So imagine my dismay when I see RDM following that same trajectory. A front line class that focuses on melee, not magic. Unless RDM learns hastega and other AoE buffs, I doubt we'll see the class played right by anyone. It's like pulling teeth for BRD's to sing when they should be so there's my skepticism.

I've been trying to put into words what bothers me about the current rendition of Summoner. As a summoner you should have direct control over your pets abilities. You don't have control of what pets do at all in this game. With Chocobos you can choose a stance but they are quite annoying because you can't control them at all. I think it would increase the fun and add more strategy if you had to manage their abilities to some extent as well (within reason).

Hmm I was not aware that a summoner was like a warlock.

I need more info, as I think that would be my next role to level if this is true.

How effective are they for endgame? Do the DOT's actually do good damage?

I for some reason though summoners were more an off heals.