The Summoner we could have had

Going to add a quick note. I am not going to comment about the Trance gameplay for Summoner. What the development team needs to do is decide which way they want to take Summoner and stick to it. Either make it a pet-focused job, dot focused or trance focused. They could have made Summoner so Trance changed based on what Egi you had and renamed all the DoTs such as Bio II became Aero II with Garuda out and Deathflare changed to Mistral Shriek and so on and make you feel like you are weilding the power of the primal itself. 

What I write below is a “what-if” – something we could have had with the class system and is simply something about what the class system could have been and more for the community to open discussions again about the removal of base classes and about adding new jobs to classes like Geomancer to Conjurer. 

For anyone that mains a Summoner that has played many of the other Final Fantasy games would quite likely be upset about how Summoner was in Final Fantasy XIV. There are many reasons people dislike the job – the Egis (which I do not mind too much), the fact it is a DoT job and more importantly the fact it does not play like an original summoner … something the class system could have actually fixed.

If I was to ask you what do you think Summoner should be that you will think of a few people – Rydia, Garnet and Yuna and they all have something in common – they are either Black or White Mages that is able to summon a massive creature that does a massive attack and calls it a day … and what if that feeling could still exist in Final Fantasy XIV via the class system. 

The idea I had when discussing with a fellow member of The Nirvana Company that Summoner could be an upgrade to Conjurer and Thaumaturge. Confused? Well, let me explain.

Conjurer w/ Summoner

It’s amazing what HDD lag can do!

In Final Fantasy XIV Conjurer is the only healer you are able to start off with and has most of its tool kit on its base class. It has the core of its healing such as Cure, Cure II, Medica, Medica II but lacks access to regen, holy and a few other stuff but imagine if you could add the Soul of the Summoner on top of the Conjurer class and what you get now is a Conjurer that has its basic healing kit with the Egis and a few of the current Summoner moves such as Enkindle.

The logic behind this role would be for those fights where you do not need a second powerful healer but instead just need a backup healer in case things go bad so this way allows the other healer to become a more powerful damage dealer then they would be as a White Mage in Cleric Stance (seeing Garuda via auto attacking alone does about 380 DPS – I can not see the basic DPSing as a Conjurer plus the Egi would not be higher than as a White Mage).

In doing so the player would feel a lot more like how Garnet and in a way Yuna feels like as a Summoner – the fact they are a Summoner but have a primary focus as a White Mage or a primary as a healer.

Thaumaturge w/ Summoner

Can’t deny its pretty cool tho.

For all the fans of Rydia out there, Thaumaturge could have also benefitted from Summoner.

For those that play Black Mage, it currently suffers from an issue with Enochian that involved near perfect movement in order to be able to to do the maximum damage that you can do.

Now imagine if you could go as a Thaumaturge that has the basic that it has now with an Egi that worked to buff up the damage. While this should be weaker than an actual Black Mage it would allow a different gameplay for those that have the problem with movement as a Black Mage which would give a second style of play to people who main Thaumaturge and allowing them to switch between the two types of roles based on how they feel is best in the fight (kinda like what casters do now – they switch between Black Mage and Summoner when needed).

I suppose I do not need to say but this would make players feel like more like how Rydia and in a way Yuna feels like as a Summoner. They use Black Magic but have the power of their summons behind them to help them.

BUT WAIIIIITTTT!

But what about Scholar I hear you cry? Well now we get onto the third part that is already in the game … the Arcane casters. For those who follows the lore of Eorzea will know that Arcanist use arcane magic which is pretty much fancy maths to summon a Familiar and to pop negative status effects on their targets.

Well this will still exist within the game and Scholar will still exist (if you add Summoner to Arcanist you will get Scholar in this ideal) but they could add a new job and for the sake of debate, I will call it a Green Mage that works pretty much like Summoner does right now. You place your dots up and be able to do large burst damage via fester and otherwise plays the same as the current Summoner but with different names named after diseases such as like how fester is.

Conclusion

And this is how I would have added Summoner. I am aware that Summoner will not change now but it would have been a way to have added the job in a way that respected how the class system worked while also keeping how Summoner used to feel. It also sounds quite unbalanced and it is – it is only an idea how I would have done it.

One of the biggest problems with Summoner is they do not feel like a Summoner and I feel if they added it like how they did above people would feel more like a Summoner and that’s something it is lacking massively.