I have to say, although I barely played around with it, from what I could tell the summoner job was a tad... underwhelming, sure the avatars looked cool but you never really got that summoner feeling from the job.
Im just wondering if anyone has any ideas how they would implement a summoner job into the game.
Would it be a pet job? A one hit uber spell for each summon instead? OR something else?
I would suggest do a "prayer" kind of job. Summoners call forth the powers of mythical beasts to their aids, then let them have that...aid, not the actual pet following.
Example:
They can have summoner as a regular magic related, you are allied to Ifrit's believes for example, then It will give power to you(the user). You will have spells like Fire, flare, maybe comet, some sort of blaze spike, another sort of enfire, and so forth. then you have this limits, or 2hours (whichever you prefer) and those open a path relatively short for the summon to cross (or try to cross) just to assist with whatever power he can let through the insignificant portal we mortals make. He aids and leaves . . .(in my opinion) a summoner should be a blackmage blessed by it summon. (or so)
Offering additional speculation, perhaps something on a long timer that any of the jobs might be able to take advantage of. Once every 12 or 24 hours a summon may be conducted. Similar to the 2-hour abilities in FFXI but rarer, and more powerful. They did mention that the avatars would be akin to gods. Or maybe some other criteria would need to be met before you could use a summon, some trials that would take time and effort and make it such that you would only call upon your mini-deity in a time of immense need.
Just a thought.
It'd probably be a pet job.
I bet it'd have something to do with weapons, too. Like summoners get certain elemental staves that can call fourth the elements that reside in them.
Then they'd turn into motorcycles.
YEAAAAH.
SE has already stated there won't be any pet jobs at release (though perhaps they'll add them in future updates). Assuming smn is added in some form, I seriously hope the implementation of it is very different than in FFXI. As a 75 smn myself, I found it "underwhelming" myself. Sure I felt like a badass IC whenever I had a giant floating avatar standing behind me. But the game mechanics of it could have been a lot better. Waiting a minute between every blood pact ability was terrible and thus made the smn defined by their other abilities instead (/whm). The whole perpetuation cost thing could have been better too. I think the concept of mp draining while the avatar is out is a good concept. But it happened far too rapidly.
They've stated that the summons in Hydaelyn will be much more "god-like" this time around. I'm not entirely sure what that means but it sounds like they're supposed to be a lot more powerful than Vana'diel's avatars.
I can only comment based on XI. No idea how the game mechanics will be in XIV so there's really no way to say how summoner will work in that game. In XI they were just too slow and redundant. BP every 30 seconds is slow for endgame where mobs are killed really fast (or so I hear). Most of the BPs are not that unique, meaning other jobs who work a bit faster AND can do other things on top of what summons can do are desired more than smn in cookie cutter merit parties.
Some fast pulling ability, unique sleep type spell, and little to no recast on BPs would make them similar to a BRD in terms of what the party gets out of inviting one. If they gave them unique BPs it'd be icing on the cake... SMN would kinda be like COR (not similar to the job itself, but rather "usefulness" to the party).
No pet jobs?
Well, I hope it at least has ninja.
I can't remember where they said it but a Dev said Summons this time will be "more god-like" and we'd "have to jump through a lot more hoops" to get them than in FFXI.
Actually, when the game starts it sounds like the Beastmen will be the ones that can summon and we won't.
That semi-worries me, because SE's concept of challenge is completely backwards.
I wouldn't want getting every summon to be the amount of tedious work that getting ones like Diabolos was.
I dunno, part of why I loved CoP was the difficulty. When you cleared it, you felt like you'd really accomplished something. Now, granted, it was a bit TOO hard... (I'm looking at you, Diabolos and O/U!) But the recent tweaks sort of killed it, in my opinion. I help friends with CoP now and am left standing there going "...that's IT?" SE's notion of difficulty seems to be "WAY TOO HARD > oh crap patch it > PRETTY DAMN HARD BUT DOABLE > wait a long time... ah screw it > EASY MODE"
But yes, agreed, SE has some funny ideas about ease of attainment. Case in point: Salvage.
Oh yeah, no doubt it was a huge accomplishment after beating CoP! I really didn't like the 'fixes' to it either.
CoP was hard, as it should be - but remember how back in the day that summoners were expected to have all of the avatars at like, LV20, And there were no minibattles and whatnot added until later?
So it was pretty much 'get the summons on your lv60 job or you not playin summoner'. I hope it really doesn't take that route, but this game isn't going to have uh... levels, is it? I'm not really sure what they're doing because the only thing I've heard was lolol dis is a WEAPONS SYSTEM.