Why I can't give up Summoner in FFXIV

Baha Blast, baby!

I want to talk about Summoner. It's complicated between us.

I tried to leave. I looked at other casters. I leveled Picto and flirted with Red Mage for a while. The glamours were great! I even braved the fresh hell that is Dawntrail Black Mage. But Summoner kept calling me back.

Other casters just aren't the same

On the surface, my loyalty seems counterintuitive. Picto showed up with big D damage and a Dancer dash in a fun and flexible package. I enjoyed leveling Picto to 100 with the exception of deciphering its terrifying tooltips. Red Mage is a class that's so well-designed that there have been only minor adjustments to it since its introduction in Stormblood. And even with all the odd changes to Black Mage, it's hard to beat the thrill of greeding Fire IV. (Pro tip for Fire IV super greed: macro Aetherial Manipulation to the healer and pop it at the last second to avoid a mechanic. If they're screwed, you probably are anyway.) But I still missed Summoner.

I missed it even though we got Solar Bahamut as our new summon. Frankly, I am disappointed by Solar Bahamut. It is pretty much a direct reskin of the existing Bahamut, except techno. The animations don't feel as impactful as the other demis, and I don't understand why the class got a time-bound heal as an additional action (Lux Solaris).

What could have been

I was hoping for completion of the implementation of the 6 "core" MSQ primals. There are currently three: Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda. The three outstanding MSQ primals are Shiva, Ramuh, and Leviathan. These could have been introduced as a second gem phase that alternated the way Bahamut and Phoenix do. It seemed like the logical next step to complete the elemental wheel.

And the rotation pre-Solar Bahamut fully supported class fantasy and MSQ lore. Solar Bahamut just threw that right out. The convention of needing to defeat a Primal to gain the ability to summon was broken. Phoenix is not a summon that all players have battled, but it appears in The Binding Coils of Bahamut as part of a major story beat that I think all FFXIV players should experience. It's easy to unsync it now and blow right through the fights for the story alone.

Lore nerd detour

In Coils, after the WOL defeats his Phoenix form, Louisoix reveals that he transformed into the primal Phoenix from Eorzea's fervent prayers and the remnants of his failed summoning of the Twelve at the Battle of Cartenau. In Phoenix form, he was able to reduce Bahamut to dust; but the dragons of Mercydia's prayers kept Bahamut from ever really being vanquished.

Summoner's rotation in Endwalker captured our ARR journey well. It echoed our increase in power over time. It also captures the cyclical nature of primal death and rebirth, a process the WOL had seen many times. We began our rotation with a reference to 1.0 and the Battle of Cartenau by summoning Bahamut. Moving into 2.0 and partially through the ARR MSQ, we call Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda. We complete the cycle in the level 50 endgame with Coils, where we vanquished Phoenix and also find out that Bahamut will rise again. The only thing missing here are the three outstanding prinals discussed befire: Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva.

Why I loved Summoner (and still do).

I really did get into Summoner in Endwalker. I could reliably pull great numbers, backup rez someone, and run around like a phys ranged the whole time. The animations are flashy and creative. Honestly, I thought it was pretty OP and a lot of fun. Sure, the job got dumped on for being easy, but there doesn't have to be a difficulty cost of entry for a job to perform well.

I play on controller and it is great to occasionally be able to play a job where all of the main skills, both ST and AOE, fit on the main XHB. I like to bring SMN my first time in an instance because I can focus more on the mechanics--the simple rotation is just baked into my hands at this point. The rez is great in prog too.

In the end, I'm sad to see such a great job fantasy disrupted by the introduction of Solar Bahamut. It weakens my enjoyment of the class overall. But all things considered, I still get to Baha Blast. And maybe that's enough.