Summoners

I have a confession to make, I feel that summoners are overrated in this series. Granted they are not too shabby in gameplay but that largely depends on the game. Still it seems that Square/Squenix has an unhealthy obsession with this particular job class with no less than three games featuring them as a major plot element whereas all the other classes get maybe one if they are lucky. So do you love how the series makes summoners a major elements of plot or do you wish some other job class might get a moment to shine in the sun?

I never really thought about it to be honest. I know they're important plot points in VIII and X. What was the third? Because outside of those games Summoners never really stood out to me and they were compressed into Material like any other spell in VII.

FFIV though not as prevalent as in FFIX and X. :onnanoko:

Well, if you count Meteor and Holy as summons....

Anyways, yeah. Especially when I don't really find summons all that powerful compared to every other form of magic. Though I can understand why from a plot perspective they are easier to write for. All the different types of magic can all kind of blend together, however a summon is a distinct creature that you can write around and make appear in story scenes.

I'd say "generic fighter" is a much more common job for an important playable character to have.

Summons have always been the backbone of my assaults and I blame VII.

Also I think they should flip things round like they did with Lightning and have a male summoner.

Summons are a superconvenient excuse to have all kinds of boss fights or calamities from god knows where.

That being said, would be interesting to have another class take the spotlight.

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

Summons have always been the backbone of my assaults and I blame VII.

Also I think they should flip things round like they did with Lightning and have a male summoner.

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I thought the whole cast in XIII could summon

Land of Summons
Hydra and Dragon becoming summons
Esperville
Ultimate Destructive Magic Meteor and Holy
Guardian Forces causing amnesia and Griever being drawn out of imagination
Ramuh, Atomos, Bahamut, Odin, Alexander, Madeen
High Summon
Eidolons challenging L'Cie

Final Fantasy Summons and their Summoner always are a major element.

There are enough classes in the spotlight.

>>> It cant be helped because: FF Awesomeness = Bahamut, Shiva, Ifrit, Odin, (any other popular summon)..:luca:

They don't really do enough with the summons for a summoner.

It's basically no different then black magic.

Maybe if they had other uses then simply group casts they could be awesome.

FF X did the combat with them, which was a neat Idea, but not executed very well. They didn't have a big variety of what they could do, and they were pretty overpowered.

Perhaps you could call Summons either into yourself altering your stats and abilities, kind of like the Persona main characters? Not to the extreme that persona goes mind you, but having a character that can infuse himself with a variety of creatures like that could be fun. :p

Or in a conventional turn based game you could have it just spit an extra character out on to the map.

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Originally Posted by NeoCracker

They don't really do enough with the summons for a summoner.

It's basically no different then black magic.

Maybe if they had other uses then simply group casts they could be awesome.

FF X did the combat with them, which was a neat Idea, but not executed very well. They didn't have a big variety of what they could do, and they were pretty overpowered.

Perhaps you could call Summons either into yourself altering your stats and abilities, kind of like the Persona main characters? Not to the extreme that persona goes mind you, but having a character that can infuse himself with a variety of creatures like that could be fun. :p

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They do more with summons in FFXI, but of course, everyone forgets about that!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NeoCracker

Perhaps you could call Summons either into yourself altering your stats and abilities, kind of like the Persona main characters? Not to the extreme that persona goes mind you, but having a character that can infuse himself with a variety of creatures like that could be fun. :p

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There is actually a class Square has made which uses Summons to infuse the caster with powerful buffs, rather than as raw attacks. It's in Bravely Default.

I would love to see a Persona styled summoner though. 'Twould be awesome. You can only set one monster to actually Summon, but which one you chose determined your spells and abilities. So you set Shiva to yourself, and it turns you into an Ice Mage, etcetera.

You say that as if you're giving me some kind of new information I didn't already have. :p

But yeah, the Conjurer is kind of nifty, but eh. Just a buff isn't really all that different then just group nuking.