[Shujin]

I would suggest starting from the top, with the most unfair mechanics.

Currently these are in my Opinion:
-Double turning after Summoner Death
-Fire/Wind Elementals/yukionna reflect, cause they counter counterplay
-Dimension Resonance

Maybe cut down on some of the autohits, or limit them to atleast once a turn, primarly I would look at Whirlpool and Suzaku for this.

Those changes alone would suddenly make it feel a lot more fair and allow counterplay. GS would still remain a good class too.

[Lolzytripd]

It's really weird.

Bonder is 'What if I picked up a gun and started shooting alongside my pokemon?"
Shapeshifter is 'What if I AM a pokemon?"
Grand Summoner is 'What if I had an entire PC box of pokemon. And also armed them with bombs?'

Grand Summoner's entire game plan is throwing out a ton of youkai, and getting them to mess people up. Hell. Tandem Dagger set up is obscene, and I looked to Lolzy and the poor bastard's got an entire set up with tandem dagger and solsphere that does 3k+ damage to Prinny. 1.8k of which wasn't even the tandem daggers themself.

Sthenno GS tactical Nuke is just. Obscene. And there's genuinely nothing Dodgies can do about it if they aren't hyper-mobile and able to attack from anywhere on the map. The only counters to this specific build is just outright using Magic Gunner or Archer with Adversity Annhilator. But I genuinely do not think "You have to use a specific item to be able to stand a fighting chance." is, at all, healthy for the game.

I am held back by my refusal to actually grind levels and train a grand summoner's retinue of youkai....

[Poruku]

I would suggest starting from the top, with the most unfair mechanics.
-Double turning after Summoner Death
-Fire/Wind Elementals/yukionna reflect, cause they counter counterplay
-Dimension Resonance

Maybe cut down on some of the autohits

This is what we need. If it was fair I would be more inclined to play summoner. As for the autohits I kinda wish youkai just did less damage overall and had more consistent accuracy, cause dodge is favored vs summoner except vs certain specific guys that do evade ignore. So I dont feel like cutting down the evade ignores is that great. I think instead the damage should be looked at across the board so tanks don't melt in 2 turns versus a small army.

Alternatively, could make it harder to summon that huge army with perhaps a slight nerf to summon storm and the thing that reduces summoning momentum when you push people around

[Rendar]

I would suggest starting from the top, with the most unfair mechanics.
-Double turning after Summoner Death
-Fire/Wind Elementals/yukionna reflect, cause they counter counterplay
-Dimension Resonance

Maybe cut down on some of the autohits

This is what we need. If it was fair I would be more inclined to play summoner. As for the autohits I kinda wish youkai just did less damage overall and had more consistent accuracy, cause dodge is favored vs summoner except vs certain specific guys that do evade ignore. So I dont feel like cutting down the evade ignores is that great. I think instead the damage should be looked at across the board so tanks don't melt in 2 turns versus a small army.

Alternatively, could make it harder to summon that huge army with perhaps a slight nerf to summon storm and the thing that reduces summoning momentum when you push people around

Sure would be nice if Summoning a ton of Youkai got prohibitively more and more expensive, instead of a flat FP cost. With Summon Storm giving a buff that temporarily makes the maintenance cost cheaper for all of these youkai.

And then Grand Summoners can actively spend their momentum 'directing' youkai to act. Giving them benefits from being a pokemon trainer, and also lowering the maintenance cost because they're using their own momentum.

[Miryn]

So while I know I am the main one currently playing this build let me just bring up some things from my point of view as someone who plays this build a lot. 

Let's Start with the Sthenno. I agree that it's a powerful thing but honestly if it was just reduced to 5+25% it would probably feel a bit more fair to deal with that instantly drops its total damage to 160 a turn if you are too close. 

When it comes to AOE dps. This is a 50/50 I have dealt with many people who carry enough aoe to wipe my crew the most common one being a jackhammer. There's very little a GS can do against that.

The Nuke I do have an opinion on this and have had an opinion for awhile that the Resistible Exponential version should be Great accuracy while the base version should still be the auto hit cause of its much lower damage potential with big bombs.

Now I will also bring up something I saw that Summons need a nerf, Truth be told Summons are worthless in most PVE content, We are here arguing PVP which I agree needs tuning but if you nerf the summons any further they are going to legit just be worthless unless they get something like the Engineer ability to tune their skill. 

The Fp Costs for summons is honestly ridiculous for summoners there's a reason my character has to build specifically for it..I can't do anything but be an Evoker, It's not the choice i'd like but its a restriction that does help stop me from being like..Iunno A priest or aquamancer and this problem really spiraling out of control with those buffs.

Now I don't agree with the Summons vanishing on death for one reason, If you do that, do that across the board. Engineers, Rulers, Etc this isn't a summoner issue, this is a unit class issue. That double turn happens on all of them.

The reflects, I honestly feel they should be doing more like a single reflection once per turn this is something I have brought up a few times in chats about the youkai. It would make them far less oppressive.

Now to bring up the counter play to dodgeys, As someone who plays Summoner I can tell you if you are a good evade with some answers (boxer) you can shut down every youkai and never get hit. I had to legit handpick my youkai for stats to even have a chance to hit people, Yet again my earlier complaint about accuracy.

Now Dimension Resonance, This one is honestly a 50/50 for me. It's more cost effective than a summon storm only by 2 in most cases summon storm brings out more youkai the only problem is the push. The reason I run 1 in general is because of it. If it pushed a solid 3 instead but instantly dropped the cost of youkai to get the four out I wouldn't care. But the push for damage is something I use specifically cause without my youkai I am legit easy to squish. 

I will say in PVP these issues are all valid but the PVE side of it is a much different story.

The biggest issue is that nerfing GS makes it a much worse PVE class which is the main part of the game, I know people will argue this but the reasons Chain unsummon is used so much for me in PVE is because its the only real option GS has to take out high end PVE content

[MothEnthusiast]

Hot take inbound.

All Youkai damage should be halved AFTER calculations. With each summoner type having ways to TEMPORARILY increase the damage back to full. Bonder would have the commands and Fight As One, etc. Shapeshifter has Chimera Install. Grand Summoner would need some sort of orders they could give to their summons to fill this role. Maybe, just MAYBE monsters would take full damage regardless if PVE is as big of a problem as claimed.

Hot take ended. The rest, fully agreed. Probably halve and dodge-enable chain unsummon, tweak the summoner weapons.

[Miryn]

Hot take inbound.

All Youkai damage should be halved AFTER calculations. With each summoner type having ways to TEMPORARILY increase the damage back to full. Bonder would have the commands and Fight As One, etc. Shapeshifter has Chimera Install. Grand Summoner would need some sort of orders they could give to their summons to fill this role. Maybe, just MAYBE monsters would take full damage regardless if PVE is as big of a problem as claimed.

Hot take ended. The rest, fully agreed. Probably halve and dodge-enable chain unsummon, tweak the summoner weapons.

Heck tweak the summoner gear, GS uses what it has cause the Summoner Druid stuff does very little for the GS. There's a reason Lyric is a bag of tricks..cause that was the only way to make it function.

[Shujin]

Just a short correction. Dimension Resonance is NOT the thing that makes summons cheaper from 3m->2m->1m. But the thing that does the undodgeable dmaage form 60->120->180->240->300->300...
I personally see no real issue with the 4 youkai a round thing. Its strong, sure. But its not really what makes summoners broken.

[Miryn]

Just a short correction. Dimension Resonance is NOT the thing that makes summons cheaper from 3m->2m->1m. But the thing that does the undodgeable dmaage form 60->120->180->240->300->300...
I personally see no real issue with the 4 youkai a round thing. Its strong, sure. But its not really what makes summoners broken.

understood sorry I was sent this thread out of The blue so I'm just answering as fast as I can thinking of what it is.. I feel the basic CU should still be undodgeable but the exponential should be great accuracy...just because that seems fair that the resistable one is an accuracy check while the normal unresistable one is auto

[Miryn]

Anyway my last comment to all this is that..All these adjustments would help in pvp but in PVE ..it would completely destroy the class. And Imho things should always be tuned towards PVE not PVP unless it's a glaring issue that is causing lots of pvp grief.