It is really hard to understand how the job has come into this situation, and stayed here for all these years.
Take DRG for example. They simply had to say "We think wyvern is part of the job, but it dies all the time. Can you fix this?" and they got a 20 min JA instead of 2 hours. If a Summoner says "Spirits are currently impossible to use, can we have them fixed?", it is just silence from the developers.
Another example is COR. Just 4 months after COR was released, SE said "We notice few people play COR, so we are improving their roll effects". But the fact that SMN was equally as rare, and had even worse Wards than COR had rolls, was just ignored.
Yet another example was PUP, which was added with only mage armors. They made a handful threads saying "We need melee armors to fight along with our pet." Even though this is something a minority of the Summoners have said far longer, it was only PUP who got the change and added to melee armors.
Summoning skill is another one. We felt like we had a skill that didn't matter, and asked for it to do something. Did SE make it do something? No, instead they added a brand new concept of "skill over cap" and introduced that. Our skill is still useless and does nothing... until we pass the cap. Why isn't it a straight bonus like all other jobs get?
We can also talk about SE just "forgot" to add new spells to spirits past level 75. They remembered PUP, but not SMN. How could this happen? Why is SMN not worth caring about, but PUP is?
It really seems like SE doesn't know what they are doing at all. Take for example Favors. It was a common suggestion from others, that avatars should have auras giving good bonuses. Each avatar should have their own - first mistake the suggestions did. How did this end? You ignore the avatars with the wrong favors, and you ignore the avatars with right favors but wrong pacts. SE threw in a 25% damage reduction without any reason at all. Luckily SE didn't give Garuda Hastega aura since it would have made us only use Garuda for everything. Sadly they gave her evasion aura which is useless so never is used.
Another thing SE never grasped, is what the Summoner is supposed to do. Melee? No melee stats or abilities or traits. Cast magic? No magic spells. Use spirits? Too long casting delay and too random. Use avatars? Too long pact recast. Stand and watch? Yea, that is pretty much the remaining option for Summoners. SMN is basically PUP, except we never got any traits to enhance our DD.
And if anyone has paid attention, you would know that new Summoner armors are rarer than mythics on the server. Every update SE keeps showing they have forgotten about the job, alternatively misunderstood it. We always get MAB armors, while we can't get access to anything higher than tier II nukes from subjob. This is just ridiculous when we have B rank staff we could melee with decent melee armors.
Lastly SE doesn't seem to have grasped the concept of buffs. They gave COR and BRD potent, long duration buffs that do not cost any MP. Then they gave SMN weak, short buffs costing a fortune in MP. A WHM can cast RR and it lasts an hour. It can also cast shell V on someone, and it will last 15 min. How about casting shining ruby? Sorry, 1 min duration. How about Earthen Armor, that is at least new. 3 min, 100 MP. At the same time BRD gets the same type of song, again for free, no MP costs, no need to run in next to tank and BP:Ward, can sing at a safe distance.
It isn't like any of us modest Summoners are asking for much.
- We want a clear direction of the job. Native melee traits or native magic spells, to show what we are supposed to do. Split BP timers so we can do more over the course of a minute is also fine, if the focus is meant to be avatars. Severely shortened spirit casting delays would show that we should use spirits.
- Flexibility, so that we can play as needed, instead of try and adapt to the least useless way. A great example is that we shouldn't be forced to stand in the back with Diabolos favor, we should be able to assault and have it melee while the aura reaches the furthest backlines.
- Balance, so we aren't the weakest job, with shortest durations, for highest MP cost and depend on moon phase, time of day, day of week, weather, Santa Claus. Ideally all our wards should work like Shell. 15 min duration. After all, 90% of them are defensive and do nothing to increase damage output, and at least 3 of them wear off based on damage.
- Armors. I can't stress this part enough. Summoner gets 5 new pieces of armor every 3 years. Inbetween we only get MAB gear, to help our tier II subjob nukes and 70+ magical WSes (which are all very weak compared to multi hit crit WSes).
And the smallest request we have is that we just get confirmation that something is being done about this.
PS. I find that all BP:Rages post 70 are just fine. The job can function as a substitute SAM with a 1 min meditate that deals a BP/WS every minute. If we delete all spirits and all wards, I can accept that this is a well made mage DD, but as long as they remain, it is a clear sign that the job was meant for so much more than just Predator Claws.