Why is Summoner the most ignored, misunderstood and broken job?

[Razushu]

No...not all your buffs that mitigate damage are AOE. You can maintain Blink, and SS on yourself more consistently than you can party wide. If you are /RDM, phalanx and bars are only for you. There is also atma selection in the case of abyssea. Likewise, there are gear selections specific to yourself and not others--I once got a tell asking how I was intimidating a mob on SMN...it was because of a piece of gear.

If you're going to need Bars and Phalanx etc. why would you opt for the self target subjob? Also unless you stack enhancing gear you're Phalanx will be weaker than SMNs native AoE phalanx same with SS and blink is always weaker than Aerial armor. If I'm going to need SS i'll try to give the whole party it just in case(accession/earthen ward), same with any defensive buff. This play style seems like you've gone out of your way to not benefit the party with anything but your melee in this scenario. Also it Bars etc. are needed the WHM and RDM should have these covered on them anyway, theres no way a SMN should be surviving anything that kills a melee.

If you are staying out of the wide AOE range of an NM or something, you may be out of range to even call your BP Wards and have to run in first to do it...whereas if you are down there already, you just call it. So calling SMN buffs from backline versus frontline CAN be considerably different in some scenarios. Also, being down there when you see a -ga cued up, when you quickly hit a bar that automatically focuses on yourself you KNOW it is going to hit the full front line, versus having to to worry about positioning if your back line is on the edge of casting. Same goes for curing from the backline--DD's sometimes get knocked back or otherwise can get positioned just out of your casting range and you have to adjust a lot. So, again...being closer to the action can prove beneficial in some cases. The point is, there are pros and cons to both scenarios--but if you are able to manage it effectively, why can't you do it? Because people who don't understand it say you can't?

No they can't any SMN worth wearing the Horn should know how to time their summonings/ buffs personally if I'm cycling buffs i call new avatar at ~15 seconds left on BP timer and my avatr is in position with time to spare. again any good backline player will know the AoE range and there's nothing stopping us from hitting a similar macro. Knock back is usually a non-issue, if theres knockback have the melees stay on the same side of the mob as the mages so they're knocked back .... into the mages. No the problem is people understand it and know the game and don't say you can't just that you shouldn't on anything powerful/important.

And as for this whole issue of tickling a mob...your statments here can just as easily be used to say a NIN should /mage and sit in the back to use ranged, ninjutsu, and support magic from subjob, or PLD should be a backline job, or BST, or PUP--essentially all you are saying is that any job that can't keep up with jobs x y z should be relegated to backline utility, where the value of x y z can change depending on what someone personally thinks are the top 3 DD jobs.

If you're only matching a 1 hander(that's Dual wielding) strike for main hand strike you're not worth the risk as a frontliner. PLD, BST and PUP all have much more reason to be frontline than SMN, they are good DD or tanks. No I'm not saying any job that can't keep up with the top jobs shouldn't melee, just the ones the top tier leave in the dust.

Again with this whole "understanding how melee works"--I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the actual NUMBERS at play--the difference in the ACTUAL RESULTS between two different levels of proficiency and the impact it may have on playstyle. I can't rightfully go into the RNG forums and complain about issues with 90 RNG because my RNG was retired at 51, all I can properly do is complain about my experiences up to level 51. Even though my Archery is at 250, and I've used SAM/RNG...I can't even talk accurately about RNG at a comparable level for my archery skill simply because I haven't played RNG past level 51, and have only used it as a subjob since I retired it at 51 several years ago. Likewise, someone with level 74 staff skill doesn't have much to stand on for arguing about how staff performs at level 90 staff skill--they can only talk from experience about how it performs at that 74 level. I haven't experienced playing at higher than a level 51 RNG, you haven't experienced swinging with a 335+ staff skill--people can't really put a lot of stock in what either of us have to say on anything beyond our own experiences.

1st off I'm a 90 SMN and have meleed on mobs before so the RNG comparison is off. I still know how to melee on a job my skill is high enough and was when i was in the 70s to melee and understand the mechanics behind it the onlt difference with the lower skill is ACC and ATK. You've yet to provide one differnce in meleeing at 74 cap and meleeing at 90 cap change how it would be played. I havent swung the staff at 90 cap but I've swung it capped at 74 at level 75 or does those 5 skill points completely change it too?