Originally Posted by
aveyond-dreams
You are absolutely correct that FFXI Summoner's Carbuncle can deal damage. It can deal small amounts of damage whenever you summon him before you go on to obtain your main summons: Ifrit, Shiva, etc. His attack abilities are Poison Nails, Holy Mist, Meteorite, and Searing Light. Otherwise, he leans towards support abilities. As he has done so in the majority of his appearances. Funny how one of the more popular versions of Summoner is one of the standards people hold FFXIV's summoner to.
In any case summon magic in general has a traditional way of working wherein we summon the thing, it does the attack, and then leaves. If it works great as a pet that can hang around that's fantastic. Egis however were useless and their appearance has been a meme for the past 8 years. Why was Titan suddenly reduced to a chicken nugget when he is the God of Earth in some games? Why was poison magic dealing more damage than the actual summons, the point of the job?
We are not hurting in terms of offensive summon magic though everyone agrees that we would like to have more pets. They are probably coming in the future, now that the job has a clear and focused goal. Please look forward to it!