SMN - Why it is not a very interesting job and not a good upgrade from ACN

[shinros]

Even though I am not a fan of WoW, it's certainly polished and was a good choice to draw inspiration from. However, mimicking WoW classes instead of keeping with the wonderful iconic theme of the FF universe is sad. They have pretty much ruined SMN. Don't get me wrong, the class functions as a class, what they have ruined is what SMN is at its' core, a summoning class that relies on the raw power of its' summons. The summons are, as OP has stated, quite shit. While FFXI wasn't a paragon of excellence in the SMN department(being a terrible healer with huge nuke bursts, but only every minute), it was still better than what they have done here. I don't have anything against a warlock, but it's not what I wanted to play, a real SMN was.

Exactly I wanted a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

[Yukagama]

Exactly what I' wanted as a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

BINGO! What was thinking just like how it should be in the FF series and what FFXI did a good job compare to this version in XIV. Very disappointed and waiting for SMN since version 1.0 in this is what they gave me oh well now i have to deal with it.

[Ardan]

FFXI did a good job compare to this version in XIV.

A good job? Summoner was one of the worst classes in FFXI. Outside of summons it had nothing to fall back on. The only thing people wanted summoner for when leveling was their obscenely large MP pool to use for healing parties all the way to 75. After the cap started going up it wasn't that bad, but the avatars were still weak in comparison to other players because of timers. Sure, summoners had some use for certain fights, but most of the time other jobs would be better suited for dealing damage.

Summoner was my main back in FFXI despite the gaping flaws it had. I loved the job purely because it was summoner and it still is in FFXIV. This version is involving, I get to do stuff instead of standing around like an idiot waiting to issue orders to my summon or curing others left and right. Doing damage solely through our pet hasn't worked in FFXI and would work even less now.

[Elizabeth]

Exactly I wanted a summoner someone that commands and deals their main damage through pets.

Exactly.

SMN is fun. My main frustration with this job is when i die, because i lost a significant amount of time to stand up, re-summon, use food, cast Aetherflow then start the rotation again.