As a SMN, is it worth using Thunder?

[fanservice]

While I agree with everything you say, do look at the fact that scholars can put up more dots which accounts for the loss of the pet which is just an additional dot plus they can nuke with ruin plus the cleric stance.

Summoners can get thunder, and aero too. Again, there's still fester for summoners, which is a 300 potency nuke, on a 10 second recast, raging strikes, rouse, spur, contagion.

The only thing scholars have over summoners is cleric stance, and 30% more of their spell speed half of the time (which is about .1 second off of casts+recasts). It really shouldn't be close