Why do people not like summoner?

[Niwid]

As a lover of DoT classes, I'm enjoying the hell out of arcanist atm, almost 20 now, and I'm thinking of playing SMN instead of DRG. Why do people not like this class? Is it BECAUSE it's a dot class? Or is it because people want the WoW warlock that i've seen floating around the forums? Does it do bad damage, etc.? Thanks for any constructive responses.

[KoujiGeki]

Because its not Summoner. Its a Necromancer without the undead pet. And its pet is the smallest portion of its dmg where it should be its main point of dmg.

[jonnovision]

because early on people starting going on about how summoners are the worst DPS.

[Arkine]

Because they look at their pets, then the real primals, then back at their pets and they decide that Egis are pretty lame.

[Niwid]

So it's just cosmetic, and I guess not in line with how it was in previous games. Interesting. Other than that though, good class?

[Toukai]

Its a good Dot class, Very good sustainable dps. It's just not like any incarnation of Summoner in the Final fantasy franchise. XI was their first attempt at a summoner for an MMO, which lets you summon a fraction of the true avatar but still having them look like the full fledged avatars you are summoning. The excuse they used for egi was kinda lame. If the beastmen could cry out to their eikon's why can't a summoner do the same but have a better control over the aether and summon them in a weaker form but still looking awesome and having more damaging attacks.

The mechanics for Summoner in this game would be better suited for a class specializing in dots that adhered to the lore. Something like, idk a geomancer or maybe even a Chemist who could use something like mix to toss debuff and dot grenades at enemies would be more akin to the Dot class. A summoner has always been about summoning powerful gods from another plane into existence and having them reek havoc on your enemies for a brief time. These full time pokemon rejects are not even the main focus of the summoner class which is sad.

XI did this quite well but was still really underpowered. a lot of relatively simple fixes would of made Smn a very wanted job in parties and endgame but ps2 limitation or some crap excuse kept them from really making Smn a great class.

[shinros]

Cause they gave me a DOT class that does not interact with the pet. Scholar interacts with the fairy ALOT more hell they can't do ANYTHING without the fairy. The egi's are just an auto attack turret. Plus the class quest in my opinion was not interesting compared to scholar I think its one of the worse I have seen.

Yeah lets say I am disappointed.

[Arcana]

i am summoner and im playing it everyday but i really hope they implement soon the beastmaster to feel again the power of the pet. SE mentioned this job many time during betas but nowadays this job dissapeared and they always name ninja, samurai, muketeer...

I want a funny pet class like i played in FFXI! (and other MMO's) :P

[Inuakurei]

Because everything a summoner does can be done just as well without the summon.

[Ryuko]

A few reasons.

1) It's a new class. This means that a lot of people aren't playing the class super well yet. Granted, every class in 2.0 was 'reworked', but SMN is an entirely new concept. Too many people saw one bad summoner and assumed all summoners must be bad.
2) Parsing DoTs using damage meters is very unreliable at the moment because DoT damage does not show up in the log. Because we don't have much burst that you can see, people just ASSUME SMN damage is low.
3) Some fights require burst damage to down adds fast. SMN do not have burst damage. We do have Fester, which is a NICE burst, but we have to 'build it up' first. Bane is a very short-distance DoT spread, so it's very difficult to spread DoTs well unless tanks are super awesome about pulling mobs together. That said, there are ways to get around the fact that we don't burst. For example... on Garuda: anticipate when the plumes will pop out, and get ready to spread DoTs as soon as they do.
4) There is not a lot of focus on the pet. With the exception of the two damage increases and Enkindle, there isn't much to tell your pet to do that they won't automatically do already. There are some abilities you SHOULD control (like the DoT extension on Garuda-egi).
5) People feel this class emulates necromancers/warlocks too closely. (WoW warlock is very DoT-heavy with a secondary pet.)
6) Finally, people think SMN and Scholar (or SMN and Arcanist) are too similar. Well, that's true... but don't forget, this is the first job to get two classes. All other jobs will eventually function this way.

I personally like summoner, but I would like to see a bit more focus on my pet.

Oh, and one more thing...

We have three pets, but unless we are soloing, the go-to pet is almost always Garuda. Ifrit is sort of... ignored. I'd like each pet to work in a certain situation. I liked in XI where elemental weaknesses were stressed a lot more for all classes, not just smn.