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

[Borfin]

Doesn't the bold pretty much justify the approach SE took with FFXIV's SMN?

It would if every Final Fantasy from 3 to 13 hadn't set a precedent for the Summoner class (and summon-users in general) thematically being based around... yknow, summons... instead of death and decay

BLM still casts Fire, Fire II, Fire III, etc. It's still thematically the destructive spells that, for the most part, are recurring in the series.

The same could be said of WHM, PLD (remember Cover?); admittedly I haven't looked through all classes, but those are examples that support it.

It's a large thematic change, which I take issue with. I still have a ton of fun with the class, I just wish it wasn't a WoW warlock carbon copy.