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

[Borfin]

Not really.

Care to point me to a Summoner/Caller that didn't have Summon/Call?

6-8 didn't have Summoners or Callers, neither did 12. Besides that, Esper command was a Summon command, as was GF.

Uh, No. Again, Rydia, Eiko/Garnet, Yuna, etc. In tactics it was ultimately better to dual-wield whack things. If you needed to AoE, you used a Calculator.

I liked the part where you ignored my evidence to the contrary on Eiko and Garnet. Besides that, whether a strategy was ultimately better to dual class with or yoink abilities from is irrelevant to the theme of the Summoner job.

Yeah, you played sub-optimally. Summoning has never been that strong. You always had better options. They feel powerful, yeah.

I never said it was and I'm not sure why you're trying to claim that I did. I said "the summoner's main source of damage output was his or her summon". With the exception of perhaps Rydia (which is debatable depending on the level you got into Bahamut's cave at - and even then, throughout the vast majority of the game her Calls outclassed her black magic by a very large margin until she gets the -3 spells and were competitive even then) and borrowing abilities from other Jobs this has always been the case.

None of that has anything to do with the core issue I have with the thematic change which is, again, a switch from elemental and burst to death, decay and disease.

Are you sure you're arguing with the right person? You seem to be taking issue with lots of things I never said.