Quote Originally Posted by Akiza View Post
Summoner- uses summoning magic and summons Beasts Gods to fight for them in battle specializing in Spike Damage, AoE Spike Damage and Crowd Control. Summoners are also able to learn both Black Magic and White Magic spells as a Sub Job.
"Beasts gods". Meanwhile half (if not more) of these "beast gods" are humanoid or even robotic. Not in all Final Fantasy games were these summoners persistent and were used much like a spell. So this creates two versions of "summoners": One being a "spike damage" class and another as "sustained damage class". Not even all of them were capable of using crowd control and deal a lot of damage, if any, when using these summons.

The "Summoner" you are referring to here is a typical Final Fantasy XI or Tactics summoner: Which was capable of dealing a lot of damage with a single ability with their 2-hour (now 1-hour) ability and had the option to choose a subjob that allowed them to cast black or white magic. However, neither are true to the "iconic summoner" you mentioned as both the FF11 as well as FFT summoners are near polar opposites damage wise: Burst vs sustained.

Meanwhile you're also forgetting the actual summoners of Final Fantasy. Whom have nearly nothing in common with each other. Or even the summoning feature in other games: Anyone could be a summoner in these Final Fantasy installments.

You could conclude that there's nothing iconic about summoners in particular. Characters who were actually summoners or the class itself in the previous Final Fantasy games were wide and diverse. The only thing that would separate summoners from other pet users would be the fact that their pets or familiars are a deity/god.