Quote Originally Posted by Ardan View Post
Summoning in past FF's have generally involved summoning a creature, sitting through 30 seconds to 1-2 minutes, (not kidding) of attack animations and then actually seeing the damage. This is coupled with either a huge MP cost or a state of vulnerability. Unfortunately summons are just phased out in the latter portions of the game, because it takes so much MP to use and just aren't efficient for killing things. Ironically black magic gets the job done much quicker, cheaper to use to boot.

It was only until FF10 that summons were controllable. Fun to use, sure. But they were borderline useless in the latter half of the game. FF11 had SMN as a class as well and it was a humongous letdown. Weak, inefficient and really only one niche skill. Summoner isn't really iconic in any way.
Whaat? Aparently youve never seen the Summon LB train wreck bosses in the endgame.