Quote Originally Posted by Akiza View Post
The Summoner in FFXIV isn't in the image of a classic Final Fantasy Summoner it is a Summoner in Name Only.
The Summoner in this game is like DRG in FFXI except the pet does not die easily. You have very little to no interaction with your pet during any given battle. Hell at least in FFXI when DRG used a weapon skill or spell the pet combo-ed with that action based on what was used with several breath attacks, way more rewarding and cool. SMN pet does very little damage. It's nearly non-existent as the SMN was a viable DPS w/o pet pre-BLM buff.

The SMN class has very little to do with pet mastery, save the Lore that is behind it, but guess what who the hell cares about the lore of a boring class? I sure don't. Gameplay is WAY more important than lore. We have white knights all day for Egi appearance because of lore. We have white knights all day for DOTs because of lore. What is to stop SE from redesigning the lore (they already redesigned the entire game) if people REALLY do care so much?

Many people say the SMN is like WoW Warlock (Affliction) because of a couple of similar features, many say it's nothing like WoW Warlock (Affliction) because of a couple of differences; I say SMN is both, what SMN has Warlock has and more. In fact it's more boring than the class it's balanced off of because the difference in SMN and Warlock is that SMN DOES NOT have those features (which IMO still wouldn't be what I hoped to see in SMN).

And SE claims FFXIV DRG absolutely cannot have a pet nor will a 2nd job branch off of LNC to include a pet because SE says the player will be upset if the player damage is lowered to make up for the damage of the pet. Look at SMN that's exactly what it is; nothing more, nothing less. Should SMN's be upset their damage is lowered because there is a pet? Nay, I say SMN should be upset that their pet damage is lowered because of the player.

SMN is a super cool concept. In FFXI I never got around to leveling multiple classes because of how slow it was. I always envied SMN in FFXI, it looked so cool and versatile (that is coming from an avid RDM who did it all on 1 job with different gear sets/sub jobs: Heal, Support, Tank, Nuke, Solo, etc.)

I don't know if it is because SE rushed SMN and/or SCH, because it's too complicated to balance 2 jobs off 1 class, or because SE doesn't understand the importance of SMN to not only the brand of Final Fantasy but as a staple of the MOST PROMINENT PET CLASS/JOB of not only MMOs but EVERY RPG to date EVER!