Should Summoner...

[Ramath]

I think some folks that replied aren't being exactly responsive to your question, instead answering a question of whether SE has said anything about it or how viable or not it is. But to answer YOUR wuestion, I totally agree. I think summoner should have some more egi unlocks. I'm used to summoners from FFT, etc, and they are truly summoners in those games.

While I agree that it would be nice, you have to understand that those were single-player games. Those various summons only had a single use, then were gone. They weren't required to act as a fully fleshed out job with depth.

I don't mind it's debuffing abilities, but Summoner should feel like a Summoner and not just a debuffer.

Summoner isn't a debuffer. The only debuff ability it has is Virus. Summoner is a Damage over Time job. Completely different.

When did summoners become poison experts?

Summoner isn't a poison expert. What makes you think it is? A DoT isn't always poison. In fact, the ability says it's non-aspect magic damage.

[Alaltus]

While I agree that it would be nice, you have to understand that those were single-player games. Those various summons only had a single use, then were gone. They weren't required to act as a fully fleshed out job with depth.

They managed to capture Summoner as a job in XI i don't see any reasoning that can explain why XIV can't other than SE's refusal to add depth to the game because players supposedly can't handle it.

Theres atleast one or two more roles i can think of that they could have added into the game; supporter (Leviathan) and debuffer (Shiva).

[Greedalox]

They managed to capture Summoner as a job in XI i don't see any reasoning that can explain why XIV can't other than SE's refusal to add depth to the game because players supposedly can't handle it.

Theres atleast one or two more roles i can think of that they could have added into the game; supporter (Leviathan) and debuffer (Shiva).

To be fair, XI summoners weren't allowed to summon until (71?) in groups, and were just WHM's with big mana pools and little heals, only taken when groups were tired of waiting 4 hours for an actual healer. I wouldn't exactly call that a success. Then they were buffed to the point where they'd one shot stuff. Still not good design.

[Nirokun]

To be fair, XI summoners weren't allowed to summon until (71?) in groups, and were just WHM's with big mana pools and little heals, only taken when groups were tired of waiting 4 hours for an actual healer. I wouldn't exactly call that a success. Then they were buffed to the point where they'd one shot stuff. Still not good design.

In the lower levels, yes, they were glorified healers with small heals and big MP pools. But in the 50's is when you start soloing bombs and beastman (beastmaster) pets (low HP, high exp, hit like trucks but avatars/summons took less dmg than players). Then at some point (for me, Boyahda Tree) you team up with beastmasters using fenrir's eclipse bite in pet parties. After that it was more bomb kiting. I definitely took that 50+ route after having to heal because it was more fun and you were a SUMMONER abusing things summoners could do, and not just cast heals from your subjob to be allowed access to a party for experience points.

[Greedalox]

In the lower levels, yes, they were glorified healers with small heals and big MP pools. But in the 50's is when you start soloing bombs and beastman (beastmaster) pets (low HP, high exp, hit like trucks but avatars/summons took less dmg than players). Then at some point (for me, Boyahda Tree) you team up with beastmasters using fenrir's eclipse bite in pet parties. After that it was more bomb kiting. I definitely took that 50+ route after having to heal because it was more fun and you were a SUMMONER abusing things summoners could do, and not just cast heals from your subjob to be allowed access to a party for experience points.

That's the problem though, we as summoners were forced to have slower experience due to being unwanted, I played mainly Smn and Brd in XI and leveled the bulk of the way to 75 as Smn soloing bombs, gobbies and Snolls and whatever else was suicidal. The difference between Bard and Summoner in LFG was being asked to party while /anon and waiting 7+ days for a party as SMN. We were forced to abuse a solo play style akin to a meh BST not because we wanted to (Maybe some of us did!), but because of SE's not so stellar design on the class. I'm not saying that SMN didn't have value or wasn't fun, I'm just saying that they weren't this OMG amazing depiction of a pure pet class, they had some major flaws.

When 3+ mobs were dying a minute in a decent EXP party and you could only nuke once a minute, it certainly showed the glaring issues. They were actually more beneficial in a BAD exp group that could only kill one monster every minute or so.