Summoner revamp

[YohSL]

I think it comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what a summoner is and does. Summoners don't have pets, they don't do most of the damage themselves with a pet to supplement, that would be more of a Beastmaster or Puppetmaster.
Summons are their partners, where they do heavy lifting and you support them and fight vicariously through them. They are your weapon and shield both. They are not your pets.

Almost every other game in the franchise gets this right. Esp FF11, where you went on an epic quest for each and everyone of your summons, where they felt like part of your family by the time you were done.

[YohSL]

In FF14 the summons would be the Primals. Not crappy little elemental version of them, ie Egi. But Avatars of the Primals themselves. Basically smaller, thou still quite large compared to your character, with perhaps a few cosmetic differences.

And it wouldn't be the first time in the series where an originally antagonistic summon becomes your ally in the end, usually after defeating them in battle and proving your worth to them. So Lore wise there shouldn't be anything prevent this.
(not a lore expert)

It would also save on modelling and animating entirely new pets for the summoner, since many of the primals are already done. As for the skills that the summoner/arcanist already has, how about repackaging it and putting it into a new job that is purely about direct dot damage.


You recycle the work that's already been done, and Summoners actually get to bloody summon.
Also the Scholar could also stand to get a little love in this department as well, even if their selection is limited purely to the healing and supportive primals, like Siren and Mog King.

However as it stands, I will never accept this 'thing' as a summoner. It's not.

[Duelle]

Esp FF11, where you went on an epic quest for each and everyone of your summons, where they felt like part of your family by the time you were done.

And like unwanted relatives, you left them hidden where no one could see them while you spent your MP bar to heal in parties, since avatars had no justifiable reason for being out sans Astral Flow until the lv70 Blood Pacts were introduced. Yes, avatar potency scales with summoning skill, blood pacts were split into ward/rage, bloodpact recasts were shortened, and perpetuation was eased up, but that stuff was implemented almost a decade too late. Before that, SMNs had to deal with the inherently terrible design for avatars.

And it wouldn't be the first time in the series where an originally antagonistic summon becomes your ally in the end, usually after defeating them in battle and proving your worth to them. So Lore wise there shouldn't be anything prevent this.

There's a pretty good reason for this. Summons in prior games were independent entities that can choose to help you. FFXIV primals are built on a LOT of faith & crystals and are more like concepts brought to life, heavily reflecting the desires of those doing the summoning. Now consider that even if you alone could amass the crystals needed, you still lack the needed prayers/faith to do a summoning. Also consider that the machinery needed to simulate prayers for summoning is gigantic (I'm talking about something about the size of a building).

Egis are essentially constructs of aetherial residue that you can tap/control without a) the need for massive amounts of crystals, b) massive amounts of faith, and c) won't have an easy time killing you the way a full primal would. Lore and concept-wise it makes perfect sense why you have egis instead of full primals.

If anything, I'd focus on the fact that the egi system hasn't been built upon going into the expansion (looking at you, Dreadwyrm Trance). That's a better talking point for wanting to see improvements to SMN rather than what the egis look like.