Developers Poor Attitude to Summoner

[Duelle]

Why is Ruin and DoTs such integral spells for the class?

To be fair, SMNs in non-job system FFs have a second school of magic to fall back on. Rydia had black magic. Eiko, Garnet and Yuna had white magic. The latter wouldn't fly unless you want to make the job a semi hybrid like RDM is.

Why is summoning and pet management getting shafted?

This was failure on part of the devs. They backed out of giving SMN Leviathan-egi and Ramuh-egi (despite showing us previews of those egi) under the excuse of overlap (even though that's bullocks seeing that there were avenues of utility available if we use the WoW warlock as a blueprint, which the devs had already used when building the ARR SMN).

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Here's something random I came up with for SMN:

Carby + Primal skills + Bahamut: Basically, keep Carby as the permanent pet. Change all Aetherflow skills to become primal-related abilities. Energy Drain becomes Gyre Spume (Leviathan), dealing damage for a set duration and restoring some MP. Shadow Flare becomes Razed Earth (Titan). Bane becomes Shock Strike (Ramuh). Fester becomes Flaming Crush (Ifrit). Add a frontal-cone stun called Slipstream (Garuda). Using primal abilities grants you Aethertrail Attunement, which instead of being units like now, would be a bar that fills up.

You get a second tier of primals that can be temp-summoned, consuming a notable chunk of the bar. This is where you'd have Demi-Ravana (reduces target's resistance to damage), Demi-Bismarck (lingering AoE damage), and Demi-Laskhmi (AoE heal or damage shield/Vril).

You can also summon Demi-Bahamut with a full bar.

[Nirokun]

Here's something random I came up with for SMN:

Carby + Primal skills + Bahamut: Basically, keep Carby as the permanent pet. Change all Aetherflow skills to become primal-related abilities.

Yes please. Carbuncle as your Summoner-buddy is the dream. I also wanted him to provide a manaward/wall effect so we could have one defensive buff in the flavor of good ol' Ruby Light's Reflect. Something to give him his old flavor.