SMN is good damage, but still has serious quality-of-life, fantasy, and design issues

[Vitreus]

Considering egi's are just vassals for throwing out moves, so no actual interaction we might as well be throwing out the spells themselves, I'm not sure why the summons themselves don't become attacks. Summoning Ifrit could put a fire dot on the target, titan is an aoe nuke, guruda would be what we lost with shadowflare with a ground based aoe dot. And this would open up more of the primals to be used as well.

[Rongway]

Considering egi's are just vassals for throwing out moves, so no actual interaction we might as well be throwing out the spells themselves, I'm not sure why the summons themselves don't become attacks.

This, though. I've been thinking this for years. Leave Carbuncle as a full-time pet and autosummon him on job change, for those who would miss Carbuncle. Have him just be an extra always-on auto-attack. Replace him during Demi-summon phases as is already the case.

Then, make the summoner's spells poof Demi-primals into existence for one-off attacks. For example, upon becoming SMN,

• Replace Ruin with Call: Strike. Poofs a Demi-Primal into existence for a single strike.
• Replace Outburst with Call: Burst. Poofs a Demi-Primal into existence for an AoE attack.
• Replaced Bio with Call: Sap. Poofs a Demi-Primal into existence to inflict the target with a DoT.
• Etc.

Classically a "Call" spell should summon a random Demi-Primal from among those the player has defeated, but of course specific Demi-Primals could be assigned to specific actions. So basically, while your Carbuncle buddy is out slapping things with his tail, you're summoning a sequence of Demi-Primals who appear, do one attack, and then disappear. When you get to a Demi-Bahamut or Demi-Phoenix phase, Carbuncle is replaced with Demi-Bahamut or Demi-Phoenix, and as you continue to summon one-off Demi-Primals, your Demi-ElderPrimal contributes their attacks as well.

With no meaningful changes to the way SMN plays, this change would drastically realign them stylistically to the classical image of a Final Fantasy summoner.

[Stepjam]

I wouldn't mind if Summoner was reworked to be sorta like Yuna from Dissidia, egis/summons pop out just for individual attacks rather than being pseudo pets. Then you can make more of Summoner's skills summon themed even.

[Dyvid]

Considering egi's are just vassals for throwing out moves, so no actual interaction we might as well be throwing out the spells themselves, I'm not sure why the summons themselves don't become attacks. Summoning Ifrit could put a fire dot on the target, titan is an aoe nuke, guruda would be what we lost with shadowflare with a ground based aoe dot. And this would open up more of the primals to be used as well.

So basically remove pets from FFXIV's pet job.....

[Raikai]

This, though. I've been thinking this for years. Leave Carbuncle as a full-time pet and autosummon him on job change, for those who would miss Carbuncle. Have him just be an extra always-on auto-attack. Replace him during Demi-summon phases as is already the case.

Then, make the summoner's spells poof Demi-primals into existence for one-off attacks. For example, upon becoming SMN,

• Replace Ruin with Call: Strike. Poofs a Demi-Primal into existence for a single strike.
• Replace Outburst with Call: Burst. Poofs a Demi-Primal into existence for an AoE attack.
• Replaced Bio with Call: Sap. Poofs a Demi-Primal into existence to inflict the target with a DoT.
• Etc.

Classically a "Call" spell should summon a random Demi-Primal from among those the player has defeated, but of course specific Demi-Primals could be assigned to specific actions. So basically, while your Carbuncle buddy is out slapping things with his tail, you're summoning a sequence of Demi-Primals who appear, do one attack, and then disappear. When you get to a Demi-Bahamut or Demi-Phoenix phase, Carbuncle is replaced with Demi-Bahamut or Demi-Phoenix, and as you continue to summon one-off Demi-Primals, your Demi-ElderPrimal contributes their attacks as well.

With no meaningful changes to the way SMN plays, this change would drastically realign them stylistically to the classical image of a Final Fantasy summoner.

I like the idea of SMN spells either being a Call or a Summon Demis... But not for the spammable abilities like Ruin or Bio, just because I suppose the whole summoning animation would become quite annoying after a while. That's just an impression, though.

[Seraphor]

I like the idea of SMN spells either being a Call or a Summon Demis... But not for the spammable abilities like Ruin or Bio, just because I suppose the whole summoning animation would become quite annoying after a while. That's just an impression, though.

I agree.
I think Outburst, Painflare and Tri-disaster could afford to be 'summoning' animations, and you could decouple Devotion from egi's as suggested and turn that into it's own summon as well, but then the question is which summons?
Do we summon a temporary Bahamut for Painflare? Or would that be weird and redundant, and possibly clash with Demi Bahamut?

If they retooled the skills into different things you could potentially have:

Outburst > Thunderstorm
Painflare > Hailstorm
Tri-disaster > Gyre Spume (inflicts its own DoT, that acts the same as Bio/Miasma combined, same total potency, same boost to Fester, etc.)
Devotion > Mooglesong

This would give an animation for all of the ARR primals, minus Odin. But it would likely require tweaks to the job quests.
I wouldn't expect full 'summoning animations' though, more like brief flashes of a demi version of that summon using it's skill.

[Rivinhal]

I agree with some of the issues listed in the OP, but when the "solution" is to just delete the job and create something new from the ground up (which is essentially what you're advocating for when you suggest the removal of the majority of the job's abilities?), then I can't help but think that maybe the job just isn't for you.
That isn't to take away from your clear effort here. But there are a lot of jobs I like the fantasy of, but I'm not a fan of the gameplay, and vice verse. But my reaction isn't that they should delete those jobs and rebuild them in a way that would suit me better. Idk.
Some of the complaints have merit. I can't deny those fundamental issues. But many of the proposed solutions go way too far imo. It isn't that they aren't feasible, but that they don't feel reasonable.

[Xiaoki]

So basically remove pets from FFXIV's pet job.....

If the pets are causing a majority of the problems then YES, get rid of them.

They've had over 7 years to get this right.

But, hey, with one of the NPCs in 5.35 being a Beastmaster maybe they have big plans for pet classes in 6.0.

[Jandor]

Egi could function more like stances, altering the Summoners toolkit depending on which stance is "summoned."

The pet could still float around behind you, and be changed to a carbuncle if you so desire, but the actions would come from the Summoner.
For example, Garuda-Egi changing Ruin I & IV to Howling Ruin I & IV, turning them into AoE skills.

An ability to let them have a brief moment as demi-summons would be nice. Inferno Trance letting little Ifrit-egi grow up and whoop some ass as Demi-Ifrit would be cool.

[SWB]

I'm stuck between recognizing it's not what summoner "should be" and also enjoying how the job feels to play. The egi issues, while better, do need more work.

As long as summoner stays fun I dont really care, as long as they send bane over to bard