I thought people might be exaggerating about SMN

[Madoka]

I understand where those people are coming from. My brain just can't seem to process how they actually found the previous incarnations of SMN in FF XIV fun since it was never really a Summoner at all.

Because it had engaging gameplay, and bahamut/FBT felt like nice, giant burst phases we earned. Instead of doing the same thing every 15 seconds.

[Escalon]

Because it had engaging gameplay, and bahamut/FBT felt like nice, giant burst phases we earned. Instead of doing the same thing every 15 seconds.

Fully agree with you.

Was it difficult to play and master ? Yes, it was, but the reward was worth it.
Was it a Summoner ? Kinda, but just because other iterations of Summoners were different, it LITERALLY does NOT mean that it had to be turned into what it is now. (FF14 Sage has extremely little in common with the Sages in other Titles.
We went from a class, that was hard to master but really impactful, with really satisfying burst windows to a Class that in terms of simplicity outdoes MCH.

And the : ITS POPULAR NOW argument is not really valid.
A : How many summoners are just people who were leveling SHC ?
B : Its a pretty much NEW class, all new classes will be extremely popular at release and some time after.
C : Flashy spells make people want to play that class for a time until the novelty wears off.

We can talk about SMN popularity after at least half a year to a year.

Most, if not all former SMN mains weep in what their piano class became (me included), we played the class not just because it was a SMN we played the class since we enjoyed the more complex nature of the class, if we would want to play a "dumbed down" class (I use those words loosely) we would play RDM and arguably BLM (I play BLM a lot, the class is easy, the only "hard" part about the class is that it rewards fight knowledge, so to reach the best BLM has to offer, one has to know the fight well and know where to position).