Become Scholar without Arcanist.

[fulminating]

A cynical individual would inform you that the only reason summoner retains carbuncle is that there’s a significant number of carbuncle-branded items.
Scholar was generally dots and pets, summoner pets and dots. Now neither’s either.

With pvp being the only part of the game where jobs are permitted any identity, and bane being the arcanist capstone skill, it’s clear that summoner is less tied in. Not to mention that new summoner may as well be given out by that stupid rabbit during the spaceship sequence in endwalker for how little it fits into the rest of the game.

[Kimmay]

Summoner retains carbuncle from a lore perspective because Egi and Carbuncles are similar constructs. Likewise, from a lore perspective, Sch does not because Lily is her own living thing and not something constructed by the Scholar. Once again, with lore, the mere act of summoning and many spells used by Summoner require many on the spot calculations and math: that's why you're writing in your book when you summon. Gameplay wise, Arcanist and Summoner are exactly the same, while Scholar is the third wheel. In addition to that, Scholar currently shares a single action with Arcanist, which will be 0 if SE has their way: Resurrection.
You may want Scholar to be the one that goes on its own, but neither game play nor lore support such a thing.

[Rongway]

Summoner retains carbuncle from a lore perspective because Egi and Carbuncles are similar constructs. Likewise, from a lore perspective, Sch does not because Lily is her own living thing and not something constructed by the Scholar.

No, the faeries are aetheric constructs.

Normally, when scholars summon their faeries, they do so by extracting a portion of the aether circulating through their body and willing it to take shape.

By releasing that form, they can then dismiss it, and the aether will flow back into their bodies.

[Kimmay]

No, the faeries are aetheric constructs.

According to SE's own Encyclopedia Eorzea:
"In answer to the demands of their new positions, Nymian mages learned to bind and control faeries that they might entrust the otherworldly creatures with a share of the restorative duties."
"With soul crystals providing an anchor for their existence, these otherworldly servants are made manifest ..."
meaning that we are pulling the faeries from some other place, and they exist on their own. Whereas egis:
"'Egi' is the name given to the conjured avatars of a summoner. Only a practitioner whose aether has been stained by the essence of a primal can thenceforth shape her own energies into a willful embodiment of the original entity's dominant aspect."
An egi, like a carbuncle, is not some being called forth from another world, but our own aether given a shape of our choosing. Which is why /egiglamour exists within lore.

[Amenara]

I wish they could/would decouple Scholar from Arcanist or Summoner from Arcanist if for nothing else so that there can be a second option for new players when it comes to healing. It really isn't intuitive that you need to play a DPS class to unlock a healer at level 30.

[ForsakenRoe]

According to SE's own Encyclopedia Eorzea:
"In answer to the demands of their new positions, Nymian mages learned to bind and control faeries that they might entrust the otherworldly creatures with a share of the restorative duties."
"With soul crystals providing an anchor for their existence, these otherworldly servants are made manifest ..."
meaning that we are pulling the faeries from some other place, and they exist on their own. Whereas egis:
"'Egi' is the name given to the conjured avatars of a summoner. Only a practitioner whose aether has been stained by the essence of a primal can thenceforth shape her own energies into a willful embodiment of the original entity's dominant aspect."
An egi, like a carbuncle, is not some being called forth from another world, but our own aether given a shape of our choosing. Which is why /egiglamour exists within lore.

Isn't EE stated to be 'from the POV of a learned person who is living in Eorzea', and therefore might have holes in the explanations? Like, the explanation of Astral and Umbral might not be completely accurate to what we now know, because EE1 was released before SHB further explained how they correlate to Light and Dark, stuff like that. So it could be inferred that an in-universe scholar (the clever people not the job) might surmise that the fairy is from a different plane, and that we summon them here from that plane due to it's persistent conscious between summonings, but we now also know that Primals can keep memories between summonings (eg, Nidhogg remembers on the Steps of Faith that you're the one that beat him in the Aery), so it's possible that this 'scholar writing EE' is slightly incorrect

Also lore can be bent whenever needed to suit the narrative or gameplay. We did it with Male Miqote, we did it with Male Viera, I don't see why it couldn't be done with something as small as 'the exact nature of how a SCH summons their fairy' if it has to be done to give players something they want like idk a way to turn Seraph into Feo Ul with a '/fairyglamour' command. Actually, if the EE is right and fairies ARE from a different plane, and the jobstone is the 'anchor' to draw them here, doesn't that mean it's 100% within canon that we SHOULD be able to summon Feo Ul? They're 'from a different plane', have a 'bond' with us that lets them send messages to and from the Source in our place, and even created a smaller copy of themselves to accompany us while their 'main body' stayed in the castle. Meanwhile, Seraph is just... there? I don't own a copy of EE but I assume the lore on Seraph is pretty sparse

[PurrinceLee]

I wish they could/would decouple Scholar from Arcanist or Summoner from Arcanist if for nothing else so that there can be a second option for new players when it comes to healing. It really isn't intuitive that you need to play a DPS class to unlock a healer at level 30.

Yeah I also feel this would be a nice extra benefit. If they had it start from level 1 rather than say 30 like Astrologian it would give new players the option between Conjurer or Scholar for healing. I’m just really hopeful they do implement a way to have them split

[Kimmay]

For Miqote and Viera there are no lore issues. The player character isn't the world, but a special individual. If players had to follow the lore, then only a single person on the data center could ever be Whm at any given time. We are supposed to ignore lore for such things.
As for Seraph, the encyclopedia implies that she is the true form of Lily. That the Scholar summons the fairy, and when she spreads her wings everyone is suddenly consoled (looking at you Consolation). And for a pact with Feo Ul, there's no lore reason that we shouldn't be able to. Especially considering that we technically haven't made a pact with a fairy ourselves, but are using someone else's

[Renathras]

For Miqote and Viera... And for a pact with Feo Ul, there's no lore reason that we shouldn't be able to. Especially considering that we technically haven't made a pact with a fairy ourselves, but are using someone else's

Pretty much agreed on all points.

I wish they could/would decouple Scholar from Arcanist or Summoner from Arcanist if for nothing else so that there can be a second option for new players when it comes to healing. It really isn't intuitive that you need to play a DPS class to unlock a healer at level 30.

Is this really true?

I mean, maybe for a person that FFXIV is the first RPG they ever play, but I knew how they all worked when I started, and that was back in ARR when you had to have sub-classes leveled.

For my part, I don't want them decoupled. I like both SCH and SMN and having to level them apart would just be more annoying for no benefit. There's very little to gain from it. Besides, if they decoupled them, the way it would go is ACN would lead into SMN and SCH would just be a Job you can unlock at level 30 and which starts at level 30, the same way RDM/SAM work at level 50. They aren't going to make a new class for SCH to start at level 1 like ROG/NIN because they don't want to make more Classes and there's literally no reason or benefit to making a new one JUST so SCH can have one that is going to compel them to do so at this point, since most people know how it works and most people treat the first 30 levels as something that just flies by anyway.

The arguments above kind of show why ACN would continue to be linked to SMN (rather than SMN being the separate Job that starts at 30 by itself), as does how they're treated in game. Notice all the SMN weapons are ACN/SMN while the SCH ones are just SCH. Same with all the Healer gear vs Caster gear. Then open Actions & Traits on SCH. Notice you only inherit ONE ability from ACN, which is Resurrection? Despite SMN's not scaling with INT, SCH doesn't even get Physic from ACN, it has its own that just shares icon and name but is coded differently in the database.

They also JUST remade ACN so it would streamline into SMN, so they're unlikely to split the two now.

And finally, we all know that DPS are the favored child of SE/Devs/Yoshi P - everyone jokes/memes about it all the time. Who really thinks they'll be taking something away from the Red Icon crew?

Right now, it's a little awkward, but you also get two Jobs for the price of one leveling run, which a lot of people really like.

IF they changed it, all it would do is make SCH a separate Job that starts at 30, so it wouldn't benefit level 1 first time RPG player anyway, even if we ignore lore and everything else.

EDIT: At this point in time, it would probably be easier for them to just make AST start in Gridania (that's where the quests for it start at level 30 anyway) and go the route of making it a starting class (except it would be a Job already) instead. Which would...still be weird.