Quote Originally Posted by rawker View Post
I'll do Snow a favor and answer this... the pet. Lily healing and casting actions originating from her is the core of the old ACN class... which EW SMN does not do... even remotely
Admittedly, I think the SMN's pets don't stick around because they're huge. I imagine they play tested SMN with pets that stuck around, and the various aspects were coming from them, but it was just too big on the screen with multiple SMNs. Even with one, you still got the demand to be able to shrink them. This may be one of those compromises. Though that doesn't mean it's not a job with pets, it just means it's not mechanically a pet job. The distinction being input and control mechanics that are part of the game vs. in-world story and lore.

And I LOVE mechanical pet jobs. Necromancers, beastmasters, hunters, rangers, mechanics. If it has a pet, I'm on board. But I still understand the designers need to compromise to get to something that satisfies as many people as possible -- not make them happy or ecstatic -- but satisfies. People wanted to summon big bads. I remember when the new rework came out and so many people were saying, "finally, I'm a real summoner now".

And it's in line with most of the FF franchise where summons weren't something you controlled. They were just something you hit from time to time and watched a minute and a half cutscene as all the knights came by.