Returning Summoner question

[AlphaXXI]

Nobody tell her about FF10. Or 12. Or 13.

I mean, I get your point, but I'm pretty sure she used "traditionnal" to refer to the way summons were in most FF games before FFX started to switch things around a lot more. You know, how they mostly were from FFIII to FFIX.
I don't even think that really reflects the job as it is now anyway, since Phoenix and Bahamut don't work that way, but let's be charitable here.

[Galvuu]

I mean, I get your point, but I'm pretty sure she used "traditionnal" to refer to the way summons were in most FF games before FFX started to switch things around a lot more. You know, how they mostly were from FFIII to FFIX.
I don't even think that really reflects the job as it is now anyway, since Phoenix and Bahamut don't work that way, but let's be charitable here.

People say this, but prior to X the only FFs with a dedicated summoner job were IV, V and IX.
In IV, Rydia can learn like 20 summons has uses a lot of Black Magic (she even learns Meteor).
In IX, Garnet has like 10 Eidolons and also uses White Magic. In V, they're exclusively about summoning magic only (barring some RDM dualcast specs) and have 15 summons too.
Only Eiko can be somewhat compared to XIV in that she has five summons who are also the bulk of her offense.
If you compare XIV summon to Rydia or Garnet, it surprisingly still lacks both in summon variety and even in skillset (in XIV, when you're not summoning, you're using Ruin and... Fester. I'm not sure what you're festering, since your disease dots are gone).
I really feel that even compared to historical FF summoners, XIV fares really badly.

[AlphaXXI]

People say this, but prior to X the only FFs with a dedicated summoner job were IV, V and IX.
In IV, Rydia can learn like 20 summons has uses a lot of Black Magic (she even learns Meteor).
In IX, Garnet has like 10 Eidolons and also uses White Magic. In V, they're exclusively about summoning magic only (barring some RDM dualcast specs) and have 15 summons too.
Only Eiko can be somewhat compared to XIV in that she has five summons who are also the bulk of her offense.
If you compare XIV summon to Rydia or Garnet, it surprisingly still lacks both in summon variety and even in skillset (in XIV, when you're not summoning, you're using Ruin and... Fester. I'm not sure what you're festering, since your disease dots are gone).
I really feel that even compared to historical FF summoners, XIV fares really badly.

It's why I didn't say "Summoner" but "Summons", despite her using "Summoner" in her own post, I was making a broad statement about the act of summoning and the summons themselves, removed from the need for a specific job.

[Galvuu]

It's why I didn't say "Summoner" but "Summons", despite her using "Summoner" in her own post, I was making a broad statement about the act of summoning and the summons themselves, removed from the need for a specific job.

You're correct, I misread your post (probably because I read the whole thread in one go).
Either way, that's actually probably part of the problem- in a lot of FFs Summons are just magic nukes that anyone can use on top of other stuff. In the few where that isn't the case, there's another foundation.
I think XIV fails at both fronts anyway- the foundation in current SMN basically is as barebones as it can be (like... WHM level of dps foundation), and the summons themselves have very little variety (we have 5- soon to be 5 and a reskin, and, honestly, Phoenix kinda is a Bahamut reskin already). There's some interesting ideas with Garuda/Ifrit/Titan all having slightly different mechanics (long casts, ogcd weaving and rapid fire gcds). I still wish they added Ramuh/Leviathan/Odin and those had their own mechanics (some dot proc thing, some debuff/combo thing and a melee phase, maybe?). Something something "add depth later", later being never, I guess, CBU3.