Well, I'll be your hardcore SMN advocate. I got into the game a few months ago because a friend was playing. Initially, I was planning to roll a WHM, not knowing at the time you could switch classes so easily. Before I did though, my friend had just met a surprisingly capable SMN who really impressed him, and his FC at the time was lacking in magical DPS, so he told me to roll SMN. So I did.

A few months later, I'm just now getting aroung to leveling WHM, but I wouldn't want to play any other DPS class. I haven't played any other classes, but being in an end-game-content FC with many coils groups, I get the opportunity to run with a lot of different people on a lot of different content. Everything in the end-game atm (Coils, Extreme Primals) is my domain. I haven't met anyone who can consistently out-DPS me, and that is using log parsers that intentionally do not give me any credit for DoT crit damage, Contagion duration or Shadow Flare ticks. I'm coming out ahead, all that considered, and that makes me happy. Because in reality, I'm coming out even further ahead.

SMN, like someone mentioned earlier, is way more complicated than a 5 button rotation, and may well be the reason they didn't like the class. I very frequently use at least 22 (counting off the top of my head) different skills, and find there is a lot of strategic use of resources (MP, aetherflow charges) that make me _think_ about what I'm going to do, before I have to do it. To me, it is a very engaging class. It has a lot of good mobility and allows me to keep my DPS up even when I'm having to dodge mechanics.

Then you have the pet management, which varies from fight to fight. Sometimes you can just put it on Obey and leave it alone until need need Aerial Blast or Contagion. Sometimes you have to move it around a lot to dodge big damage mechanics that would eventually kill it. Sometimes you need to move it around a lot to enable your group to survive mechanics, and it can be an integral part of the group in those times.

Then you have the hardest fight in the game (Twintania, Binding Coils Turn 5) which is more or less built to cater to all of SMN's strengths, where we far and away excel over other classes.

I won't really even consider playing another DPS class at this point, that's how much I enjoy playing SMN.