What I envisioned for Summoner

[Enkidoh]

Excuse me if I seem hostile, but have you even played XI to begin with to make that statement? Specifically the one that I bolded. Have you taken a look at the Egis? You specifically said that they're concentrated versions of the Primals, their base essence summoned by the players through gathering Aether. They are watered down, the Avatars in XI are not in any slight mentioning. You defeat Leviathan, he shows up in his exact form that you beat him as. Same goes for Odin, and Alexander to an extent since they are extremely temporary summons. Nonetheless, none of them are watered down. The Avatars from XI would wipe the floor with the Egis in no time at all, not just because they're bigger, more powerful, and better to look at, but simply because they are in their Prime forms, literally. Egis, if in the actual Primal forms of XI, would probably win, possibly. Since we have Hard Modes and so on, we'll just say if a singular Trial by Avatar fought the story mode or Hard mode ones, then they would give each other a good run for their money.

I just can't agree that XI's are watered down, no one who mentions summons from XI ever says they're watered down. The Summoner class never felt like it wasn't one in XI, which is a complaint many have had for several reasons when we were introduced to XIV's variants. I agree with everything else that you've said, but I don't see how you can make such an untrue statement like that. I've played XIV and am playing XI on currently while I rotate subscriptions, and have power-leveled my SMN to 99.

My Avatars are hitting for upwards of 4K with each attack of their's often, that hits harder than anything in XIV does currently that the player can do. It's nearly exclusively because the level cap is raised a lot in XI of course, but I'd still like to vouch that their power can easily match the power of the Egis and more if near the same levels.

Personally, one of the things that really stuck out to me for XIV's SMN is that there was no Perpetuation Cost. You spend a nice bulk of MP to summon them, then they stay out free of charge for as long as you want. Their attacks don't drain MP, and it costs you nothing once they're out. Couple that with your ridiculous healing effect for simply being out of combat, and you've got an odd pairing that doesn't make much sense to me. If we're only able to summon Egis, the base essence of a Primal, couldn't that mean that we could sacrifice our MP to improve or upgrade them at all? We had Blood Pacts, Rage and Wards, in XI that could be tweaked for shorter recast times, and the bonuses they gave were often very helpful, Garuda was probably THE best Avatar to have out because of her incredible versatility. She could give party wide Haste, Heal the party, give you a movement speed increase, and give you a Utsusemi effect. Then the base damage abilities, Predator Claws which does the best damage for the second highest MP cost from what I've seen, and you've got a great pet. Garuda having Contagion and the best use for SMN now could very well have been influenced on how great she was in XI, she also wasn't psychopathic then which is also nice.

Main point there, is that there could be a possible way to break Lore in XIV and improve the Egis. Then again, SE would have to do something that the fan-base wouldn't be outraged over, and balance issues need to be heavily considered then as well, especially when we will most likely get Leviathan in some shape or another a month or few months from now, maybe not right at the release of 2.2, but sometime before August I'd warrant. You then have to ask, what do the other classes get from this? What do they get out of beating Leviathan if it comes to that?

XI is still giving us options to new Avatars, a certain feline is becoming available this March, then you had the 6 base summons and Carbuncle, Fenrir, Odin and Alexander in Treasures of Aht Uhrgan, and possibly even more down the road. How is XIV's Egis going to compete with the sheer amount of options that we had and still do have in XI? And how could they balance it out if we have access to 5+ different summons? I'm basing a lot on how XI was developed and programmed, but this points out a significant issue to me personally. If XI had access to 12(forgot Diabolos) summons in one shape or another, how could that be incorporated properly into XIV without breaking anything? And if SMN gets so many additions, what will be given to other classes to make them more appealing themselves? The fact of the matter is that SMN has an abundance of creatures to call forth from the wellspring that is Final Fantasy, what makes other classes more interesting if you have such great diversity added?

Hitokirinomad basically answered for me (thank you for that ), but to clarify, yes, I've played FFXI since 2005, and have SMN at level 50 (mostly to sub with my WHM). My 'watered down' reference was actually in relation to how summons fitted into FFXI's storyline - the Windurst mission storyline virtually revolved around it. Basically, players cannot summon an Avatar at it's true, full power, because they simply require far too much 'crystal energy' which a normal person simply lacks (ala aether). The only one who ever succeeded in summoning an Avatar at it's full power was Karuha-Baruha, the 'hero of Windurst' who used a workaround which drew on the entire energy of the Full Moon Fountain and the Cardians in order to summon Fenrir at full strength - and that cost Windurst dearly in ways that were still being felt twenty years later.

In much the same way in FFXIV, to summon a Primal at it's full strength requires enormous quantities of aether and multiple summoners evoking the Primal - a single SMN just can't cut the mustard. Therefore, the actual SMN Job in FFXIV is simply a shortcut, drawing on evoking a fragment of a Primal's power, which is the limit of what a single SMN is capable of handling. The Primals in their true forms are just too powerful for one to handle. That's what I was trying to point out - not to bag FFXI's way of doing things, but I just wanted to show that at least with FFXIV the 'Primal-Egi' at least match their power -FFXI's player Avatars are pretty much just an illusion, a fraction of what they're meant to be, and that all that SE has done with ARR is simply 'remove the blinders' accordingly.