Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

[Romsca]

Because new gear makes old content easy and you don't need those buffs. Like... This moved used to do 6-7k damage on my 7.5k PLD. Yeah, I need to do something. Now my Paladin have 11.5k health... Echo makes old content easy. 24-men raids are meant to be easy and brainless.

You are right, maybe in 3.0 SMNs will be the best. Who knows. In 2.3, they buffed BLMs because they couldn't keep up. I was still playing BLM. I,d prefer a SMN in my raid who is good and enjoy the game as SMN over forcing him to play BLM.

If you look at Mister Happy, his group is NIN, DRG, BRD, SMN. It's easier and people prefer BLM and Monk over SMN and DRG but it still works.

Echo was a bad choice. It should have bolstered lower ilevel players up a bit and then gear synced higher ilevel down to keep content challenging but not too challenging.

[Odowla]

Echo was a bad choice. It should have bolstered lower ilevel players up a bit and then gear synced higher ilevel down to keep content challenging but not too challenging.

I mean considering how many people have yet to clear t5, I don't it matters what Echo actually does, lol. 10k+ DRG's with full i130, still on t5 doing 100 dps, like, thats not challenging that's a design flaw lol.