But what about Summoner???

[Lemuria]

FF10, you have a partial control of it

Partial? You literally choose all of their skills and abilities. They effectively become a party member, giving you full access to all of their attacks. So, bad example there. In fact, you can even teach them specific spells like Protect and Haste, making them effective combatants in their own right. The 'no-sphere grid' challenge relies on using summons to win every fight.

FF11, mmorpg bad example

Errm, last I checked FFXIV was an MMORPG, or am I missing something? Surely a fellow MMO is exactly the sort of benchmark we should be using to judge our summons in this game. Especially another one with the Final Fantasy moniker!

FF12, you call it, but exept the big attack you have no control over him behaviour
FF13, like the 10.

True for 12, false for 13. You're on a time limit, but all of the skills used are entirely down to your own discretion.

i don't count FF11 since a mmorpg will make the summoner a pet class generally. FF12 was made on a model of mmorpg, but i still count it.

Again, you discredit yourself since FFXIV is actually an MMO. Or do you consider this game to be a first person shooter?

Honestly, the pets in ARR might as well not even exist for all the good they do. I would have actually preferred a Black Mage style summon and dismiss to the rubbish 'it exists' style of summon we have here. The damage they do is terrible, they almost zero support skills, and they exist solely because of the job name. Painflare was greatly needed because we really lacked spike damage of any kind. Fester requires you to already have multiple DoT's on the target, and energy drain is weak and single target. Compare it to BLM who can spam Fire II for 100 potency on all targets (or use Flare for much more), and it's easy to see where we needed to play catch-up.

So, in general the new direction makes sense from a gameplay standpoint. But I maintain that Summoner feels so unlike a summoning job it might as well be called Mystic for all the emphasis it has. Pet jobs can be done well, but they've decided to have zero emphasis on the pets. In my opinion, Scholar is more of a summoner than Summoner is. At least their pets aren't just slightly useful, but genuinely crucial to every aspect of the job, with strength that rivals the caster.

[Khalithar]

So, in general the new direction makes sense from a gameplay standpoint. But I maintain that Summoner feels so unlike a summoning job it might as well be called Mystic for all the emphasis it has. Pet jobs can be done well, but they've decided to have zero emphasis on the pets. In my opinion, Scholar is more of a summoner than Summoner is. At least their pets aren't just slightly useful, but genuinely crucial to every aspect of the job, with strength that rivals the caster.

Well said, especially your point about the scholar bit! I feel the same way. Summoner does not really live up to it's name. They do at least explain a good deal of the why in the story yes, but as Lemuria said, they may as well change the name then. A Summoner should be a pet class or it should be about actually summoning things to attack for you. As is, the "Summoner" is not a summoner, it's one hell of a strong dps class though, I cant deny that.