I think this game could use a warlock class.

[Mycow8me]

For some reason, i get the feeling that the people saying smn was only useful for healing and stould there doing hardly anything were either playing with terrible summoners or tried the class and never made it to endgame.
Low level summoner on ffxi was no different than any other class other than... Thief. The reason summoners ended up healing was cause of the shortage of healers. I found alot of parties that let me dps with my pet and staff and did a fair amount of damage. Lets not forget staff weaponskills. The NA playerbase had this ideology that you needed a skillchain starter War/drk/etc and a thf or sub thf and then a blm. Funny thing is, even a good summoner could magic burst off the skillchains or participate in creating the skillchains, blm was not required. Smn was good dps. Alot of the healer summoners were the people who only had carbuncle at the start cause they didnt get the primals... till they introduced the lvl 20 avatar fights after the devs noticed the problem.

Endgame summoners had free mp cost diabolos and fenrir as well as 45 second bloodpacts with an ability that eliminated bloodpact recast.. camon. higher level unlocked staff skills were very strong. Sub was strictly redmage for refresh and convert. Elemental siphon for mp as well. We practically never had to heal for mp.

I realize this isnt ffxi but ffxivs summoner IS basically an arcanist still with no change. There was no shift to utilizing a pet with special powers and abilities. Theres no special bond or connection. Ffs sometimes i notice ffxiv summoners forget to even smn their pet, cant say i blame them since their really isnt any skills for interaction that are powerful or necessary? Even scholars pets skills are more useful to hotbar. The irony...