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...

[LineageRazor]

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.

These much-needed changes came VERY late in FFXI's timeline. The only avatar that came close to free for a long, long time was Carbuncle - and Poison Nails wasn't exactly what anyone would call l33t deeps.

No, until SE caved in to years and years of complaints, party SMNs were healers, and endgame SMNs were... well, not wanted, except for certain niche fights that called upon specific skills - usually Astral Flow, but occasionally also for long, drawn-out fights where the enmity cap was a serious enough issue that you had BLMs logging in and out to reset hate; Avatar attacks are VERY low enmity (or, rather, the enmity was all on the pet, not the SMN, and the pet taking hate and dying was a trivial concern), which made them an attractive option for fights like Kirin that could take an hour or longer to complete.

Yes, SMN eventually came into its own as a legitimate DPS class, and even had a few non-Carbuncle avatars that it could keep out perpetually. Heck, by the time of Adoulin, SE even reduced Avatar costs to the point where a SMN could keep ANY Avatar out. Even so, even at its finest, SMN was passable DPS, not great. A party leader given the choice would pick almost any DPS over a SMN, with the possible exception of PUP or THF (and PUP was actually pretty good DPS in the right hands; so few people could play it properly, though, that party leaders rarely gave them the chance to show it). Again, except for certain niche fights where SMN-specific talents were particularly desirable.

Well, at least until SE decided partway through Adoulin that all endgame NMs should have aoe attacks that murder any non-tank without Utsusemi (and sometimes, even then), making bow SAMs and RNGs the only DPS worth having. SMN were okay there, too (even if they were a distant third choice, after SAM and RNG). :P

[Mycow8me]

(and PUP was actually pretty good DPS in the right hands; so few people could play it properly, though, that party leaders rarely gave them the chance to show it)

Thats funny i could say the same in regards to early summoners. No, the main reason summoners were healers is because there was always a healer shortage for party exp. It was so bad sometimes you found yourself using rdm and anything else that could toss side cures, which is what the na community ended up doing with summoner. Most only had carbuncle and were trying to get the class leveled anyway only healing setting a unwanted standard. Free mp cost would have been way unfair downtime wise against blm anyway. I never dissapointed parties as a dps when i was in a group even with mp cost. All it took was learning skill chain combos, having all your avatars, knowing how to magic burst if you were the burster, and using the wiki charts and graphs to find out blunt/piercing/slashing weaknesses of mobs and using the best pacts for it.
Free mp casts later on just made smn avatar favor more reliable. Dps was good even before it. I was using smn back when cap was 75 and sky was fresh. So i know what i know. Guess i agree to disagree.

[HereticBliss]

SMN dps was never "good." Every Summoner tried to argue this citing their 1800 damage Predator Claws, but they were at the low end regardless of how good the player was. The class was designed that way.

And if you were MBing on your Summoner, it sounds like you were on the low end of a low end class.

[Iromi]

SMN dps was never "good." Every Summoner tried to argue this citing their 1800 damage Predator Claws, but they were at the low end regardless of how good the player was. The class was designed that way.

And if you were MBing on your Summoner, it sounds like you were on the low end of a low end class.

Yeah DRK and SAM we're amazing for DD's..at least when I played way back then lol. SMN was just good for hate free damage on wyrms and such.

[AnaviAnael]

Yeah DRK and SAM we're amazing for DD's..at least when I played way back then lol. SMN was just good for hate free damage on wyrms and such.

Trust me, I agree with SMN being decent damage, but I gotta stand up for DRK and SAM for a moment. Remember, FFXI was notorious for having "flavor of the month" jobs. People used to love DRGs until Penta Thrust got nerfed, nobody wanted DRK and SAM then they buffed 2-handed weapons (consequently Great Axe WARs were wanted as well), etc. etc. etc. XI was a mess in terms of balance.