Summoner revamp

[Cabalabob]

Before 2.0 yoshi said he didn't want a smn job because he wanted summons to feel like super powerful beings, and that having a summoner job has to have balanced summons which belittles them being powerful. But he added smn due to popular demand and went as far out of his way as he could to make summons the exact opposite of powerful to the point where they are basically nothing more than an auto attack.

So the simple reason summons in 14 are bad is because the director is spiteful!

The reason people dislike summoner in 14 is because it's just so backwards, instead of focusing on your pet as your primary means of doing damage, with casting spells being something to do in your pet's downtime, casting spells is what you do primarily and your pet is an afterthought. That simply is not a summoner. It doesn't matter if 14 wants a "different take on summoner". it's the fact that what they've produced is not a summoner that displeases people.

And no, more trances is not the way to go. Trances were a bandaid for SMN because it was so poorly designed (in 2.x SCH could out damage SMN) and they pull summoner even further away from being a summoner and even more towards the player doing everything while the pet watches and auto attacks.

But sadly, since 3.0 I'm in the camp of summoner cannot be saved. It should just be renamed to evoker and free up summoner to be a future job in another expansion and hopefully done right.

That image is so weird. VII didn't have any summoners, just summons. I guess in theory you could make your own summoner if you want, but it wouldn't be very efficient, high cost, very squish.
VIII, why is Phoenix displayed? It was one of very few things you couldn't directly summon. And also, still no summoners this game.
Summoners in IX were just White Mages with summons.
Why is X-2 Yuna next to Anima? They couldn't even get the games right on that one. And again, summoner just tacked onto white mage (although in a much more expanded role I guess).
XII had a good set of summons, too, but still no summoner. Plus I don't know of anyone that ever consistently used/relied on them in that game.

The caption on the picture says SUMMONS not SUMMONERS. The point of the picture is to show that summons in all other ff games are like stallions and then ffxiv got a shetland pony.