Quote Originally Posted by Lambdafish View Post
The devs explained their philosophy at the start of 3.0 in that they want to move away from creating a mass pet job and instead focus on giving the skills to the SMN itself (hence bahamut being a "trance" not a pet), this being more balanced, less of a strain on resources, and overall would produce a more interesting job (i.e. the alternative is you get one new pet and no new skills).
I can see this route potentially bringing SMN closer to what it is in most other FFs. If they give the SMN powerful abilities that briefly show the summon in their full glory.

In most of the games, summoners were all about huge, expensive spells with amazing effects that made you feel like you have all the force of nature at your fingertips. You summoned, they did their thing while you watch something big and cool, then they disappear.
The closest I get to that satisfaction here is when I pop a Rage Pomander.

In 11, you could use them as sustained pets if you had the gear to support it. But for big fights, I typically saw summon, Blood Pact for big damages, put away, sit to recover MP so you can afford to keep using Blood Pact whenever it's up.

Here, SMNs are still powerful, and probably a lot easier to balance, but they don't feel like a Final Fantasy summoner.