Why are summoners so neglected?

[Silverquick]

From my experience there are many more black mages than summoners.

I'd like to be able to say that but I can't.

It not just my server either.

FFLogs alone shows me Summoner after Summoner in the high level content too. And mostly in the upper ranks of damagers even above BLMs.

So I already know it's not just my imagination with regards to Summoner Popularity.

[Talraen]

Where did this "melee red mage" came from? In FFIII they sucked as melee and in FFV their only purpose in life was Dual Cast.

Red mages use swords. They were the second-best melee weapon class in FF1 until the job change, since they could use silver/mythril swords, and they are actually good tanks for the first few quests because they can use chain armor. In FF3, red mages basically exist to use the wightslayer early on, which is another sword. In FF5, Dual Cast was something you got as a reward for leveling an obsolete class. It basically existed because Red Mages, as was the case in FF1 and FF3, sucked after you progressed very far in the game. For the brief period they were good, they had decent weapons as well as decent spells.

So yeah, red mages were always melee hybrid casters. This is even true in FFXI: they got the original en-spells. The only reason they didn't melee in FFXI was because feeding TP to mobs outweighed their contribution. They were clearly designed to melee (their artifact weapon is a sword!), but then, ninjas were designed to DPS, too. The FFXI team didn't have a huge success rate at jobs being played as intended.

[Shurrikhan]

I think they just need to make a whole new job called "Beastmaster"... because that appears to be what some of you want...

You some of you don't want the classic Final Fantasy Summoner... you want a Beastmaster instead... or a Petmaster class.

Those are not Classic FF Summoner or Summons.

On top of that those will wreck the current Summoner job in a way that will torque off the general Summoner population (who plays the job now)... in THIS game.

While I understand superficially linking different naming conventions to make it more Summoner Thematic, and perhaps a graffical upgrade...

... in no way can I possibly justify any kind of major mechanical rework of the job from the ground up, either Lore wise or Gameplay wise.

The class is powerful, viable, and fun to play.

Regardless of how pet-centric the prospective or current SMN population may want the job to be, SE has specifically made pets a thing within the job. And they have done so with all the fluidity of Wanderer's Minuet on release (a far cry from the livable clunkiness that is current WM). They are slow to respond, especially in movement, incapable of jumping or replacing queued skills in favor of ones for which timing is more crucial, have shit AI, cannot aim a knockback, can scarcely chase, and take up two otherwise piss-dull on-cooldown caster-synergetic skills, Spur and Rouse, just to use the third and only interesting caster-synergetic skill, Enkindle.

I doubt that allowing for mechanical improvements to that system, while it might pave the way for a more pet-centric or -synergetic job in the future, or offering more interesting alternatives to Spur and Rouse would be met negatively by most other Summoner mains...

[Mhaeric]

They are...incapable of jumping or replacing queued skills in favor of ones for which timing is more crucial

Slight nitpick: They are unable to do this on their own, but via a macro while using Obey the SMN can achieve this for them.

[Zumi]

Summoners aren't neglected they have the same amount of abilities as all other jobs.

[MOthe]

Summoners aren't neglected they have the same amount of abilities as all other jobs.

Half of them are the same as the Scholars. Including Psysick that don't make sense and eye for an eye.

[SendohJin]

Half of them are the same as the Scholars. Including Psysick that don't make sense and eye for an eye.

half? that's two, so what else?

and Eye for an Eye makes just as much sense as Apocatastasis.

so really, i'm seeing just 1.

[Nalien]

half? that's two, so what else?

This seems like an odd point to contest... Summoner and Scholar obviously share plenty of skills, they both use Arcanist skills... Traits too... Scholar really benefits from that Enhanced Intelligence trait...

Unless you just mean skills that don't make sense, in which case fair point. I'd still argue that, at least from a naming point, most of them don't really fit... Shadow Flare perhaps does, that sounds vaguely Summonery... Give Scholar the disease themed stuff, Miasma III instead of Shadow Flare. Rework Summoners skills to reflect the fact that its Summoner... Change the animations, and job done. If that's too much effort, I find myself asking why there is a difference between Doton/Flaming Arrow/Shadow Flare/Salted Earth to begin with... Why do we have Aero/Bio/Combust/etc. instead of just "Generic DoT name"?

[SendohJin]

Unless you just mean skills that don't make sense, in which case fair point. I'd still argue that, at least from a naming point, most of them don't really fit...

this is a Class to Job issue, not a Summoner issue.

none of the Archer stuff besides Swiftsong makes sense for Bards, Bards aren't Archers/Rangers.

do Ninjas really Mug people?

there are plenty of split SMN/SCH topics, that doesn't mean SMN is neglected and SMN doesn't have less functional abilities than other jobs.

almost everyone has acknowledged that branching two jobs off of one class wasn't the greatest idea but that's what they did and they are not going back on it. the lessons they learned were to never do it again and to not make classes at all. if it's functional enough which both jobs are, they are not going to rebuild them from the ground up when they have better things to do like actually make new jobs and new content.

if development time was free, sure go and do all of those things but it's not.

[Atlaworks]

Half of them are the same as the Scholars. Including Psysick that don't make sense and eye for an eye.

Or are half the Scholars' abilities the same as Summoner?

Oh my. This rabbit hole goes deep.