Why are summoners so neglected?

[Shougun]

I mean, if we want to use WoW as the example, pet diversity was a complete waste of resources early in the game.

Yes and no, depends on the patch and the content. There were niche summons that were useful throughout for very specific things, so during generic content usually a very specific right choice and a lot of wrong - but could vary depending on strategy and situation.

At its current iteration its a zoolock and so you get to use a lot of pets at a lot of times lol, so at this point there are a lot of right choices and its more like picking the right order.

If they added more egi types then Summoner could greatly benefit from cooldown summons which would increase their usage, but even not you could still build a few more niche summons that would perform better during their niche - although I imagine most people would ignore it and use the generic "usually" good choice, and the raid group would enforce you to use the right choice. WAAAYYY nerfing Fenrir and turning it into a temporary cooldown summon (from FFXI) could be functional random example, doesn't even have to be a buff - summon diablos for damage temporarily.

So I would argue it was not a waste if you wanted to focus on /many/ pets as Warlock in WoW has some of the top sustained single target DPS (in fights that allow them to whip their pets out, lower movement fights for example).

[Nixxe]

Yes and no, depends on the patch and the content. There were niche summons that were useful throughout for very specific things, so during generic content usually a very specific right choice and a lot of wrong - but could vary depending on strategy and situation.

At its current iteration its a zoolock and so you get to use a lot of pets at a lot of times lol, so at this point there are a lot of right choices and its more like picking the right order.

If they added more egi types then Summoner could greatly benefit from cooldown summons which would increase their usage, but even not you could still build a few more niche summons that would perform better during their niche - although I imagine most people would ignore it and use the generic "usually" good choice, and the raid group would enforce you to use the right choice. WAAAYYY nerfing Fenrir and turning it into a temporary cooldown summon (from FFXI) could be functional random example, doesn't even have to be a buff - summon diablos for damage temporarily.

So I would argue it was not a waste if you wanted to focus on /many/ pets as Warlock in WoW is currently the top single target DPS (in fights that allow them to whip their pets out, lower movement fights for example).

My post was a response to the OP using hunter pets as their example, not warlock pets. Warlock pets were indeed designed with their own niches in mind, but part of that was the existence of three specs, each of which made use of a different one. Summoner is just summoner. Hunter pets, especially before what I believe was the first wave of normalization, were extremely niche and mostly wasted. You basically wanted the rare cat from Darkshore that had the faster swing timer for PVE and everything else's only purpose in life, at most, was to teach you some abilities to train it with. After the first wave of normalization, any cat would do or a scorpid if you were BM because the poison was bugged. In very niche situations, you'd bring in a wolf I think. I might be a bit off because this was years ago, but I believe you can understand what I'm getting at nonetheless.

[Shougun]

My post was a response to the OP using hunter pets as their example, not warlock pets. Warlock pets were indeed designed with their own niches in mind, but part of that was the existence of three specs, each of which made use of a different one. Summoner is just summoner. Hunter pets, especially before what I believe was the first wave of normalization, were extremely niche and mostly wasted. You basically wanted the rare cat from Darkshore that had the faster swing timer for PVE and everything else's only purpose in life, at most, was to teach you some abilities to train it with. After the first wave of normalization, any cat would do or a scorpid if you were BM because the poison was bugged. In very niche situations, you'd bring in a wolf I think. I might be a bit off because this was years ago, but I believe you can understand what I'm getting at nonetheless.

Oo-, sorry I always think Warlock first when talking WoW since there are a lot of mechanical similarities between the two

Yeah there were A LOT of wrong choices for Hunter which was unfortunate because I really got attached to my first main pet. I believe they tried to alleviate the forced to one issue recently by allowing hunter multiple whistles, which I guess you could say is a more custimizable egi situation - since you'd probably pick the Titan, Ifrit, Garuda general ideas at least.

I would add though that a hunter can have up to 5 call pets, each pet is as you said normalized for stats, but some have special abilities, and then you have talent trees for each pet - so you could sort of "niche" your pet. I really enjoyed taking care of my pet.. was just a sort of fun solo experience, that big fat stupid green grin every time I fed them their favorite food. Doesn't really capture it with the chocobo imo, kind of clunky but they're making improvements - would like to have that my little buddy till the end feeling again (maybe beastmaster or another job in FFXIV).

Can understand what you were getting at though, they went from unique and SO MANY BAD CHOICES (cats OP) to pretty normalized ("pick whatever"), and to now you can build your team in the field (normally you aim for the ones that have unique abilities in their family tree). However, I would suggest that part of the fun there was just taking care of the pet and so having more than a very specific set of choices was fun - at least imo (again even now you'll want to get the more unique/special ability but you do now have more choices since they've been talent treed, normalized, family treed, and given 5 call whistles).

I'm not sure if you'd consider WoW's solution good, but was just saying what they're doing now. But again, as an aside.. loved my pet >.<;; and wouldn't want to be forced one upon myself

*plays nostalgic music and envisions prancing through the fields with my enraged pet*

[Stitches1974]

My post was a response to the OP using hunter pets as their example, not warlock pets. Warlock pets were indeed designed with their own niches in mind, but part of that was the existence of three specs, each of which made use of a different one. Summoner is just summoner. Hunter pets, especially before what I believe was the first wave of normalization, were extremely niche and mostly wasted. You basically wanted the rare cat from Darkshore that had the faster swing timer for PVE and everything else's only purpose in life, at most, was to teach you some abilities to train it with. .

That would be Broken Tooth from Blasted Lands.