Why Summoner Needs Help

[Caduagm]

Lock stuff that we used to be free, I don't know if that's a good idea (Aethertrail and Aetherflow). When I was leveling SMN (3rd day of SB) I could see the big difference already: before SB I was doing 2,7k on the dummy and at level 63 I did 2.1k.
-SMN was the ONLY job who got the potency of their main spell nerfed by 50 potency.
-SMN and MCH were the only 2 jobs (between the 15) who lost a 40 POTENCY DoT.
We are now a ruin machine. We gotta depend on RNG (which by the way... SMN having dependency on RNG is new) to have our would Ruin III potency back. I wonder why they just didn't make a proc like "Enhanced Ruin III" and give us something better than our old Ruin III potency with a different animation.
Right now I'm using Ifrit, I won't ever use Garuda again until they change its reponsibility, because lining up all my CDs to a perfect Bahamut Summon and she doesn't use contagion (or use it after like 3 GCDs) is just no.
Devotion: make us at least target the party member, since we can target an enemy with Enkindle why not a party member with Devotion?

[ShadowYomi]

I would like if devotion affected the whole party if they were by my pet if they don't let us pick a target or let us gain the effect. Had a blm that didn't even know I was buffing them.

[Angry_Evil]

You can compare now, for blm and red mage is not hard to cross more 4k dps
for smn really few people exceed 4k dps

stat for smn https://fr.fflogs.com/statistics/15/ .

I know smn FFlogs stats. And I'm not saying smn doesn't need buff. I am saying tho that your suggestions are unreasonable.
Comparing top DPS parses on fflogs is pointless cause all of them are inflated with balances. Like for example, on top rdm parse he has 13 ST balances. 13! I bet if eirene snow wanted to inflate his dps with 13-16 ST balances he could do 4.5k for stupid top fflog stats too.
As for 75th percentile stats - smn is so low more cause of poor player skills and overall difficulty of the job, not really cause smn doesn't have enough potency.

[Neela]

Potecy buff isn't the awnser - nothing would change in mechanic, flow, punishment, skill logouts sadly in nothing nor would the 3rd dot or bane shadowflare revamp. I don't get why people want higher potecy... actually potecy is fine overall in skill synergy. Locking out skills and the long dps cd after messing up aether stacks is the problem - I wonder if anyone played smn in pvp yet... the playstyle adjustment on the pvp profil works more fluent after all - pve buffs should go into that kind of direction instead of potecy adjustments...

[Nerisu]

I wonder if anyone played smn in pvp yet...

I find SMN more fun than RDM (no idea about BLM) in PVP.

[koroko220]

I agree with OP. Red Mage is my absolute favorite job so I was going to change mains anyway, but I'm glad they added it for the fact if they didn't I would have had to find a new main. I have mained summoner since 2.4, having previously mained blm before that since 2.0. I hate the changes to summoner. It just doesn't flow anymore. Maybe at 70 it's slightly better but from 60-65 I just feel like a burden on the party. I can feel the dps difference vs old smn in HW after the final line of buffs smn got, before we immensely outgeared everything. Makes Me sad to see my favorite main just torn to shreds :/

[Nirokun]

1) Grant Bahamut casts with each Aetherflow (draw enough Aether to summon Demi-Bahamut, makes sense)
2) Summoning Bahamut doesnt release existing pet (no more rouse lockout). He will attack same Obey target with no funky Wyrmwave timings, lost Wyrmwave DMG recovered by Bahamut summoning every minute instead of every 2 minutes, boom.
3) Physick now has sustain effect on your pet, bam fixed.

#1 will fix heavy punishment for death or missed Fester/Painflare because Aetherflow will just come back and grant Summon Bahamut. Gone are the days that you get 1 Aetherflow stack back (nerfed dmg from stack loss).
#2 will fix the rouse lockout, make rouse and Aetherflow for Bahamut summonings super sexy. Not having to waste all your skills (virus plz) just for a Wyrmwave makes sense. Besides, more Bahamut and more Deathflare > More Wyrmwave! It will also allow summoners to use Summon II again.
#3 Sustain is back, rejoice!

[Inosaska]

SMN is in dire need of an overhaul in design. I remember back in Beta when they said the job would be focused on pets but at the moment that appears to have been abandoned all together. I wish they would go back to the original idea they had going with SMN before they decided to make SMN into a Bahamut follower. I like the summon itself but I would rather have a repertoire of summons then the limited amount that we get now.

[Gallus]

Physick now has sustain effect on your pet, bam fixed.

For the love of god stop asking for this! You shouldn't be asking for any form of spell that heals your pet, no real DPS player will ever waste GCDs to heal the pet that's absolutely unreasonable in any half serious content. If you want to ask for something...ask for the pet to be even more resilient to AOEs or completely immune.
As for solo content... chocobo or swap to healer and problem solved... (which isn't all that hard considering you have SCH for free when leveling SMN...talk about complaining for the sake of complaining).

[ray1108]

As a non-SMN player I also want to say something about this topic.

As many poeple said you should not compare SMN with BLM because SMN has much more utility. So better compare it with RDM, as they have similar utility like both have rez and both have something to buff other players. DPS wise maybe SMN is a bit behind the other two casters but it depends very much on the fight. Assume you have a fight where you have to move very much like Titan, then BLM will ever be the last because RDM have dualcast (even if they have to use it right) and SMN have dots(best in that moment) and also some instant casts. And in fight with lots of mobs (e.g. A2) i think RDM will be the last and SMN and BLM will be at the same spot.
Maybe I'm completely wrong with all I said but this is what i can see as outsider.

Another topic is the design. I absolutely agree with everyone who is saying that some jobs need a change in design.