Quote Originally Posted by Duelle View Post
The problem with summon variety is that you have a high risk of overlap unless you design each egi for one specific purpose. And even then you start running out of room fast. FFXI's SMN ran into this problem, leading to more convoluted ways to use summons over time. And some summons are just stupid-powerful in-world, which makes it a balancing nightmare. For example, Alexander with Perfect Defense = AoE Hallowed Ground to a full party; imagine the shitshow that would create if our SMN could do that. Or if Titan-egi could Stoneskin a full party at the cost of an Aetherflow stack.
I'm fine with them having an rdps pet, mdps pet, tank pet and minor spiffs for each. Maybe more pet buffs, swap raise for a revive egi, trait to swap physick for a pet heal. I certainly don't want to see SMN going through the "OP! NERF!" "OMG DELETE SMN!" cycle again and it would be nice for the class to have it's own niche.

I wish they had angled more toward BM hunter than Aff Lock in terms of role design (with the egi being the primary damage in the equation). I am almost definitely in the minority with that opinion, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My beef with SMN is that design-wise it's all over the place. 1-50 was "DoT mage with a pet", then 51-60 was "fuck that pet, trances a go-go", and 62-70 it seems to have gone full retarddragon mage or "we've replaced the egi with a mini-bahamut; let's see if he notices". There's other issues like unresponsive/inefficient pet AI, lack of connection between master and pet, and how the role primals play in the game has changed.
Totally agree. It's a bizarre mix of things and the pet AI is something special for sure.