Quote Originally Posted by Marcellus_Cassius View Post
Dunno, I feel xi did summoner well, each primal is summoned for a special attack and that's it. There is no need to balance the 3 pet roles because there are none.
That's not remotely true. When XI initially launched, that was the intent behind the class, that a player would summon an avatar, use a Blood Pact, and then release it. That was a problem because all Blood Pacts shared a minute timer, weren't more powerful than other job's skills, and while waiting for the cool down to finish, there was nothing useful the job could really do, except heal.

Over time, the job has morphed into one in which you leave the avatar out all the time, so it can build up TP and then execute a Blood Pact.

Many people on this forum expressed the sentiment they thought the job in XI was perfect, but while it is good, it's not as great as people think. Avatars have a long cast time, and you can't heal them, and once the pet is dead, the summoner is a sitting duck. The job also takes a significant amount of gear, and Nirvana makes a difference of night and day.

The other thing is that XI summoner goes against the idea of having the player being directly responsible for events and actions, as the player just controls the avatar.