Quote Originally Posted by Anhra View Post
It isn't because of the cheesing potential that i say having a HP bar with proper defense values is a good idea for pets, but from what i've seen on FFXI's SMN counterpart on the wiki.

I haven't played said game but from what i can tell (correct me if i am wrong), SMN in FFXI has pretty much no offensive abilities on his own aside from the weapon it wields. Literally anything he does, is being done trough his Summons, from attacking to support. And boy does it have alot of stuff to summon (most of those need to have a quest completed in order to get summoned).

Summons include: Carbuncle, Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Ramuh, Shiva, Fenrir, Odin, Diabolos, Alexander, Cait Sith, Atomos, Spirits of each Element and Leviathan.

Personally, i'd love to see a proper equivalent to this in FFXIV, instead of that halfheartedly-made DoTmage with his pseudo summons which we have at the moment (who cant even summon in pvp).
I remain hopeful with the endwalker expansion but im expecting something alot worse if i am being honest here.
I hated FFXI SMN/WHM because I wanted to play a DPS and that wasn't it. It was just a poor mans WHM when nothing else was seeking. Yea, you could call out this cool looking Avatar for a few seconds until they start sucking down your MP and pissed the party off because they had to wait on you to get it back. It was summon titan > stoneskin > desummon. Garuda > Aerial Armor > desummon. Bascially i wanted to play Summoner, hated it with a passion, switch to BLM then play COR when ToAU came out. FFXIV Beta feel in love with SMN playstyle, switch to MCH during 3.XX because I hated Trance, came back to SMN in 4.0 because I got to summon and still enjoy the playstyle.

TL;DR - I don't consider FFXI to be the greatest iteration of Summoner.