The problem is that red mage can do everything a summoner can do better, with SLIGHTLY less mobility. They can chain rez, their damage utility is stronger, and they also provide damage damage mitigation now.

This on top of them also dealing more damage.

I’ve always thought of summoner as the bard of casters. Black mage is the selfish caster with no utility, summoner has a little utility, and slightly less damage than black mage, and red mage is a little lower than summoner, but has a lot of utility.

This appeared to be the direction they were going in until the expansion actually came out. Red mage got magick barrier which in my mind was proof they were pushing red mage further into the support role.