Arcanist and Summoner: a possible solution

[Ibbers]

People are too focused on old SMN. Your proposal looks eerily similar to it. Pets and DoTs are never coming back.

On the other hand of the spectrum, some defenders of EW SMN have this bizarre argument that it’s okay for EW SMN to be devoid of interesting job mechanics because ‘at least it is better than being clunky’. No previous clunkiness should justify such low standards for job design, and it is a false dilemma to assume we can only choose between either old SMN or EW SMN, which I personally feel is more of a dead end than an actually workable base of a job. If I were unrealistically optimistic, I could even imagine yet another rework of the job, with brand new systems that are completely different from both old SMN and EW SMN and yet more fun.

On an unrelated note, I thought of a basic SMN concept where you summoned Garuda periodically to maintain a haste buff, Titan to obtain stacks that you can use to buff a spell, and Ifrit as the hard-hitting aspected spell phase once you got your haste and damage buff stacks sorted out. But then I realised I had just recreated Samurai, with Kaiten even, and stopped thinking about designing a job.

I still want summons to feel like you summon them for a purpose other than getting rid of your gems though.