I've mained summoner since I began in XIV before HW through the expacs all the way through even Endwalker before I hung up my grimoire to play Black Mage so I could feel something and honestly...

It's all style no substance now.

Our pet has been lobotomised to no longer attack - heck searing light doesn't deploy from it any more because people were too lazy to learn how to place their pets since they reset after every demi. The animations fantastic and are very fancy but you feel like you have very little impact outside of Bahamut burst phase with actual damage. We went from one of the highest DPS mage classes competing with BLM at a top level of play in SB and ShB if you took the time to actually learn how to play the job to 'chew gummies to win.'

DSR has a phase chart that is just coloured circles. For the entire fight. For your gummies and bursts in particular order for each phase. It's great it's accessible to people but it has become heinously boring to play for those who actually enjoyed some complexity in their job. Homogenization is a word thrown around a lot with the job updates ever since EW and it honestly is valid in criticism for Summoner.

Seeing Pictomancer get actual complexity in its combos from what we've seen so far in the PLL was a slap to the face honestly. I'm not asking for HW summoner to return - pet/egi swapping for contagion et al was fun if you could do it but definitely a hard entry bar for the role, and I know people meme about the SB opener being crazy for high end play with how big it was or the amount of weaving you had to do for Bahamut damage, but I feel ShB was the healthiest balance of complexity with easier entry into the role to learn it. You had impact in what you did with damage instead of being an awkward pseudo-support caster, DoTs to manage between burst phases, and something that actually kept you engaged while playing it.

It's hard to be optimistic about the Media Tour for the job because I suspect our issues with potencies and smack colour to win will continue after the job showcase video last night.