Is it just me, or does this combination (which is becoming increasingly more common in Final Fantasy games) completely undermine the idea of the White Mages? I mean, the disadvantage of using a white mage was that it didn’t really have any effective attacks (save Holy, which is learned right at the end), and yet now, by giving them summon magic, they seem to have been provided with the best of both worlds. This becomes an even greater problem when you compare them to black mages, who seem to have spells that are about as damaging as summons, even though they lack the healing powers of white mages.
Just thinking about this recently when I was asking myself why I never used Vivi in FF9. Basically, I didn’t have to, because I had Garnet and Eiko, who had heavy damage summons that hit all enemies, as well as great white spells. It’s the same with Lulu in FFX, who was not only undermined by Yuna’s summons, but was also eventually outclassed at her own job due to black magic spheres and Yuna’s high magic stat…
Do you view this as a problem that will become increasingly telling in the future, or do you think that it isn’t that much of an issue?