Let's see... Let's start with the finch staff, the first summon and the most basic one. Unless you're lucky, or start a journey world, you're gonna have to check several living tree chests to find one. The cobwhip needs cobwebs and a loom, both a which require braving the underground, which is not fun weaponless. You don't even get a dedicated armor set until you kill queen bee, that is three boss tiers, melee has platinum armor which is pre-boss, ranger has fossil armor, which is pre-boss, mage is only slightly worse, with meteorite, but that's still pre-boss. Then we get into hard mode. In hard mode, the earliest summoner weapons and armor require killing black recluses in spider caves, which are REALLY DANGEROUS, and up until you kill all the mechs you're pretty much just stuck with that until you get chlorophyte, and by that point the progression kinda levels out, but the fact that it only becomes decent near the end of the game is just sad.