[Haunted]

Originally Posted by Kardor

Actually you can solo "Exploding Mobs" (Bombs/dolls) which rate up to Tough.

you can solo mobs that rate up to IT if you want too, at about 54 i decided to go to ifrits to solo while LFP, and i could solo the bombs quite easily

[Xylaa]

Yeah, I soloed bombs in Ifrit's Cauldron from about 52 to 58. Just got tired of parties, from my experience 50-60 has the worst parties. And now I solo in Uleguerand Range while seeking a party, or when I don't have long to play but I want experience.

Another good thing about soloing in Uleguerand Range, snoll arms sell for 100k on Titan.

Carbuncle kiting bombs/snolls usually gets me about 3-3.5k experience an hour, 4-4.5 experience with Empress Band.

[IBHalliwell]

As a 75RDM & 75SMN, I'm familiar with soloing with both jobs. The techniques aren't the same. A SMN just doesn't have spells necessary to nuke, sleep, enfeeble, and Aspir (for monsters with MP) method.

On the other hand a SMN has the ability to solo monsters a RDM or BLM might not consider.

IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), the keys for a SMN to solo are:

1) Raise up your Summoner Summoning Magic Skill. If possible keep it Blue and get gear to raise it up. I know many people say it doesn't matter. It does matter - even before the upcoming SMN update. The skill affects how long your Avatar can stay in a fight before dying.

Personal experience: When I was a 70 SMN, another 70 SMN and I did bombs together. We compared skill and found mine to be 60 points higher. We saw my Carby living up to 45 seconds longer than his (depending upon what the bomb did) TIME and TIME again.

Again when I was a 70 SMN, a 75 SMN and I did bombs. His skill was 1 point higher than my skill. Our Carbies died about the same time. Sometimes mine died first and sometimes his died first.

From these (and other) experiences, I am of the opinion the skill affects the Avatar's HP and/or defense.

2) Use Carby to kite bombs. 200-300+ XP but parties are still quicker on XP. Some bombs can take 10 minutes before they explode, while others do it in seconds.

3) Level your staff skill up. Shoot for the Light Spirit Weapon Skill as you'll get MP back and won't have to rest as often.

4) Tank with Carby if possible as he takes less MP. Get your Carby Mitts, Light or Apollo Staff, etc.

5) Tank or Kite with other Avatars but realize you'll end up needing to rest.

6) I soloed Bettles in the Eastern and Western deserts a lot to skill up my staff and get XP. I then moved to Crawler's Nest and did the same to Bettles and Crawlers.

7) Be prepared to use reraise gear - buy or craft it, in either case you'll need it. Mistakes happen, you'll get jumped, etc.

8) Use your XP (1,000 pnt version). Don't forget - when you get to the last charge, go to the gate guard, use the ring, have the guard recharge it, and then get to your solo and/or party. When the "dedication" runs out, you won't be waiting 16 hours for the next chance to use it. Use it NOW! You'll get 2K extra in the party (or while soloing).

IB

[Tirrock]

I'm going to keep my personal opinion about summoning magic skill out of this and just point a few things out:

If summoning magic skill increased an avatar's attack, then the avatar who was summoned by somebody with the highest summoning magic skill would die first. He does more damage, brings in more hate than the other carbuncle, he's the first to go down.

A few points of DEF won't save an avatar against a T or higher... The only reason avatars last as long as they do is because of their -50% physical damage trait.

Based on my testing (going from about 70 levels below summoning magic skill cap to 8 below it now) avatars don't get a noticable amount of HP boost. They have about 1100 HP, from what I can tell, and a few levels of summoning magic skill isn't going to give them enough HP to last 45 more seconds. (My estimates of avatar HP based off of watching about how much % of HP is lost when a cactaur does 1000 needles on an avatar.)

Now onto my feelings of summoning magic skill: Does exactly what SE said it does. The differences in when avatars died could easily be written off as things like one summoner having yinyang robe/AF2+1 feet, or another wearing some of the AF1 (or AF1+1) that has avatar: enmity -.

I assume when you said "Light Spirit Weapon Skill" it was just a typo (multiple thoughts at once) and you meant "Spirit Taker".

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Caspian

So, is Carby kiting a totally free thing to do? Once you have the right gear involved in maintaining him, couldn't you just rest up the mp lost from summoning him? So if you wanted to take a really long time to xp, but virtually risk free, is that how summoners do it? I have little to no knowledge of how summoners work later on. I'm curious b/c I don't hear about it anywhere but on here, is it hard to do or do I just not have enough endgame or near endgame experience to have heard of it much on my server?

Didn't see this question addressed above, but:

(1) You can't recover MP while resting while you have an avatar summoned. You can /heal, but the moment you would have gotten some HP/MP back, you'll stand right back up and get nothing (as if you'd taken damage).

(2) Carby kite is often used because SMN can pretty much fight indefinitely this way, as long as they can take at least 1 hit to shed enmity once in a blue moon. Since none of their MP is being used to keep Carbuncle in play, they lose little or none of it to perpetuation.

(3) A lot of SMNs I know have had some success fighting bombs in Uleguarand Range solo by getting them to blow themselves up. Even better when duo.


Icemage

[Darkhound]

To keep things simple....

The most effective soloing for a summoner is either

1. Mobs that you can almost one shot with lvl 70 blood pacts
2. Bombs in ulgernard range and carby kitting.

Other than that, it is very difficult given the varios reasons some of you have given here!

[IBHalliwell]

Originally Posted by Tirrock

Now onto my feelings of summoning magic skill: Does exactly what SE said it does. The differences in when avatars died could easily be written off as things like one summoner having yinyang robe/AF2+1 feet, or another wearing some of the AF1 (or AF1+1) that has avatar: enmity -.

I assume when you said "Light Spirit Weapon Skill" it was just a typo (multiple thoughts at once) and you meant "Spirit Taker".

Yup, Spirit Taker is what I meant. Thank you for catching the typo!

The other level 70 SMN didn't have any other gear than I had. We both were using Austere and AF1 feet. At 70 we could wear YingYang anyway, I thought.

As for defense, HP, attack, etc., and summoning skill, I don't know. All I know is in the 3 hours we played together my Carby out lasted his even when we assulted together. We were both level 70, same basic gear, but had a large difference in our summoning skill.

I forget my exact skill level at the time but it was close to Blue. I try to be Blue or close.

Presently, I'm at 262 without gear.

IB

[KitaKaze]

I suggest going to killingifrit.com if you want to solo... they have a solo encyclopedia for smns. But please get the facts right before you post ; ;

[Shirai]

Originally Posted by KitaKaze

I suggest going to killingifrit.com if you want to solo... they have a solo encyclopedia for smns.

Kita has a good point here,

This guide has helped me through my entire solo career (51 until now).
I haven given up partying because soloing gets boring at times, however you can reap great exp of bombs and snolls.

All I have to say, if you're new at this you will die a lot.
You will have to learn the best routes to camp and learn to know the best places to kite.
But in the end it's really worth it.
Just imagine the kindred seals dropping, all your's! =)

Another positive side, it's now possible for more then one summoner to solo at the same camp due to the new anti MPK patch.
When a bomb fought by another summoner self destructs next to you it will not kill you as long as you don have hate on it or are in party with the other smn.
Downside is too many summoners on the same camp and bombs can run out.