[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Zamphire

But you're dead wrong about healing being a Summoners job. SE has tried time and time again to get people to stop making SMNs main heal.

Unless SE makes subbing WHM impossible or useless it doesn't matter. For a lot of SNM's their time exping they will be invited for one thing and it's not for their avatars. The players have made it so, therefore it is a SMN's job.

[Kitalrez]

You can probably play this job with whatever sub you'd like and still be relatively viable, but as everyone else has pointed out, you're going to be playing it *differently* than the rest of us. What I mean by that is that SMN/WHM is generally the accepted cookie-cutter exp party. And even then we're second string WHMs for most of that. If you're going to play as something else, you're going to want to avail yourself of this thread from over at Alla(hey we're owned by IGE now)khazam:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.h...7;num=1;page=1

You'll be doing a lot of duoing and trioing, either with other SMNs or BSTs and DRGs. This actually isn't too much slower than what you'd get in a normal party in most places, and there are some benefits. These are the same benefits you gain soloing bombs: Lots of loot, good aggro training for use if you ever go BLM or DD, and you don't have to deal with any idiots, (or if it applies, just the one idiot). Also, these jobs tend to like working with us as we make good support and backup sources of damage for them.

Here is the creed of every bomb kiting SMN: "Gee, this is hard and I'm not getting great exp." *Look at the 65 levels of WHM you put in previous* "But, you know, it sure beats dealing with idiots for four hours tonight, where's that next bomb?!?"

If you do go with a different subjob, however, please avoid /BLM. All you're getting with that is Warp, a very weakend Sleep, and Escape. Your nukes are so lightly powered vs anything you'd actually exp on, it's just not worth using them in between summonings, and that's if the nuke isn't completely resisted in the first place. /RDM is a little more viable, it's like a slightly less healing dependent version of /WHM. /BRD also works from time to time, BSTs and DRGs seem to like this one once you can use "Mage's Ballad". There are others, but these are the two main subs other than WHM I see. /BLM really dies out after mid 30s, from my experience, around the end of the "just levelling my subjob" range, mob resistances are just too high.

[Takiri]

Originally Posted by framerate

SMN will require WHM sub... parties will require your BLM to have a fully leveled subjob...

I'd start by leveling RDM to 15 so your BLM is able to get to 30, then level WHM to 15 or so to use as your subjob for SMN.

I'm not meaning to poke at you, but being a SMN requires A LOT of patience... collecting avatars (winning the battles) questing for equipment, making intricate macro's, leveling Summoning Magic etc...

If you're not able to level your subjobs up you may get awfully frustrated with SMN as a main job =(

totally wrong. dont listen to anything this guy says exept level your rdm to 15. my smn is smn/blm and i own. huge mp pool = ownage for summoners. summoners as SE said are ment for more then just backup healing they were originally made for damage dealing. dont listen to the fools who sub /whm

[Xylaa]

smn/blm will give you maybe 20-30 more MP over smn/whm. And that's at high levels. At low levels you'll barely notice the difference in MP.

You can be smn/whm and not main heal, just don't accept parties that want you for that. And as /whm, you get -na spells, Divine Seal, Cures, Blink, Stoneskin, Reraise, Teleports, Sneak, Invisible, and other very useful spells that don't get resisted when coming from a subjob. And you're subjob doesn't affect avatar damage, so you can still DD/Buff, and support the party with your /whm abilities.

Even rdm gets some of those, plus phalanx.

/blm will give you warp, escape, and spike spells. All other spells from /blm will get resisted and be a waste of MP.

[Linra]

It's true, when I played Summoner I wanted it to be damage. But the fact is... Blood Pact is one a one minute cooldown and your Avatar spells can get resisted just like Black Mage's magic. Inbetween the 1 minute damage you do, there's nothing else except Avatar melee. The rest really comes from your sub-job, which is why, in my personal opinion (this is my OPINION) Summoner until higher levels is really determined by your subjob.

So if you sub BLM, then you're a underleveled Black Mage. If you sub White Mage, you're an underleveled White Mage, and if you sub Red Mage you're a underleveled Red Mage. The reasons people sub White Mage is because an underleveled white mage can still hold his or her own. Using under leveled spells isn't going to do much damage, even if it doesn't get resisted. But heals can't be resisted the worst that can happen is that you can't heal fast enough versus the damage being dealt to your tank.

In my eyes there's a lot of things that could make the summoner job more appealing and newbie friendly (IE: People who don't have a high level job to get all the Avatars from level 1, Carbuncle Mitts, etc) And hands down, unless you have the high job or high friends to get you the expensive items, Summoner at low level is hard to be a good damager.

Please remember a lot of this is what I saw leveling my summoner to 30 before getting sick of playing a job that just was a underpowered verison of my main.

[Neppy]

lol this whole on going battle of what is the best sub for SMN is really getting old, seriously. SMN/BLM is pointless, what are u gonna do mb? come on man get real! The mp of /blm isnt that much more, the only time i ever sub blm is to warp my ass back to al zhabi.... thats it! SMN/RDM....meh....can cure, can buff, but you put yourself at a disadvantage not having -ga. You can DD with /whm just fine, back up heal, and god forbid you have to main heal lmao duuuu itt! If some of you cry babies that dont want to main heal at all would do research, you will see that there is a way for SMN to solo 75% of the time 1-75, dou with a BST, SMN burn parties, solo or dou bombs/snolls, kill worms. Think outside the box of cookie cutter parties for once, SMN can solo, is it slower yes, are you main healing no.

[Aeni]

Don't know if this is true or not, but after 100s of leeches, I never got a ruby to drop ... before I activated this quest (And yes, I activated it at level 50 on RDM >.> ) But once I did, first kill dropped the ruby. Coincidental? Idk ...

You can solo the leeches in Dangruf Wadi very easily as a level 10sh or so btw. But the drop rate might be horrible (My ruby back in beta dropped from Wadi)

[Vonia]

Lol though the subjob argument seems interesting, I'll resist.

With the ruby, you can do it before 30. However, the ruby drop may take a very long time even with higher level help. There is rumor moon phase may effect drops, but as of now all I can say it that I don't know for sure.

I prefer the leech room in the Maze of S. Burburimu Peninsula and Qufim Island are the other common places people go for the ruby drop.