Avatar collection advice

[Kardor]

Fame Relations are as Follows (correct me if iam wrong its been some time^^)

Windurst Fame adds to:
+ Mhaura
+ Kahzam
Avatars: Fenrir,Ifrit,Ramuh, Diabolos

Bastok Fame adds to:
+ none?
Avatars: Titan

San d Oria Fame adds to:
+ Rabao
allows Avatars: Shiva, Garuda

For Leviathan u need Norg Fame which is basically done by doin repeatable Quests over and over again. zinc Ores in Bastok or Yagudo Necklaces in Windurst.
If u farm this stuff u get minimal money from this quests.
Unfortunately a Fame rank of 6 is a must if u ever want to have fenrir.

Like the others said get ure whm to 37 - quest the teleportscrolls (fairly easy) - and then continue with Smn.
If Gil gets low u still can teletaxi ppl around if u sub Blm and use warp (warp is quested)
Also check the possible Quests in your home nation on the net. Some give pretty nice rewards and your fame gets up too.

Since u have 75 Friends it should be no problem for you to get the Avatars, just work on your fame and either do the MiniBattles or skip them to be able to Teleport to the Closisters directly (you will loose this ability once u finish the 20 cap fights).
But i heavily recommend doin the mini battles, they teach you fairly much and help u to keep cool in critical situations.

If your friends are hesistant to help remind them that there is either 10k in Gil for each fight and some decent to very nice weapons like Ifrits Blade and Garudas Dagger.

Regarding my Sig - Ty that u like it - i hated mainhealing a Party as Smn, though its almost unavoidable, and i hate it when iam in a pt which forces a smn to do this , but its a neverending story^^

I wish you the best luck and fun with ure Smn and dont give up to early, Smn gets rewarding later if u stick with it.

[Nuriko]

The Bastok quest for Norg fame is zinc ores, not tin. I'd suggest taking WHM to 38 instead of 37, just for the sake of Teleport-Altep and Teleport-Yhoat - it rounds things out if you're looking to make gil as a teletaxi, and Altep isn't a difficult quest. Also, if you'd like to leech off of people for the summons, you can easily get to the protocrystals by taking the mini-quest tuning forks - you don't HAVE to go on and do the mini-trial, you could do the full size one...

[The Mauva Syndicate]

Yeah - what others here have said. SMN not only requires a buttload of gil to level effectively it almost REQUIRES a high level job (or really good friends with high level jobs).

[Susurrus]

You're a mean one Sursurrus.

(Don't ask me why, but the way this post was formatted made me think of that.)

Sometimes the truth hurts. ;;

Why else do you think you're the only one that is a YLM?

[Kardor]

Well, the fact that smn requires horrid amounts of Gil is only half the truth.
Most of the equipment is either questable or not too expensive.

The Capped fights can be horridly expensive if you simply get killed all the time.

But Smn "can" go with AF a LONG Time, also you can quest stuff like powerful rope as addition.
To get the Austere Set completely might cost a bit and to get spirit pact scrolls is not easys either (if u lack the gil) but still SMN is one of the Jobs where the costs are relatively low.

And you dont need a Vermy, Serket Ring or Astral Earring to play smn to its full potential theese things you want to get but you dont need em rite away since they also have some decent low prized alternatives.

Food wise smn does not need much money either, Rolan Pies, Marron Glace, Cookies or Chocomilk arent expensive and will serve you well.

And i got my Smn to 75 without a supporting LS or many 75 friends and it was my first 75 Job^^ so its doable you just need patience

[Telera]

Yeah, summoner doesn't cost much gil wise. The most expensive pieces of gear I ever had to pony up for was an Austere Body, and it doesn't cost half of what it did when I bought it. Getting the full Elemental Stave set was a bit pricy, but not too bad. And the spirits are nigh on pointless save for Elemental Siphon at 50. Their perp cost is awful unless you want to burn merits on it. Only good to save your ass because you can summon them fast if you get aggro.

Astrals, Serket, Vermy, those are nice to have but not necessary by a long shot. My Vermy was.... well, more or less stolen, and I refuse to replace it. I'm one level off YY robe and that has the Refresh without burning my Head slot.

I took SMN to 75 (am still in the process. 70 ftw) as my first job. I didn't have many 75 friends, but the few I did helped me out. I tried my hand at the mini-fights but even with the strategies and sinking money on the ethers, gear, and foods, I kept losing. Knowing now what I've learned in the interim, I could probably do them, but I don't, as the mini-forks are useful for getting to the cloister easily when friends need avatars.

As for people expecting them all: Shiva, Ifrit, et al, yes. They have useful skills for your party. I was never asked for a Fenrir buff until 60, and wasn't asked for Diabolos until 69. No one even asked if I had them until that point. I made it a point to have Fen by 60, but Diabolos I still don't have. I'm in a LS that's working on early CoP and intend to get there eventually, but other than Nightmare for the Maat fight and Phalax-ga, I don't really like him much anyway.

As Kardor said, it's doable, but it requires patience and the willingness to realize you may be waiting a while on getting the Avatars if you can't manage to pull off the minis. In time you'll get better and can go back and do them for giggles if you want. I never did.

Perhaps if Dancer and Scholar had existed back when I started, I would have taken another job to 60+ first before Summoner, but back then the only other job I loved was Dragoon and I hated Warrior too much to bother. So I can see where you're coming from.

[Vatic]

Hi ya..

I have quit this game about twice now, and each time didnt get a char over 50. I leveled other jobs like mnk, whm and blm.

Third time I came back was for SMN. I lot of my friends from the previous accounts had left, so I have pritty much no high level support. For my SMN I picked Taru as my race, what can I say.. im an MP whore.

SMN is now my first job to 75, and now about 7 merits in.

I would agree, SMN is not a pricey job until you hit about lvl 51, because you will want the elemental staffs, I am now working on updateing them to HQ versions, of which I have 3. The other costly items was Serkit Ring and Vermy cloak, but I sold the vermy in favor of 2 HQ staffs.

For equips I found it very simple.. Seerer's Gear -> Austere Gear -> AF gear. At 75, I constantly still ware 2 of my austere gear (hand and body), and the rest is AF.

But, I would recomend having a crack at doing the mini-fork quests... The simple reason is, you learn how to use your Carby. Once I beat my first mini-fork, you understand how to use your avatars to take down some silly stuff with a weak Carby. You just need space.

Because of the confidence I gained in those fights. I did end up soloing with carby from about level 20 through to level 34 ish, soloing about 200xp a kill, and sometimes chaining.

Once you get to the 34 mark, it does take some time to level, so I started to party up. Now, this is the main thing that bummed me out, but this was before level sync, so it might be better now, and all what I am about to say is based on my Server. But From level 34 - 69, I was only ever invited in to a party for DD once. The rest of the time it was main healing perhaps with support once I got the Blood-packs.

So bare that in mind, the other problem is, before someone will invite a SMN as healer, normally I found that no RDM, WHM or SCH was seaking. So I could find invite rate slow. The other thing parties think too, is a SMN has hugh ammounts of MP, so they think you can make a good main healer, when you are main healing, think of your self as the level of your subjob, this is because all your healing magic will be at half cap of your level.

I gained Fenrir at about level 60, and I was never kicked out of a party for not having it, most parties never asked. I dont have Diabalos yet, but I have now passed the point in the CoP missions now to be able to enter the Prime.. just lost 4 times so far.. lol

I know a lot of what I have put kinda sounds a be negative, but it all becomes alright the first time you fire of Predators Claws, and you do somewhere about the 1.6k damage mark. Puts a nice grin on your face.

The key I found with the job is always try and take a bit of time out to have fun with it. I was constantly supriseing my LS by doing things with the job that either they did not know that I could do or doing things at a level that I shouldn't be able to do.

It is possible to have SMN as your first level 75, I have done it, and so have others. But at the same time, it can get frustrating, like if you had another 75 job, you can farm the gil you need for equips on your SMN or do endgame events for equips for your SMN.

I am sorry if I did ramble on for a bit, but I thought I would give you my point of view.