Summoner - is it worth it?

[Moriquendis]

I'm new to game, level 19 Red Mage Mithra, sub lvl 9 warrior. I'm thinking about becoming a summoner when I hit level 30. I just need to know what it's really like as a summoner. Is it really a great job? What subjob is best for a summoner?

[Truece]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

I'm pretty sure /WHM is the primary sub for SMN until at least level 70. After that, /SCH gets useful. This doesn't include special situations or soloing, though.

[fenien]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

It's a neat job, but there's a ton of work involved with getting the different summons. I picked it up and decided to imediately put it down once I started reading up on it. It's certainly possible to get them, I just didn't have the patience to raise every places fame up to 2 to do the mini-avatar battles at level 20 (or is it 25?), especially Norg fame... but I'll have to farm those Yagudo necklaces sooner or later. If you're planning on making it one of your main jobs, then go for it, it requires a lot of dedication. The reason I put it down was because I didn't plan on using it as one of my main jobs, and because of that I decided that it wasn't worth the time just to look cool busting out summons.

[Moriquendis]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

It's a neat job, but there's a ton of work involved with getting the different summons. I picked it up and decided to imediately put it down once I started reading up on it. It's certainly possible to get them, I just didn't have the patience to raise every places fame up to 2 to do the mini-avatar battles at level 20 (or is it 25?), especially Norg fame... but I'll have to farm those Yagudo necklaces sooner or later. If you're planning on making it one of your main jobs, then go for it, it requires a lot of dedication. The reason I put it down was because I didn't plan on using it as one of my main jobs, and because of that I decided that it wasn't worth the time just to look cool busting out summons.

That's a good point. That's the main reason I wanted to do it, cool looking summons. But anyway, I may stick with my gool ole red mage

[Malacite]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

At 80+ /RDM is *amazing* for convert.

SMN is kind of a mixed bag. It's got a lot of cool stuff, but over all just was not implemented very well. That said, it's still fun to play and fairly useful at end game. Just don't be expecting anything on the level of summoners in the offline games or you'll be disappointed.

You're going to want WHM, RDM and SCH leveled up as sub jobs to about 49, and you may as well get BLM up to 15+ too just for the sake of having warp lol.

Other than that, read the stickies/wiki for specific tips on how to play the job. I would also strongly recommend getting your WHM or BLM up ASAP and sub that instead on your RDM.

[Elwynn]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

There's no reason it has to be your first high-level job. I got most of my avatars from going along with others in the linkshell doing avatar fights before I even got a single XP on it. I'm still missing Thunder Spirit, but I'd rather try to do the BCNM (the SMNs in the linkshell have expressed some interest) than simply plonk down the gil.

But then I'm not really interested in doing SMN right now. I'm at the point now where I want to play around with PUP, and I just finished getting all the parts a couple of weeks ago.

[Moriquendis]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

At 80+ /RDM is *amazing* for convert.

SMN is kind of a mixed bag. It's got a lot of cool stuff, but over all just was not implemented very well. That said, it's still fun to play and fairly useful at end game. Just don't be expecting anything on the level of summoners in the offline games or you'll be disappointed.

You're going to want WHM, RDM and SCH leveled up as sub jobs to about 49, and you may as well get BLM up to 15+ too just for the sake of having warp lol.

Other than that, read the stickies/wiki for specific tips on how to play the job. I would also strongly recommend getting your WHM or BLM up ASAP and sub that instead on your RDM.

Thank you! That does make a lot of sense. And ironically, I have been told by an awful lot of people to get rid of my WAR subjob. I already switched to sub black mage and love it, lol.

and the more I hear, the more I love RDM. Yeah, I think I may take RDM all the way

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: Summoner - is it worth it?

I love SMN.

SMN is a super fun job. It practically let's you do just about everything the game can offer as far as fighting is concerned. With all the new recent developments, SMN has really allowed itself a better spot in XP, which is great news because it was not always like this before.

Though it's a jack of all trades, it does have mastery in a few aspects of game play. The ones that I know of are...

Mastery in:

Ability to solo at high levels
Ability to buff and provide a support curing role at the same time throughout play (somewhat a bit like having a BRD+WHM in one)

Here's what else a SMN does well:

Ability to provide big spike damage, but mostly after LV70. (Pretty much a little lesser than a BLM, mostly on par with a SCH.)
High damage 2 hour - this is pretty similar to a BLM's Ancient Magic, maybe a little less potent. If you've ever played Final Fantasy, the SMN 2 hour lets you do some of that big damage you see SMN/Espers do in regular FF games. Odin even lets you instant-kill some mobs. (I've not seen proof of how good Alexander is yet though.. someone else could elaborate.)

Primarily, SMN is a buffing job with some spike DD thrown in and some area curing. It's a bit on the Bard-ish side but throw in a little BLM + WHM; so if you like to buff people, do some big damage every now and then, and help heal people, you'll enjoy this job. However, the good thing about all that is your SMN gets to do some big spike damage when it wants to at end-game.

SMN is highly prized on a few end-game fights. One I can think of is the Jailer of Hope that drops the Hand2Hand torque (correct me if wrong.) When we go, we usually use a party of 6 smns to kill it and its a piece o cake. Do that on another jailer as well. SMN used to be prized for helping PLD's blink tank, but that time passed when people started going the PLD/NIN route. I peronally still think SMN is useful for a tanking party, but I digress..

What SMN does not do well:

Main healing
Main Damage-dealing

.... that is, without sacrificing the other aspects of the job that really make SMN what it is. Unless you're pressed for a party invite, do not main heal with a SMN. And don't go into a party and throw damage blood pact's without using your buffs and area heal.

I've played one of my friends SMN to LV 80 and actually 2 boxed using a WHM to help with the curing role. Though this is meta-gaming, I think SMN is a freaking blast. It all depends on what you really find fun and useful though. (Now I need to LV SMN on my Galka.)

If you're looking for big damage -all the time-, you're not going to find it in SMN. And if you're looking for -super buffs- similar to what a Bard gives, you don't want to play SMN.

It's really just a combination of several jobs in one; it's versatile; while not suffering from too much of it.

Now that we can sub RDM and get Convert and pretty soon, Refresh... it's really quite entertaining.