Tips and helpful info for a new Summoner?

[Tyrisian]

Hi! this is my first time posting and I thought i'd try it out to see what i could learn. My main is a lv 43 Paladin but my new favorite has been my lv 40 Whm. Teleporting and raising is very helpful to the other players and i love being useful. PL'ing friends can be fun if tedious as well.

Anyway... i've been subbing blm when a trusted friend suggested i swith to a Smn sub. I already have every job and enjoy the avatars when smn in my pty's so i figured, why not?


Now Im looking into all kinds of info and learning another new job to try to be the best i can and be a reliable pty member. Any suggestions, comments, questions you yourself may have i'd love to hear them, and if another Smn wants to gain their avatars together that'd be great! I know the are solo battles at lv 20 but getting there and sharing strategies sounds worthwhile to me.


Thanks!

 

[Sethala]

First off, unlike what most people percieve a Summoner to be, they are -not- massive damage dealers (at least, not until level 70 or so, when they get the powerful damaging blood pact abilities). They fill a lot more of a support role, depending on the situation. Most of their blood pact (BP) abilities (at least the ones gained near the middle of the game) give some sort of beneficial effect to all party members. So usually, an avatar is summoned, uses a BP, and is then dismissed. Since all BPs use the same one minute cooldown timer, most SMNs only use magic granted by their subjob between BPs - usually healing magic. Yes, this means that SMNs are going to be main healers in most parties.

However, this actually gives SMNs a lot of variety. Usually you'll be main healer. Every minute, you can pull something out of your bag of tricks and do something useful to the party other than spamming Cures.

So, what can a SMN do? Well, they can give defensive buffs like Blink or Stoneskin to the whole party. They can give them offensive buffs, like Enthunder or Haste. They can act as a skillchain opener or closer - most "physical" BPs work as weaponskills for doing skillchains. In fact, a SMN with all avatars is able to open or close -any- skillchain at level 5 (assuming, of course, that they have a partner to open/close the skillchain for them). If a SMN is lacking Fenrir, they can open or close most skillchains at level 5, and can open or close all skillchains at level 30. SMNs can also be a damage dealer, although not as effective as a BLM or RNG, by summoning an avatar and having it melee (and melee with it), using offensive BPs whenever available (note: avatars gain TP just like players, and when they use an offensive BP, they lose all TP but the BP is more effective if they have a lot of TP). This isn't recommended, however, due to the high MP cost of having an avatar out and the somewhat low damage output, plus it means the SMN won't be able to use MP for much of anything else.

There's a lot more ideas for what a SMN -should- be in the thread about SMNs on this forum.

 

[Pascal]

http://www.summoner.info/

 

[Firestreak]

I agree with Sethala's summation in terms of what to expect as SMN. Seeing as you don't have any avatars, expect to do not much but cure cure cure until level 20. Try not to waste MPs on carbuncle until you know you've got extra MPs.