Summoner still shunned? <.<

[Korremar]

Aside from other things I think I'd like to see a sort of SMN Ancient Magic, along the lines of past FF's summons. That is to say, a long-casting time, high-MP, high-damage summon-and-dismiss thing. Not the best thing they could give them, but it could have its uses.

[Lordwafik]

They've been saying they'll add new avatars sinec the end of CoP/Beginning of ToaU. We'll see these avatars in the next expansion or right at the end of this one.

[Cesaria]

Summoner is fantastic when someone has that leveled and is not very good at any other jobs. It's relatively safe and hard to mess up, it's like the Duplo toys of jobs.

Having a diaga spamming light spirit sat out chilling for a lot of dynamis is pretty high on the messing up front

[Kaelia]

SMN is absolutely amazing for low-man on things such as Jailer of Temperance (SMN's multiple damage types [if only SE would give us an avatar with a level 70 piercing pact... :\], hateless damage)/Jailer of Faith (LOADS safer with a RDM or two and a skilled SMN, much more convenient than an alliance). Unfortunately those are the only things besides Kirin that I get to use my SMN for anymore.

[Thorny]

We used to SMN-burn some of the Apollyon zones, party was RDM BRD SMN SMN SMN NIN, with THF and BLU in a second party I think. Something like that. Very fun and we won each time we tried it.

So you brought a setup that'd win an apollyon zone, added 3 SMNs, and called it smn burning? SMN isn't ideal for anything, but they aren't terrible either.. good for lowman ZNM or kited kirin(lol). If your shell has a steady number of members and is 'doin it rite' then there'll always be a better job to fill a spot than SMN though.

[Kaelia]

SMN isn't ideal for anything

I beg to differ. For low-man things like I mentioned, such as doing Temperance/Faith with 2 or 3 people, it's ideal to not have the damage dealer taking hate away from the appropriate tanks. In my opinion doing a 2-3 person Faith with anything other than a SMN as DD would be miserable. Why would you "ideally" want a DD that will take hate away from the kiter/tank when you can have one that doesn't? SMN also provides a little bit of a free decoy to give the kiter time to take care of other things while Faith is beating on the avatar, etc. If Faith casts on the avatar and the avatar is nearby it's as simple as releasing it, or just letting the avatar die. If another DD took hate and they were casted on, it would cause trouble. To me at least, SMN is ideal in that case, though I suppose "ideal" might differ from person to person. There are very very few things in this game that SMN is perfect for, but I wouldn't say there isn't anything at all.

[Thorny]

Temperance can be trioed straight tanking/meleeing with NIN BRD WHM, NIN doesn't have blunt damage while SMN doesn't have piercing.. but NIN will do significantly more over time for the forms they can DD during. For Faith, obviously just add a BLM that knows how to kite >_> Aside from that, I did give the conditional 'if your ls doesn't have low numbers'.. ideal would be having more people to send to temperance or faith.

[Kaelia]

Temperance can be trioed straight tanking/meleeing with NIN BRD WHM, NIN doesn't have blunt damage while SMN doesn't have piercing.. but NIN will do significantly more over time for the forms they can DD during. For Faith, obviously just add a BLM that knows how to kite >_>

I fail to see how a BLM would do more damage over time than a SMN, considering the SMN never has to kite, and can replace all that wasted kiting time resting MP which a BLM will have to do as well as everything else along with a greater capacity for error. I've "kited" Faith as a BLM, I've done it with a full alliance, and I've done it as SMN. I prefer SMN, easily. (Though BLM is still far more appealing to me than a full alliance.) But to each his own. I'm the kind of person who prefers safety in a low-man situation over speed or anything else (to a reasonable degree -- I wouldn't want something to take twice as long as it should or more). If you're not that kind of person, then maybe it isn't ideal to you, as I said earlier, and that's fine. Ideal is kind of an unfortunate term to use concerning FFXI anyhow, since things don't exist in a vacuum. There are always extenuating circumstances and various little nuances that will make certain jobs ideal for certain groups of people and not for others. I get what you're saying though and to some extent I agree: SMN is severely lacking. To be honest, aside from the examples I gave, the only other thing I think SMN is perfect for is Cactrot Rapido, and that's pretty sad.

[Mabon]

Summoner is for Odin only.

[Khajit]

In theory a smn could mainheal/haste in a merit colibri thanks to the tiny buffs that SE has been adding like the elemental siphon thing so that they no longer have mp troubles but idk how that actually pans out in practice and it is simply easier to just invite a whm or rdm.
They're kinda useful vs that bastard imp in silver sea that runs away all the time as well. basically have carby engage it and when it runs away he autotracks it within seconds and you carbypull it back to your group without any effort at all.

[Keria]

the only relevant thing I can add here is that SMN doesn't get exp parties unless you are willing to sync to 34 and solo heal.

[Saxon]

What about Astral Burn partys? :3

[Keria]

if you mean the 2hr and round up a bunch of mobs gimmick, then screw finding a smn of the right level.

if you mean a SMN party a) idk how that works r.e. exp camps, levels, mobs to kill pre-75, and b) most people who i've seen play the job in exp are pretty dumb. see also leaving avatars out to melee after doing BPs until they run out of MP, and using crimson howl instead of hastega or something. i'm not sure if i could face having 5 other smns in my exp party. i suppose now you could level sync with 75s who will probably know how to play, but i feel like a dick asking 75s to join a lower level party.

[Miraun]

SMN was my first main job. I currently have ALMOST all the high end items that you want when you see a 75 SMN... relic +1 hands, Bahamut's Staff, Oracle's Braconi. I'm still missing a few items. But here are my general observations regarding the job.

#1) PUP has pushed SMN to the back line in terms of pet jobs. Automatons can dish out more damage than a SMN in many instances with the same niche of being hate free. My PUP does much better on Ultima than my SMN. SMN still wins on Odin though.

#2) With the ever increasing melee gear, SMN's gear is fairly lackluster by comparison. Ares Cuirass versus Marduk legs? SMN Magic +5 is a fairly deminimus comparison to the ATT and STR boosts of Ares. The last AMAZING, can't live without piece of gear SMN got was Yinyang robe. Kagura Hachigane is the best recent piece... but that's situational.

#3) Our Group 2 merits SUCK. There are some advocates of them, but I find the only time they will outdamage a physical BP or Nether Blast is when they're magic bursted... at 5 merits into it.

#4) /SCH was made for SMNs. it's good for WHMs, it's absolutely GODLY for SMNs. Highest Base INT, can do a full gearswap for Aspir/Drain... We spend so much time casting avatars, we really don't sit down at all. Can do our own stoneskin to mitigate the HP loss of Sublimination. Overall, a godly subjob.

#5) SMN melee ability is under rated. PUPs have a lower H2H cap than SMN's Staff. SMN/SAM is fun for merit parties when your RDM sucks at healing, or you just want a second buffing job. WARNING: YOU CAN'T DO THIS WITH SUBPAR GEAR. I DON'T WANT TO SEE A BUNCH OF AF WEARING 75 SMNS TRYING TO MELEE. (Use Fenrir's howl, and have the BRD do 2x Minuet rather than 1x Minuet, 1x madrigal).

#6) +avatar ability gear does not have a strong enough correlation to final damage/accuracy output. Recent testing by Ddayj on the effects of +avatar ACC and ATT shows less than a 5% increase in damage output when stacking all +avatar ATT gear available to a SMN. No notable change in ACC. A paralelling would be WS gear versus BP gear. Melees can GREATLY increase their stats for WS output... We can barely begin to alter the damage output for our BPs.

#7) Elemental spirts suck. If you think differently, you're wrong. They suck.

[Saxon]

if you mean the 2hr and round up a bunch of mobs gimmick, then screw finding a smn of the right level.

I meant this.
I know its not that practical, was just throwing the idea out there, because sometimes you get lucky.

[Faithe]

Magus Sisters would be fun, but I don't think they'd bother with the programming to allow us to control 3 AIs at once.

I don't think it is too far fetched considering it is already programmed in the codes. For example, some of the freelance NPC in campaign all have three pets.

[Darkmoon]

When we do Sea, if we are doing Temp, we usualy have a few people on SMN, its Great Damage + it can do all 3 Damage types. I know posted above some said there is no piercing, but there is:

Fenrir's Crescent Fang is Pierce.

We also abuse SMN when we play with Jorm, I know LolJorm, but some times you just want to go beat up the icy wyrm. We usualy hit 2 SMN pts with a COR or 2 in each, and let them go nuts 100% of the time, ground or air. Jorm never TPs and you smear him very very fast.

SMN also is really nice for a lot of the ZNM fights. There are a lot of things you can do with SMN in those.

I do agree though, SMN isn't a job that can be used in every situation like RDM or BRD. But when there are uses for it, its rather nice.

[Korremar]

I know it's not exactly the topic for it, but can one of you explain the JoFaith lowman with a SMN? I picked up a couple of Faith pops cheaply but I really don't know anything about it.

[Tsukasaz]

I don't think it is too far fetched considering it is already programmed in the codes. For example, some of the freelance NPC in campaign all have three pets.

But wouldn't it be much easier for them to have an AI control 3 AIs than creating a system where a PC controls 3 different AIs at the same time? I don't know too much about that stuff but it just doesn't seem like something they'd do.

[Reapz]

I love my SMN but like someone said earlier, if you have BLM and WHM levelled then it is rarely going to get usage. I am just waiting for the day a new avatar/avatars are implemented to make the job useful enough over other jobs, could be waiting a while given how long SE have been saying there will be new avatars but still, I KEEP HOPE