Summoner still shunned? <.<

[Atma]

Summoners are jack of all trades, being able to do a little bit of everything, but not be the best at anything. It's a conflict of the nature of the job vs the nature of the game. That being said, SMN is a very special job for me because I've been playing it on and off for nearly the whole time I've been playing the game -- it's currently 67 and I'm determined to get it to 75, eventually. The only endgame stuff I do is Nyzul and Limbus, so I'm not too worried about that, it'll probably be fun to use for other low man stuff too.

Bottom line? If you have fun, do it. You shouldn't always focus on the destination, the journey is important too.

[Hyan]

I had this one summoner in my party that was sitting on full mp all the time, tossing some cures here and there and not using avatars at all. What was worse is that me as dancer could have taken care of healing alone easily and the summoner could have used their avatars to buff and deal some damage, but he refused to. I love how versatile the job is, but it's sad that some people just take the curebot approach and get to 75 like that, when you could do so much more

[Julian]

Summoner was my first 75, it's pretty much fully geared with stuff/+1/etc, and I use it <1% of the time.

SMN is useless in low man stuff because it's a slow paced job, any other job will be more useful than a SMN.

To the person talking about low-man: Why do you have a tank in your lowman setup? lol.

Only thing I ever used smn for in the past year was temperance, and before that I used to use it on Tiamat until we realized that blm>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>smn on it. [never done Odin, so I guess that's another thing smn is decent at.. for now]

[Spekkio]

a shittily geared smn will get their ass handed to them by odin. the first time i went in, i didn't have a lot of my gear b/c i had to get ready quickly (i got home late) and he was just thumbing his nose at me. double digit predator claws at best. i may as well have been fighting with cardboard. our 2nd odin however, was a very different story. i had gotten my af2 body finally before it as well as oracle's legs, had everything on me at the time, and with a proper standing/-blp/attack macro sequence i was tearing him a new one with iirc up to 800 damage predator claws. considering how fickle hate can be on that fight, having colossal hateless damage makes smn an ideal choice for dd on odin. that said, there are few situations where an MP intensive job like smn can't be outdamaged by some other job where enmity and bad AoE tp moves aren't an issue.

[Ddboner]

I don't think it should be a question of whether the job is useful endgame so much as what kind of job do you want to lvl. You mentioned you have whm @ 75 so maybe your looking for a change. If you looking for another squishy job but have a little versatility sure smn will probably satisfy you, but if your bored of playing whm I would go with something different.

IMO outta the jobs you named I'd go blu. (just a personal opinion)

You can still heal and support/sleep whatever but when you have the urge to poke things you can. You have the high dmg physicals to give you that psuedo melee feeling. This can give you a very different feeling from whm while still allowing you alot of versatility and do some of the things whms and smns can do with diamondhide and magic fruit. Whereas if you chose say DRK for example you need to have a great gear set and melee merits etc that can make you excel if you want to go be accepted in assault and nyzul etc on DRK because your strictly there to kill stuff, if your sub par in anyway ppl are always gonna be like "just come whm..."

I guess this is all based on personal experience, my first job was BLM to 75 then I took SMN to 75 and it never satisfied me for a different play style. But yes the hateless dmg comes in really handy on some mobs, there is no denying that aspect.

[Kaelia]

To the person talking about low-man: Why do you have a tank in your lowman setup?

When I say tank I'm referring to a RDM. RDM/NIN RDM/NIN SMN/NIN for Temperance, same minus a RDM for Faith. I don't understand at all how you think "any other job" would be better for low-manning those mobs than SMN considering the relative safety of SMN. We've tried a number of different things and SMN is just the thing that worked the most smoothly and rather quickly to the point where we just about refuse to do Faith as a LS anymore. If "any other job" worked better for us (and, like I said, we have tried other set-ups, numbers, etc.) then SMN would not have been the DD we chose to stick with. I'm not trying to say SMN is fucking amazing by any means. As decked out as mine is, I nearly NEVER use SMN and I'll be the first to admit that there is a very good reason for that. It's EXCLUSIVELY used for Temperance and Faith.

In response to Korremar, the minimum you'll want is a talented RDM/NIN with W. Legs and a SMN who knows how to time his/her BPs. Basically the RDM just kites it around the square kiting room near the pop ??? and makes sure to run out of range of Breakga and other spells. As SMN I stand on one of the corners as the RDM makes his way around, and the very second Faith (without gravity on) turns the corner thats just opposite me, I hit my BP macro. By the time it reaches me, it goes off. If I activate it any later than that, Faith moves past far too quickly and gets out of range. (If your SMN can't get a hang of the timing and work it consistently, you'll just be wasting your time and you're better off trying something else.) The avatar takes hate and I generally let it do so until it dies so that the RDM has time to take care of himself if he has to. You can add more SMNs if you like, but it's not a very long fight even with just one (maybe 30-40 minutes max with a single SMN, allowing for a couple "oops"es). Gravity is used fairly conservatively, as the fact that my avatar takes hate is often enough to give the RDM some distance. You could do it with BLMs as well, but preferably not unless you have more than one, as hate will get pretty spotty, and you'll want to keep gravity on at all times and try to nuke it to death before it starts getting resisted.

[frodnonnag]

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.

in theory? bah. personal experience is that smn is usually better than rdm in merit parties, unless the party is full of drk or blu. the only catch is that the smn needs +30 skill to cap hastega, which can be done with AH gear. the only theory is if a summoner with capped skill and -bp timer can keep up hastega and crimson howl, which would be well worth it.

its a very worthy tradeoff.
sleep cure4

vs

hastega, ecliptic howl, earthen ward, LARGE spike damage.
i can easily hit for 1k+ with predator claws, and depending on how well the melees blink tank is how often i can throw it out.

[Sonomaa]

Summoner is for Odin only.

if they dont have ranger

[Tsukasaz]

If you need to use Predator Claws on Colibri, your melees suck.

[Melios]

My Summoner is pretty strong and is used very often. With the new MP Restore job ability and /SCH sub, mp is easy to come by. I am still waiting on Caith Sith. Where is my Caith Sith avatar SE!!! HUH????

I want my Alexander, yo.

[frodnonnag]

If you need to use Predator Claws on Colibri, your melees suck.

if you don't use predator claws on colibri, you aren't utilizing your job, go play whm.

[Ahlah]

in theory? bah. personal experience is that smn is usually better than rdm in merit parties, unless the party is full of drk or blu. the only catch is that the smn needs +30 skill to cap hastega, which can be done with AH gear. the only theory is if a summoner with capped skill and -bp timer can keep up hastega and crimson howl, which would be well worth it.

its a very worthy tradeoff.
sleep cure4

vs

hastega, ecliptic howl, earthen ward, LARGE spike damage.
i can easily hit for 1k+ with predator claws, and depending on how well the melees blink tank is how often i can throw it out.

I have both jobs and I don't really know how SMN can outperform RDM in merit party. And I honestly don't know how to keep hastega/ecliptic howl/earthen ward on melee all the time.

You also forgot to mention, 5mp/tic > 2mp/tic and Dia II or Dia III, did I mention convert too?

[frodnonnag]

I have both jobs and I don't really know how SMN can outperform RDM in merit party. And I honestly don't know how to keep hastega/ecliptic howl/earthen ward on melee all the time.

You also forgot to mention, 5mp/tic > 2mp/tic and Dia II or Dia III, did I mention convert too?

hastega requires +30 skill to last 3 minutes. ecliptic howl requires no +skill to last 3 minutes, and earthen ward lasts 15 minutes. i can easily keep up two 3 minute buffs with a universal 46 second recast while cycling in earthen ward when i have extra MP.

self refresh has no meaning if you can keep up your MP pool irregardless.

convert is on a 10 minute timer and depends on your HP total. for me, with my +skill build, i get back at minimum 321 MP per elemental siphon every 5 minutes. is 642 MP every 10 minutes comparable to convert? or forget comparing it to convert total, can i keep up my buffcycle and keep everyone alive on it? i have.

as for dia2, i have it as well, you forget that it is never resisted, even when subbed.

[Tsukasaz]

if you don't use predator claws on colibri, you aren't utilizing your job, go play whm.

Sorry, I have RDM, so I don't ever merit on SMN unless I'm solo, which is the only way it's fun anyway.

[frodnonnag]

Sorry, I have RDM, so I don't ever merit on SMN unless I'm solo, which is the only way it's fun anyway.

and what does you being on rdm have to do with using predator claws in merit parties on smn?

fun, like shit, is situational. i prefer a well built colibri camp party on my smn, to me it beats out carby kiting bombs or soloing imps, usually better exp per hour too.

[Tachi]

As Frodnonnag said, it's not hard at all to maintain a cycle of 3 Wards (1 of 15 min and 2 of 3 min) / heal / Predator Claw sometimes. On a personnal note I prefer Rolling Thunder a lot more than Ecliptic Howl if the acc is ok. Enthunderga can be literally translated "up melees dmg by 10~20%" especially in a heavy 1Hand melee party. Of course you need to have 60 smn skill at least for the 3 min duration and I know that SCH's en- are better, without Haste.

About the endgame part... I play the same role describe above at Limbus and Dynamis. Rolling Thunder is absolutly AWESOME there except at Xarc.
For HNMs even if it's hard to believe, our dmg are very respectables if I trust my Parser... Have a Merit BP 5/5 certainly help. (lol I know what people will say...)

For the solo part, it's fine, I can solo chain#4 Imps easily if Caedarva is empty for 6.5k~ / hour.

The fact is most smn think that their job suck and a good part really suck with Elemental Siphon for 220 mp, non-capped smn skill, dark staff only for HMP set (have the capacity to BP every 46 sec is nothing without a good HMP / ES gear) or simple fear to call an Avatar and not be able to heal which is ridiculous, EW + Cure III / Curaga II are generaly more than enough in most situations.

[Tsukasaz]

and what does you being on rdm have to do with using predator claws in merit parties on smn?

fun, like shit, is situational. i prefer a well built colibri camp party on my smn, to me it beats out carby kiting bombs or soloing imps, usually better exp per hour too.

I'm saying I have RDM so I don't merit on colibri at SMN. I don't know why anyone would want to play SMN there unless it was their only job anyway. Melees tear through Colibris with 2x BRD or a BRD and a COR already anyway.

[Ahlah]

hastega requires +30 skill to last 3 minutes. ecliptic howl requires no +skill to last 3 minutes, and earthen ward lasts 15 minutes. i can easily keep up two 3 minute buffs with a universal 46 second recast while cycling in earthen ward when i have extra MP.

self refresh has no meaning if you can keep up your MP pool irregardless.

convert is on a 10 minute timer and depends on your HP total. for me, with my +skill build, i get back at minimum 321 MP per elemental siphon every 5 minutes. is 642 MP every 10 minutes comparable to convert? or forget comparing it to convert total, can i keep up my buffcycle and keep everyone alive on it? i have.

as for dia2, i have it as well, you forget that it is never resisted, even when subbed.

This doesn't really sound right to me, whether you like it or not, melee are going to eat Pecking Flurry, you are saying that SMN has enough mp to pull off all 3 buffs, cure melee and still have extra mp to do Predator Claw?
Convert is not 10min recast if you have full merit (which all RDM should have anyway). Most races can easily get 900 mp back from convert. I was referring to Dia2 vs Dia3 btw, though not all RDM have it merited.

Another annoying part about SMN is the casting animation takes forever and try to land buffs on all melee. Getting in range means you are likely to get hit by melee songs too.

Haven't done any merit party since SE added Elemental Siphon, may be I should give it a try

[Ashokan]

My opinion is that Summoner can out perform Red Mage at a bird camp, assuming it's a Summoner that is going to use Blood Pact Wards. And it's only because Summoner has more capability to increase offensive output while still curing. Personally, I put three Wards up with little trouble, but I think simple saying Stoneskin is a 15 minute buff is a misrepresentation, because it usually comes down somewhat quickly.

I don't really use Predator Claws in Colibri parties much, eventhough it does a ton of damage. The way I see it, unless the chain is close to breaking or something, it's not worth 164 mp to do something that will be done within a few seconds by the melee.

[Ahlah]

Hastega is definitely the best BP for merit party. I am not so sure about Ecliptic Howl, it's affected by moonphase and most 2h DD don't really need the extra accuracy. BRD + proper SJ make it easy to hit 90%+ acc and the extra acc may not grant significant return. Stoneskinga is overrated in merit party (just personal opinion).

Most well geared melees already kill so fast it takes longer for greater colibri to respawn. I find it harder to keep melee in white hp esp when they sub SAM in merit party. Can't say I am convinced SMN will do a greater job than RDM.

Gonna see if I can get a merit party invite on SMN.