Being a summoner

[Vaprice]

heya guys. I was wondering once I become a summoner with my black mage, whens a great time to get carbuncle? Does it automatically come with him once you get sub-job or do you have to fight him like all the other summons?

[Citizen Bleys]

You get carby as part of your subjob quest.

[Vaprice]

oh okay thanks. That really explains a lot.

[Lionx]

Sub WHM, for the love of god do so. Else your pretty messed up.

Try doing the low lvl avatar fights if you want, but Fenrir will never be yours if you dont have a lvl 70ish job to fight him. Fenrir is a luxery show off avatar, so unless you get a job that high, no Fenrir for j00!.

Also your going to be healing most of the time at low lvls when you have limited abilities with avatars, later on you are teh buffer. Then at lvl 70, big time dmger.

[Kegsay]

What Lion says is true, but I personally disagree. Low-levels, a smn ISN'T a healer, at the moment they are, but soon, they won't be. This is because the Expansion CoP increases the attack and accuracy of "low-level blood pacts". fine, at 20-40 they are buffs with Blinkga and the like and 40+ they just rule.

[Lionx]

I am unsure on the subject on how huge the avatar accuracy increase will be on current avatars at low lvls. Because there is no definite gap i can say on the accuracy bonus comming on the expansion, i am going with what i said earlier that is true at the present time. ^^;

[Garland]

Subbing white mage is the expected thing to do, but only because in Valkurm, parties want anything with mp to be a healer. Don't fool yourself into thinking you'll actually be able to "summon" anything in a pt 'til the 20's at the earliest. Even then, you'll never see your precious avatar for more than 20 seconds. Call, cast, dismiss - such is the mantra of the summoner. I'm soloing my recently acquired Summoner untill he gets to the point where pt's will let me summon. It took me 13 hours to get a ruby in Buburimu. I died and deleveled my whm upon finally surviving Ragneumont Pass to get Ice in Beaucedine. With all of that effort, I'm not allowing some reject that won't spend the extra time to get a real healer to tell me to ignore my main job and only use my sub. In fact, if it wouldn't completely hinder my pt invites, I'd sub something that can't heal, so that I'd be sure to be invited as my main job. Summoner is the only job that's invited solely for its sub as often as it's invited for both. Summoners are never invited solely to summon. Can you imagine if this were so with any other class?

PT: "Ok Mr. Dragoon/warrior, put your Wvern away and equip a great axe - we need a warrior."

Sucker: "But I'd be gimped pretending to be my subjob. I'm a Dragoon, not a warrior."

PT: "Just suck it up like the robe wearing, staff weilding main healer, the Paladin, and do ur job."

Sucker: "But Paladins are tanks?"

PT: "You noob, Paladins can't tank till level 20, because we don't have enough healers."

[Lord Chainsaw]

I'm not allowing some reject that won't spend the extra time to get a real healer to tell me to ignore my main job and only use my sub. In fact, if it wouldn't completely hinder my pt invites, I'd sub something that can't heal, so that I'd be sure to be invited as my main job. Summoner is the only job that's invited solely for its sub as often as it's invited for both. Summoners are never invited solely to summon.

I feel the exact same way. That is one of the main reasons why I will not be going Black Mage/White Mage. I'm leveling a red mage sub first and foremost for Phalanx and Fast Cast. I am also doing it because I am not a backup healer, I am an emergency healer. My job during the normal grind will be to nuke, not to throw out heals (it's quite simple, I would have been a white mage if I wanted to do that). I will however heal when there is an emergency and someone is about to die and the white mage has the aggro for some reason. So I may not get as many parties as the Black Mage/White Mage. But if those parties want me to play second healer, I'm glad I'm not getting them.

[Lionx]

Problem is SMN hasnt found a nitch yet, its a buffer, with a 1 minute timer...on all blood pacts, which in turn what would you do then? For 1 min you do nothing? Thats why its stupid not to sub WHM, you are just going to create more downtmie otherwise. They might need to tweak blood pact timers if SMNs are going to be buffers, else they are going to buff, and main heal. Just ask ppl what ARE you going to do during that 1 minute cooldown time?

BLM/RDM...i say good after 66 after they learn Dispel, otherwise its just CureII at lvl 28 instead of 22(thats painful), and that can usually lead to deaths, and also no Divine Seal, no -ra spell(protectra,bar-raspell), no -na spell(and if you lvl on Tigers in Glacier, extra Paralyna can help SO damn much even if you have a WHM), no Curaga (cuz a good BLM wont use all his MP so fast, he will always try to conserve and use it to the max and it helps if you can use your mp instead of straining the WHMs at lower lvls). Fast Cast lets you cast like 5% before the normal casting time(you still have to wait til the bar is 100% til you can cast other spells), and Phalanx is...66 for soloing only? O.o No RDM will not get invites with no Phalanx, its a soloing spell, and i forget when you get Stoneskin too...also no Raise if you sub RDM, or ReRaise....and Gravity yea..but RDMs enfeeble and after 41 you will want RDM or BRD(rare), or no PT.

/RDM seems to be more of a soloing option than a viable exp option that helps imo.

[Garland]

Summoners now are probably the well-rounded "fill any role in a pinch" class that Red Mages should have been. We can main heal even though we hate to. We have very useful party buffs. Post update, we can skill chain to a degree that would make even the best samurai take notice (Summoners can even self skillchain, an ability reserved for samurai only, after the multi-hit WS TP nerf). Lastly, we can magic burst for damage not severely less than a blm. Allowing for proper equipment, our Avatars can melee for negligable, if any perpetuation cost, and the damage output is now high enough to offset the tp given to the mob. Of course, at 70+ our uberness in damage is unrivalled by anyone. All this said, Summoners can fill any niche, and thus, no longer need to be pigeonholed into a single party role like any other class.

[Citizen Bleys]

I'm not allowing some reject that won't spend the extra time to get a real healer to tell me to ignore my main job and only use my sub.

That, sir, was beautiful.

[Lionx]

Well now with a WHM sub you can fill the part of a 3/4BLM, 1/2BRD, and sorta a psuedo healer ^^. So yea its good to see another pure nuker type and i dont have to rely purely on BLM and when no BLM are availible dmg on the nuking scale isnt so great.. ._.

BTW no diss to RDMs, but most are prolly too busy with Refresh or stuff like that and can only burst every now and then. And also they get sorta...old spells. Why WaterII when BlizzardII is there?

[Kegsay]

Problem is SMN hasnt found a nitch yet, its a buffer, with a 1 minute timer...on all blood pacts, which in turn what would you do then? For 1 min you do nothing?

Nope, you either BACKUP heal or do enfeeblings like Dia, Paralyze and mediocre attacks like Banish. Then you redo BP and back-up heal when neccessary. When you get a lil bit higher, Bar- your party or re-do the Protectra you had cast 1hr ago then BP. Recast Banish a few times then BP and rest. Something like that will drain about 70MP out of your 150MP tank allowing for a fair rest-up. ;)

[Lionx]

You still at the level where enfeebling skill matters less. At my level, if your a C Enfeebling skill like WHM, you cant land just about anything on robber crabs. Its hard as well, and RDMs are the only ones that can land reliably. And EVEN if i land, it might not paralyze as much as a RDM Enfeeble. Landing and making it stick as well as its effectiveness are different things, and i refuse to think that a SMN with no base Enfeebling skill can do this reliably. Enhancing skill is also halved, bar spells are half the resist, so bomb toss does 300 instead of 120dmg. Banish is based on Divine and that is also halved...i dunno how or why you would even waste MP on Banish outside of solo or Magic Bursts. The most efficient way to using MP, is to status heal and cure IMO.

But the patch has changed some things now have they? :P

[Garland]

I'm not arguing that summoners shouldn't heal. They should. However, and people would do well to learn this: Summoners aren't White Mages. I sub White Mage, like any cookie-cutter should. I have no problems picking up some healing when the White Mage runs into trouble. However, I was invited to the party as a Summoner, and efficient or not, Carbuncle and friends are seeing some action. Whether that means meleeing or casting bloodpacts and releasing, I don't have preference, but I won't party at all without being allowed to use my main job. People say you should put the good of the party over your own, but I say there are limits. I put reasonable parties first (hence the cookie-cutter subjob). Fortunately, I gathered a good enough reputation in my days as a white mage giving free raises for weeks on end in Shakrami, that I can afford to be a bit more demanding now. All the newbies that I helped then, are the ones in my Summoner's level range now. Way to go, Karma.

[Kalel]

Summoner can sometimes take place of whm in experiencing parties. But in very dangerous areas of lvling they can only be efficient back up healers especially low lvls. Because they dont have raise before lvl 50 with whm subbed. And they dont have the big cures spells or benediction.

Summoners in NM, HNM or any big lvl battles will never work as main healer only buffer. Other than that they can be decent healers at times.

[Kegsay]

i dunno how or why you would even waste MP on Banish outside of solo or Magic Bursts.

Have you levelled SMN after patch? I don't know about you, but Banish does a fair bit of damage, I recall seeing quite a bit of the monsters HP go down thanks to Banish... Amounts.... ask later.

[Garland]

Your banish is improved? Lucky you. Mine stinks as much as ever. At the very least, Banish doesn't do more damage than the two melee attacks I can get off in the time it takes to cast it. Figure in the odds of being interrupted, and you have one very worthless use of 15 or 18 mp. As a summoner, I could deal more damage overall, by saving that mp, and letting my avatar melee longer. As a general rule, I never cast offensive magic alongside my avatar when soloing (and soloing is all I'll do untill I reach the level when parties want my support bloodpacts, and not just my cures/mp). If I cast any spells alongside my meleeing avatar, it's support spells like Dia and Paralyze, which allow my avatar and myself to melee the mob faster.

[Lionx]

Your SMN is lvl 13 right? At that lvl its not noticable, it will get crappier later...=/

[Kegsay]

Nooo you'll jinx it! Take it back take it back! :p

[Lionx]

MUHAHAHAHAA!!!!! *jinxes everyone's sub* :eek:

OMG MY BARD SUB WITH BALLAD SUBTRACTS MP!? WHY!?!?!?!