Summons suck

[Venom65437]

I mean seriously, I find it so funny that Bahamut can come down do like 2567 damage and then Steiner does like 6000.

Am I the only one that rarely uses them? Cause I really think they kinda suck...

[Ultima Shadow]

The more gems you have, the more dammage they deal. If you have 99 Garnets then Bahamut will almost always do 9999.

[Dark Matter]

Yeah, they're suck without the Support Ability ~ Boost.
BTW, I always prefer physical attacks.
It's not easy to collect gems ... :(

[Vaprice]

Okay you are right but they don't suck....look early on in the game when you have dagger near treno...I got her 3 summons...it was fun getting summons...but the best summon is ARK!!!!! *bright light pops up behind him*

I do prefer with physical attacks much more because thats just how I play games......

[DJZen]

I guess that means Madeen is doomed to always suck?

[Doomgaze]

Bahamut's better than Ark, in my experience.

[Ultima Shadow]

Bahamut's better than Ark, in my experience.
Yes, he is.

[Chris]

I rarely use summons in this game; as opposed to Final Fantasy VIII in which summons are a must.

I've gotten all of the summons...and well they're OK!
Not essential for battles or victory though.

[Del Murder]

Yeah they weren't used as well in this game.

[Dark Dragoon]

Yeah they weren't used as well in this game.

Which is amazing considering that they are so important to the main plot. FFIX was probably the game that most used the summons in the plot(and most displayed the devastating power they supposedly posess. Bahamut VS. Alexander=Awesome). It's a shame really. Atleast they look cool. :p

[abrojtm]

On my most recent playthrough, I only used one summon, and it was summoning Madeen vs. Zorn and Thorn (Meltgemini). :)

And I think FFX has more to do with summons than FFIX.

In short:
Spells=good
Abilities=mostly good
Attacking=mostly good
Eidolons=sub-par

[icemagic]

summons are a wast of time. i use steiner+shock + 9999, freya + dragon heir = 9999, so who needs summons, theres much better moves.

[blue_midget192]

yea i allways tried to use the summons in 9 the same way as in the rest (in a "omg, u killed [insert name of charecter here] now you die! *summons [insert name of summon here] muhahahaha") but it did very little damage which disapointed me

[Danger]

I found the summons, although not over powered, fairly useful in the game, especially against bosses that use protect/shell/reflect... mostly found late in the game. I only powered Zidane's theivery up to about 4200 dam and never used the other "cheap" characters and I found the summon damage on par with spells like flare, sword techs such as climhazzard, flare sword or any physical attack. All in all they cost the same MP and do the same damage, as they should.

And since it's mentioned earlier, I never used any summons in FFVIII because they were all weaker than my physical attacks... guess it depends on how you play the games whether they are useful or not.

[Cleric]

Yea, i thought that the summons in this game were poorly incorparated as well. I wa also p'od that I didn't get to use Alexander. grrrrrrrr.......... but i liked the fact that they put some new summons into FFIX. Yet, who wants to use them when you can have Amarant throw something and do twice as much damage as any summoning.

[bEoWuLfX]

summons were useless, especially because their animations becomes long and boring. A quick shock! is almost always better. I think I only summoned when it was really necessary to. Many of the bosses were ridiculously easy to beat after steiner learned shock. The only summon reasonalbe enough to use if they were to be uses are Phoenix and maybe bahamut, but towards the end of the game I believe that many enemies absorbed dark.

[Danger]

Another good reason to use summons with boost: Auto-Regen. The animations allow you to heal half your HP (which is very useful if you aren't overleveled at the finnish of the game).

[CloudZidaneFusion]

summons were useless, especially because their animations becomes long and boring. A quick shock! is almost always better. I think I only summoned when it was really necessary to. Many of the bosses were ridiculously easy to beat after steiner learned shock. The only summon reasonalbe enough to use if they were to be uses are Phoenix and maybe bahamut, but towards the end of the game I believe that many enemies absorbed dark.


Absorbed Dark? Wtf are you talking about. If you read the description of Bahamut, you will notice it will do Non-Elemental Damage. Also, some ppl said that FFVIII's summons are better. I say that they are much worse. Considering you can use them for free, they protect you, and they become faster and faster as you use them more, you become more dependant on them, which hurts you in the later game. Considering I have 100 hastes on speed and 100 flares on attack for squall, i dont really need them. FFIX's summons are great if you know how to use them properly. The only thing that i dont like is how easy it is to get all of them. I am on the third disk on my second game (The one where i do all the side quests and accually train.) and i already have all the summons exept arc memorized, as I can't fuse the 2 pumice pieces in my inv. yet. (1 from beating ark, one from the chocobo sidequest, possible the most addictive sidequest in ff history). I like how in ff4 to get the best Summons (Asura, Leviathan, Sylph, and i think Bahamut (He is so hard to beat that i still havent defeated him yet, all it takes is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, then all my guys are dead (ppl who have played ff4 and faced bahamut will know what im talking about)) you have to fight them or do some sort of work for them at least. But, the cinimatics for the summons are so cool on FFIX that it is worth it to use them, just to see odin ride by and slash the enemies. It's just cool.

Wow, that was a long post, so lets end it with some chocobos. :choc::choc::choc:

[Lyndiny 1445 4eva]

Summons dnt suck they are a massive part of da final fantasy stories
VIVA LA SUMMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
BAHAMUT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
without summons ff wudnt be da same!!!!!!!!! :D

[blue_midget192]

Summons dnt suck they are a massive part of da final fantasy stories
VIVA LA SUMMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
BAHAMUT ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
without summons ff wudnt be da same!!!!!!!!! :D

No, where talking about summons in FF9 only. :freak:

[Viper]

OK, OK. Summon isn't very good in battle BUT ............................
Some summon r very useful like Pheonix

[Danger]

I like how in ff4 to get the best Summons (Asura, Leviathan, Sylph, and i think Bahamut (He is so hard to beat that i still havent defeated him yet, all it takes is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, then all my guys are dead (ppl who have played ff4 and faced bahamut will know what im talking about)) you have to fight them or do some sort of work for them at least. :

I have to comment on this one. In FFIV, use Wall when you face Bahamut. It reflects Mega-nuke. Just watch out cause in the FFII version that I play (US SNES) Wall wears out after about four rounds, so any you cast at "5" will be gone by the time Meganuke is unleashed. Sorry if I ruined the challenge of that one for you, but I'm not sure if there's any other way to beat the guy besides making sure Kain is in the air while he does the blast. And if you're like me, you want to get Bahamut on your first trip to the moon, so that's not an option. Maybe if you overlevel you could damage him enough to kill him before time runs out... I'm usually only a level or two beyond getting Wall (needed for Ashura) when I face him, so Holy, Meteo, Nuke, Crystal Sword, Jump aren't options for me. Note: I suppose I do have the spells with FuSoYa, but not with the main characters. And that guy needs to be casting Wall anyways....

[DJZen]

The reason summons are useful in this game is 'cause they're used by characters who otherwise have no attack power. If Steiner used summons they'd be useless.

[Wondering Soul]

It's true, I don't think I've ever used a summon more then once in FF9. My Quina's attack did 4000 or my Bahumut did 3500! You telling me the Legendary King of Dragons is weaker then an multi-sexed, over sized toad!

[rubah]

Heh, I got lucky with thievery-- I didn't know about it and just always stole with Zidane in every battle, so by the time I did learn about it, he was doing about 7000, which was fine by me.

I never got into the summoning in ff9. I don't think I even summoned all of them. I definitely didn't get ark. (was that the one with the great big gaping mouth that reminds me of a marlboro?)

I preferred ff8's summoning system much more-- use the summons early on when you need them, and later they're still useful for junctioning and abilities. Sorta like ffx, I guess.

so in short? Didn't use a white mage anywhere near the final dungeon (amarant was a good enough healer for me)

[sayen]

odin is the best cause if you get daggers odins sword ability he dose more than 8k damige to necron even and bahamut dose arund 2-3k damige to anything but the weakest monsters its true later in the game most summons suck all i ever do is summon odin use holy flare and attack with zidanes ultimate weapon wich is good enught whats the point in wasting 50 mp on a move that dose 3k when you can use 20odd mp for an attack that dose 8k+ all the time or kills em with death. summon on X sucked becasue they where only about 2x the power of your 3 attakers apart from yojimbo

[Alexander]

How can I get the Ancient Aroma, to use Odin's Sword?

[Memorylight]

I agree, the summoning is kinda useless in FF 9, but phoenix saved my sister from getting killed by kuja so sometimes they can come in handy as well, but personly I just go for trance and upgrading weapons.

[Macp]

My Bahamut does over 6000 damage and summons attacks all enemies,
most of the other strongest attacks only hit one enemy.

[ROBwestfall]

maybe against yans, but otherwise you can pretty much take any monster you fight wothout summons.

[Shoden]

the whole of ff9 sucked there were no weapons.

the summons looked very gay compared to the ones in 8, they are all weak and there arent 99 of all gems though as there are only in chests for the better summons.

Bahamut in 9 looked totally crap, 9 had no heart at all

[m4tt]

What's so wrong with the summons looking happy? Bahamut looked pretty mean to me.

[Shoden]

no comment at all

[Narcissus Reborn]

I wasn't terribly fond of the summons in that game either.
For a game where only two characters can summon in your team they should have been more dominating in strength. In FF6 everyone could summon so it's not odd that they weren't extremely powerful. But in FF8 everyone could and they were very necessary for alot of things, plus they were strong. In 9 they had a small amont of power (even with boost) they didn't skyrocket your skills or health (mostly like 6 and 8) they just did moderate damage that were overshadowed by strong magic that didn't take up half a minuet to deal damge and strong Sword Skills like Shock.

On the bright side, they did deal a fair amont of damage to all enemies and the gems like Pumice, Ribbon, Dark Matter were usefull for you stats.

[Halenite]

I usually don't use them unless Garnet's in Trance.

[la monk]

another way to beat the ff4 bahamut is to have kain jump when the counter is at like 3. he comes down right after the attack. it takes awhile but you cant really lose unless you count wrong.

[blue_midget192]

another way to beat the ff4 bahamut is to have kain jump when the counter is at like 3. he comes down right after the attack. it takes awhile but you cant really lose unless you count wrong.

urm...me thikns you have the wrong thread :riiight:

[Flamethrower]

Phoenix was pretty much the only useful summon.

I, for one, was happy with FFIX toning down the power of summons. FFVII and FFVIII made summons too powerful, in my opinion. They made you too dependant on them to get you through the game, expecially FFVIII. Sure, summons are fun to watch, but they are waaaay too time consuming. I'm glad you can get through FFIX without ever using a summon.

[Narcissus Reborn]

I agree with Flamethrower. It's very uplifting when you can rely on your own strength in a battle and not on the strength of your summon. If my Zidane can attack dealing 6000-7000 damage then it's a waste of time to have Garnet spend 150 seconds summoning Ark which deals some amount near that. Summons like Phoenix were useful for a backup plan incase you battled so poorly that you need your whole team brought back, saying that you have Eiko in your team. Though I usually had her with me, but only once did I need Phoenix.

[Edgar]

Darn, you guys don't really see what summons are for don't you?

Equip auto-regen to all your characters and when you are dying, have Garnet/Eiko summon the summon with the LONGEST animation. You see those little green numbers popping at the background? Look at your characters' HPs.

Wow, they regened back to full health by the time the summon animation ended...so in this case, you have dealt damage and fully healed yourself AND give you some time to go to your kitchen and cook a bowl of noodles.

[Alexander]

Am I the only one that got Eidolons doing a very good damage?

Ramuh, Shiva, Fenrir, Leviathan and Ifrit deal something around 4000 ~ 6000 damage, Phoenix deals 1800 damage plus reviving everyone, Bahamut, Odin and Madeen deals 7500 ~ 9500 damage and Ark (at least to me) almost always deal 9999 damage.

It's all about the jewels. If you play Chocobo Hot and Cold you get enough jewels to do a passable amount of damage with summons. Even if you don't play Chocobo Hot and Cold, you can make jewels from Ore at Daguerreo.

I use Summons as much as I use Black Magic, as both deal almost the same damage for almost the same MP.

[Zeldy]

i dont use summons much, really they use up to much mp and i never have enough ethers e.t.c so i end up stuck.
Im stuck at the moment, im on the 4disk the bit in the memorial tower
and im up to the stairway with the huge eye above but i keep dieing to the dragon there because it takes all my mp and it also throws Zidane out and i need Zidane with his powerful attacks every turn.I end up relying on Auto regen.

[FallenSilence]

How can I get the Ancient Aroma, to use Odin's Sword?

Ipsen's Castle.

[Yuffie514]

i thought the summons used to be pretty useless :mad: , until i found out what those gems i collected are supposed to do :eek: :D . funny how i wondered for so long why i had to carry all these gems with me :rolleyes2 . n-e-ways, i've been trying to find new ways to get more gems :) . at Daguerro, i transfer Ore for some Aquamarine at the fountain :) , and then i go to the Synth master to have some gems made :p . before all that, i just go into battle and try to extract as many Ore i can from each monster w/Eiko's jewel :tongue: .