Which summoner is better? Garnet, or Eiko?

[Dell]

Garnet's Eidolons > Eiko's Eidolons
Garnet's White Magic < Eiko's White Magic
Both have specialty.
That's why there are two characters with same job.
Garnet have 8 summons while Eiko have 4 summons.
All Garnet's Eidolons is attack-base, that'll make Garnet a mage-fighter (White Magic and Attacking Eidolon).
Eiko's Eidolons is offensive/healing-base, Madeen and Fenrir deal a damage while Phoenix and Carbuncle support your party, that'll make Eiko a healing machine.
And Goldenboco is right, Ark is a better summon than any of Eiko's.
White Magic can be useless in FFIX after you got Auto-Regen (You know how Auto-Regen works, right?).

Another reason Garnet is a better summoner than Eiko is her trance, Eidolon, if Garnet is a worst summoner, Square should have give her another trance. The same goes for Eiko's Double White Magic.

In my conclusion, Garnet is not a weak character, FFIX give importance to all character.
Nevertheless, I still prefer Eiko in battle but if I ever repair my PSX, I will start a new game consist of Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Eiko.

[Xurts]

Garnet's Eidolons > Eiko's Eidolons
Garnet's White Magic < Eiko's White Magic
Both have specialty.
That's why there are two characters with same job.
Garnet have 8 summons while Eiko have 4 summons.
All Garnet's Eidolons is attack-base, that'll make Garnet a mage-fighter (White Magic and Attacking Eidolon).
Eiko's Eidolons is offensive/healing-base, Madeen and Fenrir deal a damage while Phoenix and Carbuncle support your party, that'll make Eiko a healing machine.
And Goldenboco is right, Ark is a better summon than any of Eiko's.
White Magic can be useless in FFIX after you got Auto-Regen (You know how Auto-Regen works, right?).

Another reason Garnet is a better summoner than Eiko is her trance, Eidolon, if Garnet is a worst summoner, Square should have give her another trance. The same goes for Eiko's Double White Magic.

In my conclusion, Garnet is not a weak character, FFIX give importance to all character.
Nevertheless, I still prefer Eiko in battle but if I ever repair my PSX, I will start a new game consist of Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Eiko.

Eiko doesn't need Eidolons. She has Holy, which is just as strong as Ark. Plus her Trance is much better than Dagger's useless one.

[Dell]

Garnet's Eidolons > Eiko's Eidolons
Garnet's White Magic < Eiko's White Magic
Both have specialty.
That's why there are two characters with same job.
Garnet have 8 summons while Eiko have 4 summons.
All Garnet's Eidolons is attack-base, that'll make Garnet a mage-fighter (White Magic and Attacking Eidolon).
Eiko's Eidolons is offensive/healing-base, Madeen and Fenrir deal a damage while Phoenix and Carbuncle support your party, that'll make Eiko a healing machine.
And Goldenboco is right, Ark is a better summon than any of Eiko's.
White Magic can be useless in FFIX after you got Auto-Regen (You know how Auto-Regen works, right?).

Another reason Garnet is a better summoner than Eiko is her trance, Eidolon, if Garnet is a worst summoner, Square should have give her another trance. The same goes for Eiko's Double White Magic.

In my conclusion, Garnet is not a weak character, FFIX give importance to all character.
Nevertheless, I still prefer Eiko in battle but if I ever repair my PSX, I will start a new game consist of Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Eiko.

Eiko doesn't need Eidolons. She has Holy, which is just as strong as Ark. Plus her Trance is much better than Dagger's useless one.

Holy didn't do 9999 damage to all enemies, only certain enemy will receive 9999 damage. Ark is a guaranteed 9999 damage once powered up.

[Goldenboko]

And Goldenboco is right, Ark is a better summon than any of Eiko's.

Thanx
Imagine having to fight that ark.

[Elemental Alchemist]

Eiko is more useful, 'cause her summons go farther than just damage the enemy, and her white magic skills are awesome. But you can't go wrong using her along with Garnet. Don't forget Vivi and Quina for a complete magic team!

[chronic_Maniac]

Blah I like hitting them with a sword......
dude attacks dagger, dagger dies...
Dude attacks eiko, eiko dies too....
Then both them fight and kill off some zens

[Heero Yuy NWZC]

Garnet. She just complements my line up a lot better than Eiko.

[Darkwing Bahamut]

Garnet can summon Bahamut and Ark, she's the better summoner. But Eiko has useful White Magic spells like Holy. Overall I'd say Garnet's better, I never used either of them much anyway.

[Zeromus_X]

thank you, al-bhed_kid0827. at least someone understands what i mean. and for those that don't find 9,999 attack damage impressive, let me tell you that the producers limited the damage to that number for a reason. and that reason was to balance and make a great game.

I think you misunderstand. The reason why I find Ark not impressive for doing 9,999 damage is because other attacks can easily do that much, or high enough damage anyway.

[Xurts]

Garnet's Eidolons > Eiko's Eidolons
Garnet's White Magic < Eiko's White Magic
Both have specialty.
That's why there are two characters with same job.
Garnet have 8 summons while Eiko have 4 summons.
All Garnet's Eidolons is attack-base, that'll make Garnet a mage-fighter (White Magic and Attacking Eidolon).
Eiko's Eidolons is offensive/healing-base, Madeen and Fenrir deal a damage while Phoenix and Carbuncle support your party, that'll make Eiko a healing machine.
And Goldenboco is right, Ark is a better summon than any of Eiko's.
White Magic can be useless in FFIX after you got Auto-Regen (You know how Auto-Regen works, right?).

Another reason Garnet is a better summoner than Eiko is her trance, Eidolon, if Garnet is a worst summoner, Square should have give her another trance. The same goes for Eiko's Double White Magic.

In my conclusion, Garnet is not a weak character, FFIX give importance to all character.
Nevertheless, I still prefer Eiko in battle but if I ever repair my PSX, I will start a new game consist of Zidane, Vivi, Garnet and Eiko.

Eiko doesn't need Eidolons. She has Holy, which is just as strong as Ark. Plus her Trance is much better than Dagger's useless one.

Holy didn't do 9999 damage to all enemies, only certain enemy will receive 9999 damage. Ark is a guaranteed 9999 damage once powered up.

It does 9999 for me. I have her equipped with a couple items that increase Holy damage though, just to make sure it is always 9999.

[Zeromus_X]

Even if it doesn't do straight nines, it's enough. Not everyone is going to slay the aforementioned luminescent multicoloured orb of destruction. Eiko just is better than Garnet, factoring in that most of the Aeons Eidolons suck anyway. Eiko is a better White Mage than Garnet will be, and some of her summons are more useful than Garnet's anyway.

Edit: Holy usually does at least over 6,000 damage for me. But, I'm not level maxed though. Still, that's quite enough damage.

[Rantz]

In my opinion, Dagger is a more all-round character. She can deal damage in all elements, as far as I can recall, while she still can heal good.

Eiko on the other hand is an exceptional healer and party supporter. While her summons are useful in certain situations, as Endless Twilight says, they are very limited in other.

If you go with Dagger in your party, my advice would be to include someone else with decent curative/supportive abilities as a backup healer, for example Amarant.

If you go with Eiko in your party, you should only need to be able to revive her in the case that she dies, and she should be able to handle the rest of the healing. Quina with Auto-life to cast on her could be a good complement.

As for the thread's original question, "Who is the best summoner?", I'd say Dagger. She is pretty clearly meant to be primarily a summoner and secondarily a healer, and the other way around for Eiko, as suggested by the order in their respective command lists, their Trance and the difference in amount of summons.

[Thorn]

I played it twice and had Dagger rather than Eiko both times. Eiko's summons always seemed kind've lame.

[Toodleena]

Eiko for me. She's so much cooler, and her summons were more imaginative. Oh well, maybe I'm wrong, but I've always prefered her.

[Sefie1999AD]

I think Garnet's a better summoner than Eiko, and her Eidolons like Ramuh, Ifrit, Shiva, Leviathan and Bahamut are relatively easy to power up to do loads of damage. Odin's good against Yans, especially with the extra ability that does some additional wind damage if Zantetsuken doesn't kill someone, so Climhazzard and Dragon's Crest will most likely finish off the survivors after that. The only Eidolon I really remember using with Eiko is Madeen, and that one did about 5000 damage even with Boost. I think Eiko's White Magic is better than Garnet's, though, as she gets better healing spells sooner. I can't remember if she learned Holy when I played, though even if she did, I don't think it did much damage since I hardly ever used it.