Dagger or Eiko?

[Ethanol Dreams]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but who do you prefer, Dagger or Eiko? This is for abilities only, looks and personality and such don't really matter. I just made it to Terra and I have to choose between the two.
I was kinda addicted to Chocobo Hot & Cold, so Dagger has all her spells and Eiko only has a few more to get. Who do you prefer and why?

[I Am Stoner]

Dagger I would say.

[LunarWeaver]

At first, I thought Eiko was all that with her fancier white magic and fancy Holy and Haste. But really, when you can buy the summon gems and power up Garnet's summons, I ended up liking her much better. And I like her Trance a lot more as well. Overall, I prefer Garnet. Curaga is really the only white magic spell I give too much of a crap about. Though Esuna is certainly nice sometimes

[boys from the dwarf]

garnet has more powerful summons but eiko has phoenix but you dont really need phoenix unless your doing some low level challenges and feel lucky.

so id say garnet is the better summoner.

eiko is the stronger white mage but they can both use curaga and my dagger heals nearly 3,000HP to everyone when she uses curaga and thats all i need. eiko has some higher and lower stats than garnet and they are both good characters but for storyline and battle i'd still say garnet.

[f f freak]

I prefer Garnet. She is a better summoner and has a wider variety of summons. Eiko is the better white mage but only because of holy. I found Garnet to be better at Terra. However sometimes I use them both. If you pair them up they can be a powerful force.

[Reles]

I've always prefered Eiko's summons and white magic over Garnet, she just seemed....stronger. In any case, I'm not saying that she was stronger because she was at a higher level, she was usually at a lower level and seemed to get the job done better. But this is just an opinion.

[Sefie1999AD]

I prefer Dagger because I think she's a more interesting character with better character development. I also found her Eidolons more useful than the ones Eiko had. However, I think Eiko's White Magic is still better than Dagger's.

[Ethanol Dreams]

I use Dagger more than Eiko when possible, it's just that Dagger can't get Dispel or Esuna, and Eiko can. I can't decide whether it's worth having things like Blind, Beserk etc. instead of some extra healing.

[Saku]

Eiko.... cause Esuana is my friend. Mind you... Dagger was ok... as a summoner, but I like white mages

[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.

[Xurts]

Eiko is much better than Dagger. Eiko doesn't rely on Eidolons because she has Holy, and that does as much damage as any Eidolon Dagger has. Dagger is nice in the beginning of the game, but once you have a chance to train Eiko she becomes much more useful.

You don't really need a white mage if you have Auto-Regen and Auto-Haste, though. That depends on your level. If it's around 70-80 then you shouldn't even need a main white mage, but instead just a secondary one like Quina.

[eestlinc]

I like watching Ark, but otherwise I stick with Eiko usually.

[DarkLadyNyara]

Dagger. As a fighter, I don't have a real preferance, but as a character, Eiko just annoys me.

[My_car_is_faster_than_you]

I was on better terms with Eiko because when I got her, she was at a much higher level than Garnet. Garnet had a tendency to always die.

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Neither. I use Quina.