summons not used to attack monsters?!

[imported_MaDLiB]

i been reading around and i see all these bad things the exact opposite of what i want!
i want a summon to come out for the battle and attack the monster for me and do some skills and fight like a regular summon should... is this the way of the summoner or not?
thanks!

[Kalel]

Yeah summons are supposed to attack just like you see in expansion demo on official final fantasy website. You see Ifrit attacking a goblims with a fireball.
I would write square for false advertisement of the job's abilities. If they can't attack.
Summoners are I repeat not supposed to be healers/vice red mages. They are supposed to be attacking with summons and use whm as secondary not primary. Square made it the worst job in game if healing primary job.
Due its the most complicated job since you have wait till 65 or higher than search out to get summons in fights. While all other advance jobs you have it once you get it. Summoner you start out as a punk with no strength or anything. Carbuncle is crappy. Plain and simple.

[TeK-DeLorean™]

it's best to level a whm/blm to mid 60's before you play as summoner. Then you can get the summons and switch to SMN with all the summon quests done. You will also be better equipped for the summon job since you have leftover gear from Whm/blm. Thats how I would do it If I was a summoner. Who wants to spend 60+ levels with carbuncle?

[MaDLiB]

so everything i been hearing is untrue? and where can i see this video? thank you guys

[tomfin10]

No, most of it is true... check out Sheila's "Summoner information topic" that's Pinned at the top of the page...

[MaDLiB]

well the thing i really want to know is CAN you keep a summon out and have him attack physically and do magic and stuff throughout the duration of the battle like a wyvern or like a valkryie or bear in diabllo 2
thanks!
this question will make or break me being a summoner!

[Zent]

Kalel
Carbuncle is crappy


How can u say that went you didnt play the game??

Try the Job and you ll see if you like it!
Most people here don't know shit!


Check out Sheila's "Summoner information topic"

[tomfin10]

Really... read her guide it says what a SMN should do/does for each lvl... ex. In her guide it says lvls "1-10 Just use your summons to attack"

Oh she renamed her topic to "Summoner FAQ" but its still a good topic... it'll tell you anything you ever wanted to know on a SMN.
Link to her guide: http://ffxionline.com/forums/showthr...threadid=11512

[MaDLiB]

DUDE IM SO CONFUSED EVERYONE IS SAYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!! AAAGH READ THIS GUYS POST

I'm not in beta nor have I imported so I can really only answer Question #1 right now because I have done a LOT of summoner research and looked into everything I could about them.

Summoners at their current form are NOT as powerful as you would think, but they are *VERY FAR* from useless. As a Summoner your most viable combination would be a Summoner/White - although a Red would work almost as well. Black isn't that good of a choice but if it tickles your fancy then be my guest .

As a summoner you only begin with Carbuncle. The most logical way to become a good summoner is to level up your Sub job as a Main to level 60ish so you can take on the Summon battles. Once you defeat a good number of the summons- it is safe for you to make Summoner your main(Now that you have some of the more powerful summons)

At lower levels Summons are pretty nice to have around. They're pretty powerful but not overpowering. Around the 20's their power starts "decreasing." It doesn't actually decreas but as opposed to other classes their damage seems minimal. From around 20's-40ish you are more of a supporter. You use a skill a skill or two of a summon; and possibly a damage skill. The skills from the Summons are very handy. You get things such as Blink, Hastega, Group Heals/Cures, Poisons, Damage shields, etc. They are VERY nice to have around even if the summons themselves aren't doing much damage.

After the 50's the summons start getting more powerful but they're still mostly used for support. Their power keeps increasing and by the time you max 70 your "Overdrive" type ability(2 hour ability) that can do massive damage. The abilities from the summons continue to be useful, probably even more useful because the enemies are more difficult.

Even though Summoners can be extremely powerful - their power comes at a great cost so if your not determined, willing to invest lots of time, and learn your role in the party then it may not be worth it to become a summoner. They are not as powerful as one as one would think and if someone goes in with the wrong mindset they MAY be dissapointed.

As it stands right now Summoners still need some improving. For most of their career they are Back up healers or Supporters, which they shouldn't.

As for your other questions,personally I can't answer them yet but I'm sure someone else can . Have a nice night.

can anybody that has played a summoner tell me the truth!

[Lebeau]

Originally posted by MaDLiB
DUDE IM SO CONFUSED EVERYONE IS SAYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!!!!!!!! AAAGH READ THIS GUYS POST




can anybody that has played a summoner tell me the truth!

Caps Lock is both rude and annoying btw.

Everything that you quoted from "that guy" is 100% true. Summoners are not the big bad forces of destruction they were in previous Final Fantasy games. Prepare to be sorely dissapointed if you think :

* you're going to whip out a summon and completely humiliate a mob while your party stands by in complete awe - I advise you to get a tissue because you will be crying yourself to sleep when you find out how very very wrong you were.

*you're going to outdamage the Blackmage in terms of spell damage.

*you're going to outdamage a melee in terms of physical damage.

*you're going to keep a summon out and have him follow you around 24/7 while you go afk for tea.

*that Carbuncle will do it for you up to high levels. His melee damage IS pitiful. And to the guy that linked shelia's guide saying otherwise- read her post, even she said he sucks.

*you think that your summon creature is going to be dishing out major melee and spell damage. At lower levels your pet will be king, but as you gain levels you see that the summons don't scale up evenly with the mobs that you fight. The Hit : Miss ratio of summoned creatures is very unsatisfactory as well as the resist rates of the spells that they use being that they lack a focus skill for most of their spells.

*you think you are going to be chaining special attacks and abilities back to back. After you use a special ability you lose the ability to do another ability for 30-60 seconds depending on the ability you chose last. Even then those abilities cost mana on top of the insanely expensive mana upkeep of the primes/elementals.

*you think you will be casting like a storm while your pet is attacking/casting. You can NOT cast spells when you have your summon out. Not sure about auto-refreshing songs though since I never toyed with the bard class. Even if you could you would burn your mana pool dry. So its unsummon pet and then cast.

*you think you will be viable without the Primes as you level up the summoner job.

*you think you will even stand a chance against the primes if you are pre-50.

So in respect to your questions and the other posts on this thread:

i want a summon to come out for the battle and attack the monster for me and do some skills and fight like a regular summon should... is this the way of the summoner or not?

Yes this is the way a summoner should be. And you can do those things too - just not very long with the mana cost of the pet, the weakness of the abilities and melee damage, and not very effectively with the reisist/miss rates against higher level mobs being the way they are.

Summoners are I repeat not supposed to be healers/vice red mages. They are supposed to be attacking with summons and use whm as secondary not primary. Square made it the worst job in game if healing primary job.

Why because you are basing your idea of a summoner off of previous final fantasy games? News flash pal this isn't your typical final fantasy game. By your logic:

*my summon should be able to do more damage to a group of enemies than any other class can do to a single target.

*said superpowerful summon should be easy to aquire.

*my entire group should dissapear and be 100% invulnerable while my summon is executing its l33t skillz.

*a monster should be able to beat the hell out of me while I am casting/charging up my summon and not interrupt my casting.

This is not previous FF games. It is intended to be an entirely new and different game. And for balance reasons classes are different. Hell I dont know a single FF game where my White mages Holy attack wasn't on par with my Blackmages most powerful nuke, could go invisible, could teleport to any specific location. Or my black mage being able to corpse summon and damage shield himself.

If summoners were like other games where they did as much physical damage as other melee and could do more elemental damage as a blackmage - no one would even think about playing any other class. Summoners are the way they are for balance reasons. In previous games they were THE most powerful classes in the game- here they are a support class, a role which they do quite well.

If you want to know a good bit about summoners go HERE for the FAQ shelia made, and HERE for pictures of each Prime and Elemental (btw, notice how the summoner isnt casting any spells or using abilities of his own while the summon is out? That's because he CAN'T).


PS. the reasons the elementals cost more mana per second that the primes is becuase the elementals cast spells that come from their mana pool instead of yours. The primes on the other hand just melee and only use spells if you choose for them too, in which case the mana comes from your mana pool.

[Kalel]

I did actually play FFXI on Beta for 3 months for PS2. Game is actually really good.

Funny about what everyone is saying summons not attacking when most pics I see is them attacking goblins. Including ones post in pic section of ffxionline. Never saw pics of them using anything for party itself.

Me I think Carbunle not good in offense that is my point. I partner with a couple summoners with him. And they died easily. I couldn't save them because one hit and goners. Summoners do have low HP at start of game. Hey, what can I say I didn't get pass lvl 40 cap to get summoner. Only experience is having them ask me for escorts to places since they were low level summoners and I was level 19 WHM at time. He wasn't useful in FF8 either (Cerberus was way better defensive/offensive summons: giving double/triple magic). Again yeah that was in past games. But he isn't a summons that will make you feel brave walking in Goblin infested areas. I actually saw summoners attacking themselves with club vice Carbunle. Most likely to save MP.

I plan to do what Tek-Delorean stated. Get WHM/BLM to 60+ than get all the summons. Than play the game. So you can use other summons for attacking when needed and Carbunle for his protection magic.

Everyone's statements are actually accurate to a point.

[Zent]

Carbuncle can do decent damage!

Poison nail will hit for about 30-40 when the other are hitting for about 10-18! If you use it at the start of the fight the monster is poison and it help! You wait 1 minute and you can do it again so...

As for dying I got to lv 21 and I only died once cause I had an Elemental on my ass at the lake in La theine and that it!

You have to know your limit!

I was an Elf and I had more HP then MP

Taru and more MP then HP that why they die a lot!

Or course I ran out of MP in party when we were fighting IT monster but it was because I was the 2nd healer and sometime the 1st and I had Carbuncle out too, this have to BE FIX!

If they fix that Summoner will be able to go in with his summon and fight!


Whoever say that is not good for solo........

If you expect Summon to be too strong the game will suck!

I was soloing at lv 20 I was getting 100 exp each kill at the Dune!
Very tough doh

A War 22 was soloing beside me and I was killing monster faster then him!

But I guess no one play the same way!

[tomfin10]

What Lebeau said is pretty accurate.

I played SMN (I was a Hume) in beta and my Carbuncle sucked after lvl 10... he did like half of what the WAR's and MNK's were doing and they were the same lvl as me...

My Poison Nails did 30-40 DMG at like lvl 1... once I hit 10 it started doing almost the same amount as the WAR's and MNK's would do in my PT.

I did notice that I had less HP and DEF than WHM so I was extra careful and did die a few times but mostly because of aggros...

I had almost he same HP as MP with my staff on and still ran out of MP after 3 battles of keeping my summon out... We go to the first monster, I'd summon him, Carbuncle attacks, monster dies, next monster, (same as above), next monster, (same as above), then I'd be out of MP while the rest of the mages have over half... so I just decided to cure from now on...

I tried soloing a bit... it was possible... I was soloing "Toughs" in La Theine with just me and Carbuncle getting 100 EXP every monster... was pretty good but after each battle I'd have to keep resting which made it go a lot slower and less fun... I still prefer a PT.

[Zent]

in beta and my Carbuncle sucked after lvl 10... he did like half of what the WAR's and MNK's were doing and they were the same lvl as me...

Maybe your Summon magic skill were not high enough?

But true Carbuncle cannot do more damage then a war,drk but if you go in and fight along and use your the summon skill you can do a lot of damage I think!

I bet if you start at lv1 with all summon it will be great


was pretty good but after each battle I'd have to keep resting which made it go a lot slower and less fun... I still prefer a PT

Yeah soloing get boring fast,it might be good till lv 10 but after it suck bad!
I only solo when I was waiting for a party or waiting to make one!

Solo Suck

This game is not made to play alone that why it's online!

[FFXITsukasa]

I have heard the same things. That summons are too weak and should be used for support and healing. That makes me angry. Although I will still be a Black Mage Summoner out of the fact that I think it would be a cool job but the acctual game should be slightly different from the Beta. So maybe... they will balance out the Avatars and summoner class a bit better and make the Avatars a little tougher. Either way I will still sub Summoner because it looks so cool!