summoner spirt spell

[cydl]

ive just became a summoner today (lvl4 now ) and i was wondering should i buy the spirit spells which summon air/earth/light ect spirts for summoner, i dont have too much money so i would only be able to get a few of the cheaper ones, but i want to know will i ever use them or are they just a waste of my money? thx

[poweryoga]

waste of money waste of mp.... useful for lvling smn skills but thats it.

[Navia]

Its good to have at least one spirit, they summon extremely fast so you can pull one out to have it distract that strong monster beating you up so you can try to run away :p

At higher levels the light spirit isn't that bad, it will cast protect/shell based on your SMN level like a white mage if you are subbing something odd like THF for farming.
I have a level 75 smn friend that subs ninja to farm some highlevel areas, he pulls out lightspirit for the buffs.

Still, for most summoners, you don't need them all - collecting them all is just something the dedicated(rich) do.
With SMN AF2 (relic armor) and high summoning skill I have heard some strange things like spirits will cast spells more often (Ancient magic in 15 second intervals).

[poweryoga]

light spirit is usually too expensive for someone just starting out... if anything grab an earth spirit pact and just toss it when you're getting chased.

[nhusted]

At what summoning skill or summoner level do these spirits actually start casting abilities? At level 20 I'm starting to think they're defective.

[jaks6888]

hehe yeah i only brought the earth spirit too distract aggro, i have never seen it do anything but its melee attack.
Im lvl 40 so it should be able too cast stone 2 right?

[nhusted]

You would think it'd cast something >.> Supposadly they cast ancient magic at the very high levels... I wouldn't mind a conformation on that. I have been told many a time that they are worth it later on.

[magnius]

It takes 40 seconds for spirits to start using Enhancing/ healing magic and it takes 70 seconds for them to start using Elemental magic after you use assault command. I highly doubt this is worth it because even if you do get them to cast flare or something theres no way you can time it right to get it to magic burst and you're going to be wasting a lot of mp leaving it out for 70 seconds+ cast time of flare. And just to confirm that they cast ancient magic like Flare.

[Kiyone]

Originally posted by magnius
It takes 40 seconds for spirits to start using Enhancing/ healing magic and it takes 70 seconds for them to start using Elemental magic after you use assault command. I highly doubt this is worth it because even if you do get them to cast flare or something theres no way you can time it right to get it to magic burst and you're going to be wasting a lot of mp leaving it out for 70 seconds+ cast time of flare. And just to confirm that they cast ancient magic like Flare.

FireSpirit is one of the more stingy ones in terms of ancient magic.

The higher your summon skill, the faster it will cast, the more often it will cast, essentially.

The spells it can cast are based on when a WHM or a BLM learns them, i.e. WaterSpirit won't be able to cast Water II until 30 (i think? whenever blm learn water II)

[Galaxia]

Just get Earth and Wind there pretty cheap if you want them. Some people get them all at low lvls because of lack of Avatars but personaly I'd say just get 2 for lvling skill. Only time I use Spirits if to lvl SMN skill or if I get fish a monster cause of the quick cast