Summoner's role in the exp party

[Lightseeker]

Hello summoners, I was hoping you could offer me some insight into how best to use a smn in a party. I've never leveled the job, so I only know what I've seen from the outside. I'm asking this because I'm in a static duo - I have a taru drk/war and my friend is hume smn/whm. He has all the avatars and makes good use of bloodpacts for SC and avatar spells for MB.

He likes to get a nin tank, a blm, a rdm, and one other melee to fill our party. The down side of that is that as a drk (53 atm) I pull hate off of nins w/o even trying. I can't use my ja and feel very nerfed. If we get a pld, I can cut loose a bit. Then we usually end up with a whm instead of a blm, so the smn doesn't have to main heal. Then the smn acts as DD, but he feels that he's not good enough to replace a blm.

We both want to feel like we're helping the party and playing our jobs to the fullest. He doesn't want to play "white mage 2" and I don't want to be a gimp war. What kind of setup/roles do you suggest, or are drks and smn just not very compatible?

[poweryoga]

During the 1 minute cooldown of bloodpacts... you do what you can to help keep the party alive. that usually means healing, curing stat aliaments, etc. Most of the time its not worth it to let avatars melee because of the high perp. costs.

I don't know how to play a DRK, but most of the time SMN is reduced to WHM -1 because there's just not too much to do inbetween cures. Whenever I'm partied with a whm our spells overlap and I end up doing light curing and letting carby melee inbetween pacts. Smns can't replace BLM/Rdm/BRD in a pt but can almost replace whms.

[Teffie]

Levels 1-65 you are usually better off being a WHM-wannabe. As Poweryoga said above, just spending time healing in between those 1 minute blood pacts.

You will eventually get the hang of fully utilizing your Avatars to benefit the party, as well as Cure. If you do your job right, you could be a better alternative for WHM's. I've heard compliments, along with many other SMN's I am sure, on how good of a job we do as main healers. Usually it goes something like...

(Puller) Pulling Soldier Crawler
(Summoner) Begins Summoning Fenrir
Monster Arrives at Camp
(Summoner)Ecliptic Howl, Release
Fight cotinues, with you being Main Healer.
Once it reaches around 10%-20% HP;
(Summoner) Begins Summoning Garuda
Monster Dies
(Summoner) Aerial Armor, Release
(Summoner) Rest for MP

Not to mention with NIN's as main tanks. NIN and SMN walk hand-in-hand. Utsusemi allows for less Cures, and more Blood Pact's. Earthen Ward is a "safety screen" for a NIN's Utsusemi recast. If he is in the middle of casting Utsusemi: Ichi and the monster hits him, it'll do 0 damage and he won't be interrupted. Ecliptic Howl is a decent Substitute for BRD. So it is almost as though you are a SMN, WHM, and BRD all in one.

Summoner's don't make very powerful Damage Dealers until 65 (If you have Fenrir), or 70 (for other avatars). I would never substitute a SMN for a BLM before then. BLM's do far more damage with regular nukes and MB's. Although I am part of the SMN generation who was already lv.65+ once they implemented Avatar Skillchains and MB's, so I cannot really inform you on how efficient they actually are. I have tested using Thunder IV MB's with 100+ TP, and it was hardly worth the MP used up just from perpetuation time.

Once your 70, you can become a Healer and a heavy Damage Dealer depending on your location. For places like King Ranperres Tomb against Skeletons, where Titan can dish our 700+ Damage twice a fight, it's quite the asset to a team.

[poweryoga]

i love nin tanks for the exact reason teffie stated: I get to mess with avatars more.

My best parties were always with a nin tank (rng parties an exception) and they let me do other things i normally wouldn't be able to do with a pld.

nobody ever complains about having 2 rows of buffs.

[Lightseeker]

Thanks for all the replies guys. ^^ The past couple of parties have been very good. We've been using nin tanks (luckily they've been decent at keeping hate off me), I've been spreading out my /ja, and my smn friend has been main-healing but also using a lot of BPs. Double Slap on crabs has been excellent damage (250-350), and Meteorite has been even better (300-400). Carby's free for him right now, and the lil guy is really awesome.

Since we hit 55, I've decided to change to my drg, so I don't think there'll be any more hate issues. Smn is an amazing job, I admire you guys a lot. /bow