SMN - Why should I stay Summoner?

[mobkon]

Hey all, after leveling summoner to 40, Im thinking about starting over and leveling up a DRK. Reason being, it doesnt seem you get much being a summoner as you level. Other jobs such as WHM, BLM, RDM, you have more to look forward to, but with SMN you dont get spells that often. It just seems like ive seen all Im going to see with SMN. Ive got all teh avatars, except Fenrir and i cant get him cause I dont have a high enough level. Yeah i have the "stronger" avatars to look forward to, but eh its nothing that exciting to me since they look the same. It just feels like I have nothing else to look forward to. Can any of you SMNers possibly change my mind?

[forze]

Trust me...you'd be better off as a smn then a drk.
Then again...go ahead and lvl BRD or rdm, theres never enough of those. Pld is also a good choice.
If you really wanna be a DD, be a rng, that is if you don't mind farming gils while lvling.

My 2 cents.
PeAce OuT.

[EliteYuna]

Summoner isnt really totally great for getting rewards till like lvl 70 + but then you can say @ lvl 60, with the lvl 4 nukes which arnt too bad and are even better with a bard/ you get your AF.

The fact that you say there really isnt much to being a summoner cause you dont get much etc, well you should play a job that you enjoy, look at DRGs, they always get the shaft (well most of the time) from Square, yet there will always be DRGs on every server no matter what, there the dedicated ones, the ones who enjoy being what they want to be. (not saying people who dont play DRG arnt dedicated either)

So in reality its up to what you want, if you think you cant handle being a SMN, then you can be a Bard or something, that is almost always getting new things (song at every lvl but not all songs are entirely awsome >.> ) or any other job that pleases you, remember your Mog is your friend - Change Jobs Kupo?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Yes Please]

You might just be bored of SMN and dont know it.

[mobkon]

well its not that i cant handle it, i do my job quite well but i do think i am getting bored of it like you said. maybe ill go to another job for a while then go back to it.

[Susurrus]

If it is boring for you, you shouldn't play it. The idea of the game is to have fun. If its boring, that defeats the purpose.

And just from my experience after taking SMN to 40, it is extremely boring compared to other jobs, even WHM. My opinion of course, and to each his own. If everyone wanted to play the same job the game would kinda suck.

[Pai Pai Master]

Moved to SMN Forums.

[sudo]

a few points on smn lv's.

w/o fenrir, get to lv 48 to feel more like a smn. Lv 50/55 best.

Why?

Cause you have much much more to do in any pt setting at this lv due to more useful pt buffs and sc combos with double slap.
Trying to maintain earthen ward and shining ruby and aerial armor is quite tasking and main heal during all this and you'll feel much more useful.

Carby meteor is also very fun to play around with in a pt. Using this move at the correct time can really help to get a chain 5 vs ending at chain 4 when you really just need that extra 300 damage or so to get in and kill the mob.

Double slap works for this too but frankly I dislike the low accuracy of connecting both hits and shiva also drains more MP while out.


W/ fenrir, get to lv 43 minimum

Eclipitcal howl when you first get it will give you the OMFGBBQ move that you really come to expect when you have to use up the 1 min blood pact.

It does get outmoded by stacked lunar cry + ecliptical growl in my opinion but it does work amazingly well and no one has ever said they didn't like having that many buffs on.

I often feel naked without 2 rows of buffs on me now-a-days XD.


Personally I enjoy healing and buffing and debuffing. Pet melees, I'd rather be back on my bst. My pets can out melee heavy hitter DD jobs at end game and I don't need mp to keep them out.

Smn is my heavy mp pool support class job with potential to do some good damage when needed. I get great satisfication to fully understand the pacing a pt needs so that I can contribute the most that I can at any one time.

That is the greatest versitility of a smn and basically anyone with mp.

As smn/whm, I concentrate on resting and doing pt buffs on chain 0, 1, 2, 3.

By the time the mob that's supposed to start chain 4 comes in, I should have mp remaining from playing conservatively for the first 4 mobs. On the 5th and 6th mobs I go all out dd as much as possible to include melee + leaving carby out and doing meteorite instead of stoneskin between fenrir acc and damage enhancements.

I usually still end with about 150ish mp even on chain 5 due to my taru advantage and really essential equipment support.

People say smn doesn't need much good eq and or this or that doesnt affect smn. It simply isn't true.

With a proper meleeing set up complete with +acc rings, + dex, + fenerir buffs, + str, I can actually pull 40% tp from a fight with IT++ mobs even while casting almost the whole time.

At about 9% tp/hit and hitting for about 20 damage + 7 average additional bonus from elemental staff counting times it doesn't work. From just meleeing, I can add about 100 damage per mob.

That is essentially 1/2 a ws. Or 1 arrow from a rng or 1 scythe hit from a drk. It does help believe it or not.

Carby melee is pretty weak but the breakdown is more mp efficient with carby gloves, HQ light staff. You can expect about 17 to 20 damage per hit from carby vs IT++ mobs. He gets 8% tp per hit and can end a fight with about 40% tp as well. This is about another 100 damage give or take.

Fenrir meleeing averages higher at around 24 damage.

Regular avatars averages around 22. It's not a lot of difference if you ask me but the mp drain is very noticable. I'll take a free carby.

Meteorite unresisted gets about 300 damage vs IT++ mobs unbursted. Magic bursted, is about 500. Resists cut it down to 110 damage ish.

I'd say it will be a consistant 200 damage average to exp mobs.

So all in all, I can add 400 damage with the right equipment and spell uses on that chain 4 or 5.

This is basically saying, screw stone skin's saving of some 150 hp's and going for 400 damage output.

Again, for comparison, at lv 56, your average rng barrage can hit for about 500-600 damage. A blm AM hits for about 1000+ on mb, and 700 not bursted. A tier II -ga spell will give about 400 damage unresisted.

All in all, 400 damage per fight is a respectable number. It is not uber by any means but really does still contribute and can literally make or break your exp chain.

I say go and try to do the most with your job as possible and explore how to maximize your contributions to the party at every stage of fighting.

Really try to understand every pt's play mechanics and to understand how to extend chains should be every smn's duty.
Knowing how to make things happen the way you want it to and to predict at least 1 minute in advance really makes smn very tactical and challenging and ultimately fun for me.

I go from a *react to situation* job to one where I have to choriograph the whole chain from start to finish. Sorta like bst which have to prep every single one of their fights down to where they have to be in 3 or 5 min down the road through careful battelfield planning, a smn does the same role though MP balances and timing of events but in a pt situation and instead of managing mobs, you are contibuting to live players and how they can perform and how to time events.

Plenty of react to bad crap moments as well on smn but in some ways, it's much harder to deal with because often your timer may be down and all you can do is to throw an avatar or spirit or cure spam to safety and all the while trying to figure out the next move in your strategy on how to recover 1-2 minutes down the road.

[Paradox]

Just wanted to say i thought that last post was simply beautiful, i mean i got pleasure from simple reading it! Bravo, this post brings out the essance of what a SMN is and should be read by all current job players and future prospects.
Congratulation on bringing out the true wonder of the job.