Summoner/Red Mage

[soldier786]

ok this is the question i wanna ask is Red Mage gona be a good sub-job for Summoner?

I have already leveled RDM to 20 and when i take it to 30 i wanna keep it as my sub job for summoner.

(and please dont say Summoner is better with White Mage, becuase thats what everyone says and thats not what i asked for)

[Mog]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

I would say no. /RDM doesn't offer much in terms of MP, which is a deciding factor in SMN magic.

/WHM on the other hand, is able to attribute magic points, and if there are no WHM's available on hand, it would account for getting invites a lot easier. Yes, you will probably be backup healing a lot of the time, but xp is xp, no?

[Murphie]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

Red Mage is going to be at best an ok sub for Summoner.

You know, there is a reason that everyone says that about SMN and WHM.

[Hamlet]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

Summoner is better with whm. Sorry, but it's true. Before lvl 70, you'll be main healing alot and you'll need the status removal tools, among other things that whm has and rdm does not.

[Kirsteena]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

You are going to be at least back up healing for a fair amount of your career, so smn/whm for the status cures, and more mp.

Smn/rdm is at best ok, very situational.

[soldier786]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

ok then WHM it is

[Aeni]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

SMN/RDM probably for soloing mostly. I'm not sure how that works though >.> Well, you can sub RDM if you need dispel for certain mobs, like crawlers for intance and if there's no BRD or RDM or the BLMs don't have their own RDM to sub.

[Neomage]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

Unfortunately, past level 5 Summoner only has one non-situational subjob - White Mage. The reason for this is that the abilities Summoner gets from a White Mage subjob are mostly not effected by level or xxxx magic skill - Elemental, Enfeebling, and Dark from BLM and RDM are. Because of that, you would only get Fast Cast and a few medicore heals from /RDM, and nothing but more MP from /BLM.

[Rain_Blade]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

ok this is the question i wanna ask is Red Mage gona be a good sub-job for Summoner?

I have already leveled RDM to 20 and when i take it to 30 i wanna keep it as my sub job for summoner.

(and please dont say Summoner is better with White Mage, becuase thats what everyone says and thats not what i asked for)

Actually, you can sub rdm, blm, or whm. Subbing red Mage will give you fast cast (if it's lvl 15), but the only use of fast cast for summoners would just be summoning your pet. Subbing blm will make you more DD-ish and when your blm is lvl 20 you get the "Conserve MP" Trait which occasionally reduces spells' MP cost. I don't know if Blood Pacts count as spells though. If you sub rdm or blm, you should make your own party with a whm. Sometimes you can be invited if you are a /rdm or /blm. People just mainly sub whm because people who take advantage of summoners want us as healers. I'm a smn/whm and I deny healing requests and I do fine. It's just if you do wait TOO long for a pt, make your own pt. ^^

[Tirrock]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

Summary of common subs for SMN:

/WHM
Pros:
-Healing magic caps out easy, so a subbed WHM can still cure well.
-Able to remove debuffs from people.
-Divine seal is awesome when people don't forget about it's existance.
-Fairly handy spells like raise, teleport holla/mea/dem, sneak, regen, invisible, blink, and stoneskin.
Cons:
-Makes SMN a healer role in many parties. (A negative point for many. Some, like myself, didn't really care.)
-No MP conservation type ability from WHM.

/BLM
Pros:
-Highest MP.
-Conserve MP trait. (More on this in "Cons" section.)
-Won't be asked to main heal. (Again, a positive point for some.)
-Warp.
Cons:
-BLM spells will get resisted by anything you exp off of.
-Conserve MP does not work on blood pacts, and avatars are cheap to summon.
-No defensive spells.

/RDM
Pros:
-Dispel doesn't get resisted too much.
-Access to sneak, invis, regen, blink, and stoneskin spells.
-Ability to cure.
-Fast cast to shorten the time it takes for you to cure.
Cons:
-Lower MP than WHM or BLM sub (not that MP is a huge issue).
-Inability to remove negative status effects from party members.
-Nukes and enfeebles will be resisted by anything you'd exp on.

I'm pretty sure somewhere we had a detailed post about SMN subjobs. I think it was one of tazrai's topics. That had more subjobs and more opinions listed, if you're interested in that. It shouldn't be too far back, it's maybe three months old.

[SharMarali]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

I don't get how you can ask for the honest opinion of the users of this forum and then tell us NOT to tell you that /WHM is better than /RDM. If you don't want to hear that, maybe you're not looking for an honest opinion, but rather just looking for someone to tell you what you want to hear.

Summoners have a 60 second cool down time in between blood pacts and my opinion is that people should be doing something more often than once a minute in a PT or they're just leeching. I also don't particularly care for SMNs who have their avatars melee all the time. Yes, there are situations where it works, but for the most part, it's a massive waste of MP to have pets do a job that's better left to melee characters. So in order to be more active, a SMN should choose a SJ that allows them to offer MORE to the PT than just summon, blood pact, rest, rinse, repeat.

The purpose of a support job is to enhance your main job to make it as good as it can be. I personally don't feel that /BLM offers anything to SMN, since you can't exactly cast black magic as a support job with halved elemental skill and expect to acheive anything.

/RDM is an OK choice if you're unwilling to raise WHM, but its potential is sorely limited. In raising SMN/RDM, the first thing you'd notice is that you wouldn't get cure2 until level 28, while SMN/WHM gets it at 22. That's a HUGE difference. You're talking about getting it in Qufim vs. getting it in Kazham. You also don't get status cures and don't get as much MP as /WHM.

The only real benefit to /RDM over /WHM is getting dispel at level 66... And frankly, if the PT is relying on a SMN to dispel, the lineup has more serious problems to work through than just what SJ the SMN is using. Yes, they have fast cast, but SJ level fast cast is kind of marginal and doesn't add nearly as much as what /WHM brings to the table.

Yes, I know a lot of SMNs have a problem with main healing. I don't know why. There are not enough white mages to have one in every single PT. SOMEBODY else has to take on the healing role sometimes. We're suited for it. We have a huge MP pool and nothing to do but sit on our butts for 45 out of every 60 seconds (until level 50 when you get austere and 71+ when you get AF2, but that's another topic of conversation).

"But but but! SMNs can pull! SMNs can do this and that and another thing!" Yeah, that's situational. Healing is something SMNs can do all the time. The whole PT doesn't have to rearrange and compensate for what the SMN wants to do if the SMN takes on a healing role.

[sevenpointflaw]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

If you aren't resposible for removing status effects, /rdm is fine. You can still backup cure with it. As for people who say that you spend a lot, most, or all of your time main healing, I say thats a gross generalization. You will do what you are willing to do, and nothing more. For example, I have never main healed on SMN. Ever. Nor have I had anny issue with getting parties. I've always had a WHM or RDM/WHM main heal, and it has always worked out fine.

But then, I also use bloodpacts to Skill Chain, so its not like I'm doing nothing.

[Kirsteena]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

Example where /rdm is situational.

Lamie #13 Assault. I did this with 2 smn/rdm and myself as rdm/blm. All we needed was dispel. Huge fun.

Yes you can sub what you want, but your party invites maybe limited if you don't at least say you have /whm available. Smn/whm and rdm/blm work well with a nin tank, and you will ahve time to use bloodpacts regularly.

[Takiri]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

thats why i dont follow the /whm phase. /BLM and /RDM are my subs for all mage jobs. 30blu/blm too i dont use ninja or war. i dont follow other i just play how i want to and i still get invites. do smn/rdm its fine, you just get like 5% less mp then /whm not a big deal.

[Murphie]

Re: Summoner/Red Mage

thats why i dont follow the /whm phase. /BLM and /RDM are my subs for all mage jobs. 30blu/blm too i dont use ninja or war. i dont follow other i just play how i want to and i still get invites. do smn/rdm its fine, you just get like 5% less mp then /whm not a big deal.

You don't just miss out on 5% MP. You also miss out on a lot of utility via WHM only spells. And Divine Seal too. That's pretty handy every now and then.