Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

[Omni]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

where's the OP?

[SharMarali]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

OK, here's the problem.

FFXI has been out for quite a long time now. Over 3 years in America and a bit longer in Japan. There is a HUGE player base with multiple high-level jobs. It has gotten to a point where the players who are raising their 3rd or 4th job OUTNUMBER the players who are raising their first job.

Unfortunately, the majority of the players raising their 3rd or 4th job have forgotten how difficult it was when they were "growing" their character. They don't remember what a pain it was to find help with things like genkai and AF and various missions. They solo things now that required an alliance of level 50's to accomplish. Making gil is easier for them now than it was then, because they have access to solo higher-level monsters for drops and/or they've raised a craft to a high level or have some other form of gil making. They've forgotten that lower level players generally don't have the ability to amass huge sums of gil.

So they take it for granted that everybody they PT with has at least one level 75 job. I'm guilty of this myself. I was in a PT in the basement of Garlaige last week and we had a THF who was asking a lot of questions about stuff that we all took for granted, and eventually we learned that she hadn't yet cleared genkai 1. The funny part was, the THF was really quite good. So we completely took it for granted that she probably had a couple of level 75 jobs up her sleeve and we weren't making a serious attempt to answer her honest questions until AFTER we found out she was raising her first job.

Such is the problem of the summoner. It's been my observation that there is a disproportionate number of SMNs who are also level 75 WHMs. Doesn't hold true for all of them. Doesn't hold true for me, personally. But people see a SMN and tend to assume that they're a 75 WHM. Completely wrong for them to do it, but that's the way of things. And even if they find out the SMN does NOT have a level 75 job, let alone WHM, they tend to assume that the SMN can easily afford to pay a bunch of high level players to kill Fenrir and Diabolos for them. Well, I'm a bit out of touch with things, and I don't really know what the going rate is for these fights now, but I'd guess it'd cost at least a million gil to hire enough people to finish both. Personally, when I was level 40, if you had told me to come up with a million gil, I would have laughed so hard I would have eventually passed out from lack of oxygen.

Also, we high levels tend to take it for granted that the up-and-coming players already have all the stuff they need or at least have a means to get it, because we tend to raise jobs that allow us to get the most out of what we have invested into our gear. That is to say, a high level DRK with an adaman hauberk would tend to want to raise WAR in order to get the most mileage out of that piece of equipment. Most of the people we see raising SMN already own a full set of elemental staves because they have some other mage job that requires them. The person leveling SMN as their first job though, has to come up with the gil to MAKE these purchases using the limited methods of gilmaking at their disposal. Yet another hinderance to their acquisition of Fenrir and Diabolos.

Anyway, I think most PTs would give SMNs that don't have these avatars a bit more leeway if they were up front about the fact that SMN is their highest-level job and they haven't been able to obtain these two elusive fellows yet. Yeah, you'll still encounter the occassional jerk who will call you a noob and want to kick you from the PT. On the whole though, people can be pretty understanding if they know what it is that they're supposed to be understanding about.

[Telera]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

Anyway, I think most PTs would give SMNs that don't have these avatars a bit more leeway if they were up front about the fact that SMN is their highest-level job and they haven't been able to obtain these two elusive fellows yet. Yeah, you'll still encounter the occassional jerk who will call you a noob and want to kick you from the PT. On the whole though, people can be pretty understanding if they know what it is that they're supposed to be understanding about.

Agree completely with your entire post, but I've selected the end here to add my own experience to. In general, I think I have only been asked once or twice if I had Fenrir. Diabolos has actually never come up. When asked about Fenrir I simply was honest with the group, told them Summoner was my first job up, the highest I had, and that I was earnestly working on it, but no I didn't have it yet. They were all understanding and the leader said, "Use whatever you want then. You're a one woman army, pick what you want."

And that was the end of that. No one degraded me about it, it wasn't even mentioned again. Most parties don't even care to ask; I get the impression that most of them don't really care. If you have it, you do, if you don't, you don't. But like you said, you do get the occasional jerk whose memories have been clouded by too many days at 75. Though I think they were likely always jerks, it's rare that 75 magically transforms people, though I have seen it happen to some old friends.

[Altae]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

I don't think it really matters if you're someone who possess a Lv60-75 job, or not. Whether if you can easily get help for avatars, or not.

Diabolos is not a very 'easy to get' avatar. You need to do a series of CoP missions which rarely happens at a public angle. Then you've got to beat him twice. Once for the missions and once more for the pact. And he's really vicious from what I've heard so far. So, your PT shouldn't even be bothering to ask you for Diabolos uses. From the sounds of it, that inquisitive guy just wants to fight side by side with Diabolos. Or, if he's the tank, maybe he wants periodic phalanx buffs.

Whatever the reason, you're directing your angst in the wrong direction here. Your angst should be more towards the fact that there are delinquents in your party making assumptions like that. The assumptions are natural occurrences for SMNs. Almost everyone will think you've got all the avatars since you've decided to play SMN (or at least the basic 7 including Carbuncle). Because almost everyone has that need to feel "complete" when playing SMN. "Oh, I have to have those avatars before I touch the SMN job." I'm not saying you're a poor player for not being like all these others. This is how the assumption is. Yes, it's silly.

It's just like with any other job. Mage-like jobs especially. "Do you have dispel? Do you have dispel? Do you have dispel?" Back then, most red mages couldn't afford dispel very easily. It costed some 69,000-ish gil I believe, if you purchase it from a vendor. But today, even the newest player can have heaps of gil at their expense. From a short while of farming or buying gil.

So, don't fret if you run into more of these juveniles. Keep playing SMN how ever much you want or like. You may not be a complete SMN yet, but you have what is needed to play the job class. A desire. And that'll eventually get you the help you need for the rest of your avatars. Whether it be a party of SMNs using carbuncle, a soloing RDM, or even a actual party itself, it'll come and you're bound to get your chances.

[Rakshaka]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

Ultimate Terror can be fun. I pulled about 7 crabs in kuftal tunnel, then used ultimate terror on them. Instantly, you see a massive string of "Crab misses Diabolos" (I'm guessing all of the absorbed AGI and DEX created that fun little effect). Then I managed to whip out a 700 dmg camisado. The more mobs you have, the better the ability is. The only bad part is that it only lasts for a minute, and the stat boosts/drains gradually decrease in potency.

Edit: Response to previous posts mentioning usefulness of BPs.

[Sevv]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

Ok imo

a first job smn
@32 Avatars (but fenrir and diabolos
@65-70 Fenrir
@74 diabolos

if you have a 75 or even 70+ job you should have them all by smn 20 lol. Now yes diabolos can be a pain to get, but there is a main thing here you are a smn and smn get asked and paid to do cop missions so you have no problem getting to diabolos mission wise now the prime is the only reason i give some slack on the level. Its more or less on average harder to find ppl to help on diabolos then it is to actaully fight him. And people who say why bother he isnt all that good, your just gimping ur self you need to be versitile. Take some pride in your job, suck it up and get your avatars or dont bitch that ppl want you to have them. Telera wouldnt level past 30 w/o her last two avatars because she has pride in being a smn, she busts her ass and is a better smn for it. Im an ass and elitest for saying it but i have respect and pride for my jobs =P

[Altae]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

Refusing to level SMN past 30 isn't something I'd consider prideful. If you have a 75 job other than that 30SMN, couldn't you have refused to touch SMN at all until you've got all those avatars? Wouldn't that then be even MORE prideful?

You're forgetting one main important factor of FFXI here. You're paying to play. Not everyone who plays SMN can afford to throw 13 dollars away each month without worry. Don't tell me to senselessly throw your money away for pride in-game is also a kind of pride. Either go level SMN or don't. "Do or do not." -Yoda.

Someone wants to level their SMN to 30, fine. That's their choice. But to brag about pride and such, that's got nothing to do with job progression. Something like pride would only have effect in how a job is played. How you've equipped your character, how you use abilities and spells, how you use strategy against opponents. That's where pride should be.

Remember, EXP parties can also use SMNs as main healers rather than as a summoner. So, pride in terms of how a job is played well or poorly couldn't stop a summoner from leveling up.

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

I can agree with the fact that not having all of your spells and skills available to you, and still playing the game anyway, is gimp and I don't agree with it one bit.

However, people do it anyway, that I'm fine with that.

But I draw the line at Fenrir. Acc/Evd is a strong buff to be missing out on in the 50's. And his BP at 65 is not to be ignored either. These items are strong stuff. They can help make or break xp / hour. If you're job starts to interfere w/xp/hour, then you're gimping the party. I don't care what kind of arguement, point of supposed validity, or opinion one may have. If you are bringing down xp / hour, then ..... I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're not being a team player.

That being said, alot of times, you hurt for a support role job and if a SMN w/o Fenrir is all you got available to you, then you gotta make it work.

It's all situational, but don't expect me to make nicey w/you if you're not coming to party with all your tools available to you.

It's similar to a DRG coming to party and never summoning his wyvern, or a DRK never using absorbs, or a WAR nevering casting Utsu, or a MNK never using his JA's cuz "he's lazy and his keyboard if 5 feet away." (Yes, I've heard that excuse.) Or a BLM never casting elemental debuffs, or a WHM never using SS+Blink+Flash, or a RDM never hasting -anyone- in party....... need I go on? lol

At any rate, Diabolos' abilities are ok. I won't berate a summoner for not having him in pt. I do not like it if the SMN doesn't at least have Fenrir. But eh... what do you do? Usually, you just gotta go on with it anyway...... optimal situations would, well, be quite optimal for performance.... but on average, most ppl just don't play "optimally." lol

[Telera]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

Altae, I think you missed Boss' point. I don't have another 70+ job, so no, I did not want to level past 30 without finishing off my 'main' avatars. Yes, it was my pride, but it was a by and large lack of will to gimp a party by having only around half of even the basic set. Just because I picked a tentative point at which I wanted to obtain them the basic set, but not everything under the sun is not a bad thing. No, I'm not going to play this game by levelling something else to 75 to obtain it all. I was, however, going to put my advancement on hold until I felt satisfied that I could be more than a glorified heal tank. I'm not going to go into a party with less than even half what I should have. And I think all summoners would be better off if they at least had the decency to do the same. I *am* a first-job to 75 summoner, so no, I don't expect Fenrir or Diabolos. But there's mini-fights and if all else fails, friends who can do your primes for the rest.

I *chose* to stop levelling for a while, willingly and of my own volition. I have wanted to be a summoner since FF: Tactics and I *refuse* to half-ass the job. This is the only job I'm passionate about, the only one I even really care for. If you're saying that's a bad thing, well then I can say I truly don't give a damn about your opinion. I'm not asking it of any other summoner, and I really don't think that's what Boss meant by it. But yes, I think it does show that someone has pride in their job, not only summoner but any class, if they realize that at a certain point, they could be more and stop to obtain whatever does that for them. Plenty of DD classes stop to farm the money for Haubys, O kotes, and similar things. Why? They have pride in their job and they want to perform at the top of their game with that gear. Most of them are not going to ask the same of another, but to say it isn't pride, but just stubborness is wrong as well. If the person is working hard at obtaining something that will improve them, I think they should be praised for it, not torn down by others as you now seem intent upon doing.

I play just fine; I do also take pride in my gear and how I perform in the party. But performing in a party includes making an effort to get the things you're expected to have. They all fall hand in hand. I want to have what my party needs when they need it. If others don't do that, that's their choice. Yes, I think I'm a more dedicated summoner for stopping myself and forcing myself to finish something. Am I going to say everyone has to? Hell no. Am I going to say they have less pride in the job? No. Do I even give a damn? No. Would it have been more dedicated to take another job up to 70, first? Perhaps, but I would have quit the game. There's nothing else on it I can endure for the length of time spent. I don't get to level much, or quickly, and if I had done that, I wouldn't be a summoner even today.


Shin seems to have gotten the point that Boss was making: I was gimp. I was aware of the fact and I refused to continue on gimped. So I told myself "No farther, we're finishing this now." Once I obtained the rest of the Celestials, I carried on. Yes, there is more to your pride in your job than your spell list, but if a party needs something of me and I can't deliver *I* have failed them. And it's a waste of the time they are paying $13 a month for, as you pointed out, not everyone has the time to be wasting. I don't want to be the source of that waste.

I stopped at 60 until I obtained Fenrir. I worked hard at it, slowly getting my whispers together, and found a small group of summoners that would accompany me, and now I have it. Diabolos is harder to get, and I doubt I will 'stop' for him, but I have turned my attention now on getting to him so that if he's needed, he'll be there.

I think that's part of respecting yourself, your job, and the others around you. If its not, then I really don't want to see respect. And yes, I deeply respect my job. Alot of people aren't willing to stop to fix a gimp aspect, and you're saying it wasn't a good thing to have enough respect for myself to do that? I can't say I agree with you. I didn't 'try' to level summoner. Levelling isn't just EXP parties. It's preparing yourself for the road, and yes, I think that anyone who makes effort at their job *can* have a little bit of real life pride in themselves. Its better than the idiots our servers are filled with who do a job just for a HNM slot and don't bother to even show a remote bit of heart for what they are doing.

I swear, attitudes like this make me wonder why I even keep coming back to the game. No one can try to give themselves a sense of achievement without someone pointing out they could've done it this way, or that way, and they don't deserve to feel good about themselves. Good God, people.

RE: Post below. :p Probably worth clarification, I didn't 'pay' the summoners for Fenrir. They were all friends or acquaintences willing to help me out.

[Ruz]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

It's all situational, but don't expect me to make nicey w/you if you're not coming to party with all your tools available to you.

It's similar to a DRG coming to party and never summoning his wyvern, or a DRK never using absorbs, or a WAR nevering casting Utsu, or a MNK never using his JA's cuz "he's lazy and his keyboard if 5 feet away." (Yes, I've heard that excuse.) Or a BLM never casting elemental debuffs, or a WHM never using SS+Blink+Flash, or a RDM never hasting -anyone- in party....... need I go on? lol

At any rate, Diabolos' abilities are ok. I won't berate a summoner for not having him in pt. I do not like it if the SMN doesn't at least have Fenrir. But eh... what do you do? Usually, you just gotta go on with it anyway...... optimal situations would, well, be quite optimal for performance.... but on average, most ppl just don't play "optimally." lol

This isn't the same thing as what you are talking about for many reasons, one word TANKS.

I will assume from your avatar that you know of this. NIN and PLD tank differently and honestly I can only do 1 ward BP per min. Now with a Nin that is SS, with a PLD I chose Shining Ruby. I am never invited to a party to just use BP, I will always heal either back up or main and even if I am not main i will remove status.

Fenrir is nice to have at lower levels but if you want to throw a word like pride around then you will have to recognize that some of us have pride to not just pay for the battles. That is leeching and it just shows that you have money, its not even as if you just asked a group of friends for help you instead ended up paying total strangers for a fight that you didnt need to do right away.

I do not have Diabolos yet, just finished Three Paths last night in CoP, SMN is my highest job at 69, and I am not short of money or good friends to take. The only reason I am putting it off is to participate in the fight myself.

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

This isn't the same thing as what you are talking about for many reasons, one word TANKS.

I will assume from your avatar that you know of this. NIN and PLD tank differently and honestly I can only do 1 ward BP per min. Now with a Nin that is SS, with a PLD I chose Shining Ruby. I am never invited to a party to just use BP, I will always heal either back up or main and even if I am not main i will remove status.

Fenrir is nice to have at lower levels but if you want to throw a word like pride around then you will have to recognize that some of us have pride to not just pay for the battles. That is leeching and it just shows that you have money, its not even as if you just asked a group of friends for help you instead ended up paying total strangers for a fight that you didnt need to do right away.

I do not have Diabolos yet, just finished Three Paths last night in CoP, SMN is my highest job at 69, and I am not short of money or good friends to take. The only reason I am putting it off is to participate in the fight myself.

Oh my bad. You may not have understood what I meant. Here...

My point was this.

If you do not have all of your skills/spells/abilities/appropriate equipment with you when you play this game at the time of your level and job, then, I'm sorry, I deeply apologize, I wish you no ill-intentions, but your gimp. If you don't bring everything w/you to the table, then you're gimp. It doesn't mean your a bad person, it just means your job will sub-par. Now, that may or may not be your fault. You also may be able to situationally overcome your faults. Some ppl just play jobs, like SMN, from the gitgo and never get the high end pets. Fine. Just don't expect me to be all buddy-buddy w/you after I worked my butt off to get where I should be lol.

That's it.

So, if you are in a pt somewhere and someone asks if you have all your tools w/you and you say "; no i'm sorry i don't have HL friends," don't expect ppl to be nicey/nicey w/you. lol You're gonna get some backdraft. It's just nature. No one's wrong. The situation is just as it is, that's all.

Now, IMO, I -do not- like to party with -any- job, period, that is gimp. That is to say, that does not "bring all the tools available to the job to battle to use" to help the -team- get the highest xp / hour possible. Because, more often than not, everyone else ends up suffering needlessly. (or doing someone else's job) Again, I said I dislike this. It didn't mean I won't work with the situation.

Even further, I stated that its all "situational." So, for example, if a SMN is asked to main heal in pt, sure, fine, by all means go for it. I think its a really jacked up request to ask a SMN to main heal and I don't do it by practice, but a lot of ppl do. I think SMN is geared more for support healing than main healing. Therefore, I think SMN mainhealing can be gimp. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree.

At any rate, not having Fenrir after 54 really makes you less of a player. I mean, what if a BRD came to pt without Madrigal? I bet you can imagine "no one" would complain right? *leer* That acc boost is very helpful. I've never heard or seen it not be. When I played NIN, that evasion boost was sexy. You can't be a SMN in my pt and not give Evade up while I'm tanking and expect me to be hunky dory with it lol. That's not very nice. I liked to have it anytime a SMN was present in pt. It was incredibly helpful. Fenrir's Eclipse Bite is a 3 hit attack. It's strong at 65. What, does like 4-600 dmg range? For a BP at that level isn't that substantial? If you bring damage to a party and help kill a mob faster..... faster killing equates to more xp and over time.... a high xp / hour ratio. I mean.... who -doesn't- want that. -shrugs-

That's my point basically.

Now, onto some jargon:

SMN have excellent support abilities and can fire off nukes on a burst. If they spend all their time main-healing, they sacrifice alot of time doing their -real- job. This is an age old debate which I do not wish to pursue further, but let it be known, when I start pts, I ask RDMs or WHMs to main heal. If there are none around, I tend not to "try to throw some job crap together and see if it sticks."

Again, I feel SMN is geared for -ga support + bps. That's their strength. It should be optimized in a party, not minimized. If you play your SMN as a fulltime healer w/support abilites, yes, fine, it will work, you can manage, you can get by. Kinda degrades the SMN job if you ask me but that's the players business. Also, how many times have you seen a pld shoot from yellow to red hp in under a second and the SMN is in the middle of summoning Garuda for Hastega? lol Well whose gonna save the tank? SMN just get alot of strain put on themselves at this point. I don't feel its optimal. Plus, how many pts have you been in where the SMN just does nothing but spam Cure 3 all over the place and doesn't do anything else? They have their reasons, but I tend to feel mostly its because, "they can't effectively main heal and summon at the same time." Alot of times, SMNs get stuck in cure cycles, much like WHMs and RDMs do. Where then is the Hasetga? Where's the E.Howl?

Its obvious that the classes we play in the game are called "jobs," because, that's exactly what it is; a job. You have a pre-determined, set role you are expected to accomplish and that's it. There's basically no hidden agenda when it comes to this. Sure, alot of people play around with the subs to try to increase their potential, but the premise is the same. I like to play optimally. Sometimes, I like to micromanage. That's just me. Some people like to play like that fat, lazy, nerd dude on that Southpark WoW episode that sits back in his chair and spills doritos down his shirt and wears a wrist brace. More power to ya.....................

[Armando]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

There is a BIG difference between a BRD not having Madrigal and a SMN not having Fenrir.

[Ruz]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

Oh my bad. You may not have understood what I meant. Here...

...feel free to disagree.

I do disagree, I get it that you have to have everything perfect, some people are just naturally like that(I like to have some things perfect myself.) I just disagree with the notion of perfection.

I just do not understand that when I pointed out that SMN isn't just used for BP's and voiced my own oppinion that you decided to go off on a rant (it is a rant, you don't post something that long dissagreeing with a disagreement for it to not be a rant.) Is there something your trying to prove?

Back to the OP and topic of this thread Diabolos seems like an interesting avatar, I have yet to meet someone who asked me in an exp party if I have him (I don't.) Just don't worry about what others think when it comes to what you have yet, you have useful skills that a party would be happy to have, whatever your missing can be negated by party set-up and if you really have a huge problem then just make sure you have in your search comment that you do not have (Insert whatever here) avatar.

Players who want you to have everything maynot invite you but you won't have to worry about a missconception in your abilities.

[Shirai]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

I'll just give my 2 gil as well.

As Shar said earlier, the majority of player in ffxi is currently leveling a second, third, fourth, whatever job/character having forgotten what a hard time they had getting their first job of the ground.

Now don't say you had an easy time and leveled the first job fast with topnotch gear all spells best food with incredible ease because then your either a big liar or a gilbuyer.

WHM was my first job I leveled and I had a very hard time keeping up with the demand.
I had Erase at level 51, I fished for more then 2 months straight without leveling just to get my light and dark staff.
I didn't have the best gear, I leveled in Artifact until level 72, switched to Errant and got the Blessed attire when I could afford it.
I didn't even have all the spells until I reached mid 60's, just the essentials.
Just getting the essentials took me weeks or even months of farming/fishing/teleporting.

Now let's take a deeper look at essentials summoner wise:
To get every single avatar in the game you need another job at 75 or be very lucky to leech the fights.
The essential Avatars are the 6 Celestial avatars, for those SE had implemented the level 20 solo battles.
These also provide you with the most useful and used Blood pacts.
At level 30 up to 65>70 and up you should at least have these, but I think everyone would agree to that.

Fenrir:
One of the trophies, by far not one of the essential avatars to have.
Fight: pretty tough he can easily rip apart even the most prepared party in an unsuspected moment.
Even the highest merited parties in the best gear can fall to him.
Usefulness: Decent,
Fenrir's buffs and debuffs are highly dependant on moon phase for their potency, but do have their uses at times.
Eclipse Bite is a very potent DD move but needs a lot of accuracy to land decently on VT+ monsters.
Need: not high, but handy to have in your 60's/70's which are the levels you can fight him.

Diabolos:
The other Trophy, I wouldn't even dare calling him a must have.
Fight: Incredibly hard even with a good setup.
Diabolos himself isn't too hard to get down but has 2 moves which can be very dangerous if they get through.
Nightmare: Sleeps the party and puts a powerful DoT on them. (Bio II and Poison II strength on players.)
When he gets that through he'll either rip you apart one at a time or the DoT slowly eats you to 0 HP.
Ruinous Omen: His 2 hour ability won't kill you but brings your party's health down to 75%, 50% or 25%, he can use this followed by a nightmare right away.
All his moves can be stunned, but if you miss even one stun or he resists, the fight can be considered over unless you are extremely lucky.
Usefulness: Less then decent.
A lot of his abilities will be hardly used, others have been replaced by job's meritable abilities.

Nightmare can be useful for crowd control as you get it sooner then Shiva's sleepga.
But Shiva's Sleepga is far more potent and useful when you get that.
Nether Blast is useful on kited monsters if you don't have any of the meritable Blood pacts yet, but most but a few endgame mobs resist it making it quite sucky damage/MP wise.

Ruinous omen is just plain pathetic.
Unlike the Astral Flow from other avatars Ruinous Omen is hardly as powerful as the others.
Unlike the Demi effect it has on players taking off a portion of their HP (25,50 or 75%) it just does magical darkness based damage on foes that also resist it most of the time.

I didn't get Diabolos until I was 73 summoner myself, nobody ever complained apart from that they'd want to see him in action.
Woohoo, even that is hardly worth to write home about.
These days, I hardly even bring out Diabolos anymore apart from buffing the BLMs or buffing the PLDs when fighting something big.

Need: not really, handy to have on kited monsters or monsters with extremely high defense.
But most kited mobs are also spellcaster, with practice you can time physical Blood pacts and even interupt casts if you're lucky.
And mobs with a real extreme high defense are very rare.

Don't be discouraged by those few elitist dogs that expect you to have everything.
Most people will be satisfied if you have the essentials and won't ask for more.

[Nazo]

Re: Enough of the Assumptions! T.T

I think summoner is distinct from all the other jobs in two very important ways:
Firstly it's the only 'advanced' job that really deserves the moniker; before the introduction of the trial-size fights it was a job that could only really be played by players who had already achieved high levels in another job. I think a lot of people still see it this way.

The other important distinction is that there with the avatars there isn't a pre-determined 'upgrade path' in the same way there is for other jobs, ie. you get spell x at level y and are pretty much expected to have that spell as early as you can. With avatars you can have them all at level 1 and I suspect a lot of people will want to get them all before they start seriously playing summoner, I for one certainly do.

So really you've got a clash of two different mindsets, one that says you oughtn't take up summoner unless you have another high level job that gets you all the avatars from the get-go and one that doesn't want to play another job to 75 just to be able to play the job they really want to play. Yes, those in the 2nd group pay their monthly fee and are entitled to play the job however they see fit, but then so do those in the first group and they are equally entitled to not want to play with those they deem will 'gimp' their party and xp.

I guess you've just got to accept that if you're a summoner without all the avatars some people are going to look down on you and you'll either have to suck it up or play with someone else. Neither group is likely to persuade the other group that their way is 'correct' because in a way they are both right and they are both wrong.