A few questions from a beginning summoner

[Vyuru]

Hey, I'm planning on leveling summoner as my second job, and for certain special events/missions/other stuff, and I've got a few questions about the job.
Now I should probably say that my main job is a lvl 69 mithra dragoon, so being mithra will affect some of my gear choices and being fairly high level also lets me get most of the summons pretty early in my summoning career.

Gear wise, I know what gear I need to focus on if I am going to be main healing, however there is a good chance that I could just play summoner as a summoner, and so I would like to focus on gear that allows me to do that.

As I understand it, none of your stats carry over to your summon or affect your summon in any way shape or form, so it seems that in general, stats to focus on like summon buffs, -bloodpact timer, and +mp, and +hmp gear is the way to go.

I think my biggest question though is, Austere armor vs AF armor, which should I use? The AF gives some nice avatar buffs, but the Austere set gives a ton of +summoning skill and -Bloodpact time.

Also, what's the opinion of the Vermillion Cloak vs Austere Robe? With an Avatar out the Austere Robe looks to be as good as a Vermy Cloak, and in some ways it looks preferred since you cannot equip headgear if you wear a Vermy.

In general, is the +3 summoning skill you can get from a summoning earring better or worse than getting a +mp earring? Once I hit lvl 50 the Antivenom and Insomnia earrings look to give some nice boosts. Since I'll be /whm, should I consider the Healer's Earring with -1 Enmity?

[Omniblast]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Gear wise, I know what gear I need to focus on if I am going to be main healing, however there is a good chance that I could just play summoner as a summoner, and so I would like to focus on gear that allows me to do that.

You will still focus mainly on curing. Until about level 70, then you can actually act like a real summoner.

As I understand it, none of your stats carry over to your summon or affect your summon in any way shape or form, so it seems that in general, stats to focus on like summon buffs, -bloodpact timer, and +mp, and +hmp gear is the way to go.

Yes, blood pact and mp are your main focuses. You'll need Elemental Staffs at level 51. Get them while they are cheap.

I think my biggest question though is, Austere armor vs AF armor, which should I use? The AF gives some nice avatar buffs, but the Austere set gives a ton of +summoning skill and -Bloodpact time.

I went from level 50-75 in Auster's You don't need AF. I don't even own the Evoker's Bracers. Never bothered to, the only AF you need are the feet and legs, also carbuncle's mitts, and Elemental Staffs.

Also, what's the opinion of the Vermillion Cloak vs Austere Robe? With an Avatar out the Austere Robe looks to be as good as a Vermy Cloak, and in some ways it looks preferred since you cannot equip headgear if you wear a Vermy.

Vermillion is better for keeping Carbuncle out, gear swap to Auster's when you use a blood pact. Then switch back when you're done using your blood pact.

In general, is the +3 summoning skill you can get from a summoning earring better or worse than getting a +mp earring? Once I hit lvl 50 the Antivenom and Insomnia earrings look to give some nice boosts. Since I'll be /whm, should I consider the Healer's Earring with -1 Enmity?

I used all +mp gear before the update, now the recent update (within the last year) modifies the abilities of your avatar if you are 10% over the maximum summoning skill of your current level. @ level 75 you need over 300 summoning skill to have a significant effect on your avatar. Otherwise it is scaled down.

[SharMarali]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

You didn't mention whether gil is an issue for you or not. If it isn't, get both the vcloak and the austere body/head combo. You'll be glad you did. If gil is an issue though, don't bother with a vcloak right now. The austere is far more important, not to mention way cheaper.

Also keep in mind you'll need a full set of elemental staves. Obviously you won't need them for awhile if you're just starting out, but if you're really planning to raise the job, you'll need all 8. I'm not saying you need all 8 HQ. I mean, I personally have them, but I'm really anal retentive about my SMN, and the difference between the NQ and the HQ is only 1mp/tick.

As far as AF goes, the legs are the single most important piece you can have, bar none. You can get by without all the rest. The feet are decent if you plan to solo a lot with your pets tanking. The head has its uses after the summoning skill update, but it only has +3 skill more than the austere head has, and unlike austere, it does NOT offer a blood pact timer reduction.

[Gwynn]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

A few tidbits:

Personally, I like both the AF Boots and head. I have the whole set because I like how it looks, so I use it for running around, but generally speaking I only use the Pants, boots, and horn.

Get a full set of Elemental staves. If you're only going to get one HQ, make it Dark. Having that extra -1 Perp on Fenrir can really help (Not to mention it carries over to Diabolos too).

Summoner can be geared rather cheaply, actually. Most of our god endgame gear is Rare/Ex

[Malacite]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Personally, I like both the AF Boots and head. I have the whole set because I like how it looks, so I use it for running around, but generally speaking I only use the Pants, boots, and horn.

This is my basic philosophy for all AF sets ^ - ^ You gotta get the whole set every time, if nothing else so you can store it lol.


Seriously though that Austere gear is pretty important. The Hat and Body I believe are the two critical pieces.

[Shirai]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Seriously though that Austere gear is pretty important. The Hat and Body I believe are the two critical pieces.

Body, yes.
Hat, no.

The Blood pact reduction is very nice together with the -1 perpetuation from the body.
The extra summoning skill from the other parts is only useful when it actually brings your skill over the current level cap otherwise it can be negated.
The hat can be replaced for the AF horn at level 60 if you have your skill is indeed close to cap.
As for the Blood pact reduction, I don't remember doing a blood pact every time the timer was ready except for CoP BCNMs.

Personally my focus on summoner gear at levels 50 up to endgame is as followed:

Perpetuation cost -> Austere body or Vermillion cloak (-1), Yinyang Robe, Elemental staves (NQ -2 and HQ -3) (I didn't add penance robe (-2) because it's just too rare and expensive if one ever pops on AH.)
High End stuff: Nashira Gages(-1), AF+1 feet(-1), Bahamut's staff(-3), AFv2 Body and head only with the right conditions (-3).

Avatar stats -> Evoker's Spats (Avatar Physical Accuracy), Evoker's Pigaches (Avatar Evasion).
High end:Summoner's Pigaches (Avatar Attack), Summoner's Bracers (Avatar Accuracy)
Summoner's Doublet (Avatar critical hit rate +3%)

The Evoker's Spats are by far the most useful Artifact piece for a summoner.

Blood pact recast timer -> Austere gear, until AFv2 and Yinyang Robe.

Summoning magic skill -> Austere gear, Summoning earring (if you can afford it and want one (+3)), Summoning Torque (+7), Artifact horn (+5), Evoker's ring (+10!) and AFv2 Hands later on (+10!)
High end stuff: Nashira Crackows (+5), Astute Cape (+5), Bahamut's Staff (+5), Marduk's Tiara (+7), Marduk's Shalwar (+5)

MP (There is a lot of choice in this departement, choose wisely.)
MP and summoning skill can be switched around if your skill is considerably under the cap.
Being Mithra however you have the second largest MP pool together with Humes, you can focus on extra MP parts but MP doesn't have to be your main focus.
Do however be very careful with HP to MP converting equipment because we don't have much HP and our defense is as thin as paper.

Also -enmity is very helpful if you get into a party where you really have to cure a lot.
The Crow Jupon set saved my tail on more then several occasions where I had to cure so much the tank lost hate to me.

And as Gwynn sais, our best endgame gear is rare/ex.
However this may not always come cheap, some require up to extreme amounts of patience and/or large amounts of gil over time.

Yinyang Robe is free but needs lots of patience as it's a highly competed over piece dropping from a very annoying NM.
Needless to say it's the best endgame body piece for us.

AFv2 depends on what Dynamis linkshell you go with if you have to pay for entry or if it's sponsored, how many other summoners are in line for gear before you and it doesn't drop much either.

For the more high end gear like AF+1 and Nashira gear you need to have sea access.
Next to pouring gil in getting CoP missions done, Limbus itself costs 50.000 gil every time you go and the right AF+1 items and the right items for the Nashira attire don't always drop either.
Next to that the road to the Proto-Ultima fight for the Nashira attire is very long and hard, next to that the fight itself is not easy either!

Sky and HNM gear doesn't offer much for summoners in my humble opinion no matter what race you play.

Below level 50 normal mage attire is the way to go, as there is nothing that specificly helps summoner.

[Vyuru]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Out of curiosity, it seems that for Rage bloodpacts, you may want some of the summoner AF, so can I activate the bloodpact with Austere gear on, and macro in the summon stat+ gear before the summon uses the bloodpact and get the benefits from both gear sets?

So for example:

Equip Austere gear
Make Garuda use Claw
Before Claw activates macro in the summoner AF
Swap back to Austere gear after Claw is used

[Shirai]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Basicly yes, between the Blood pact command and the actual Blood pact going of you have ~3 seconds.

At lower level however there isn't really a lot of gear which gives you such a notable benefit to make gear swap during Blood pacts viable.

[Timian]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Would you still opt for Summoning Skill over MP if you were elvaan?

[Shirai]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Would you still opt for Summoning Skill over MP if you were elvaan?

On earlier levels yes,
Elvaan and Galka have a small MP pool and a lot of HP to spare, next to that a higher natural DEF so they are more viable to sacrifice a bit more HP to MP without having the fear of being one or two shot by an agressive mob.
However still with care, good food makes up a lot and good MP food is not that expensive.

On later levels (Level 50+) you don't need to mind it that much, you do have a smaller natural MP pool then other races but levels and the auto refresh trait compensate a lot.
Also on later levels Perpetuation reduction and summoning magic skill mean more then MP as summoning skill helps loads with your Blood pact accuracy and duration.
If you get the hang of utilizing your Blood pact: Ward buffs you won't have to cure your parties that much anymore and use less MP per fight over all.

[edit]
@Vyuru
The avatars gain the stats from the gear that the summoner has equiped at the moment the avatar uses it's commanded Blood pact.

If you give the command with Austere slops on and swap to the AF pants before the avatar actually uses the action the avatar's attack will have the stats it has gained from the AF pants.
The stats from the austere slops will not go over to the avatar as they are not equiped during the action.

However there are some exceptions but those are more regarding personal stats.

[SharMarali]

Re: A few questions from a beginning summoner

Speaking as a level 75 elvaan SMN, MP is not my primary concern. My concerns, in no particular order of importance, are perpetuation cost, blood pact reduction timers, avatar stats, and summoning skill. MP is the last thing I consider in my equipment selections. My MP is just under 1100 with my "standard" gear setup, and I've found that to be quite sufficient for my activities. I COULD bring it up by about another 200 MP with various items, but I'd rather keep what I use.

Concerning the gear swapping during a BP question, I agree with Shirai that doing that is only useful at later levels. I have a "blood pact" macro that I swap to right before using a blood pact. It changes my legs, feet, and hands to AF2 and makes sure I'm using the yinyang robe rather than the AF2 body, which I use situationally. Then my actual blood pact macro has a /wait 1 which changes my legs back to AF+1 for avatar accuracy. This way I get -2 seconds on my blood pact timer AND I still get the avatar accuracy from the AF+1 legs. I also have a macro to swap to my summoner's doublet, which I often hit as soon as my legs have swapped back so that I can get the avatar critical hit rate benefit from the doublet. After the blood pact animation is done, i have yet another macro that swaps back to my AF+1 feet and nashira gages to get me back to my decreased avatar perpetuation cost. It sounds complicated, but once I got used to the routine, it was well worth it.