Pre-summoner homework

[Greyfist]

I just hit 30 and unlocked SMN this last weekend, but before switching jobs I'd like advice from more experienced summoners about things that I should have lined up for the best transition into the job. With WHM now at 33 I'm not in much of a position to fight the primes or get Carbuncle Mitts or anything that involves endgame levels or money, so my plan is to roll with Carby to 20 and do the mini fork fights to fill out my avatar stable.

So if anyone has any words of wisdom, equipment I should be striving for, lower level quests relevant to summoners, anything that I can do with my WHM to provide an easier time for my SMN, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm on Midgard, if that makes any difference to anything.

[Malacite]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/summoner-42/

For the love of god, people need to read stickies before posting new and pointless threads. This really ought to be made an offense as it's getting tiresome. That said, I hope you enjoy SMN ^^b

[Necropolis]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

Stickies and such have a lot of info about playing the role and such and would probably restate anything we might state in here.

Other than that it's a pretty standard mage role for the most part in the beginning.

I suggest working on fame anytime you can to unlock the mini fights as well as the Primes. I'd also suggest getting whm to 40 if you can. If you know a 75 ninja (or almost any DD job) they can solo the Prime fights with you just hasting and curing after the 2 hour. Also any 75 RDM could solo it.

The trick with prime fights is to pull the mob down the ramp around the first turn and the whm stand above. When it 2hours you won't get hit. Make sure to keep the approprate bar-spell up as well.

Have fun.

[Greyfist]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

For the love of god, people need to read stickies before posting new and pointless threads. This really ought to be made an offense as it's getting tiresome. That said, I hope you enjoy SMN ^^b

I was making a bet with myself that someone was bound to say that, I wasn't betting on the first reply, though! I've read all of the stickies, of course. They're why I know about things like mini-fork avatar fights.

I'm not asking HAY GUYZ, HOW I PLAY SUMMUNER/?!, I'm asking what I can do, with the resources available to a 33 WHM without millions in gilseller money, to best be prepared to start a summoner job, which isn't a topic covered in any sticky.

[Telera]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

So far as gear goes, since as others have said, you'll be playing healer by and large for a very long time (tedious, but hey, blame SE) you could go for MND+ or MP+. I focused more on MP than MND, myself, because my Summoner is an Elvaan and their naturally puny MP pool makes me cry.

Pretty much most of your whm gear can be transferred to your summoner. Carby Mitts are nice to have, but not a necessity at any time, unless you like having a free Carby. (Note: I believe this can only be achieved combining it w/ Austere Robe and/or Light Staff early on. Need Evoker's Ring as well 71+, iirc)It *could* make the mini-fights easier, but there's plenty of strategy assuming you don't have them.

As to food Ginger/Wizard Cookie or the oft overlooked Roast Mushroom.

(food stats taken from FFXIcyclopedia)
Ginger Cookie:
MP Recovered While Healing +5
Resist Slow
Plantoid Killer

Roast Mushroom:
MP +10
Strength -1
Mind +3
Enmity -1
MP Recovered While Healing +2

More hMP with cookies, but Mushrooms last longer (30 mins as opposed to 3 with cookies), has a little enmity -, and a little mind. I carry both around, use cookies more often than not, though. Basically, until the level for Elemental Staves and Austere/Penance gear, Summoners just wear your basic mage-type gear.

[Theyaden]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

For the most part your summoner will play like your whm did since summoner gets invited to main or backup heal. I took it to 38 and carried yag drinks with me so I could summon/bloodpact/release while healing. I don't sugest always using them just keeping them for when your burning mana faster than normal, or in a pinch situation you know the current fight will be rough.
If you have the Pilgrims Wand that's the only low level rare/exe I can think of for the +2 mp recovered while resting, but with whm 33 you probably already have it.

You can pull in areas like the crawlers nest without fear of links since once you release your pet only the mob you sicked him on will have hate toward you. You can also get away with AOE abilities like thunderspark since only the pet gets hate from the remaining nearby lizards exc and releasing him removes their interest again so long as the other party members don't try to sleep them.
You can also exploit the MPK patch to despawn mobs by attacking with the pet running them out of their spawnradious and releasing (Haven't tested this one but have seen it)

From the way you worded your question I assume your looking at playstyle and unfortunately you don't get to use the main summoner purpose of damage dealer till much later levels since there is always a shortage of healers.

Regarding the look at the stickies I think a number of members just keep a notepad saved so they up post count with "look at the stickies noob" (kidding /em looks for a bunker to hide in) In all seriousness I think the 1st poster misunderstood your question

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

unfortunately you don't get to use the main summoner purpose of damage dealer till much later levels since there is always a shortage of healers.

I'll have to disagree with this; looking at the MP and Blood Pacts available, Summoner is meant to be a flexible hybrid job, and definitely not mean to be "mainly a DD".

There are buffs, some debuffs/enfeebs, ability to SC and MB, and enough MP and tools from /WHM to sustain main healing at most levels. This job is not the same Summoner in other FF games--it's not the big DD from Lv.1 to Lv.99. And, there's no reason for it to be so--FFXI is not lacking in damage dealers, now or before.

I've asked SMN to open Distortion for THFs' Viper Bite before. Seen a JP player using Ifrit to Magic Burst on Fusion in Yuhtunga Jungle. Had many SMNs who protected party from AoE attack with Earthen Ward. And, yes, had many main healers who performed in the role with no complaints.

Be flexible, and be prepared to be flexible with this job; it's capable of a lot of nifty tricks--even before the much touted Lv.70 Rage Blood Pacts.

[Feenicks]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

I totally agree, however this will just get the argument going that SMN is/isn't a main healer using /WHM.

Personally I used all my DD Blood Pacts all the way through on SMN so far, I never had to concentrate on healing exclusively. It's all up to how you want to play it.

[Theyaden]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

I'll have to disagree with this; looking at the MP and Blood Pacts available, Summoner is meant to be a flexible hybrid job, and definitely not mean to be "mainly a DD".

I never said don't heal just that that shouldn't be the sole reason for inviting a summoner

With the update that created a different timer for offensive and defensive bloodpacts that capibility did open up considerably. I think it has been pushed into being more flexible with that and while I am willing to main heal I get anoyed when I'm keeping my mana up, healing, keeping protect, shell, bar***ra up and still being told [summoning magic] [No thanks] when I throw a bloodpact once per minute followed by releasing the pet again. I carry Yag drinks just in case I get over extended at which point I stop the summon release until mana is at a safe level for emergencies again. Damage dealer is part of the design even if it's not the only ability. That we have more damage dealers than anything else doesn't eliminate that, but it does make that origional primary aspect less desirable. (After all a darkknights job is dd not stun, but they were often invited for the later rather than the former higher level)

Thanks for mentioning manabursts I forgot to include that in the previous post some of the bloodpacts can burst and others can join in the skillchain which can be useful as long as your party is willing to sc another sad rarity nowadays but thats another topic thread ^..^ .

Sidenote I consider /whm the best sub so I can throw heals when needed along with the /ra spells they come in useful as well as the abilities from summoner itself.

[Saren]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

I have to say I am a bit disappointed that people jumped all over him about the stickies, a lot of them are old and there is no general guide up there to give some landmark gears and partying tips.



I only have smn 40 so bear in mind I am not speaking from vast experience here.



Trial Size fights:

The sticky for these is great. If you get nothing else, the physical earrings and a hermits wand, tavnazian taco, pamama au’lait, hi potions, yagudo drinks and mulsum. Feel free to start saving now, it’s cheaper to go in a little overpreppared and only do the fight once than to skimp and have to do it a few times, and any meds you don’t use can be used the next fight or sold on the AH. Also try and make sure your summoning skill is capped for level 20 before you do these. The thing that will outright get you killed in these fights is repeated interrupts while summoning carbuncle and the more you can do to minimise your interruptions the better. Don’t forget you have banish. Don’t panic about them too much, I screwed up loads and the only one I lost was the one I forgot meds and couldn’t get a high level protect on.

Main Healing:

Gear wise, if you have already levelled whm, smn is pretty cheap. What I would say about main healing on smn is that it’s high enmity and that a a Talisman cape and Mycophile Cuffs (if you can get them) will make it much more pleasant. Main healing on smn is different to main healing on whm, you will have lower level protect and shell, you can’t land enfeebles (barring dia so don’t invest heavily in mnd gear) you have lower level cures, no regen for a long time, a fairly long wait for curaga and divine seal. You will be healing more mp than a whm of your level solo healing a party would and you will be doing it with lower level cures. This tends to mean you are spamming cures (and I do mean spamming) so get as much hmp gear as you can and level up your cooking as soon as you can afford to so you can make juice.


Smn as Smn:

Gear wise you can still pretty much just use your whm gear until Austere at 50. Again mp and hmp are key but if you are dd/buff/back up healing then you are very low enmity which does mean so long as you don’t go stupidly low in terms of hp you can stack up the hp -> mp gear. Honestly I found gearing low level smn irritating, you get no gear to boost the potency of your abilitys, the only thing you can boost that has an effect is max mp and mp recovery speed for better endurance and more emergency back up cures. Be aware that sometimes you might be called on to Carby pull. He goes down fast against exp mobs so just remember to /assault and then run like hell. Two tips for offensive blood pacts:

1.Let the avatar get some TP before you do a physical BP, it seems to help a lot with the accuracy. The exception to this seems to be Thunderspark, which rarely misses whatever the TP value. <pettp> gives you your avatars TP.
2.Work with any other back liners to coordinate debuffing. If your BP does some damage and gives a status effect, as most of them do, then (haven’t tested this yet) it seems that the BP does a lot more damage if the status effect associated with it isn’t already on the mob. You would have to try it out for yourself but if you want to do one of these blood pacts it might be worth asking the debuffer to skip one of their spells. BP aren’t that cheap, you might as well get the most out of them.
3.I still don’t have Fenrir and Diabolos at 40 (part of the reason I am not levelling smn further at the moment) I think it’s a good idea if you don’t have them to be honest and put it in your search comment. I did and it didn’t noticeably hurt my invite rate. It’s not such a big deal lower level but once you get into the 20s you are starting to miss nice abilities from Fenrir that a party might want.
4.Get spirits as and when you can afford them, you probably won’t be using them.
5.Oh yes, Skillchains. You can do a lot of them and they tend not to be in most sc charts. I honestly didn’t SC much as a proper set up sc in parties to 40 but it’s worth knowing the sc applications of your BPs.

Random tips:

1. There is a sticky here on how to go about making macros for smn. Please don’t follow it unless you want to irritate the majority of people you party with. /p lines are for important information that the party needs to know. There are a few times your actions qualify for this (eg. Shiva’s Sleepga ability) but those do not include summoning, releasing etc. /echo is great in macros for information that you need but your party doesn’t really need to see, if you really have to role play please consider putting it in /echo. I think those flowery macros that a lot of smn have really contribute to the job not being taken seriously by a lot of players.

2. wiki smn page – gives you all your abilitys, the level, the avatar, a bit about how they work. Take the hp healed figures with a pinch of salt I know at least one of them is wrong. Also good for looking up the avatar you are going to fight when doing trial size or primes to make sure you know what their abilities do. It’s good to know things like how Aerial Armor interacts with Utsusemi for example J

3. smn handbook – I can’t say I like the style of the guide that much and obviously don’t follow it like gospel but it’s the only general purpose/playstyle guide I have found really and there is good information there. I can say that what he says about avatar TP having a drastic effect on how often your blood pacts miss definitely seems to be true.

4. You can solo pretty well as smn, there are quite a few guides around on the general principles and someone just posted a video guide recently here.

5. Carby Mitts – I know they are impossible to get at your level without help. They aren’t required for partying though they do make the rare bit of pulling you might have to do much easier. For farming or soloing though, they are fantastic so as soon as you can, they are worth it.

6. Smn can do a LOT of things so the more homework reading you do so you understand your abilities, other jobs abilities and what things are important in a party the better a smn you will be and the easier you will find it to play. Don’t be afraid to try things out and learn from experience, because smn can do so many things it’s not an easy job to write a guide about as you will be significantly changing your play style depending on what party you are in.

7. Please use /whm in parties.

[Gwynn]

Re: Pre-summoner homework

While its a good idea to get used to the notion that you'll probably be main healing most of the time, don't get stuck in that mindset. I did the majority of my levels (35+ or so) after the Blood Pact change, and there was a significant amount of my low to mid levels that I was invited to DD/Back up heal/Buff/etc. in. However, once you get to around level 60 these parties become exceedingly rare.