The 6th Ministry's Secret: A Summoner's Guide

I have two JSE capes, used for different reasons.

First one has:

+3 smn skill
BP DMG+1
BP II delay -3
Pet Enmity+10

The second one has:

+3 smn skill
BP DMG+5
Pet enmity +10


I thought the highest skill you can get is +10, though I have yet to see that, but I'm sure the highest BP dmg would be +5 and highest BPII delay would be -5.

BP II cap is -3, the skill part is still under "investigation" but my believe that +5 is the cap is becoming stronger.

The stat caps according to the Japanese Wiki:
契約の履行ダメージ - BP Damage: +2~5
契約の履行使用間隔II - BP Ability Delay II: -1~3
召喚魔法スキル - Skill: +1~5
ペット:敵対心 - Pet enmity: +7~15

Never mind, beat to the punch.

JP Wiki info is useful and reliable, but not infallible.
As a matter of fact there's at least one error in the data you reported Shirai (BP Damage augment starts at +1, not +2)

Yep, I agree. Neither source is infallible.

Oh, trust me. I can confirm this. :(


I'm not saying we should be, but at the moment, we aren't coming close and the fact we can DD doesn't make up for it. GEO buffs = more damage than SMN buffs + SMN dmg, and many more options (torpor, etc).


At best, if you were to like lower the mob's defense enough, and you know it has no natural PDT, you could do like 13k predator claws or something, which is still a lot worse than DDs (less damage than a WS, far less often). Like I said, the only thing we can do is abuse Flaming Crush, which means lowering their defense enough and then scaling the magic damage with Malaise and Puppet's Roll. Once Ifrit's attack is good enough that Flaming Crush isn't getting dunked by the mob's defense, you just scale the magic damage of it out of control.

Flaming Crush's dumb properties are the only way SMN gets good damage out of anything, and it still highly depends on the mob you're fighting. If you're fighting a mob with natural PDT and MDT, Flaming Crush gets hurt badly. The PDT reduces the damage of the physical portion, which in turn hurts the magical damage (because it's based off the physical), and then the magical damage gets reduced even harder thanks to the mob's MDT. This is why a lot of high tier battlefield bosses just suck to use Flaming Crush against, and Predator Claws ends up being more consistent. Heaven forbid the mob also be resistant to fire damage (go Flaming Crush Tojil). It's also why Flaming Crush sucks on something like an umbril. Yeah, umbrils don't like fire (16k meteor strikes yay), but Flaming Crush sucks because the physical damage is poor, and thus the magical damage is poor. All of this is also why skillchaining Flaming Crush is also amazing, and then scales even harder with the above buffs/debuffs (Malaise/Puppet Roll/Rune Fencer), and then BP damage %... yeah.

It's important to understand where our damage comes from to understand when or why the buffs would be useful.


The accuracy of our magic blood pacts has never been too big of an issue, but yeah, malaise. Malaise is a very powerful debuff, and our magical blood pacts are good.

We'll probably (maybe) see more magey parties after the update with the new spells, but for right now, people are scared of playing mages for some reason even though they can be very strong. I guess it's a lot easier to just play derp THF/SAM and use one weaponskill over and over again than build complicated magey damage sets, swap magic burst gear, and use a large number of different spells. Either way, people just follow what the community does because they want to be strong.

It's just as silly to compare SMN to GEO as it is to compare DNC to WHM.
These job's "party slots" will never overlap... Or rather... They SHOULDN'T overlap.

I would also disagree about FC. All the Lv70 BPs (plus Titan's new throw) are about equal.
Only reason why FC is so good is its hybrid nature... (MAB+atk+BPdmg v atk+BPdmg)
But it's certainly not the WSCs... Cause that's just absurd of an argument. You should be using w/e BP chains with your PT set up.
Just like with all other jobs' WSs.

SMN has become an extremely potent DD now... And while it takes some work to reach Rudra and Fudo level numbers, they ARE obtainable.
Couple that with random buffs (extra Warcry, Hastega II, MDB-ga, TP Bonus, Earthen Armor, etc) and Favor (who cares if >512 is unreasonably stupid... We can't do the 575 anyways... And +crit and DA are potent as is at 512) makes for an extremely good hybrid-DD slot.
(As in DD is your job, but you buff and heal as well.)

So if any comparisons need be made with other jobs (least of all ones as OP as GEO), it should be with the likes of BLU and DNC.
And with them, we're pretty good.

And Crevox, so what if against [insert Mob/NM] Ifrit is bad?
We have 9 other avatars to use that can possibly be better. (As per your Tojil example would be to play his damage phases, we have basically all but h2h for damage, and then in the last 25ish% pop Cait Sith's lullaby spam to lock out any TP move he might try.)
SMN has 10 "full" avatars, 2 2hr ones, and a non2hr2hr one.
Using just one avatar all the time is as absurd as just using a single WS or casting a single elemental spell for all mobs.
SMN can take advantage of almost every damage type weakness, learn what your summons give you and learn the damage type weakness of whatever your fighting and accommodate for it.
Sometimes Ifrit will be the best, other times Garuda, or Shiva, or Ramuh.... Learn their strengths and use them to your PT's advantage instead of just complaining that Flaming Crush can't blast everything in the face to ribbons.
Because it was never meant to.

Geomancer does everything SMN does but better. Even bringing two GEOs is better than bringing a SMN and a GEO. Like I said, the damage that GEO provides is huge, buffing party damage well over the damage a SMN would provide with both their buffs and DD combined. Not only that, GEO can nuke and enfeeble as well.


This is false. Predator Claws will consistently do more damage than Eclipse Bite, Rush, Spinning Dive, etc. Volt Strike seems to work better on some things than other things, and beats Predator Claws in some situations but loses in others; I honestly still need to use and test this pact more often. If I had to rank it:

Volt Strike >= Predator Claws > Spinning Dive > Chaotic Strike > Rush > Eclipse Bite >= Mountain Buster

I'm not even putting Flaming Crush here because it works completely differently. If the situation is right, it blows everything else out of the water. In other situations, it's not a good choice. Incursion is a good example of an event where Flaming Crush performs well.

Again, I talk about Flaming Crush so much because not only is it the best and skillchains with all the common DD weaponskills, but it is the only thing that SMN can use to scale their damage high enough to be respectable. A physical blood pact of any other type is used instead of Flaming Crush when Flaming Crush does not fit the situation, not because they're good; we use what we can.


Funny that it ends up being Flaming Crush that chains with Victory Smite, Dimidiation, Rudra's Storm, and Tachi: Fudo. Either way, in many scenarios, you should not be trying to skillchain with the party. If a THF uses Rudra's, and you decide to Flaming Crush (woo you got Fusion) and then another THF uses Rudra's, you just blocked a darkness skillchain (and potentially a double darkness) that would've done SO much more damage than your pathetic Fusion.

It depends entirely on your party and what their plan is.


I don't know what content you're doing or what people you're partying with, but this is not the case. It depends entirely on the fight, but we're always lower than competent DDs. The only way we hold our own at least a little bit on High Tier Battlefields is Astral Conduit, which lets us catch up a bit. But, again, GEO would've been so much better.

Even if you contribute a total of 60k damage to the fight, GEO's buffs would've contributed far more than 60k, even taking your buffs as a SMN into account.

Do not overestimate the usefulness of a SMN. We're in a poor state as is, even with Nirvana on my back, and I'd rather not give SE impressions otherwise. Load up a parser if you really want to look at numbers; you will be surprised and sad.


Warcry, Hastega II, TP Bonus carry our buffset. Fenrir's buffs are good if the moon feels like being nice. Warcry is not as good if there is someone subbed WAR, TP Bonus doesn't make a huge difference (but is nice).

Hastega II is highly convenient but if you're doing content where the mob has Slow, you're going to have a bad time trying to maintain it and the party will wish they just had Indi-Haste or Marches. Then you'll be struggling to recast it and maintain it once every ~32-35 sec, and your favor will be gone.

The rest of the buffs are either situational or serve only to decrease your favor. The more buffs you use, the less uptime your favor has, and our favor is arguably our best buff. I don't think it's as good as Fighter's Roll, but good on top of everything else, and stacks.

You have to think about these things when you make choices in combat and can't just assume you're contributing well. Look at numbers, keep track of buffs and favor.


We are not DD. We are support. We cannot fathom to come close to the DPS of either of those jobs, and our buffs are not as good as a true support. Just because we hit every once in a while with a slightly hard hitting attack (again, depends on the content) does not mean we do a good amount of damage over the course of the entire fight. Load up a parser or math it out.


This is only useful if you have Astral Conduit up, and yes, probably good in that scenario, for the 30 seconds or so that it will last (and definitely won't be up every single run).


Ifrit is our strongest damage dealer, and his favor is arguably the best, so yes, that's a concern. I've never done SMN against Tojil, but I would assume Grand Fall would be the most damage on him, which is still sad compared to actual DDs.


And yet, 90% of DDs do exactly that...

You use the best avatar for the situation. Like I said, Flaming Crush is situational, but the most damage. If Flaming Crush doesn't work well on your target, you use a different avatar's attack; and they're not that different from one another at that point.

You maintain buffs of course, but avoiding doing too many to maintain your favor. Doing something like +13 MDB from Diabolos (at the absolute best timeframe it's +13) is not going to be worth giving up the ~+22% double attack favor.


It is extremely rare that anything (besides Tojil) is specifically weak to something that we can abuse, especially if it comes to physical damage. Even if we're fighting something like Wopket, Wind Blade's damage is poor.


Yawn.

You live in a dream world but are not facing the reality of the situation. Go load up a parser, do some math, look at Geomancer's numbers (buffs, debuffs, nukes) or any other job in comparison. We are not nearly as good as you think, and you should stop trying to convince others of it. I'm sure you have a lot of people in game convinced that SMN is not so bad, but that's just false.

I obtained Nirvana because I was hoping to push SMN to the limit and bring myself to a point where I can be content joining a party as a SMN and be happy with my decision. This is still not the case most of the time, because I can honestly say when doing content I know that most of the time I would be better off being a GEO or something else. I know how much I'm contributing, even without a parser (but a parser just slaps you in the face), to know that SMN is a bad job to bring most of the time. Our primary usefulness hinges on that Hastega II; without that, the rest of our buffs wouldn't even matter.

You must think Moonshade doesn't make a huge difference, either.

Gear is gear. Buffs are buffs. Buffs are usually much more potent. It's like comparing Boost-STR and a Ifrit Ring. You don't do that.

Yeah, but that single piece of gear can increase WS damage by 1k+. You can also choose to consider it as a sizable increase to WS frequency.

I'm not saying SMN is a well balanced job, but rather asserting that that buff is indeed quite potent.

Don't wanna sound like the annoying kid who goes into the SMN forum and shouts "OMG STOP WHINING SMN IS TEH PERFECT!!one1" but while I completely agree with Crevox that SMN is not quite where it should be yet, it's undeniable that it's now in a much much much better postion than it was, say, 1 year ago.
Thinks can only furtherly improve from now onwards.

Just like you said Crevox, part of the problem lies in the fact that GEO is too powerful atm, and part of the problem lies in SMN itself (but please, do not compare it only with GEO, there's COR and BRD too! Atm COR is probably in a worse position than SMN is now)

You're underestimating some buffs imho.
We can hastega2 pts, we can TPbonus which is way more powerful than you're making it sound.
What's going to happen once the other avatars will get new BPs just like the basic avatars did a couple of patches ago?
Yes, it's only going to get better.

Favor is a powerful and underestimated buff too. Ifrit's and Ramuh's are already in a good position. The others clearly need to be fixed but there's potential there.
SMN also has Earthen Armor, stacks with Scherzo, it's quite unique and allows you to deploy pretty powerful strategies for some fights.
Imagine SE fixing some of the currently broken (too weak) buffs like Fenrir's and Diabolos'.
Imagine finally getting new useful buffs from Caith Sith.
After that if they finally fix Avatar's survivability issue and allow you to deploy Favor to even further viability, it would be quite awesome.


Really, there's clearly still work to be done on SMN, but atm people are underestimating the potential of what SMN can already offer. I think you're slightly underestimating it too Crevox.
It's not enough to say "OK SE, you can stop here" of course, but it's already quite a good position if you ask me.

In my LS there are several situations and fights where atm we prefer SMN to COR.
It's CORs who atm have probably more reasons to whine than us SMN do.

I forgot to mention Ifrit's Crimson Howl.
11% attack is not GEO-like but it's powerful and the good part is that it scales with players' power.
Something that, for instance, BRD buffs do not.
Take minuet for example, it's a fixed amount, it's not dynamic and it doesn't scale, it's always the same.

Does anyone have an updated Enfeebling set for high-tier battlefields? I want to be more consistent on slow/paralyze/etc

It's my set on SMN (dont swicth main and grip for save TP)
ItemSet 333063

The problem is that you're trying to compare SMN to GEO in the first place. SMN is a pet job. It doesn't really even belong in most conventional setups. There are certain strategies that require a SMN, for example for Earthen Armor or Perfect Defense, but those are the only really valid reasons to put a SMN in a party with a bunch of DDs. The changes to favor don't even come close to changing that. They couldn't, not without upsetting the balance of the game because SMN can do so many things GEO, BRD, and COR can't.

SMN's real strength is as a pet job, soloing or grouping with other pet jobs. And in that regard, it has been making great progress in the last year or two. We've gone from struggling to do anything at all in Adoulin, to organizing SMN burns of Delve, Skirmish, Incursion, and other high-tier battlefields. I beat Ouryu on difficult with a SMN burn group a good while back. Most of the SMN burn Alluvion Skirmish runs I've done were more successful on average than non-pet-burn Alluvion runs.

SMN has a lot of potential if you aren't trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. SMN is not conventional, it's a jack-of-all-trades. It's special sauce; You don't build something with it, you spread it on top of something you've built and it seeps in filling the gaps, smoothing over your shortcomings. Lacking DD? It can add a little. Lacking healing? It can add a little. Lacking buffs or debuffs? It can add a little. Whatever is needed, SMN can do it at least a little bit. Or you just say forget conventional setups and do pet burns which is where SMN really shines.

SMN doesn't need "fixing." It is very powerful if you know how to use it. That wasn't always the case, and I applaud SE for addressing most of its major issues, in particular letting us take BP timers below 45 seconds. Personally, I'm really happy with where SMN is at right now.

Thanks!

Ohh okay, so I guess my cape(s) have the BP dmg and BPII delay caps, as for smn skill someone in my LS said they have +9 skill on their cape, and of course SMN isn't a job they use......


As for the discussion on SMN and their usefulness... I think if you know how to play the job and what the job actually offers, you can make it very useful if you just try different things.

I try to go above and beyond normally when buffing the party...

Earthen armor, crystal blessing, hastega II, ecliptic howl, ecliptic growl, curing conduit, noctoshield, dreamshroud if necesssary and ill even try throwing in a earthen ward and aerial armor.

And with my gear at least, theres still a decent amount of time for all those buffs to stay on before rebuffing. I also use apogee to speed up the buff process, and then ill do some insane DMG on my "downtime".

And yes yes someones going to say those buffs aren't "good" well i kind of disagree, just use the job to your best potential and other players will see that and invite you more often.


Oh and I won parse as SMN during Lion delve recently. I do have nirvana and great gear, but I didn't do the technique Papesse did in the video posted, I didn't win by much, but i still beat everyone else.. i think i may have just been lucky.

Your problem is you're trying to put SMN into a category called "pet job." This should not be a category. Just because SMN has a pet does not mean it should be relegated to some "other category" and not be able to support and party with other people. That is really an annoying way to think.

Why do you think they're buffing Beastmaster? They want Beastmaster to be able to perform as a DD, having the damage of the Beastmaster and pet combined to equal the damage of any other DD. They're trying to buff SMN as well, but it's just not quite there yet in any capacity. Yes, it does a little bit of everything, but that little bit of everything is nowhere near enough to justify a party slot in 99% of scenarios compared to many other jobs. Why do I keep comparing it to Geomancer? Because Geomancer does everything we do, simply better. If you have the choice between a Geomancer and a Summoner for a party slot, Geomancer wins, all the time, no question, the only exceptions being the rare funky Earthen Armor/PD strats (which are really rare nowadays anyways). There are also many other jobs that could take our party slot and do so much more with it, and they don't need a mythic to do so.

I do not enjoy being relegated to "pet job" and designated to only join other "pet jobs" in a "pet party" to be viable, and it is CERTAINLY not SE's intent given the recent buffs. This is an annoying, pathetic submission to the state of balance. I never "petburn" content... why would I? We have tons of different buffs and debuffs, and yet NONE OF THOSE benefit other summoners. There is no "synergy" to be had here outside of skillchaining with each other, which is no different than there being a DD. This is not enjoyable to me, either; I do not find these types of parties fun. If you want to do petburns, then that's thumbs up totally fine, but do not use it as a justification of our balance, or state "we're fine because we can pet burn, you're not playing it right if you're not doing petburn!"

I'm not saying petburns are a good or a bad strat, simply one that does not justify our balance.


Implying we don't know how? The problem is SMN still sucks in comparison to other jobs. Stop trying to put it in a tier of its own and let it play with other jobs. Everything about it is still completely subpar, not bringing enough to the table in the majority of scenarios (whether you're ignorant to it or not), with core critical issues that still plague it. The fact that you need a Mythic to even deal "okay" damage on end game content speaks some alone. Any other job with a mythic would absolutely take the party slot by far.

People keep trying to speak strong on summoner. Such people simply compare us to the past, or give us anecdotal experiences that were positive, or are not actually measuring their performance. I am comparing us to NOW, to other jobs, and not trying to say "but but we're pretty good when we do <insertabnormalstrathere>." No thank you to pet burn. Earthen Armor and Perfect Defense are fine niches to have though.

You can say it's good all you want, but there is no real proof. I know from experience and pushing the job as hard as I can that it always falls short in damage. Feel free to show me a parse otherwise with a standard party in a high tier battlefield/incursion boss/delve not abusing Flaming Crush's scaling properties with malaise/puppet/RUN; I can say this with honesty because I know it will fall short. Of course, if you use Nirvana, then you should be comparing to other DDs using Mythics (though you don't have to, because it will still fall short). And, if you really want me to lay out the numbers for buffs that we provide compared to any other support job, I can do that too. The facts and numbers are all there, ready to be provided. These cannot be argued, and their combined power is not enough either.

Sechs is speaking accurately about our party positions, because yes, we actually do fit in the place of COR pretty well, given that the party doesn't need accuracy.


Too many buffs, you're being ignorant to favors. If you're not using favor, you're not using SMN's strongest buff, and one of the main reasons we should get invited. Not to mention, 3 of those buffs require conditions not under our control (time, moon).


It really doesn't matter, they're interrupting your favor. If they were REALLY REALLY good, better than favor, they could be justified, but they're not. Yeah you can use Apogee to max your favor real quick, but more timers to rotate still means that you're going to be off of Ifrit/Ramuh more often than you will be on them. Combine this with the fact that switching out Ifrit loses Crimson Howl, and you're hurting your damage output too.

Earthen Armor is extremely rarely useful. I can only think of like 2-3 pieces of content in the current game where it even serves any purpose. People keep bringing it up like it's supposed to be our holy grail and invite to parties, but it's only useful on those few specific fights, and even then, ONLY if you're doing that strategy. Its low duration also serves to hurt our favor if we want to just put it up on every fight as a "just in case."


Flaming Crush is our strongest blood pact. You hit a giant ice lion. There shouldn't be too much surprise, combined with the fact he uses a paralyze aura that cripples melee and does nothing to the avatar, along with many other bad PBAoE effects. I could go on with more reasons why this could've happened, but it should be obvious.

Why not just level another job if you seem to dislike Summoner so much?

Yeah, too many buffs. If I'm playing SMN in a Delve, Incursion, or other group event, I focus my Blood Pacts on certain buffs. I'll pop an Apogee, Ecliptic Howl followed by Ecliptic Growl, then Hastega II, finally a Crystal Bledding. After I do those, I'll have Ifrit out for the remainder of time remaining until Apogee is ready again. During the time I've got Ifrit out, Ill have Avatar's Favor on for the Double Attack and pop some Crimson and Inferno Howls. Sure, Fenrir's Blood Pacts' effects are based on the Moon's Phase in game, but it's still something compared to nothing.

I just picked summoner back up this week for the first time since the Voidwatch days. Does anyone have a good gearswap that they'd recommend?

Summoner as a job has always been high effort/low reward. If you look at what goes in to being a good summoner, it takes a lot of work just to get there- tons of questing and niche gear. Career summoners are pretty masochistic. You have to be with the way SMN has been treated since day one. Still, it's a very cool and iconic Final Fantasy job. We use strategies that depend on summoner for several fights, hence why I've started working on mine again. And to second what Sechs said, SMN is in a better place now than it was.

I get it, my primary buffs are Hastega II, EA, crystal blessing, and ill throw in the two buffs from fenrir, but if i have the time the MP and were doing fine I don't see how adding a couple of more buffs, if possible, will hurt.


Agreed.


Oh god youre telling me >_< you should see all the gearsets I have. i just finished my Pet MACC set.

Summoner is awesome and I love to play it. You should be able to tell how important it is to me with how much I talk about it, know about it, and the fact that I built a mythic for it (my first and probably only REM).

It just pains me to bring it to parties when I know I could be helping them so much more as something else. I don't want that to be the case anymore. Hence, I made a mythic. It kind of helped.


It really just depends. I personally have my Gearswap modified so that when I use these abilities of Fenrir or Diabolos, it tells me in chat the exact gains given to me and the party. Because of this, I've grown to understand just by looking at the time/moon exactly what I'm going to get. Based on that, it's easy to make a decision of whether or not they're worth it given the conditions.


I could do that, but I of course felt like discussing here with others first. So far I have a few people telling me "you're wrong SMN is awesomez you just suck", and a few people agreeing.

Besides that, there are still quite a few promises SE made (not too long ago!) of changes that were coming to SMN. They're like "don't worry we're fixing it!" and we're left here waiting like "okay, you said you would, we'll wait and be quiet."

Examples of things they've stated in the last 6 months that haven't been implemented:

-Increased support blood pact range to reach more party members
-Have buff potency scale with summoning skill and/or avatar level
-Increased avatar's favor potency (it supposedly exists, but we can't reach the skill level anyways)

... just a few. Some of the other things are supposedly coming through job points and gifts (avatar stat issues like accuracy), but again, it's a waiting game. I honestly feel avatar accuracy is fine, but I have Nirvana, so yeah.

This month we might get some cool things, but I swear if we get something like a job point category for Avatar Defense (+1 physical defense per point) I'm going to flip a table. Supposedly the gifts will include job ability enhancements and such, so there are a lot of possibilities. At minimum, I'm going to wait until this happens and we see what the new armor is.

crevox ur geo for life, now get to be a geo *** for delve.