Summon Skill upgrade suggestion.

[Kensagaku]

Not arguing that PUP has it bad, merely responding to the "PUP gets it easy" comments. I don't really think it's hard at all to use my automaton and level it up. I leveled magic and melee while soloing with the white mage frame, and leveled ranged with a few days out in ceizak using the alternator when it came out. My point was the "PUP can get level ups while just auto-attacking!" Seemed kind of like a "this job gets X, why can't I!?"

We also have three times the skill levels, four if you include our own h2h, to level up compared to you. One skill that you can easily summon Carbuncle for and spam poison nails (if you're worried about mp) and healing ruby, or you can just summon, unsummon, summon, unsummon. I would recommend the BP path though, hitting things of a level higher than the equivalent level that your skill is at tends to get you better skillup rates. Walk of Echoes was the best place to do it, imo; I only have the eminent satchet rather than a seraphicaller (no luck on winning a lot yet) and my Garuda can tank 2~3 harpies (though 3 tends to shorten her life span significantly) and a Pclaws can do anywhere from 7~10k damage. Of course, if skill is low... then you might as well use one of the magic BPs. Even if the damage is low, at least it'll hit and give you a high chance of skilling up.

Again though... manuals. Sparks are not hard to farm, and summoners have it fairly easy to cap skills. Farm sparks using BPs (PClaws and Chaotic Strike tend to do well for 500+ damage, which is 5k Limit Points and 1k sparks per completion) to skill up, and then use the sparks to buy manuals and go further.

And finally... how does an avatar hitting a monster have anything to do with your summoning skill? With an automaton, you're getting better at aiming your puppet's physical or ranged attacks, or more practiced at using their magic. With your avatar... you're not summoning anything when it auto-attacks. You get skillups when you SUMMON for SUMMONING magic, or when you use their Blood Pacts, which is summoning magic that unlocks a special ability of the avatar you have out for that brief attack.

Sorry if this is turning into a "pfft, I hate your idea and it sucks!" I just feel that quality of life is turning into a laziness deal, especially when it's not hard to skill Summoning Magic between manuals and soloing, or even group play if you have friends who will take it along. I personally don't get to take my SMN to anything, but leveling it solo and doing a few solo things (mostly WoE lately though) isn't too bad.

[Blah]

Well I was under the impression that they were not referring to leveling or at least not always referring to leveling a 99 summoner that can go to Adoulin areas and such to get high skill ups. In comparison to that it would seem easier than leveling puppetmaster where you HAVE to bum around the low level areas or face puppet death. Either way I still support both having a bit of an easier time skilling up even if they don't want to buy r.o.e. skillup manuals to do it

[Kensagaku]

But that's just it... it's a "don't want to do X." It's an option that's available that's far easier than the use BP or summon alternative, and it's fairly quick. It's something you can do WHILE you skillup.

The reason I don't like the autoattack thing is that it'll just end up with people finding a colonization or lair reive in the middle of nowhere (aren't they adding skillups to those soon?), siccing their pet on it, and going to do something else. Granted... PUP can do that too, unfortunately. Just not all skills at once, as you have to go to the individual frames to get max values and completely cap. Even so I'm not fond of autoattack skilling. @.@

[Blah]

Eh what are we talking about here? I'm not even quite sure anymore. Is it that you think all summoner will have to do is just have avatars autoattack to skillup? Is that and bloodpacts all that summoner is about? Don't they do other things as well? Don't get me wrong maybe no range, melee or magic is involved but surely it is more than just sic and afk.

[Zandarion]

Okay, so i scoured the interwebs for other peoples tips and tricks for lvling my SMN magic and i did a combination of things....

1) Set up a macro page for summoning summon each box would read like this

/equip main "Elemental Staff"*
/ma "Avatar" <me> <wait 9>
/pet "Blood Pact: Ward"** <me> <wait 5>
/pet "Release" <me> <wait 3>
/ma "Elemental Spirit"*** <me> <wait 7>
/pet "Release" <me>

*The Elemental Staff will be of the same element as the Avatar you are summoning, unless you have a staff / club that works better for Avatar Perpetuation cost -

** Pick a mid to low level Ward so you can cast more before healing

***The Elemental Spirit should match the Avatar's element / Elemental Staff you are using

Do a box for Each Avatar going in this order (ill explain why next)
Cait Sith
Carbunkle****
Shiva
Ifrit
Leviathan
Ramuh
Titan
Garuda
Diabolos
Fenrir*****

****Cabunkles is a lil differnt (But only if you have Cait Sith cause you can omit equipping the staff cause you already have it when you did C. Sith's.... feel free to put on Carbunkles mitts instead

*****Fenrir is totally differnt from the others cause you are going to use this one to recoop some MP while you do this string of summons to lvl the skill....

/ma "Avatar" <me> <wait 9>
/pet "Blood Pact: Ward" <me> <wait 5>
/pet "Release" <me> <wait 3>
/ma "Air Spirit" <me> <wait 4>
/ja "Elemental Siphon" <me> <wait 4>
/pet "Release" <me>

Okay now you may ask yourself WHY this order of Avatars.... well that's simple i noticed Direction plays as pig of a roll in Magical Skill ups as it does with Synthesizing... So You Start off facing North for Cait Sith and Carbunkle then in 8th of the Compass turn before you summon the next (I.E. NW Shiva, W Ifrit, SW Leviathan, S Ramuh, SE Titan, E Garuda, NE Diabolos and Fenrir) i used the direction for SKILL UP from Synthing and it seemed to have helped. Works best in 1st person view point. I did it outside of West Adoulin with Ionis, and wearing the Tema. Shirt and Gloves (both gettable with a few sparks) This worked to about 150/200ish.....

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Then i switched over to Aby. Altepa.... used Atma of Minikin Mon. (10 MP / tick Refreash) and Atma of Azure Sky (-10 secs from from Blood pact cooldown), Summoned Diabolos and activated Avatars Favor fought the Dolls over near Spot 8, and used Nether Blast and Somnolence Blood Pacts since both are single target non magical, just watch Diabolos' HP and careful where you summon him, wait for him to attack the Doll and hit them at least once before you blood pact or you could pull aggro. Then (wit ha staff fight along side him to help lvl staff if you need it also for Spirit Taker, i preferred the Eminent Pole cause of the ATT+ for the Avatar since Perpetuation cost should be a non issue) this got me to about 300ish. During this time build up your sparks and when you go to do a merit dump / inventory clean up buy pages or save them up to the 50k mark and do a TON of pages at once you can get at least 20 -21 stacks of pages for 50k, an at bare min (at 0.1 per page) get about 25 skill up levels out of them and max of 125 (at the rare 0.5 per page). Averaged for me at about 60 levels for 50k sparks.

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An this leads me to the final stretch at about 320-380 (i used pages to get from 320 to 380) its time to fight mandies outside of W. Adoulin, i used Kupipi*, Valaineral***, and Sakura*** Trusts (Trusts summoned in this order)

*for healing and dispelling
**Great Tank
*** If you still need to max out staff / club, also found that tho i heard alot of arguments to the contrary i found i got more skill up magically with her out

also made sure to have the Tema. Shirt and Gloves, Eminent Pole, and Avatar Favor up and had this set of macros......

CTRL 1
/ma "Diabolos <me> <wait 10>
/pet "Nether Blast" <t> <wait 4>
/pet "Somnolence" <t> <wait 8>
/pet "Release" <me>

CTRL 10
/pet "Avatar's Favor" <me>

ALT 1
/recast "Elemental Siphon"
/recast "Blood Pact: Rage"
/recast "Blood Pact: Ward"
/recast "Avatar's Favor"
/ws "Spirit Taker" <t>

ALT 2 (only if sub SCH)
/ja "Sublimation" <me>

(i used this all the time to 1 get back MP and 2 while Sublimation ticks away you will not fall asleep from Dream Flower, this is also why i used Sakura for her built in Regen which will negate any HP loss from Sublimation, alwys use it when it fills up even if you dont need the MP so i can get the buff/debuff back up ASAP to avoid being slept)

Alt 3 (in case you want to skill clubs)
/recast "Elemental Siphon"
/recast "Blood Pact: Rage"
/recast "Blood Pact: Ward"
/recast "Avatar's Favor"
/ws "Starlight" <t>

Alt 4 (omit line 1 if not /sub SCH)
/ma "Windstorm" <me> <wait 6>
/ma "Air Spirit" <me> <wait 7>
/ja "Elemental Siphon" <me> <wait 1>
/pet "Release" <me>

(I used Windstorm / Air Elemental as my default here cause the area is pron to Windy weather anyways)

ALT 10
/pet "Release" <me>

(in case you mess up and press another macro before you release Diabolos)

NOTES: If you are / SCH have cure ready to cast on Kupipi when she falls asleep it will wake her up and she will wake up Val

Let Val get some hate befor you cast your Diabolos Macro untill you have a good enough SMN magic skill to not get interrupted from hits

Then just alternate between killing Mandies and using pages to the cap of 417

I did use B.E.W. Pitaru food from 380+ and noticed a decent hike in my skill up rate

Hope this helps people, took me a while to prefect the "Wait" timing and you might need to play with it yourself if your system / PC runs faster or slower then mine

Also please don't flame me for my spelling i type with only 4 fingers (2 pointers and my thumbs) and alot of these names are not recognized in my spell check lol

My gear set for lvling SMN magic

Weapon: Main and off-hand
Elemental staff of Avatar / Spirit for step 1 (Directional Casting)
Eminent Pole with Achaq Grip for step 2 (Aby)
Eminent Pole with Sword Strap OR Patriarch Cane (Eminent Wand if you don't have the Cane) and either Spellcaster's Ecu or Sors Shield

Ammo:
Eminent Sachet

Head:
Temachtiani headband if you need staff or club skill up
Wayfarer Ciclet if you dont

Neck:
Dualism Collar

Earrings:
Astral Earring
Ethereal Earring

Body:
Temachtiani shirt Magic skill up

Hands:
Temachtiani gloves magic skill up

Rings:
Cho'j Band (for - to Enmity)
Zodiac Ring (for more MP) OR
Prouesse Ring for skilling up staff / club

Back:
Conveyence Cape
OR (if you don't have it)
Prism Cape

Waist:
Jaq'ij Sash

Legs:
Temachtiani pants if you need staff or club skill up
Wayfarer slops if you dont

Feet:
Temachtiani boots if you need staff or club skill up
Wayfarer Clogs if you dont

[Sasaraixx]

We also have three times the skill levels, four if you include our own h2h, to level up compared to you

Your h2h skill isn't worth mentioning because it is easily capped. PUPs are on the front line and as such your primary melee skill will level without much effort on your part. And if you wanted to keep it equitable, you'd have to include SMN's primary melee skill, which IMO is much more troublesome to level.

That being said, it does seem like leveling automaton skills would be more burdensome because there are more of them. That is why they are "easier" to skill up individually. I would imagine melee and ranged would skill up fairly quickly.

I think the way summoning magic skills up now is fine. Just pick a high level target and use rage and enfeebling ward pacts. It is time consuming but it isn't any worse than enhancing, geomancy or healing magic.

[Annalise]

Your h2h skill isn't worth mentioning because it is easily capped. PUPs are on the front line and as such your primary melee skill will level without much effort on your part. And if you wanted to keep it equitable, you'd have to include SMN's primary melee skill, which IMO is much more troublesome to level.

That being said, it does seem like leveling automaton skills would be more burdensome because there are more of them. That is why they are "easier" to skill up individually. I would imagine melee and ranged would skill up fairly quickly.

I think the way summoning magic skills up now is fine. Just pick a high level target and use rage and enfeebling ward pacts. It is time consuming but it isn't any worse than enhancing, geomancy or healing magic.

Ranged skill is likely the slowest skill to level on puppetmaster. It takes awhile. Thankfully drum magazine changes have helped as well as the percolator.

Diabolos is great for skilling summoning magic (nether blast + somnolence), as is Ramuh (thunder magic of your choice and shock squall). I never had any trouble capping summoning magic personally. I was nearly capped every level 1->99. Though that was long ago and in this day of crazy quick leveling (even if you don't burn the job) it's pretty hard to keep it skilled because EXP just pours in.

With the way things are presently… I would say Ramuh in voidwatch is decent for skill. Thunderstorm and Shock Squall spam will help you get a lot of skill (as voidwatch monsters are high level, and hey, maybe you can make some gil or a relic upgrade while you're at it)

[Olor]

yeah guys pup is the WORST to skill up - be careful what you wish for
(not saying smn skill ups couldn't use a boost! just don't hope for it to be like pup or you'd have to skill up each avatar individually!)

[Blah]

Ah sorry for pulling this one out of the graveyard but I completely overlooked something, is summoning skill included in the Martial Master Kupower? Is ninjutsu, geomancy or any of bard's singing or instrument skills included? I know technically it's supposed to be but...I'm not sure anymore

[Zeargi]

Ah sorry for pulling this one out of the graveyard but I completely overlooked something, is summoning skill included in the Martial Master Kupower? Is ninjutsu, geomancy or any of bard's singing or instrument skills included? I know technically it's supposed to be but...I'm not sure anymore

I believe they changed that Kupower to include all forms of things that skill up: Automaton, Combat, and Magic, but you must have Signet on for it to take effect.

While it may take awhile, but spamming BPs on Non-combative things would also help. Trusts are considered mobs equal to the summoning individual's level. So Using things like Campaign Forts/Colonization Reives with Carbunbles' Healing Ruby I/Poison Nail are cheap MP costs. Plus with the things like the BEW Pitaru and Moogle (And the Spark armor when applicable) you can further boost the rate.

And to be honest, the only thing I want from BST/PUP is to issue my Pet to attack/retreat without losing Invisible and Sneak. (And maybe Protectra/Shellra >_>)