The woes of a starting summoner

I've always enjoyed the "Summoner", well I can't call it a job but abilities throughout the Final Fantasys. The idea of calling upon an avatar to come out do some flashy, helpful, or potentially powerful magic was always fun. However in FFXI I find myself fighting with the job more so then enjoying or reaping any rewards from it, becoming very flustered at how all the mechanics just seem to be walls more so then adding to the job. Now I understand that level 34 isn't anywhere near to showing the true potential of the job but I do feel like I've gotten a decent taste of what is to come.

Well let's start from the beginning, whenever I first started back at level 1 I remember the first time I summoned carbuncle and it was a very exciting moment, however things took a turn for the worse. . . I walk up to the monster I see (a worm in the San d'Oria starting area) and hit it with my staff, then carbuncle joins in. I was shocked to see that I had actually done more damage then carbuncle and with a staff even! It was then that I noticed that carbuncle was also draining my mana at a fairly quick rate. So there I was stuck the near useless carbuncle whom is standing there sucking my mana dry and being useless doing it. Well, I though to myself, in the old Final Fantasys summons were only on screen for a short time, maybe they've captured that element into their abilities.

So I level up to 5 by slowly wacking things down with carbuncle and staff in hand. Upon reaching 5 I was once again excited to see what carbuncle could really do! So we attack the nearest enemy and I tell him to cast Poison Nails only to be sadly disappointed again, upon striking the enemy he only did 12-20 damage. I think to myself well it was only 5 mp maybe I can spam it and get in some dps while burning through my mana, however my heart is crushed again this time by the fact that his "Summon" power is on a 1 min cooldown. Well, I think to myself, maybe things will get better with some of the classic summons like shiva and ifrit, so I continue on my summoner quest.

Fast forward about 10 levels, and I have just hit level 15. Armed with carbuncle and now an air elemental in hand, sadly carbuncle is, well himself and the air elemental costing WAYYYY too much perpetual mana to even consider summoning it. Anyways my Blue Mage friend had just gotten her new ability Bludgeon and is level 18, you could only imagine how far my jaw dropped whenever she used this skill for the first time. She walks up to the mob and nails it for a whopping 125 damage! I told her to hold on and watch how carbuncle's Poison nail is hitting for, I order the attack and he hits for an overwhelming 35 damage. Come to find out that her skill is on a ~12 second cooldown, this only added to my frustration. But I had convinced myself that shiva and ifrit MUST make up for this.

Several hours and quest turn ins later I finally have the fame to obtain a few of the avatars. So a high level linkshell member comes to help me obtain garuda, shiva, and titan. After finally obtaining them I use them for the first time, and yet again my heart is crushed. While indeed they are more powerful than carbuncle, their perpetual cost and even the straight mana cost of their skills generally prevent me from using them! I had also found out that the Bloodpact: Rages/Wards have tied cooldowns between all of the avatars, thus putting the final nail in the coffin for any truly active role a summoner could have :(

So here I am now, level 34 in Kazham fighting mandys with Shiva. I spend ~3-4 min per mandy and sit for 1:30-2 min after a single fight while only yielding ~170 xp, so I have to ask:

TL;DR - Leveled to 34 on summoner only to be disappointed I can't contribute more to parties or solo more efficiently due to mana/base damage problems and that the 1 min cooldown on summoner abilities makes me feel like I'm not active enough. But I have to ask:


To all of you before me who have leveled summoner:

- Did you have or notice any of these problems or other problems while leveling (Summons costing too much to use, not doing enough damage, etc)?
- Did you ever have a problem when you ordered your summon to use one of their Bloodpact: Rage that the mob would immediately aggro you until the summon finished casting and is there any way to prevent/solve this?
- Do you find yourself more active at higher levels than you were at lower levels, and if so do you find it to be more fun?
- Is there a particular level that you really started to feel like the summoner could compete with other dps/buffers, or even filled a unique role?
- Do you have any advice for raising fames (In particular Norg/Tenshodo)?
- Finally, is there any other advice you would like to give to starting summoners?

Thank you in advance for any input on this.

- Did you have or notice any of these problems or other problems while leveling (Summons costing too much to use, not doing enough damage, etc)? No, when I leveled SMN I was forced to main heal :(

- Did you ever have a problem when you ordered your summon to use one of their Bloodpact: Rage that the mob would immediately aggro you until the summon finished casting and is there any way to prevent/solve this? Yes. You can solve it by having your pet firmly take hate before using BPR (By meleeing while you sit back). 2~3 attack rounds should do.
- Do you find yourself more active at higher levels than you were at lower levels, and if so do you find it to be more fun? Yes, and also yes. Once you get Spirit taker the melee aspect of your SMN will kick up, and things get /funpanda
- Is there a particular level that you really started to feel like the summoner could compete with other dps/buffers, or even filled a unique role? hahaha.... like 71ish ><
- Do you have any advice for raising fames (In particular Norg/Tenshodo)? Buckle down and do it man :( It'll be long, boring, arduous, and if you enjoy Summoner... Totally worth it.
- Finally, is there any other advice you would like to give to starting summoners? If you have carbuncle's mitts, soloing Bomb type monsters can be effective EXP... Throw carbies till it self destructs (you run away like a scared little girl xD)

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- Did you have or notice any of these problems or other problems while leveling (Summons costing too much to use, not doing enough damage, etc)?

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There is a reason I've sent in over hundred suggestions to SE regarding the job. I also still would persuade people away from the job if they asked me for opinions.

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- Did you ever have a problem when you ordered your summon to use one of their Bloodpact: Rage that the mob would immediately aggro you until the summon finished casting and is there any way to prevent/solve this?

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That is how it works. First you use the command on the monster and get YOUR hate, then the avatar uses his move and gets HIS hate. If you didn't get any hate for your commands, you'd pretty much never get hate. Sadly it makes the job terrible for anything but casting spells on the monster that is already being fought (by your avatar or another player)

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- Do you find yourself more active at higher levels than you were at lower levels, and if so do you find it to be more fun?

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All levels are equally bad. Mostly based on your timer never going below 45 seconds, which feels like 60 seconds still. You can argue that you get more subjob skills to play around with, but the Summoner part never changes.

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- Is there a particular level that you really started to feel like the summoner could compete with other dps/buffers, or even filled a unique role?

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In about 1% of the cases, you could tie. The other 99% you were worse. And the only unique role Summoner offers, is pet burning. All pet job parties can kill things with only pets. If you invite a single tank and DD though, it becomes moot and you'll just do less damage than another DD could have done.

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- Do you have any advice for raising fames (In particular Norg/Tenshodo)?

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I think I did zinc quest in bastok. Don't remember if it was debunked as a myth to effect Norg fame, but I don't remember what else I did.

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- Finally, is there any other advice you would like to give to starting summoners?

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Be prepared that the job won't really be fun until level 90 with full endgame armor and inside Abyssea. Well, if you think the job is awesome now, you'll have fun all the way. But it does sound like you aren't overly happy with how the job works.

Oren covered a lot of bases, I'll add to it.

Solo:

1) Get a feel for how long your pet can survive. If you don't have to resummon, then you should consider meleeing. You won't get mp back either way at low levels, but faster kills means less mp spent and faster XP.
2) If you do have to resummon, that's OK too. There's an exact science to resummoning. Unless the mob is super fast, you should run until you no longer see your pet's health bar, then run one more second. This will give your new summon the time it needs to wake up. If your pet isn't dead but the BP timer is ready, unsummon your pet and immediately resummon. Once the pet establishes even one successful hit, use the BP. If the BP timer isn't up, let the pet die.

Groups:
1) Pick a 3 buff cycle: hastega, ecliptic howl, earthen ward are good choices if available. Your primary goal should be support.
2) BP/release. MP > all as smn. Until you get mp recovery tools, you must conserve your mp in a party. Do not melee, you are support first. Once you get spirit taker, start meleeing.
3) Only use rage BPs that will either start a SC (so that DD jobs can finish them) or finish a MB. You have the second fastest SC timer of all jobs. Use it to put a big grin on that SAM's face.
4) Party with a WHM, you will almost never heal.

Some jobs in FFXI are late bloomers, Summoner is one of them. You are going to spend the first 70 levels of your life as a healer relying on your WHM sub. (Soloing just takes way too long the higher you get up in level.)

At level 70 you will get some truly powerful physical Blood Pact: Rages, and at 75 you can merit some powerful magical Blood Pact: Rages. Starting at level 71 you can get Blood Pact ability delay gear, but most of it is going to come from Dynamis so you are going to have to have a linkshell that does it or hook up with pickup groups. This is when the job really picks up.

It is a long way to go for a pay out, but you will get a unique and fun job at the end of it. At level 90 I get 3 MP a tick back from all of my Avatars before any form of Refresh (and this is outside of Abyssea), but it was a staggering amount of work to do it. I consider it to be worth the effort- the effectiveness of any job in this game is directly proportional to what you put into it. You have to look at it for the long haul.

Thanks for all the information guys, it was extremely helpful and informative!