Summoner Pets: Why Do Even Chocobos Not Heal Them?

One of the quality of life issues facing SMNis the utter lack of pet-healing options for their pets in solo content. In the past, summoners had a healing-over-time spell called "Sustain" that could only be used on their pet. This allowed the SMN to tank world mobs with their tank pet, which is useful while working through solo quests.

In 4.0, sustain was removed. To add insult to injury, the chocobo healing spells - available to every other tank, DPS, or healing job - are never cast on SMN pets. So if I get hit in the face, my chocobo will heal me. If my pet gets hit in the face...it gets hurt. In practice, this means that either the SMN face-tanks mobs or that the pet is used until it goes down, at which point the SMN face-tanks mobs.

I never found 3.0 SMN to be too strong in solo content compared to other jobs with HoTs or mitigation abilities. Hopefully we will see some sort of pet healing (even if it's flagging them for chocobo spells) in the next balance patch.

I believe this is because pets are not considered party members internally. They only show up on your party member list, not on other party members' list. That said, I agree that it's strange.

Technically both pets and now chocobos (after the last update where you can queue into DF with them out) are not part of the party. They are separate and tied to your character but invisible to others (a Scholar fairy will not heal a Summoner pet).

Macros such as /ac "Action" <2> do not work on chocobos when you are solo.