Level secondary class?

I finally got my arcanist to 30, leveled thaumaturge to 15, and hot my summoner job. I noticed that every time I level I get a message about xp going towards arcanist. Is there any need to switch back to thaumaturge and level beyond 15?

You will always level the class not the job but job ups with class. You will want tho to level thm to level 26 for crossclass skill swiftcast useful for summoning pet and raises ^^

As a summoner, you'll want to get THM to 26 asap. swiftcast is so important. You may also wish to level archer to 34, this gives two abilities that really are important and a couple less important; Raging Strikes (is learned by 15, and increases all outgoing damage by %) and Quelling Strikes (at 34, which reduces the amount of emnity you generate) Hawk's Eye is important at end game but not much else, as it guarantees attacks land on a target and ups Dex by % (good to help dodge maybe? mostly just for the hit lands though)

Interesting. However, with thaumaturge class at 15 i already have surecast. Are we intended to level both classes in a job to 50?

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Originally Posted by patseguin

Interesting. However, with thaumaturge class at 15 i already have surecast. Are we intended to level both classes in a job to 50?

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at least to 26 as has been suggested if you want Swiftcast (by the way - you do want Swiftcast)

surecast and swiftcast are 2 different things

surecast is much lower level, and far, far less useful than swiftcast

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Originally Posted by patseguin

Interesting. However, with thaumaturge class at 15 i already have surecast. Are we intended to level both classes in a job to 50?

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It's only your primary class (Arcanist in the case of Summoners) that you'll want to continue all the way to 50 for the sake of that particular job, and playing the job advances that primary class anyway.
Secondary and tertiary classes for the job (Thaumaturge and Archer in this case) are only useful for the cross-class skills they bring in, so you want to level them to the level of their highest useful cross-class skill (so THM 26 and ARC 34).

Of course, in the process of doing that, you may well decide you like them enough to pursue their own jobs as well. If you like THM enough to become a Black Mage, or like ARC enough to become a Bard, then you'd continue with them the rest of the way to 50, but not for the sake of your Summoner job.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

Secondary and tertiary classes for the job (Thaumaturge and Archer in this case) are only useful for the cross-class skills they bring in, so you want to level them to the level of their highest useful cross-class skill (so THM 26 and ARC 34).

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My only complaint with the way cross-class skills are set up is that you can't see in your current class which cross-class skills could be available if you leveled the other classes more. You basically have to look through all the skills in each of the other classes to see which ones are available to cross-class .. or you come to the forums and ask. It would be nice if they showed you all the available skills (assuming you have at least 1 level in the class) but grey out the ones that aren't available because of level - just the way they show abilities for your current class.

Also, for reference - http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Summoner

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Originally Posted by aisustrong

surecast and swiftcast are 2 different things

surecast is much lower level, and far, far less useful than swiftcast

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Ah, I didn't catch that. Surecast gives you an uninterruptable cast and I assume swiftcast is instacast?

I am leveling as Summoner now and I really like it. I'm not sure if other classes level as their primary and only use their job in instances, but I think summoner is great for soloing. I love that pet I got. I'm 32 now so I guess I can keep going a while or go work on Thaumaturge. I actually really like Thaumaturge a lot. It's more like the mage class from WoW and acranist seems like a warlock. I may even think about trying black mage.

Yeah Swiftcast is a instacast a must have for anymage for different reasons ^^
Surecast is more a skill you have in your hotbar but dont use as often (mostly if u get para or if an aoe that can interupts inc)

The "intent" is indeed that you use your Job when playing in a group and your base Class (with its expanded cross-class options) to play solo, but few people ever bother. In general, once you hit 30, it's just advised to get your job and stay in it forever.

As suggested, Swiftcast is an absolute suggestion - being able to swiftcast resummon your pet or revive an ally in the heat of battle is incredibly invalueable. You don't "need" it for a long time, but give Thaumaturge some time when you have it to spare. As for Archer, I doubt you need Quelling Strikes or Hawk's Eye (let's be real, you shouldn't have problems with accidentally stealing aggro as a Summoner, and Hawk's Eye shouldn't really impact much ever), but you will want to get the couple levels required to get Raging Strikes, because it's a free 20% damage buff on a 3-minute cooldown. Pop that before you apply your spells on a boss and it's great.

Ifrit pet look badass.