Sell me on Summoner.

[Mahri]

This is a bit of an indulgent thing to make a thread about, but figured I'd toss it out there.

I want to play Summoner. I love Summoners in other FF games. So, tell me what makes it worthwhile and why it'd be a good DPS choice for Heavensward. Make a discussion of it or not, I'm pretty much just looking to be inspired.

Backstory: I leveled ACN for Scholar. I'm probably making White Mage my main healer going forward, but don't want to leave this collecting dust. Summoner is just sitting here as an option. I've tinkered with it but don't get the sense of "feedback" that other DPS classes deliver...so far. It seems to be quite passive and lukewarm compared to the more direct role played by others, despite the numbers being mathematically "sufficient" for what it's supposed to do.

So, what's the appeal? What's to make this something to aspire to play, and play well?

[Xoriam]

[Bigcat9715]

[SpookyGhost]

Try it and decide for yourself.

[Higashikata]

The fact that 90% of summoners ruin everything means that if you learn how to play it, you'll automatically be in the top 10% of summoners.

If you don't like Damage over time, don't play summoner. If you can't keep track of all the cooldowns and DoT timers, don't play summoner.

[Gamer3427]

I feel the whole Arcanist family is great for people who want to constantly be watching things and actively reacting to situations, such as trying to time recasts of DoTs to maximize their up time, or deciding just when to use Virus or Eye for an Eye. Even if you don't get into the micro managing that some players do with their pets, the class can be a great deal of fun if you enjoy constantly keeping things in motion, rather than simply following the more mundane rotations of other classes. This is just my opinion on the matter though. Fair warning if you do play as it. Most people won't notice how much you're actually doing, because you're using damage over time rather than the giant one hit numbers other classes rely on. If handled right, you can deal just as much damage as them, while conserving your energy to keep it up for longer, yet most people will just notice the relatively small numbers from the individual ticks, and think you're not doing as much damage as you are....

[Mahri]

Gamer3427 --
That nicely quantifies the thing I like about healers as well, and gives me something to look for the appeal in. Awareness and control over the wider situation as opposed to focus. Thank you for summing it up so well.

Xoriam --
I like the cut of your jib.

[Kiroh]

The best thing about playing summoner by far is switching to black mage.

[Evangela]

king of trash mob killers.

that's about it.

[Lemuria]

Summoner is a really hard sell. Seriously.

It's not a job which pats you on the back for a job well done. Every major attack is a damage over time effect, so you're not going to see any huge damage spikes other than Fester. The problem with Fester is that it only works on a single target and eats up aetherflow stacks so it can only be used 3 times per minute.

It's not a job which works well during the add phases of a boss. Because of its DoT nature, you need to cast all three on each target. You can use Bane to 'copy' your DoT's, but only to a maximum of 3 others and they have to be close together for that to work. This means adds take longer to kill than they would with other DPS jobs on the whole.

It's not a job where your summons are big and impressive. They deal small amounts of damage, amounting to a total of 30% of your damage output. Every 5 minutes you can use their 'signature attack' by means of Enkindle. While this sounds cool, in reality it doesn't hit nearly as hard as Fester even if you pop every cooldown at once and doesn't even give you a flashy visual effect to enjoy.

It's not a job where you have a huge variety of attacks. Aside from Miasma and Bio casts, the majority of the time will be spent spamming Ruin spells. These make up the extra damage while your DoT's tick down the enemy HP. Individually, these attacks don't hit very hard in fact they're significantly weaker than most basic attacks from other DPS classes. The upside is that Ruin II can be cast while moving, but that's scant comfort with it costing almost double MP for the privilege.

It's certainly a unique job, but it's a tough one to recommend on its own merits.
- Item level 121 Summoner