First MMO

[Zuri_54]

also for arcanist if you what to stay damage you'll need your second class to be Thaumaturge so you can get the Summoner job

Ok, I was torn between arcanist and thaumaturge anyway lol what impact does the summoner job make on this though?

[Garlyle]

Ok, I was torn between arcanist and thaumaturge anyway lol what impact does the summoner job make on this though?

A huge one.

The "Jobs" are like the full versions of the classes. In exchange for a couple completely minor restrictions(*), upgrading to your Job nets you additional gear access, increased stats, and most importantly a number of powerful actions that you can't get any other way. You still continue to level as Arcanist to boot, so you lose absolutely 0 progress - it's a straight up upgrade. You should absolutely pick up your Job at level 30, or as soon after as you can manage; the stats and skills are way too valueable to pass up. All jobs have a requirement of level 15 in a specific other class in order to unlock them, but that's fine; you will also eventually want to level other classes for the cross-class abilities you can equip anyway.

Summoner in particular grants you the ability to summon Egis, which are like upgraded Carbuncles with additional capabilities and much stronger power. It also grants you powerful spells like Fester (Does damage for each DoT you have ticking) and Enkindle (Causes your Egi to perform a powerful attack), and with Heavensward will even allow you to channel the power of Bahamut.

Arcanist is also a special case in that it has two jobs; and it can swap between them outside of combat/duties as simply as switching a single piece of equipment. They're both Jobs based on Arcanist, so they share a majority of actions and even share an EXP bar! While Summoner gets much stronger pets and focuses on the DPS capabilities, the other option, Scholar, is a healer. Your Carbuncles will be replaced with two types of healing fairies, who will heal allies instead of attacking enemies; you'll also get unique actions that allow you to heal allies and simultaneously prevent future damage to them in one cast.

(*) - The restriction is that Jobs are only able to borrow cross-class skills from two other specific classes, and have only half as many slots to equip them. This sounds kind of unfortunate, but in almost all cases, Jobs can still cross-class all the skills that are particularly valueable to them anyway (For instance, you'll be able to still equip Swiftcast from Thaumaturge once you learn it). The job-specific abilities and stat boost are way more powerful and important than anything you lose out on.