Summoner - i am disappointed

[Malicewolf]

Yes, it can be a shock at first, but each job is specialized. Classes are open to all 7, but the perks you'll gain through your job will far exceed the cross classes at a later level. As a SMN, you're focus is on dmg, not mitigation (referring to protect). Your healers should all have this, you do not need it in group content.

Intelligence is the best attribute to increase your dmg. So with that, mercy stroke at a high level will essentially do no dmg for you as it's based off attack power instead of your magic attack potency. So while that mercy stroke may seem decent enough at a low level, you'll pretty much see it's dmg will not increase for you as you level. On lvl 60 enemies, you'll likely still only be doing low dmg with it (your auto attacks will likely be doing more dmg).

And as a SMN, do not worry about losing one DoT. You will have SOOOO many more xD At your level, you should already have bio, bio II, miasma, and bane. All of these are much much better DoTs than Aero. While some crosses would be nice "like invigorate on a WAR would be awesome" the loss of certain job skills will almost never be made up for by any of the cross class skills (in the case of WAR, you would lose out on both your stances...).

Also, you can exceed the char limit by just editing your post after posting it. I usually write everything out, copy it, then delete most to post. Then just do edit and paste the entire thing again.

[Sento-Frost]

Yeah don't worry, a summoner's essence do not lie within Aero, Protect or Mercy stroke ^^
Don't worry, you won't be disappointed, you'll see what we mean

[Frost_Tear]

It was cool leveling those classes to get an edge in combat, now it feels like generic theme park mmo. I do not know if i want return to the game.

See here's the thing though, protect aero and mercy stroke really aren't giving you an "edge" seriously... they aren't.

If you want a class that can do multiple things then role a paladin they can have cnj skills like raise protect and stone skin also mercy stroke.

[Alistaire]

I wouldn't be surprised if the better secondaries would at least put ACN on par with SMN, outmatching the higher int which wouldn't even be that much at that point.

Blood for blood, internal release, aero as bonuses. A small loss of int and getting stuck with carby vs ifrit, idk. 35+ fester would blow it away of course, but there's plenty of other jobs that do worse as the base class.

[SpookyGhost]

Essentially the cross class skills you lost are replaced with new job abilities down the line, which are much stronger than Mercy Stroke/Aero/etc. I understand that suddenly not having access to those is jarring, but as you progress you'll see the advantage of unlocking the job.

[AlFarabi]

I was disappointed too when I first lost my precious protect and aero.

But the job-specific skills I got more than made up for it. Not only powerful, but also fun.

[karateorangutang]

This is outside of the box a bit, but you could play scholar!

High level scholar play has us using alot of those same DoT rotations in between healing bursts. In 4 man dungeons I spend alot of my time in Cleric Stance to help DPS down mobs and use rouse and other abilities to keep the party healed.

You might actually enjoy Scholar more than Summoner, and you get to keep aero and protect.

[Mimilu]

Like others have said, when you equip a Job crystal, you only get 5 cross-class skills from two classes, in Summoner's case: Thaumaturge and Archer.
IF you want to use Conjurer skills like Aero and Protect, you could try Scholar but then you'll be a healer, granted you'll be the healer that is usually designated as the Off-Healer, which means you'll have more chances to DPS in parties.

The whole classes-get-7-skills-jobs-get-5 thing is from the 1.x, back when they wanted classes to be more for soloing and jobs for party. The 2.0 developers ditched that idea and focused more on the jobs.

[Alistaire]

This is outside of the box a bit, but you could play scholar!

High level scholar play has us using alot of those same DoT rotations in between healing bursts. In 4 man dungeons I spend alot of my time in Cleric Stance to help DPS down mobs and use rouse and other abilities to keep the party healed.

You might actually enjoy Scholar more than Summoner, and you get to keep aero and protect.

Don't forget the biggest advantage sch gets at 30.

...queue times!

[bounddreamer]

SMN gets really awesome again after 50, but yes, it's not really customizable.