A Summoner's Gear Guide

SMN very briefly destroyed the meta and they never forgave us.

God forbid content is anything but a melee zerg

Anybody remembers how old Perfect Defense worked?
I seem to recall its duration scaled on MP consumed when used it, at level 99 and lotsa mp it lasted 90 seconds? And you didn't have the potency scaling down past 30 seconds, right?

90 seconds of PD did seem a bit OP if you ask me.
But making SMN skill not cap at 600 wouldn't really have been OP at all? We should make a ticket for that :-P


This humor line is ironic because PD from SMN was used EXACTLY for that purpose, Melee zergs :-P

It's 2026. Zantetsuken still caps base damage at 9999.

There are SHITLOADS of fights in ffxi that aren't a melee zerg, so this is a weird thing to say.

Yeah I just mean they don't do much to prevent melee zergs other than DRK abuse but they do everything they can to delete any pet strats

Define "everything they can"?

I assume this is code for the BP wall, but it's almost totally irrelevant except for Conduit.

And, in fact, loads of content with no BP wall is still not commonly done with SMN. There's no Ready wall, but people don't play with BST. there's no automaton wall, but people don't play with PUP.

Everything they can = making those jobs suck? I mean, sure, I guess. Would you say they've "done everything they can to delete NIN"?

BP wall was completely overkill, it has to be one of the, if not the most lazily and worst thought thru nerf SE ever dropped on a job unless the intention was to cement that job in bottom tier forever. Considering SMN still didn't receive any job adjustments to this day it probably was the intention.

It didn't just kill conduit spam and therefore made that 1hour almost useless for a job who's only time to shine has pretty much been his 1hour/2hour ability since day one. it also crippled apogee and the worst part, it ruined party play with other summoners to coordinate simple blood pact skillchains.

The BST nerf is a close second to the conduit nerf, at least they received job adjustments.
However, pet strats pretty much rely on keeping players outside of harms range and forcing BST in every time they want to ready pretty much deleted BST out of pet parties.

Only PUP got spared.

^ and also they have actively kept buffs weaker and given us bad gear consistently for years.
They stated in multiple interviews that they view SMN as very strong because of all the different buffs it can give. The problem is that is no longer true if it ever was.

Some of the worst examples are

Odin - damage never adjusted.
Diabolos - Phalanx capped at 75 and never raised, MDB/MAB buffs are timing dependent and do not scale anymore.
Fenrir - Buffs never scaled past 75 and are also timing dependent making may worthless half the time.


BP timer being 20 seconds is no longer functional when endgame content like sortie has fights that last 20 seconds.

To make things worse we have Avatar's Favor which has some decent potency buffs that can be useful but our pets have basically no HP (like 1.3k~1.5k I think?) and no MDT so they die to 1-2 AoE hits from any magical damage other than their strong element. Avatar's Favor resets when they die.

Any chance we have at damage is also heavily dependent on BST roll as GEO bubbles are nerfed on a lot of things.

They actively make sure that SMN cannot help with objectives in content too. Avatar's magic doesn't count as magic so we can't help with magic kill objectives and such in Sortie. This goes all the way back to Abyssea. Similar issues with Omen.

We were competitive and treated well during the initial SoA release then we lost some power but things were okay. Once RoV came out and AFAC zergs happened they shut the job down basically.

Hell just to rant some more. They gave Diabolos death and BLM death. BLM death does crazy damage or instantly kills the mob. It costs all their mana.

Zantetsuken requires all our mana and our 1hr and can kill a single non NM 100% of the time or multiple on-NMs if you're lucky. On NMs it caps at 9999.

They gave Diabolos a dispel that can cause death too. It a 200 mana dispel with a chance to kill non-NMs. It does no dmg. The accuracy of death isn't even 100% on a level 1 mob.

Make high summoners great again

I've said it here as much as I've said it in the BLM forums and the RNG forums and all over the internet: they can't make these jobs competitive in damage, or nobody would ever bring a melee to anything ever again. Why risk your life and EP when you can safely stand at 21 and send disposable avatars in to do all the damage with 0 enmity and no concern for debuffs, while also giving the mob 0 TP?

Ditto BLM: if BLM did the same damage as a WAR or a SAM, what moron in their right mind is gonna play a SAM and put their life on the line while getting doomed, instead of playing a BLM, standing at 21 and ignoring all boss mechanics?

How about BST, commanding their pets from 20 yalms away, doing the same damage as a DRG?

Ok, so they can't be DDs...do you honestly, with your actual whole heart, think that people would bring a SMN to a v25 fight in place of a RDM if their phalanx was full potency, their stat boosts were 50 instead of 7, and they had a death magic burst on odin?

None of these suggestions would do anything for SMN, and making it "balanced" with respect to a DD or a buffing/debuffing job would likely completely destroy the game and delete all the fun from the game.

Sure, SE could give SMN some buffs and improve the gear. They won't, but they could. It still wouldn't change a damn thing about how (little) it's played or respected. Congrats, you got everything you wanted and yet: "everything is still a melee zerg"

"They can't fix it because I say so, therefor it should suck forever so other jobs can still be good" is quite the stance.

The next time you have a thought, just let it go.

The first time you have a thought, try actually engaging with what other people are saying instead of discarding it without reading any of it.

If you think it can be fixed without being overpowered, why not present a case for how that could be accomplished. Maletarus points are perfectly valid: if any job can do comparable damage while avoiding all mechanics, it becomes the de-facto job choice.

Look at how dominant RNG BLM and SMN have been for any fight that wasn't harshly time-gated. They could remove the BP wall and let you poke Sortie bosses to death with 2-3 SMNs, I guess. I can't imagine people will be lining up to do 5 boss runs like that, though.

I don't expend effort on trolls.

Then I guess it wasn't as OP in the first place, why justify that absolute disproportional nerf then?

Why would competition for BRD, COR, GEO and RDM "destroy the game" and "delete the fun"? In particular BRD, COR and RDM had a really REALLY good run, I don't see why those jobs should have a permanent ticket on the sunny side.

You can't reasonably explain this either other than playing favorites.

It's a lot more viable to make it into a buff/debuff job, but there are still serious balance concerns. The game is built around buff stacking as is, so the interactions between new SMN buffs/debuffs and existing buffs have to be considered carefully. Otherwise, you end up with BRD COR SMN GEO DNC all being mandatory and party diversity drops even more.

Since summoning avatars is relatively slow compared to BRD songs or COR rolls and there's currently no limit on simultaneous avatar buffs, it'd be tricky to do without changing SMN substantially. BRD and COR already get 10 min buffs that can be thrown up in sub-30s. To justify waiting for SMN to cycle through a bunch of avatars, the sum buffs would have to be notably better, especially since SMN can't use Naegling.

Then, you probably still need some sort of limit to how many can be up simultaneously, since otherwise SMN can ride 10+ wards at once and that'd be too overpowered if they had powerful acc, haste, attack, and def- options alongside crystal blessing.

A few ambuscades would have to be changed, since they're specifically built around not using COR or BRD. 2-KI odyssey runs get a ton easier (might not be the worst thing there). It's not insurmountable, but it's got enough tangental impact that it'd have to be considered carefully.

I said none of that. I called out problems. I didn't call fixing those solutions. I didn't offer any solutions at all in my posts.

I didn't even focus on the the damage aspect, I focused on buffs. I'm not asking to compete with a SAM in damage but at the moment we can't even touch a melee WHM. In sortie you are looking at 20-30k BP dmg every 20 seconds. A SAM is looking at 60-99K dmg every 2-2.5 seconds. They're not even in the same universe. Even a RDM is pumping out 50k WSs every 3~4ish seconds.

The buffs are a problem because SE thinks they are potent and good, they are not and have not been since around the 75 era. Most were not even good then.

Personally at this point, it's so clear they hate the job that, I think they should just remake it.

They clearly agree that pet zerging is too safe a strat and they don't want it, so don't buff our damage at all.

What that leaves: Buffs and Debuffs. We need something like Roll+ or Song+ for our buffs so that we can compete in the support space.

Make up some gear for "Avatar Buffs +8" so the buffs can compete again.

Ifrit: Crimson Howl shares warcry slot and gives +11% attack. Make it unique and give +35% (COR and GEO still provide more)

Shiva: Diamond Storm gives evasion -25 buff it to -100

Fenrir: Ecliptic Howl gives a max of 25 ACC based on moon phase. Shift this to +50 and get rid of the moon phase.
Ecliptic Growl: gives a max of +7 stats buff it to +15~25

Leviathan: Actually good as is, Tidal Roar is good when it lands...

Garuda: Also good, Hastega II is actually Haste II.

Titan: Good enough but Earthen Ward caps at 248 Stoneskin which is never worth the BP timer so it can be buffed to make it usable again.

Ramuh: Turn Lightning Armor into Crit Rate +10%

Diabolos: Dream Shroud gives a max of MAB/MDB+13 based on time. Delete the time mechanics give MDB and MAB+35.

Carbuncle: Actually probably fine as is. Pacifying Ruby is actually good when useful, same with Soothing Ruby.

Cait Sith: Personally I would just delete the TP reset. This is honestly just as bad for gameplay as any zerg or pet strat. If somehow SE is fine with this then cait is fine as is.

Siren: Siren is fine, she was released in the 99 era and her buffs/debuffs are good. Only change I would make is Wind’s Blessing not sharing a slot with Rampart and One for All.

I agree. If you're going to make it a support/buff/debuff job then it needs to compete with others for a slot. Limiting the slots for buffs is fine or whatever other mechanic but nerfing them to the point where they're not usable is not a viable option.

Sortie is MNK RDM COR GEO BRD WHM or some combo of 2 DDs and all those buffs or the DNC route. Whatever the balance is, it needs to allow SMN to be an option in place of RDM COR GEO or BRD. It doesn't have to be strictly better than them, it just has to be viable without a massive compromise.

Odyssey (segments) is similar though usually more DD slots there.
V25 fights are special. I do not expect all jobs to fit in there. I have no expectation that a SMN can replace a RDM for those strats. Same as I don't expect a GEO to replace a RDM. SMN has use in some V25s which is more than some jobs can say.

It has to be better than one of them or else it will still not get a party slot.

Whether you achieve that by buffing SMN to OP levels because they compete with other OP jobs or buffing SMN just decently and nerfing one of COR, BRD or RDM (GEO already received theirs) is up for debate.

Doesnt need to be better if it can offer something unique along with similar levels of potency(debuff types, unique buff/debuffs, what have you), though i think so long as 6 man parties are the common then it's unlikely to have a regular niche compared to more specialized jobs where slots are limited.

Where that is I can't say, been kind of the issue with pet jobs in general is that they can offer a variety of stuff, but its either not powerful enough, clunky to use, just what is unique isn't needed in general or some combo of the 3. While I think re-assessing buff/debuff potency on avatars would probably be the way to go, kind of doubt that'll unlock any additional areas for the job, same for if there was a way to make favor buffs more useable as a buff.

Yeah I also think it doesn't have to be strictly better for each category of buff. The sum of the buffs needs to be compelling though. Currently, it is not.

I have tried SMN in sortie and it is technically able to be a healer. Though I think I tried it before my group was doing 8 boss clears so unsure how it does on Aita. Ramuh stun is useful on some bosses. Damage is non-existent really. Hastega II and TP Bonus are realistically what it brings to the table for buffs.
Endrain from Fenrir is amazing but only if the moon phase is correct and sadly it counts as a second hit so it feeds double TP to the mob.

Overall I do not feel I contributed enough to the group to justify a slot. If I had something like Dia III or could do some real ATT/ACC buffs then I feel like I would actually bring SMN. I would drop the RDM or GEO for SMN. If they let SMN BPs count for magic objectives then I'd probably do DD DD BRD COR SMN WHM

That's the horrible thing: they DID count when it launched.

As I said, they actively try to ruin the job. They don't want people playing summoner because I think they regret the job mechanics and they're too lazy to fix them

Granted every single buff you asked for, and gear that enhances them. You're still never going to any v25 boss in the kill KI, you're not welcome in any serious sortie run, no ambuscade will want you, and you're uncompetitive in basically every piece of content that SMN is not currently in.

Thorny's points are essentially the exact same as mine. It takes forever to put up SMN buffs, but also if you have all the time in the world to put them up, you can maintain ALL of them, 100% of the time. So if you make them all competitive, then you max out everyone's buff bar with useful, potent buffs that are up full time. Like, having 30 songs/rolls. While also being a healer, while also having RDM-level debuffs (or you ain't getting the RDM slot).

It's either fast enough to be useful, or too slow to be practical. If it's fast then it's OP, if it's slow then it's the way it is now. It's either potent enough to compete, in which case you have BRD COR GEO RDM SMN DD parties where only 1 person is "having fun" or maybe it's just a tank and you delete DDs from the game? People ALREADY complain today about "whose turn in the barrel today?" when playing BRD COR GEO, now we're gonna add SMN to that list.

The damage, as we said, can never be fixed so you didn't even attempt to touch the "SAM can ws every 2 seconds" point, because you know that making SMN do 60-99k damage every 2 seconds would fundamentally destroy the fabric of ffxi. Thanks for conceding that, it's absolutely true.

I agree that SMN is in a tough spot. I agree that it's uncompetitive. IMO it's a niche job that has a lot of cool tools that are rarely used. It would be great if its niche could be expanded. It should never be a competitive DD. Without a MASSIVE overhaul, like a complete re-tooling of how SMN works, it will never be a competitive buffer, healer, or tank. I don't see them fundamentally changing the entire job any time soon.

Within the current bounds of how SMN works, it's nearly impossible to balance it to be good but also not completely broken-as-***-essential all the time.

You obviously don't play SMN if you think the buffs I listed cannot be applied in sortie. I already stated V25 is out, sortie certainly isn't.

Just going to say, you sound like an idiot at the moment which I feel is uncommon for you.

Broken af is wonky definition, arguably we've been dealing with quite a couple of broken af jobs, they constantly occupy party slots yet never received a nerf. Even if you overshoot a SMN buff, so what? If Overpowered was fine for the past decade for multiple jobs why shouldn't the next decade belong to a bottom tier one like SMN?

Balancing jobs is not a unsolvable paradox. Not sure if they ever did but by now SE certainly gave up on aiming for power equality among jobs. Once you accept that fact the task becomes much more trivial than you like to pretend.

Not to mention we are speaking about a video game, in that context a developers possibilities are almost limitless.


No, you don't add SMN in addition to the other 3, you buff SMN in a way that it can replace one of the others.

GEO is one of the newest jobs and they already received a nerf. Among the buffers and debuffers common sense says it's BRD's, COR's or RDM's turn to taste the nerf bat and get tough competition for their party slot.