The FFXI Summoners Handbook

The FFXI Summoners Handbook

By: Darksword
Date: October 21, 2004
Version: 2.2


Part I: Introducing the 'buncle

Ahh, the Summoner. Feared icon of power in the days of Final Fantasy yore. Master of the arcanest of the arcane, the purveyor of the forbidden magics. The Summoner of gods and demons alike. No other job in the FF lineage has quite the prestige of the summoner. I mean it isn't every day you get to call dark god of the apocalypse to fly forth and smite your enemies with shinies and sparkles. However, summoners in FFXI (referred to henceforth by their game tag of "SMN") are a whole new ballgame. Many people have not only made the sad descision to misunderstand the SMN job in FFXI, but have done so to the criminal point where it has been disregarded as a debilitated healer class. This guide will look at the finer points of low to mid level summoning, and go into detail into just what the SMN class is, does, and how it is to be played. This is not an advanced guide. Like a lot of things, higher level SMN play is something that each player must develop for themselves.
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Part II: Obtaining your 'buncle

There are a million bajillion sites out there that will tell you how to complete the SMN job quest, but I'll give you a very quick recap of my own path.

Kill Poison Leeches on the beach of Buburimu Penninsula until you get a Carbuncles Ruby. The ruby is a rare drop, so expect this to take quite a while.
Be level 30 or higher.
Enter the House of the Hero in Windurst Walls.
Buy a Scroll of Instant Warp, Sneak Oil, and Prism Powder (or Warp, Sneak and Invis if you're the right kind of mage)
Go through Ronguemont Pass in Northeast East Ronfaure and enter the Baucedine Glacier to get the Ice element on your Ruby. Warp home (it's a one way trip).
Go through Korroloka Tunnel from the Zehrun Mines in Bastok to enter the Altepa desert for the Fire element.
Go to Valkurm or Tahrongi for the Earth element.
Go to Tahrongi or La Thiene for the Wind element.
Go to Konschtat for the Thunder element.
Go to Pashow for the Water element.

Go to the little nub of land at area G-6 of La Thiene Plateau and trade your Ruby to the ???? at the heart of the stone circle.

Congrats! You now have your very own Atomic Squirrel buddy!

Now get him a couple friends: go to the Auction House in Jeuno and buy scrolls of Earth and Air elementals (the 2 cheapest). Now, you're ready to summon.
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Part III: My 'buncle and me

Unlike other mage jobs, SMN is one of the hands-down easiest jobs in the game for soloing those first 10 levels. At this point Carbuncle may very well be stronger than you, depending on your race. Having the ability to command him, or one of your elementals to attack while you yourself are fighting, is a powerful advantage. You can double team or tagteam single stronger enemies, or fight 2 Decent Challenges at a time. For a long time to come, Carbuncle will be your most faithful and useful companion. He has the lowest MP cost of all the Summon monsters, both per cast and per tick (a Summon will drain your MP at a set rate for as long as you leave it out) and several useful abilities:

Healing Ruby - This is your own little version of Cure magic. It can target you or members of your party and is about as potent as Cure 1, only without the cap. You can use it once per minute, and if you are subbing WHM or RDM it will effectively allow you to heal in 2 places at once.

Poison Nails - Your first special attack, this is a hard hitting little slash attack that can add poison status to the enemy.

Carbuncle will learn these abilities as you increase in levels, and will gain several new ones at higher levels.

With a good Pole-type weapon in your hand and Carbuncle at your side, those first 10 levels are going to fly right by. After that, it's time to party.
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Part IV: Partying the 'buncle

Being a Summoner in an EXP gain party used to be a damn tough job before the CoP update. Let's get a few things straight about our new-and-improved selves:

1: Summoned avatars can now Magic Burst with their elemental Blood Pacts, with damage comparable to a BLM and superior to a RDM.

2: Summoned avatars can now skillchain using certain attack bloodpacts.

3: Avatars gained a massive increase in attack accuracy, and a moderate increase in attack strength. Now pay attention: You are NOT a Dark Knight, ok? There is a way you can effectively become a damage dealer in your party, but plain old avatar melee is not the way to do it at higher levels. This will be covered later.

Ok, got all that? Now lets take a look at your level 10-13 self sitting in Valkurm.

What is my job? You are probably asking. Well truth is, not much. With only Cure I from your subjob you aren't much use as a main healer. The best course of action to take here is to simply let good old Carbuncle out to beat up the monsters, and assist the WHM by throwing out a few Cures.

CONSERVE YOUR MP! The SMN job has a larger MP pool than any other job in the entire game, but our abilities are also some of the MP thirstiest, nevermind the constant drain on your MP from leaving an avatar out. A summoner who exhausts his massive MP pool and must full rest after every fight is an exp killer and an unwanted burden. You must, above all else, discern for yourself when it's time to put the avatar away and start conserving MP. A good rule for this is to look at the other mages MP bars - keep your own in line with theirs. Don't let 3/4 of your bar disappear if the WHM is only using 1/3 of his. This way you can keep downtime to an optimum.

Your subjob is another important aspect of SMN party play. At this level there are really only 2 candidates. A 3rd and 4th exist, but one isn't useful until much later (Bard) and the other becomes useless very quickly (Black Mage). The 2 prime candidates are White Mage and Red Mage. Both of these will give you the backup-healer support ability that you'll need, and beyond that there is a tradeoff. WHM is MUCH better suited for passive support play. Between status curing, Divine Seal, and Curaga you can literally replace a WHM almost completely at higher levels. If a party has a dedicated WHM, you can trade off battles as you heal and eliminate downtime totally. WHM is a very useful SMN subjob.

RDM is a bit more of the same, but focused on Active support. You still have the healing potential you need to back up the WHM or main heal on your own. A RDM sub also has the effect of telling seekers "I am not just a gimpy Curetank. I'm a summoner and I will either be summoning, or I won't be in your party." This sub is also the perfect sub for soloing at higher levels. Against anything up to a DC, your normally-useless enfeebles and nukes WILL stick, and this makes farming and soloing a breeze.

At much later levels (post-50) BRD becomes not only a viable sub, but an excellent one for a Support SMN. The biggest complaint people have about the BRD sub is that the enfeebles cant possibly stick to high level mobs with half-level singing skill and no instruments. What do you care? You're a Summoner, not a Bard. Enfeebling isn't your job. BRD sub is used only for the party buff songs, most important of which is Mages Ballad. A RDM sub can never gain the Refresh spell, as the current level cap wont allow it. However the Mages Ballad song is almost as good at regenerating MP, and doesn't touch your precious existing MP pool. A SMN with his level 25 auto-refresh, Mages ballad, and Juice or RDM refresh is a force to be reckoned with.
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Part V: Managing your 'buncle

A Summoner has a few other interesting tactics at his or her command.

Bodyguard - a Summoned avatar will automatically attack any monster that aggroes you, whether you tell it to or not. Knowing this, you essentially have your own private security force. Leaving good old Carbuncle out (he's chosen because of his low MP drain) when crossing a dangerous area is an extremely wise idea. Should you get aggroed by certain death Carby will, like a little blue Secret Service agent, dive into harms way and take the bullet for you, buying you time to escape. Using this tactic during an escape from battle? Well, really only the THF and the PLD are more likely to make it to the zone than you.

Running Interference - Ever had your party fighting something, and something else that you couldn't kill if you wanted to decides to spawn face to face with your WHM (Wights in Qufim)? Ordering your avatar to attack it, or calling an elemental out to do battle with it will pull its attention away from your party, at least temporarily, and buy you time to sound the retreat. Instead of the Paladin staying behind to die so the team can get away, drag him along and let your little buddie do it.

Pulling - If not for the issue of MP drain downtime, SMN would be the best pulling job in the game. Avatars don't get aggro, and monsters can't link on them. You can go to Kazham and march old Carby right through an army of Goblins to snag that one mandragora and do it in complete and utter safety. Even against linking enemies, after Cabuncle is killed, only the original monster he attacked will come after you, the summoner. The rest of the link will go back to milling around aimlessly. Just send him to attack your prey, run back to the party, and use the Return pet command. As Carby approaches he will gather a massive train of all the possible links in the area, then you will use the Release command and wait for your pulled monster to arrive, link-free.

Since pet commands don't cancel Sneak status, the SMN is also the ideal puller for areas with lots of sound aggro or undead. Sneak up, and use Assault/Return to pull.

Monster holding: Ever been fighting a monster and trying to chain, when another one pops right in the middle of your camp? Then the puller next door decides to take it while you're busy with your current fight? Pull out a Summon and use it to claim the second monster for your party. Your pet(s) will keep it busy until your team is ready to deal with it, and will also keep other pullers grubby mitts off of it.


***SPECIAL ABILITY ALERT***

Train Clearing - This is a fun and very useful trick that I caught myself doing one night. By the time many of you aspiring SMNs reach Crawler's Nest you will probably be very familiar with the scenario of a monster train shutting down a zone. Here's how you can help:

For normal linking monsters, Carby pull them one by one deep into the level, away from the zone. Resummon Carbuncle after releasing him and let him engage the mob as it arrives. Now run back and zone outside, leaving Carby behind. He will vanish instantly when you exit the zone, leaving the monster in its new, safer spot. Repeat for each monster until the train is cleared.

For "killer aggro trains" that consist of one or two aggro monsters, supported by a huge train of non-aggro links (this is a frequest occurrence in Crawler's Nest, where someone zones an aggro Soldier Crawler and links a dozen or so non-aggro Worker crawlers), you can Carby pull the aggro monster from the train, and after pulling it to a safe spot either resummon and zone as in the previous case, or call for help (type /help) and let everyone nearby kill it.

For large, powerful monster trains such as a Kuftal Tunnel Haunt train, Titan Sneak pulling is the best course of action. Unlike Invisible, using avatar commands will not cancel Sneak status. This means you can work freely in and around a sound-aggro train. In this particular case of a Haunt train, Sneak yourself and then summon Titan. Use Earthen Ward (this gives Titan the Stoneskin effect as well as you, keeping him alive longer) and sic him on a Haunt. Have Titan follow you and run down the tunnel away from the zone, monster in tow. Have Titan engage the Haunt once you reach a safe distance, then run back to the zone and exit as in the first example.

The above case is an act of pure heroism, because nobody wants to mess with a Haunt train, and they can take up to half an hour to return to their spawns on their own, killing unsuspecting passersby the entire time. For the brave Summoner (preferably over level 55) however, this is an easy remedy.

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Part VI: Supporting Your 'buncle

I'm sure you've noted by now that being a good SMN is a taxing job. Its hard on MP, strenuous, complex, and sometimes boring and unappreciated. Well there are things you can do to make your life as a SMN a bit easier.

Equipment - I said earlier that the lifeblood of a SMN is his MP. Raise it as much as you can. Equip anything you can find or afford that raises your MP by even one point. Energy Earrings, Energy Rings, Friars Rope, hairpins, special tunics, Windurstian Slops, anything that raises your MP will help. Yes, some of them are very expensive but you need to be the best you can to do your job right. Depending on your race, it may be time to look at your RSE. The next priority after MP raising is MND, to increase the potency of your subjobs healing magic. Justice Badge, Friars Rope, and Zealots Mitts will hold you for a long time on this one.

Being a mage, SMN doesn't require ultra-frequent equipment upgrades. However there are a few benchmark items that you'll need:

Level 1-13: Justice Badge, Onyx Earrings, Onyx Rings, Cape
Level 14-15: Light Soleas, Sand'Orian Tunic, Friars Rope, Zealots Mitts, Windurstian Staff
Level 23: Windurstian Pole
Level 27: RSE Gauntlets
Level 29: RSE Boots
Level 30: Mercenary Captains Doublet, Elm Pole
Level 40: Any summoner not sporting the full Electrum set the second he hits 40 (Hairpin, 2 rings) should kill himself. +65 MP from 3 equipment slots is a SMNs wet dream. Also look into an Oak Pole+1 and/or a Combat Casters Dagger.
Level 41: Kukulcan's Staff (your AF staff). This is another +20MP for you to have fun with. Save this for exp parties, it sucks as a weapon.

Level 50: Lilith's Rod. This one is special. I'm going to give away a personal secret of mine regarding what is probably the single best SMN weapon in the game. Lilith's Rod is a level 50 Rod-type weapon (WHM, BLM, SMN only club) with a very unique feature. It has Aspir effect on it. Unlike the Aspir Knife or Fire Sword or all those other garbage weapons where the effect kicks in every 5 or six hours, the MP drain effect of this rod kicks in every 5 or 6 swings. The MP drain isn't minor either, it has highs and lows but averages out to be about 20MP drained for each affected hit. The best part is, the Rod is free. You can quest for it in the "Blue Ribbon Blues" quest, but bring a THF along. The drop rate is high but not 100%. Or you can just buy it for 20k at your Jeuno AH.

Level 50: Austere Robe - This robe is a wonderful little toy for the SMN on the go. It gives you -1 perpetuation cost to all of your avatars, which is much more helpful than it sounds. This robe, combined with other -perpetuation cost items, can substantially reduce the per-tick cost of your avatars, and make your summoning much more MP efficient.

Level 51: Elemental Staves. Start with a Dark Staff. We have such a huge amount of MP to rest back relative to the other classes that our downtime at this point can become really severe. You NEED this staff, it's bloody mandatory. Next up is a Light Staff, which both lowers Carbuncles perpetuation cost (for soloing) but increases the power of your subjobs cure spells, making you a more effective main or backup healer. Next up should probably be an Ice Staff for Shivas perpetuation costs (she's probably going to be the only one you have meleeing at this level, for SCs or bursting Blizzard II on Distortion). You'll want all of the staves at some point, but these 3 are the most important.

Level 52: Evoker's Spats (your AF legs). You NEED these. Do whatever it takes to get that party together to get them. They increase the accuracy of your avatars attacks and BPs, and give you (not your pets) an Enmity reduction. ***Helpful Tip*** One of the quest items you need to get these are 4 Astrogalos throwing weapons. You can buy these from the Boneworkers Guild shop when Windy is in first place. You will also need a map of Fei'Yin, which you can get by raising Windy fame, completing all the Librarian quests, and all the quests for Hariga-Origa in Windurst.

Level 56: Evoker's Pigaches - These are your Artifact Feet. Once you have your Spats, you can acquire these by opening a Coffer in the Toraimarai Canal. Unless you are from Windurst, this is a very ugly task. The Canal is a sealed dungeon, with only 3 possible ways in. The first is a portal hidden deep in the Horototo Ruins. You can have a White Mage, a Black Mage, and Red Mage stand on 3 switches in the portan room to open the door. Or if you are from Windurst, you can complete mission 3-2, then trade a Rolanberry to Kupipi in Heaven's Tower for a Portal Charm that can open the door for you. The third way is to complete the quest Blue Ribbon Blues in Windurst, and then begin a quest called Toraimarai Turmoil. At the start of this quest you will be given a Key item that will let you enter the canal from a hidden door behind the House of the Hero in Windurst Walls.

The map of the Canal can be gotten through a very long quest in Selbina. Once inside, you need to kill Mindcravers and Fleshcravers for a Coffer key, and find and open a coffer for your boots. These increase the Evasion of all your avatars, and are quite useful when soloing.

***SPECIAL ITEM***

Level 20: Carbuncle Mitts.

These are a very special and very powerful piece of equipment, but you won't have a shot at getting them until you have a job at level 60 or higher. These mitts reduce Carbuncles perpetuation cost by half, and when combined with other -perpetuation cost items, can make Carby free to leave out. This opens up whole new dimentions in farming and soloing as SMN.

To acquire the mitts you need to pop an NM called Crimsontooth Pawberry in the Temple of Uggalepih. To do this, you need his pop item: The Offering to Uggalepih. To get the offering, you need to go to Yhoator Jungle, to the place marked on the map as the Bloodlet Spring. There is a tunnel in the NE corner near the spring that leads you to the Den of Rancor. Once in the den, sneak/invis yourself and hug the right wall until you zone into the Temple of Uggalepih.

As you enter, there will be a hallway to your left with 4 small doors, 2 per side. You need to open each door (being careful not to aggro the Tonberries within or without) and look for a ??? in one of the rooms. If it isn't there, try again later. When you find the ??? spot, select it to recieve the Offering.

To reach the NM itself, enter the chamber beyond the Temple Guardian NM on the second floor(you will have to kill him to open the door) and go up to the door on top of the stairs across the room from where you entered. Kneel down or cast magic until you aggro a monster on the other side of the door who will open the door for you. Once inside proceed up the stairs until you reach a room with several Tonberries and a ??? in the center. Kill the tonberries and trade your Offering to the ??? to spawn Crimsontooth. He is a level 70 Tonberry SMN who likes to spam Searing Light. You will need an alliance of level 60-70s to beat him. He drops the Carbuncle Mitts every time he is killed.

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Also make certain to keep your weapons up to date. I recently found it very practical to level my summoners Dagger skill. This allows for the possibility of Self-skillchaining, as daggers will gain you TP much more quickly than a staff. Despite its lower skill I also found my dagger to be superior to my pole for soloing. However the 2H staff is our jobs best ranked weapon, so always make certain to keep your skill capped and a top-quality Pole around, whether you level dagger or not. If you really want a rocking good time, keep your Club skill capped all the way to level 50, then get yourself a Lilith's Rod.

Crafting - Cooking will be your best friend for life if you're a Summoner. Juices give you the effect of MP Regeneration, which reduces the cost of active summons (say the avatar drains 5 MP per tick, but your juice gives you back 2 so you're only losing 3) and helps you fill up quicker when resting. Pies and desserts will increase your maximum MP count, giving you a greater margin for maintaining your MP supply. You can also make Mulsums for a quick burst of MP if you're in a desperate situation. This craft can also make you VERY popular with your teammates. Supply a Mithkabob or some roast mutton to the melees in your party, and loan an extra pie to the BLM and some roasted mushrooms to the WHM. You'll have a friends list a mile long and an inventory full of linkpearls before you know it.

Skillbuilding - I once advised that all SMNs should level their Summon magic skill, because we didn't know what purpose it served. Later I recanted on this because I didn't believe that it's stated effects (reducing casting interruption on summons and making Spirits cast magic faster) weren't worth the time invested.

To a degree the latter statement is still true, but for one thing: Light Spirit. You need this, you must have this, and to use it to full effectiveness you need high or capped Summoning Skill. As much as I hate to admit it, I now spend my hours as well sitting in Rolanberry capping my skill, while snacking on my lunch of fried crow and humble pie.
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Part VII: The 'buncle Plays Nice

Once you reach level 20 with your Summoner, it's time to go get little Carby some new friends. Each of the Avatars, except for Fenrir, can be earned in a level 20 one-on-one fight between you and Carby and the Avatar itself. You gain this quest from the same NPCs who give you the full-fledged avatar battle quests, so I'm not going to detail them here. I'll just provide a very simple strategy for winning.

Bring the following: 2 Yagudo Drinks, 2 Hi-Potions, 1 Ether (in case of an emergency), 1 Boiled Crab, 1 Pamama au Lait and a Hermits Wand.

When the battle starts (remember to TRADE the mini-fork to the crystal!), eat the boiled crab and drink a Yagudo. Summon Carbuncle and run up near the avatar, just within range to give Carby the Assault command. Now run back down to the opposite area, where you entered. As soon as Carbuncles name vanishes from your screen, resummon him and wait for the avatar. When the 2 start fighting again, run up to the top platform. Again, wait for Carby to die, resummon, wait for the avatar, and run. Repeat these steps until you are down to 70 MP and your Yagudo drink has worn off, drink the Pamama au Lait and a second Yagudo Drink and the next time you summon Carby, wait. As soon as the avatar arrives, use Astral Flow and command Carbuncle to use Searing Light. A split second before it goes off, run for the other platform as fast as you can. The avatar will now have less than half its HP and will counter with its own Astral Flow, killing Carbuncle instantly. You MUST be far enough away to resummon him. Once he is back out, use a Hi-Potion if you got caught in the Astral Flow and wait for the avatar. As soon as it and Carby start fighting, stand right next to them and use Searing Light again. This should finish off the avatar.

Repeat this process for each avatar, and either fight them on the day of their elemental weakness, or fight them on Lightsday to make Carby stronger. You'll have an army of magical allies at your command before you know it.


THE HIGH LEVEL PRIME BATTLES

If you happen to be fortunate enough to have another mage job at level 60, or a melee job at 65, you have a second option for gaining your avatars. This path involves forming an avatar party, getting all the necessary Tuning Forks for everyone, then journeying to each Cloister and facing the level 70 Avatar Prime. This path does have certain advantages despite its difficulty.

First: You will need a rather large amount of fame in all three cities, as well as Norg. For the main cities you will require at least rank 7 fame. For me, this translated into about 100 Cornettes turned in in Windurst, and 10 stacks of Boyahda Moss turned in at Selbina. The Norg fame is a bit trickier, but it seemed I was able to get the Leviathan Prime fork after turning in about 200 Zinc Ores to the Tenshodo quest giver in port Bastok.

Second: Once you have sufficient fame, talk to the avatar fight people in each area. He will be a Tarutaru standing next to a warrior of some persuasion, usually in the vicinity of a Home Point. They are found at Port Bastok, Rabao, Mhaura, Northern Sand'Oria, Kazham, and Norg. They start off their speech with "Owzie-wowsie! Don't make me talk, I hurt all over!" and will continue speaking to you if you have enough fame. When you accept the quest, you will recieve the "Tuning Fork of *Element*" as a KEY ITEM. This is NOT the same as the Mini-Tuning Fork for the level 20 battles!

Third: Now you need an avatar party. These fights are deceptively easy if you plan correctly. I reccommend the following:

Level 73-75 PLD or 67+ NIN
2 level 66+ DDs
2 level 60+ Healers (One probably being you)

That team there can handle the fights by itself. Fill the gap with anyone who would like to go along. Finding a WHM with all the teleport spells is a good idea as well. My personal avatar party looked like: NIN MNK THF BLM RDM SMN

Fourth: You need to make certain that every member of your party has the Tuning Fork key items for each avatar you intend to fight. They can NOT enter the battlefield without them! For Leviathan Prime, at least one person will need to have a Paintbrush from the Temple of Uggalepih as well.

Finally: You have to actually travel to the cloisters. This can be easier said than done, as some of them lie in very inhospitable places.

The Cloister of Fire resides in Ifrit's Cauldron.
The Cloister of Gales resides in Cape Terrigan.
The Cloister of Tremors resides in the Quicksand Caves.
The Cloister of Frost resides in Fei Yin.
The Cloister of Tides resides in the Den of Rancor, beyond the Temple of Uggalepih.
The Cloister of Storms resides in the Boyahda Tree.

Once you reach your destinations, the avatar battles work like any other BCNM boss fight, with a minor exception. Whoever has the highest Enhancing magic skill in the party should keep the Bar-Element spell of the avatars element on your melees at all times. Failing to do this invites the catastrophe of your melees being wiped out by the avatar primes Astral Flow. Apart from this, the tank tanks, the melees beat the avatar up, and the mages stand way back and cast their spells.

Why should I bother doing this?

I'm glad you asked. There are 3 reason why a Summoner might want to take this path. The most blatant is Fenrir. Fenrir is really the ultimate summon avatar, tremendously useful at almost any level. The only way to get him is to beat all 6 Avatar Prime fights. When you win a Prime battle, your Tuning Fork key item gets transformed into a Whisper. If you DO NOT go back and talk to the quest-giving tarutaru, you can keep that whisper. Once you have all 6, they can be taken to to Leepe-Hoppe in Windurst Waters south and used to transform your Carbuncles Ruby into a Moon Bauble, which is the item needed to enter Fenrir's BCNM battle. Like the forks, anyone who wishes to fight Fenrir with you must also have a Bauble!

The second reason is rewards. If you DO go back and talk to the quest giving Taru again, you will lose your Whisper for his avatar battle. However in return he will give you your choice of prizes. There are some very powerful Rare/EX equipments on his list, such as the Lightning Ring from Ramuh's battle (On Lightningsday: Accuracy and Ranged Accuracy +15), as well as sums of gil or even just the ability to summon the avatar.

The final reason is, supposing you have another job at 60-70 and want to start SMN with all avatars at level 1. You can use your high level job to win the avatar prime battles, choose your reward to be summoning each avatar, and then start SMN from scratch.

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***WARNING! SPECIAL SECTION! WARNING! SPECIAL SECTION!***

Level ???: Fenrir

I've finally decided to add a special section, dedicated to the ultimate summon, Fenrir. I described the procedure to gain his key item in the Prime Battle entry above, and this section will tell you aspiring summoners out there everything you need to know about the purple pooch. We all know how difficult it is just to FIGHT Fenrir, but why? What makes this summon so great, and why is he so hard to acquire?

Reason one: Perpetuation cost. Fenrir falls directly in between Carbuncle's low perpetuation cost, and the perpetuation cost of the other avatars. Simply put, he's as powerful as the 6 main avatars but cheaper to keep out.

Reason 2: Status Effects. Fenrir's first 2 basic Blood Pacts, Moonlit Charge and Crescent Fang, add a 100% Blind and Paralysis effect, respectively. This is on top of dealing high damage, relative to the other avatar's starter pacts.

Reason 3: Party Buffs. Fenrir's buffs are the singular, most useful techniques available to the Summoner. His level 43 Ecliptic Growl attack increases every stat of every party member by a number of points, depending on moon phase. The closer it is to the full moon, the better the buffs are for melees, and closer to the new moon for mages. His level 54 pact, Ecliptic Howl, increases the accuracy and evasion of all party members. You heard me right: Accuracy and Evasion. It makes us into a Bard. The closer it is to the full moon, the greater the Accuracy bonus, with the Evasion bonus being greater near the new moon.

Reason 4: Monster Enfeebles. His level 24 ability, Lunar Cry, lowers the accuracy and evasion of the target monster. The closer it is to the full moon, the lower the monsters accuracy will be. The closer it is to the new moon, the lower its evasion.

Reason 5: Super Dispel. His level 32 ability, Lunar Roar, dispels TWO status buffs from the target monster in one shot.

Reason 6: Melee Power. Fenrir gets his super attack BP, Eclipse Bite, at level 65. This is 5 levels earlier than the other avatars.



That's it. Now it should be easy to see why Fenrir is so prized by high level Summoners. So now you know what all the hubbub is about, and you know how to go and fight Fenrir Prime, but you want to know how to actually beat him? I can help with that.

Fenrir Prime resides in the Full Moon Fountain, in the southwest corner of Toraimarai Canal's first map. You'll need the Portal Charm described elsewhere in this guide to gain access.

Fenrir is a level 80 Notorious Monster, meaning he has the equivalent stats of about a level 90 EXP mob. He is most likely the hardest 6 person BCNM battle in the game for this reason. He hits VERY hard, VERY fast. He has a ton of HP (around 12,000), and can dispel every buff cast on your entire party whenever he feels like it. Shadows, Protect, Shell, and Reraise are all rendered useless. Finally, his Astral Flow attack, Howling Moon, has a far lower resist rate than the other avatars and is considerably more powerful.

So how do you kill this fluffy, purple, behemoth? A combination of high levels, the right jobs, the right preparation, and a lot of luck.

Optimum party for a Fenrir battle: Level 75: NIN, NIN, PLD, DRK, WHM, BRD (you can do this with 6 70+ SMNs as well. The abbreviated strategy is just to use 6 Leviathans to attack and spam him with Spinning Dive until he dies.)

Optimum setup for a Fenrir battle: Everyone should eat Jack o'Lanterns. This gives the DRK more accuracy, the NINs more evasion, and most importantly, gives everyone +25 Dark resistance. The PLD and WHM should have their 2hour abilities macroed in, and the BRD should keep Dark Carol cast on the party, even when it is Dispelled. The WHM should keep Reraise 3 on at all times.

Optimum conditions for a Fenrir battle: Early morning Lightsday with close to a 50% Moon. Fenrir will be at his weakest during this period.

Battle progression: The NINs, PLD, and DRK should start the fight with Opo Opo necklaces and sleeping potions, all equipping swords, until they reach 300% TP. The BRD casts Dark Carol, Mambo, and Mages Ballad 2, and the melees move in, opening with 4 300TP Spirits Withins. The Ninjas trade hate back and forth as Fenrir dispels their shadows with Lunar Roar.

At around 50% HP, Luck comes into play. Fenrir will use his Astral Flow ability Howling Moon, and may or may not kick your ass completely (it left all the level 75 melees in my party in double-digit HP, this was with Jackolanterns and Dark Carol). At this point the Paladin quickly hits his 2hour macro, pulling Fenrir's attention away from the party. The WHM runs to the melees and uses Benediction to recover their HP. The Ninjas voke rapidly as the PLD dies a messy death and waits for his after-battle Raise 3.

At this point the fight continues normally, and with a little luck (the NINs don't get Eclipse Bitten between shadows, the WHM doesn't pull hate and get oneshotted, the DRKs Stuns don't get resisted, mages don't run out of MP, etc) Fenrir will go down.

Congratulations! The ultimate summon monster, and all his power are now yours to command!

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Part VIII: Fun with Elementals

When the time rolls around that you have a full list of avatars, your old elemental buddies aren't going to recieve much love. They and their high MP drain and weak stats have been replaced by your army of magically-endowed superpets. Or have they?

The answer is no. Elementals will always have a small list of advantages over the avatars, including the following:

Speed. An element takes roughly 1/5 of the time to cast that an avatar does. If you have been aggroed by an IT Goblin and you need an escape decoy or you're going to die, that time is very precious.

Magic. The summon spirits look like elementals for a reason: Like their brethren in the wild, the spirits are beings composed entirely of magic. A spirit of a given element can cast any spell of its element that is available at your current level. When I say "any spell" I mean it too. For any of you reading this who have seen or partied with a high level Black Mage before, you know where I'm going with this: Ancient Magic! Aside from the "escape decoy" trick, this is the number one reason to put spirits to use. Allow me to explain the basic mechanics before we go in depth.

Ancient Spirit Magic.

There are 6 Ancient Magic spells in the game: Freeze, Tornado, Quake, Flood, Burst, and Flare. As you can infer from their names they correspond to the elements of Ice, Wind, Earth, Water, Thunder, and Fire, respectively. This means that a given Ancient Magic can only be cast by its elements corresponding Spirit. Ice Spirit casts Freeze, Wind Spirit casts Tornado, etc.

Your Spirits will be able to cast these spells once you reach the appropriate level to use them. The levels for each is as follows.

Freeze - Level 50 (Frost, Paralyze, Blizzard 2, Blizzard 3)
Tornado - Level 52 (Silence, Gravity, Aero 2, Aero 3)
Quake - Level 54 (Slow, Stone 3, Rasp)
Burst - Level 56 (Shock, Thunder 2, Thunder 3)
Flood - Level 58 (Drown, Poison, Water 2, Water3)
Flare - Level 60 (Burn, Fire 2, Fire 3)

Bear in mind, this isn't the whole story. Unlike avatars, you cannot choose what magic spell a Spirit will use. It is chosen somewhat randomly, though certain variables such as day and the elemental weakness of the target come into play.

At the level that a spirit can cast ancient magic, it also has a list of "preferred" spells that it likes to use. You will see these in parentheses in the level chart above. For the most part, the spell the spirit will cast is randomly chosen from that list. However, there are some rules that govern that choice:

1: A spirit will not cast an enfeebling spell that is already stuck on the mob.

2: A spirit is more likely to cast a damaging spell if your HP is low.

3: A spirit is more likely to cast the more powerful spells if the ratio of your Summoning Magic Skill to the mobs level is high.

4: A spirit is most likely to cast a strong attack spell on its weakest day (i.e. Fire Spirit on Watersday) against a mob that is weak to the spirits element.

Summoning Magic Skill and Spirit Magic.

Personal aside: Someone should really give me a cookie for this whole Spirit section. I spent nearly a million gil and 3 weeks of my life figuring these bastards out once and for all. If you want to disagree with this I'm going to smack you with my giant notebook full of spirit casting data. The notebook > j00.

Well folks, this is it. The great, grand mystery of Summoning Magic Skill lies here, cracked open before you. A few people around already have an inkling about what I'm going to describe, but this isn't taken from any previous topics. I went looking for confirmation and mechanical details of the theories that have been posted, and this is what I found out.

Spirit Casting Timer - This was the most interesting piece of data I discovered. While the chosen spell of a Spirit is somewhat random, the moments that it decides to cast them are not. A Spirit has a casting timer! The moment that you summon a spirit, this timer begins counting down. When the countdown finishes, the Spirit is ready to cast its semi-random spell.

Properties of the Spirit Casting Timer:

1: The timers length is directly affected by your Summoning Magic Skill.

2: The base timer length at zero Summoning Magic Skill is 75 seconds.

3: For a very rough estimate of your timer, divide your Summoning Magic Skill by 3, and subtract that number from 75. This is about how many seconds it will take before a Spirit casts it's spell. (not exact - my skill is 158 and my casting time is 25 seconds)

4: The higher your Summoning Magic Skill is relative to a mobs level, the more likely that a spirit will cast it's more powerful spells. (Basically - if your Magic skill is at a level where it would be capped at level 30, then against any mob level 30 or below the spirit is more likely to use powerful spells.)

5: Any commands issued to the spirit (Assault, Return, Release) reset the casting timer to full.

6: A Spirit will cast magic throughout the course of a battle on this timer, not just once. So Assault - timer - cast - timer - cast - timer - cast until the target is defeated.

That's it!

These mechanics probably seem pretty complex, but the execution is really quite simple. Here's the Pocket version of what you just read:

To try and make a Spirit use Ancient Magic:

1: Calculate your spirit casting timer (75 - [Summonskill / 3])

2: Summon a spirit on its elemental weak day, against a monster that is weak to the spirits element. (The effect here isn't profound, so if the day or mob is inconveneient it can be disregarded)

3: Either wait until the casting timer is up then aggro the mob to yourself (via hitting it, resting near it, casting enfeebling magic on it) or have your Spirit assault the mob and fight it until the casting timer is up.

4: Enfeeble the mob to shrink the list of spells the spirit will cast. For example, if you want Earthspirit to cast Quake, enfeeble the mob with Rasp and Slow. Now the spirit mush choose between only Stone 3 and Quake.

5: Have Summoning Magic Skill that is higher than your cap
for the level the monster would be Even Match.

That's all there is to it. Now even all this still won't give you a 100% certain chance of using Ancient Magic, but with this system I've popped off 5 Flares and 6 Tornados all in a row on TWW mobs. (one little tidbit though - Icespirit likes to be a bastard and cast anything BUT Freeze, no matter what you do or how many times you do it. He seems to be the exception to the rule.)

***SPECIAL ALERT***

There is one more thing to discuss in this section, before I give you a conclusion that you may not like to hear. That thing is the black sheep of the Summon Spirits: Light.

In the course of my testing with the spirits the first thing I knew I had to do was get them all. I initially avoided Light and Dark, because they were very expensive and I was most interested in Ancient Magic, which they lack. However, as I came to the end of my testing a realization hit me: If Summoning Magic Skill affects offensive magic casting, what about defensive buffs? So I begrudgingly forked over 600k for a Light Spirit (I only had 630k to my name, mind you. I'm still recovering from being broke) and ran it through the testing battery.

I found that Summoning Magic skill did indeed control the casting timer of buffs and healing spells. Light Spirit is also held by the rule of not recasting a buff that's already there.

Now, anyone who has used or seen a Light Spirit in action knows that it is basically a portable White Mage. However it operates a bit differently than attack spirits, in that it has a fixed priority for its "favorite" spells. It seems to go like this:

Shell > Protect = Regen > Haste

There is also a unique trick to get your Light Spirit to target specific party members. Position yourself so that your target person is standing exactly between your spirit and your character. Light Spirit will then cast all of it's buffs onto this person.

Special cases occur in parties when numerous people are injured or taking damage, at which points I see Curaga 2 come up quite frequently. usually it even ignores the casting timer for this, and just fires the spell the second it's been summoned. Also if I am getting hit hard for whatever reason and summon Light to cover me, it likes to throw Cure 4 at me.

This is the Spirit which has the most potential for significant use in a party. It gives the summoner access to buffing and curing spells FAR more powerful than what our subjob provides us with.

So what's the bad news? Well not only does Light Spirit cost a buttload of gil, but it, like all spirits, drains a damn ton of MP leaving it out long enough to cast those spells. Hmm? Did I say long enough? Long enough to cast those spells? Gee... I wish there was some way I could make my light spirit cast those buffs quicker, then it wouldn't cost me so much MP.

Oh, wait! I can! By capping my Summoning Magic Skill, I can max out my Light Spirits efficiency. Then I have access to those high level buffs and emergency curing spells.

And darn! I wish I could have at least a little control over which buffs it would use. Wait! I can! By eliminating spells from it's preferred list, like Regen!

And that's just what I did, too. Even with capped skill it's still a MP costly little bugger, but how often do I have to use it? Just to buff myself and the tank/puller once in awhile, which usually occurs during normal downtime anyway. Dark Staff and a Coin Cookie with Refresh recovers the lost MP in no time.



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Part IX: Using your 'buncle

This is where things really get hazy. As you go up in levels you will find yourself becoming more and more spread out in terms of ability. You won't heal as well as a WHM, buff as well as a BRD, enfeeble as well as a RDM, or do damage as well as a BLM. This is very important, and is the secret to why a lot of people misunderstand Summoners. We are the ONLY multi-role job in FFXI. We don't heal better than a WHM, but we can damage deal better than one. We don't enfeeble like a RDM but we buff better than one. We don't buff like a bard but we DD better than one. Even the much-praised RDM job, for all its versatility, becomes little more than an enfeebler/Refresh whore at higher levels. We are a jack of all trades in a game of one-trick ponies, and that gives people problems understanding what we do and why we deserve a slot in their party.

When you invite a Paladin, you know he's going to tank. If you invite a RDM, you know he's going to refresh. If you invite a WHM, you know he's going to heal. However, when a party invites a SMN they have no idea what you're going to be doing. That's because we can do so damned much.

Healing: This is our big thing. Our massive MP pool and auto refresh trait made us into one gigantic curetank, trumping any WHM for pure longevity. This is totally dependant on your subjobs healing magic, because we have little of our own. The healing Summoner needs 3 things - a fully-levelled WHM sub, a backup healer (another SMN or a RDM would be ideal), and keen usage of our 2 best healing abilities: Whispering Wind and Spring Water (level 36 and 47, respectively). These 2 Blood Pacts are very unique, because not only to they heal the entire party like a powerful Curaga spell, but they do so without accruing any hate towards the summoner. If your whole party just got smacked with Cursed Sphere and put in the red, Whispering Wind can save the day. If everyone just got nailed with an Anticans Jamming Wave, the Esuna effect of Spring Water (provided Leviathan was out attacking) is just the ticket.

Buffing: This was the other half of the "old" Summoners job. We still rock at it, and it is probably the strongest point in our sphere of abilities.

Shining Ruby - Carbuncle 24 - This is our first big support ability. This is an AOE defense buff that stacks with Protect and Shell and increases defense and magic defense stats by 10%. Paladins LOVE Summoners for this ability alone. Stacking Protect, Shell, Defender, and Sentinel on top of each other, then recieving another 10% of that total defense stacked back on top will make your tank veeeeery happy.

Aerial Armor - Garuda 25 - This is the next buff BP you gain, coming in one level after Shining Ruby. This Pact will give Blink status to everyone in your party, absorbing 3 random hits of damage. Unfortunately this attack will be fairly useless to you at the time you acquire it. At level 25, you are most likely on your way to Kazham to fight Mandragoras, who's consecutive attack ability will chew through Aerial Armor in one and a half turns. This ability won't start to shine until you are level 32 and passed the jungles, at which point it becomes stellar defense for the mages in your party, and pullers and tanks love it too.

Frost Armor - Shiva 28 - This is another buff pact that you will recieve while in your Kazham levels. This one is more offense-oriented, as it grants the Ice Spikes status to everyone in the group. This will cause any monster who attacks a buffed member to take 5-10 points of ice elemental damage and a chance for paralysis. Against the twin attacks of Mandragoras this damage can add up quickly even over the buffs short duration, and makes it more useful to the party than Aerial Armor.

Rolling Thunder - Ramuh 31 - This will be an important buff by the time you're heading to Crawler's Nest. This grants the EN-thunder status to everyone in the party for a short time, adding 5-10 points of thunder elemental damage to every attack they land. This is especially useful for Monks and dual wielders like Ninja.

Crimson Howl - Ifrit 38 - This is an attack buff, and is the exact equivalent to the Warrior jobs Warcry job ability. It grants a massive increase to the attack stat of everyone in range, lasting for 25 seconds. Due to its high MP cost versus low effect time, it's best to only use this preceeding a Skillchain.

Lightning Armor - Ramuh 42 - This is the same buff as Shivas Frost Armor, only with slightly higher damage effect and a chance of causing Stun instead of Paralysis.

Glittering Ruby - Carbuncle 44 - This is a special buff Pact that increases one random stat for each person in range by a stupid amount. As above, that stat affected is chosen randomly for each person and the stat will then decrease slowly over time until it returns to its original value.

Earthen Ward - Titan 46 - this is probably our best defensive buff. This is an AoE blood pact that grants the Stoneskin status to everyone in range, allowing them to absorb a set amount of damage without losing HP. This will protect all non-tank members of the party from any damaging AoE attacks, such as Bomb Toss, Cursed Sphere, and Sand Trap. It is also excellent for use with Blink tanks, as it allows them a free hit or two in which to get Utsusemi back up.

Hastega - Garuda 48 - Now THIS is my bar-non favorite Blood Pact of all. This does just what the name suggests, it casts the Haste spell on every member of the party in range (6 people, for the equivalent MP cost of casting Haste on 3 people). All melee DDs love Haste. So do Paladins for magic recast and Ninjas for Utsusemi recast and dual-wield damage. The only downside is it has a slightly shorter duration than the magic spell Haste, but you won't hear anyone complaining when you use this! It's also the last buffing BP we get, unless you're lucky enough to have Fenrir - in which case you get one more after 50.


Damage Dealing: This is where things get real interesting. I always advocated a little avatar melee being thrown into the works, even in the old days when it was pretty much worthless. Now we have some capacity to do real damage in the party....if you know what you're doing.

First allow me to express something personal - if you have any disagreement with the methods I'm about to say: save it. I tested this exhaustively down to the last stats and numbers, without even the benefit of a parser. If you disagree with the mechanics, you're wrong. I don't care how controversial this is, it works. Period. End of discussion.

Dealing damage for the party as a SMN is a very fun experience. Even after the update I never would have imagined myself being invited into parties to replace a BLM, and yes that was usually the case. I'm referring to my own experience here, levelling my Mithra SMN in the Quicksand Caves, but I have little reason to believe that this does not hold true at other level tiers and locations.

When playing in the capacity of a DD, the SMN feels alot like a BLM with a twist of THF. The key to dealing damage in your parties is the Magic Burst.

Since the CoP update, our avatars now gain 8 TP per successful hit they land. Unlike the melee PC classes however, usage of their special abilities does not depend on having 100% TP. Rather your TP affects the damage potential of all of your elemental attack BPs. The higher the TP, the more damage it will do and the lower its chance of resistance. This rises very slowly as TP gains, and spikes up sharply at 50% increments.

Now what do you want to do? The simplest procedure is to let your pet out to play when the melees are at around 50% TP. Your avatar accumulates TP as it melees, and when they are ready the melees pull off their SC and you follow up with a TP enhanced Magic Burst that hits as hard as any spell a BLM has at that level.

(alot of people have trouble timing their MBs, or so I've heard. Watch the battle and hit your MBP [magic burst pact] macro just as the "Player readies closing weaponskill" appears on screen. It feels like you're doing it early, but you aren't.) The reason for this is that the burst time window for avatars is staggered. If, for example, the 3 second time window for a burst after the chain looks like this 0{xxx/xxx/xxx}3 where the / is the marker for 1 second and 2 seconds and each xxx is an elapsed one second, then an avatars MB timeline looks like this: 0{xx-/-x-/-xx}3, where the - represent missed bursts. For an avatar spell to MB, it has to hit either at the VERY beginning of the SC, or at the VERY end. I find it easier to time it for the earlier opportunity, and landing the center MB is almost impossible. This is the reason why a lot of seemingly perfectly timed MBs will miss.

The reason I say that this compares to a BLM/THF hybrid is because of the timing. Like the THF, your pet will deal small amounts of melee damage over the course of the fight (generally about 30 damage per hit for 2-3 MP of perpetuation cost - pretty efficient for magic damage) and like Sneak Attack/Trick Attack your big moment of damage is both on a timer (1 minute) and hate free. The BLM part is obviously the fact that youre timing a Magic Burst and that your damage is magic damage. Plus associated MP costs. To give you a comparison, at level 65 our static party BLM would land a Blizzaga II burst for about 750 damage. My level 60 Blizzard 4 would burst on that same skillchain for 620 damage.

Word of advice: SMN damage dealing is best done with a Ninja tanking. If you have to constantly heal a PLD or WAR tank, you're going to have trouble with the amount of MP you burn, even with Refresh. Not to mention the PLD might eat a mob TP attack and die, because you were summoning and couldn't heal him. A Ninja can avoid being hit altogether long enough for you to summon safely, and your minimized curing will let you keep a healthy MP tank for chains.

At middle levels when the level II elemental magic BPs have become too weak to bother with (level 50-60 in my experience), you can still have fun by playing Samurai. Avatars can Skillchain with some of their attack BPs now, assuming the monster lives that long. Making a quick skillchain with the tank, or anyone else who is normally soloing their WS can add a significant chunk of damage to the fight. Skillchaining with BPs is a bit different in the timing area than for normal weapon skills:

For a Blood Pact > WS chain, the melees will need to watch your avatar carefully. When you see the avatar finish the BP attack animation, count 2 seconds and use your WS.

For a WS > BP chain, use your BP macro the instant "{Player} uses {weapon skill}" appears on the screen.

Skillchain charts including Blood Pact attacks can now be found on Allakhazam.

***Helpful Tidbit*** Once the SMN reaches level 52, Shiva becomes a fairly powerful DD in any party thanks to Double Slap. I say at 52 (instead of 50, when you actually first learn DS) because that is when you can wear your Artifact Legs. These increase the accuracy of your avatars attacks, and makes connecting with both hits of Double Slap much more reliable. Why is Double Slap so useful for DDs?

It closes Distortion and hits like a truck, often doing equal or more damage than Vorpal Scythe at that level and fairly close to a SATA Viper Bite. As long as you're wearing your AF pants, youll connect for about 250 damage most of the time. About every 5 uses youll get a resist knocking you down to 80ish damage, and you'll critical for high 400s about as often.

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Level 70 Nuking and Endgame Summoning
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And lastly we come to the Holy Grail of the Summoner job: Endgame. Why is SMN endgame such a big deal, you might ask. Because the entire ballgame changes! Starting at level 70, the Summoner job explodes with new potentials:

1: The level 70 "Uberpacts." At level 70, you will gain the following new Bloodpacts for your avatars:

Ifrit - Flaming Crush. A 3 hit, fire elemental, blunt-damage physical attack. Average damage versus EXP mobs: 900. Average damage versus EP-DC mobs: 1,700.

Shiva - Rush. A 5 hit slashing type attack. Average damage versus EXP mobs: 600. Average damage versus EP-DC mobs: 1500.

Ramuh - Chaotic Strike. A 3 hit, blunt-damage type attack that inflict critical Stun effect on the target. Average damage versus EXP mobs: 700-800. Average damage versus EP-DC mobs: 1500. Average duration of the Stun effect: 5-7 seconds.

Garuda - Predator Claws. A 3 hit, critical slashing attack with high accuracy. Average damage versus EXP mobs: 1000. Average damage versus EP-DC mobs: 1900.

Leviathan - Spinning Dive. A single hit, slashing type attack with very high accuracy. Average damage versus EXP mobs: 700. Average damage versus EP-DC mobs: 1400. Very rarely misses.

Titan - Mountain Buster. A single hit, blunt type attack with additional Bind effect. Average damage versus EXP mobs: 700. Average damage versus EP-DC mobs: 1400.

Very impressive damage numbers, you're probably thinking. And you'd be right, but remember too that like all bloodpact attacks, you gain ZERO HATE from their use! BLM eat your heart out!

At level 70 a SMN can easily fill the heavy nuker requirement for a party, but that isn't all. Avatar-burn parties become possible, using Titan's blunt-type uberpact. A party of 5 SMNs and a BRD can make short work of VT skeletons or pots for impressive EXP. Heraldic Imps, a TOAU EXP favorite, are utterly DECIMATED by Predator Claws. You'll also find that soloing EPs and DC for such things as coffer keys will become a trifle. 70+ is a very good time to be a Summoner, and it keeps getting better.

HNMs, or "Hyper Notorious Monsters" are the ugliest, meanest bosses in the game. Hate management during these fights is absolutely mandatory and walks on a razor-thin edge.... unless you're a Summoner. For the Summoner, or even better, an entire batallion of them, can dish out huge amounts of damage every minute to these fearsome beasts, with no concern for hate. You will be in demand for HNM fights, believe it!

Dynamis is the scary, evil, alternate-universe of Vanadiel where beastmen roam free and EXP off of unsuspecting adventurers. The SMN has a unique role in dynamis, because we posess abilities that are uniquely useful here: Wide-area enfeebles. A typical battle in Dynamis involves your alliance pulling a train of 3-10 IT++ NM type mobs at a time, sleeping them all, and killing them off one by one. The SMN, with his Thunderspark AOE Paralyze, Sleepga, and Slowga pacts can make this job considerably easier for the alliance.
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Part X: The Secret Way of the 'buncle

The 'buncle can solo. While Carby himself isn't well suited to the task of solo fighting, your other avatars can be. Much like a soloing RNG, your target of premium choice is going to be worms. It is entirely realistic to enter Qufim at level 24 and solo VT worms for 180 exp apiece. I have done it personally, and in fact I soloed on worms from level 26 to level 27 and gained an exp buffer before my trip to Yhoator jungle. Due to the strain on your MP (a VT worm will require 2 summons minimum, usually 3) you will have a lot of downtime. However it can be done and it is effective. Cast Dia from maximum range to pull the worm, then run beyond it's effective ranges. Summon an avatar and lock onto the worm, and your avatar will automatically attack it while you remain at a safe distance. Repeat as necessary until the worm dies. If you have enough running room, you can solo mobile enemies as well. Simply have your pet Assault your target, then get as far away as possible. When you see your pets name disappear, resummon it before the target mob arrives to kill you and repeat the process of running and summoning until the mob is dead.

Update: It was brought to my attention some time ago that Bombs make an excellent target for a solo-happy SMN. Use your avatars to repeatedly beat on a Tough-ish rated Bomb type while staying at a safe distance. Even though you won't inflict much damage on it, you will be giving it TP. Once a Bomb has sufficient TP it may decide to Self-destruct, blowing your avatar to bits but providing the safely-distanced SMN with a nice chunk of exp.


The Summoner has one last dirty trick up his sleeve, and it's the one that the nay-sayers don't want you to know. Historically, the Summons in FF have been damage dealers. Usually the biggest, meanest, most horrifyingly destructive attacks in the games came from the Summon monsters. FFXI is NO DIFFERENT. In the direst of energencies, the Summoner can call upon his 2 hour ability: Astral Flow. This is actually a status that you inflict on yourself. Its duration lasts for roughly 3 minutes, and during that time you will find a new command in each of your avatars Blood Pact lists. This command is that avatars traditional ultimate attack. These are the most destructive forces in all of FFXI. Massive explosions and insane damage, dealt to all enemies in an area at the cost of your entire MP bar. The Astral Flows are so powerful they put a Black Mages best spells to complete and utter shame. Countless times they have saved my party from the impending doom of a Gob pop, a Beetle link, or a bad pull. Just blast everything to hell and sort it out afterward.
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Part XI: The 'buncles Appendix.

Useful Macros

Summoning Macro (one per avatar)
/pet Release <me>
/equip main "Elemental Staff"
/ma "Avatar" <me>
/wait 9
/pet Assault <t>

This macro has 3 functions built into one. First it serves as a univeral release macro (so you don't have to scroll to a special macro every time you want to release, saving time). Secondly it will auto-equip the elemental staff of that avatars element for you, reducing it's perpetuation cost (assuming you have all the needed staves). Finally it will have the avatar attack whatever target you have selected as soon as it is summoned.


Healing Macro
/pet "Whispering Wind" <me>
/pet "Spring Water" <me>
/pet "Healing Ruby" <stpc>

This single macro will give you a different effect depending which avatar you have out. It will only cast the BP of the proper avatar (i.e. if you have Leviathan out, it will ignore Whispering Wind and Healing Ruby as commad errors, and use Spring Water). If you're using Healing Ruby, it will let you scroll through your party and select who you want it used on. The other two are AoE healing BP that center around you.


Attack Pact Macro
/pet "Burning Strike" <bt>
/pet "Thunderspark" <bt>
/pet "Double Slap" <bt>
/pet "Megalith Throw" <bt>
/pet "Tail Whip" <bt>
/pet "Claw" <bt>

This works in a similar manner to the healing macro. It will use the BP of whatever avatar you have out against the partys current target, ignoring the rest as command errors. Unfortunately, there isn't enough room for all the avatars to have a BP up here. I compensated for this by trading the /pet Release <me> line from Carbuncle and Fenrirs summoning macros for a /pet "Poison Nails"/"Crecent Fang" <bt> line and use a seperate Release command to release them. This way I can use their attack BPs by hitting their summoning macros a second time once they're out. (Note: this also works well for the more rarely used but helpful BP debuffs, such as Shivas Sleepga)

Magic Burst Macro
/pet "Fire II" <bt>
/pet "Blizzard II" <bt>
/pet "Thunder II" <bt>
/pet "Aero II" <bt>
/pet "Stone II" <bt>
/pet "Water II" <bt>

This is as simple as it gets. It hits the partys target with the elemental magic spell of whatever avatar you have out, ignoring the others as command errors. This is very necessary for playing the DD game if you're filling in for a BLM or RDM nuker.

Defensive Buff Macro
/p {Gather Together} {Enhancing} {Blood Pact} <call>
/pet "Shining Ruby" <me>
/pet "Aerial Armor" <me>
/pet "Earthen Ward" <me>
/pet "Frost Armor" <me>
/pet "Shock Spikes" <me>

Another easy one. Uses the defensive buff BP of whatever avatar you have out, after instructing your party to gather around you. Like the others, this will only use the appropriate command and ignore the rest as errors.

Offensive Buff Macro
/p {Gather Together} {Blood Pact} {Full Attack!} <call>
/pet "Rolling Thunder" <me>
/pet "Crimson Howl" <me>
/pet "Hastega" <me>
/pet "Glittering Ruby" <me>

Same deal as the defensive buffs, only amping up your attacks instead.

Avatar Skillchain Macro
/p {Ready to start Skillchain!} <call21>
/pet "*" <bt>
/wait 6
/p Use your Weaponskill NOW! <call2>
/ws "Weaponskill" <bt>

This is another dual-purpose macro. First it uses your BP of choice (the "*" represents whatever BP you're chaining with. This may change from party to party) and tells your partner when to do his WS (with about a 1 second lead, so he has time to get his macro off). When you're soloing you can enter your own WS into the "Weaponskill" slot to close solo skillchains with you and your avatar. (Hint: for that last part, try Burning Strike >>> Gust Slash. It's my personal favorite.)


Useful Bloodpact Skillchains

As I said earlier in the DD section, SC charts with Bloodpact attacks can now be found on Alla, but I'll list a few of the higher-tier ones for you here.

Burning Strike >>> Gust Slash = Detonation (best one we can solo)
Poison Nails >>> (any Distortion closer) = Distortion
(any Distortion opener) >>> Double Slap = Distortion
Punch >>> Raging Fists = Fusion
Megalith Throw >>> Raging Fists/Avalanch Axe = Fragmentation
Double Punch >>> (any Distortion opener) = Transfixion
Sturmwind/Piercing Arrow >>> Megalith Throw = Induration
Tail Whip >>> Pentathrust = Gravitation


Things to remember when partying

1: Stoneskin the Ninja!
2: Shining Ruby the Paladin!
3: Hastega the melees!
3: Carby pull when mobs will link!
4: Don't leave the BLM in the cold, you have Sleepga too!
5: Use Thunderspark to grab multiple links to cover the party!
6: When dealing with large enemy groups, remember that you have Slowga.
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Part XII: Byebye 'buncle!

This pretty much sums up the experience of a Summoner, up until level 65 or so. Beyond that point, well I haven't gotten there yet but this guide will most likely get an update when I do. I hope you newbie Summoners out there can gain something from this, and maybe a few oldbies can have their minds changed by it. Thanks for reading, and happy summoning!

Johnny Carbuncle: Attorney at Law - "This guide is intended solely for use by everyone who wants to be a Summoner. It may be used, posted, referenced, or referred to at any time and any place, in whole or in part, so long as it is not modified and due credit is given to the author."

source: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=15;mid=1098398439716232797;num=76