Summoner (Final Fantasy XI)

Summoner is an advanced job in Final Fantasy XI. Summoners can summon two types of creatures; Avatars and Elementals. Avatars are creatures like the traditional Summons, but are treated as pets. Summoners obtain Carbuncle immediately upon unlocking the Summoner job class. The others must be gained by individual quests. Elementals are simply spirits representing one of the 8 energy types in the game—Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, Wind, Earth, Light, and Dark—but spirits are mostly thought of as useless since the summoner does not control the use of their abilities. Spirits make up for this fact by being able to cast Ancient Magic respective of their own element.
Summoners can fill a variety of roles. They can create powerful positive status effects for the party, heal the party, impose unique negative effects, and also do damage.
==Becoming a Summoner==
Upon reaching level 30, a player can accept the quest "I Can Hear a Rainbow" to become a Summoner. The player must first find a Carbuncle Ruby, a gem dropped by leeches. It is a rare item and can take several hours to find.
After obtaining the ruby, the player must visit the House of the Hero in Windurst Walls and then experience six weather elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Rain, Wind, and Earth) with the ruby in the inventory. This requires a player to travel to many different areas because weather varies by area. After completing this objective, the player must visit a stone circle in La Theine Plateau to obtain the Summoner Job Class.
==Summoner-related Quests==
===Job Unlock Quest===
*"I Can Hear a Rainbow"
:*Unlocks the Summoner job and the Avatar Carbuncle.
===Artifact Quests===
*"The Puppet Master"
:*Quest for Summoner's level 41 Artifact weapon, Kukulcan's Staff.
*"Class Reunion"
:*Quest for Summoner's level 52 Artifact pants, Evoker's Spats.
*"Borghertz's Calling Hands"
:*Quest for Summoner's level 56 Artifact gloves, Evoker's Bracers. Also allows Summoners to find Evoker's Doublet in a treasure coffer in the Temple of Uggalepih, and Evoker's Pigaches in a treasure coffer hidden in the Toraimarai Canal.
*"Class Reunion"
:*Quest for Summoner's level 60 Artifact horn, Evoker's Horn.
===Job Emote Trial===
*"Trial 4438"
:*Magian Trial that augments the level 30 "Evoker's Torque" and grants the ability to summon a chirping chocobo chick through use of an emote command.
===Storyline Quests===
*"Mama Mia"
:*Mamaulabion requests "thuper-dee-duper, overflowing with thpethial power itemth". He is referring to items that can be obtained through the avatar's "Trial By..." quests and "The Moonlit Path". Once he receives the seven items, he gives the player the extremely powerful level 71 Evoker's Ring.
*"Waking the Beast"
:*One of the most difficult quests, it challenges players to take on each of the six sleeping gods in their true forms, all assisted by entourages of Elementals, in separate battles, and then challenge Carbuncle Prime in a final bout, in which Carbuncle summons Shiva, Ramuh, Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Leviathan, and four copies of himself to eradicate the Summoners attempting to halt Carbuncle's scheme to steal the power of the other avatars.
===Avatar Quests===
The quests to acquire pacts with the sleeping gods are located in the Elemental Cloisters. As for the two remaining celestial avatars and the terrestrial avatars, they do not have their own elemental cloister.
====Alexander====
*"Waking the Colossus"
*"Divine Interference"
====Diabolos====
*"Waking Dreams"
====Fenrir====
*"The Moonlit Path"
====Garuda====
*"Trial By Wind"
*"Trial-Size Trial By Wind"
====Ifrit====
*"Trial By Fire"
*"Trial-Size Trial By Fire"
====Leviathan====
*"Trial By Water"
*"Trial-Size Trial By Water"
====Odin====
*"The Rider Cometh"
*"Unwavering Resolve"
*"A Stygian Pact"
====Ramuh====
*"Trial By Lightning"
*"Trial-Size Trial By Lightning"
====Shiva====
*"Trial By Ice"
*"Trial-Size Trial By Ice"
====Titan====
*"Trial By Earth"
*"Trial-Size Trial By Earth"
===weapon skill Quest===
*"Unlocking a Myth (Summoner)"
:*Unlocks the Summoner-only weapon skill Garland of Bliss.
==Summoner abilities==
Job Ability	Level	Recast 	Duration	Description
 	1 	1:00:00	0:03:00 	Allows Avatars to use their full strength.
 	50 	0:05:00	— 	Drains MP from your summoned spirit.
 	70 	0:01:00	0:05:00 	Decreases the recast time of a Blood Pact but causes it to cost more MP.
 	87 	0:05:00	— 	Channels your MP into TP for avatars and elementals.
 	96 	1:00:00	0:00:30 	Reduces Blood Pact recast times.
Pet Command	Level	Recast 	Duration	Description
 	1 	0:00:10	— 	Orders the Avatar to attack
 	1 	0:00:10	— 	Orders the avatar to hold back.
 	1 	0:00:10	— 	Sends the avatar away.
 	1 	0:01:00	— 	Orders the Avatar to use special attacks.
 	1 	0:01:00	— 	Orders the Avatar to use support abilities.
 	55 	0:05:00	2:00:00 	Utilizes the avatar's power towards a beneficial status effect for party members within range but increases perpetuation cost.
Job Trait	Levels 	Tier	Description
 	10 / 30 / 50 / 70 / 76 / 96	VI 	Increases your maximum MP.
 	15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 70 / 91	VI 	Raises amount of MP recovered while resting.
 	20 / 40 / 60 / 75 / ?? 	V 	Increases resistance against slow.
 	25 / 90 	II 	Gradually restores MP.
 	60 	I 	Occasionally cuts down MP cost of Blood Pact abilities. Does not affect abilities that require Astral Flow.
 	85 / 95 	II 	Decreases damage taken by pet.
==Summons==
Avatars can be obtained through various quests that involve defeating the avatar in combat. Elemental Spirits can be obtained either through merchants, or by defeating certain monsters that drop the scrolls (these scrolls can also be bought on the Auction House). Each Avatar/Elemental Spirit has an initial MP cost as well as a perpetuation cost that is based on the SMN's level.
===Avatars===
{|class="FFXI article-table" style="text-align:center" width="100%"	
Level	Summoning Magic
1 	Fire Spirit
1 	Ice Spirit
1 	Air Spirit
1 	Earth Spirit
1 	Thunder Spirit
1 	Water Spirit
1 	Light Spirit
==Blood Pacts==
Blood Pacts are abilities used by Avatars controlled by Summoners. There are two types of Blood Pacts: Blood Pact: Rage and Blood Pact: Ward. Rages deal damage, either with spells or with physical damage attacks. Wards provide protective magic, curative magic, or positive or negative status effects for the party or enemy.
==Skill Ratings==
{|class="half-width article-table FFXI" style="text-align:center"	 	 	
Combat Skill	Rank	Caps by Level	Caps by Level
Combat Skill	Rank	49 	99
Dagger 	E 	124 	300
Club 	C+ 	139 	378
Staff 	B 	144 	398
Evasion 	E 	124 	300
==Gameplay==
===Strengths===
*Avatars offer a variety of abilities that can greatly help party members.
*Avatars offer a unique way to pull single creatures from a group, an ability no other job can quite emulate.
*Avatars can do massive damage, particularly with Astral Flow.
*Summoners, through the use of different abilities, can both provide a magic burst as well as participate in a skillchain.
*Because summoners do not take damage directly, and avatars take only a fraction of the damage that players take, a group of avatars from a party or alliance of summoners can get near many deadly foes and either withstand their attacks or die with no severe consequences, as the summoners can just summon more avatars as long as MP remains. This strategy allows enemies like Mocking Colibri, Evil Oscar, and Carbuncle Prime to be beaten, three enemies which are generally not fought by anything other than groups of summoners.
===Weaknesses===
*Summoners have no spells of their own, which sometimes means they function as a magically weak White Mage with massive amounts of MP.
*At lower levels, avatars are usually poor damage dealers and deplete a Summoner's MP too quickly.
*Summoner's ability to help a party is hampered by recast timers on Blood Pacts.
*Summoners have weak armor and fewer hit points than any other job.
==Support Jobs==
===White Mage===
While some Summoners use a different support job choice, almost every summoner uses White Mage as their support job, especially at lower levels. This allows them to heal the party, provides them with the ability to remove negative status ailments, and grants them protective magic that will aid them in their role as summoner. SMN/WHM has access to Dia II, which substantially increases the damage of powerful physical blood pacts by weakening the enemy's defense. SMN/WHM can cast Blink, Aquaveil, and Stoneskin, defending the Summoner in the event of an avatar's death, until a new avatar can be summoned. SMN/WHM is also the only job combination granting Summoners Curaga and Teleport spells.
===Red Mage===
As of the September 2010 version update, which raised the level limit to 85, SMN/RDM has access to Refresh at extremely high levels, making Red Mage a viable support job for Summoners at levels 82+. However, in exchange for constant MP restoration / Perpetuation Cost reduction, SMN/RDM sacrifices an extremely long list of useful spells, including all status healing magic and Reraise. However, unlike SMN/SCH, SMN/RDM has access to Dia II, which substantially increases the damage potential of powerful physical blood pacts by weakening the enemy's defense.
=== Scholar===
Scholar has gained immense popularity with summoners, due to the fact it offers both schools of magic, which is similar to support job Red Mage. However, the key differences are Light Arts, Dark Arts, and Stratagems. These abilities increase the Summoner's magic skill to a B+ (calculated from the main job's level rather than the level of the Scholar sub) and reduce the MP cost of White and Black Magic. As such, a 80SMN/40SCH using Dark Arts will have 266 skill in Elemental Magic, Enfeebling Magic, and Dark Magic, making any offensive spells used much less likely to be resisted. Further, under Light Arts, the SMN retains access to healing staples such as Cure III, Raise, and Reraise.
This in turn allows the Summoner to deal damage and heal proficiently. Dark Arts and Light Arts also reduce mp costs for relevant magic by 10%, allowing a Summoner to save more MP for their avatars. Finally, the Sublimation ability allows a Summoner to instantly recover a stash of MP that they acquire by taking gradual HP damage. SMN/SCH's greatest sacrifice is no access to Dia II, reducing the damage potential of physical Blood Pacts. The Accession stratagem gained at level eighty allows the Summoner to heal multiple targets at once.
=== Ninja===
Ninja subjob is a handy tool in the solo summoner's arsenal for soloing the deadliest monsters that a summoner can defeat alone. The summoner casts Utsusemi, then sends an avatar in to attack. The summoner then runs away a good distance, only coming close to issue blood pact commands, and when the avatar is killed, the enemy will dash to the summoner. A SMN/WHM will likely be dead or have the summoning interrupted if the monster reaches the summoner before the new avatar is out, but Utsusemi will absorb the enemy's attacks long enough for the new avatar to appear and take hate. The summoner then repeats the process. Summoner/Ninja is usually a solo or duo job combination for notorious monsters or monsters that are higher level than the summoner.
==Other appearances==
===Final Fantasy Trading Card Game===
Summoner appears on cards.
Summoner XI TCG.png|Trading card.
Summoner2 XI TCG.png|Trading card.
==Gallery==
Summoner Concept.jpg|Concept art of a Summoner.
Summoner FFXI Ikeda Icon.png|Promotional artwork of the Summoner job class for by Yuzuki Ikeda.
Summoner FFXI Ikeda Art.jpg|Promotional artwork of the Summoner job class by Yuzuki Ikeda.
Mithra SMN (FFXI).png|A Mithra Summoner wearing Artifact Armor.
==Etymology==
Category:Jobs in Final Fantasy XI