So what is a Summoner capable of? Basically Summoners change at different levels. In the early levels a Summoner will melee and use avatars to buff, enfeeble and melee. As the Summoner gains levels they will find they become a pure caster class, using their sub-job and avatars to either heal, buff, enfeeble or nuke throughout combat. In the high levels a Summoner only uses avatars generally at the beginning of combat to buff and enfeeble, and their sub-job abilities of nuking or healing til the end of combat.

Pets can zone with you, but they cannot enter cities or be summoned in cities.

So basically you are a caster with pets, the pets have their own aggro, but should your pet die the enemy will come after you, also certain job abilities will give you aggro such as Astral Flow, which is the Summoner two hour job ability. Aside from the job two-hour ability a Summoner has four Pet Commands that can only be used when you have a pet summoned, Assault, Retreat, Release, and Blood Pact (which also has a separate menu). You can resummon a new pet with full health if it dies or is Released, providing you have enough mana, just make sure you do not have an enemy beating on you or you may get interrupted.

Basic Skills

• Summoning Magic - Rank A minus
• Evasion - Rank E

Skill Caps

The tabulated data below is the skill caps for summoning magic and staff melee. It is important every time you level to increase your skill caps, either by meleeing for staff skills or casting elemental spirits for summon magic skills (due to the cast times).

Level	Summoning Skill Cap	Staff Skill Cap
1	6	5
2	9	7
3	12	10
4	15	13
5	18	16
6	21	19
7	24	22
8	27	25
9	30	28
10	33	31
11	36	34
12	39	36
13	42	39
14	45	42
15	48	45
16	52	48
17	54	51
18	57	54
19	60	57
20	63	60
21	66	63
22	69	65
23	72	68
24	75	71
25	78	74
26	81	77
27	84	80
28	87	83
29	90	86
30	93	89
31	96	92
32	99	94
33	102	97
34	105	100
35	108	103
36	111	106
37	114	109
38	117	112
39	120	115
40	123	118
41	126	121
42	129	123
43	132	126
44	135	129
45	137	132
46	140	135
47	143	138
48	146	141
49	149	144
50	152	147
51	158	151
52	163	156
53	168	161
54	173	166
55	178	171
56	183	176
57	188	181
58	193	186
59	198	191
60	203	196
61	207	199
62	211	202
63	215	205
64	219	208
65	223	212
66	227	215
67	231	218
68	235	221
69	239	225
70	244	228
71	249	232
72	254	236
73	259	240
74	264	245
75	269	250

Job Ability (Two Hour)

• Astral Flow - Summoner two-hour ability, which lasts for three minutes and can be used every two hours.

Allows you to command an avatar (not elemental spirits) to use his mega ability, if it is attacking an enemy. You must select the avatars mega ability within the three minutes (it just like a bonus Blood Pact, it will be listed in the Blood Pact list) otherwise nothing will happen. After the avatar uses its mega ability, it will disappear and you will have 0 mana, unless you have a refresh buff on, which will allow you o start regaining mana enabling you to use your mega ability again (upto three times altogether, with 1 minute wait inbetween, just like normal Blood Pacts).

To use the maga ability Blood Pact you will need your level X 2 mana, so if you are level 20, you will need 40 mana.

If the monster you are going to damage moves as you execute the 2 hour Blood Pact, then it will fail and you will have to wait another minute to try again, if available.

Astral flow can be also used in magic bursts to create extra damage.

Macro: /ja "Astral Flow" <me>

Technical Points (TP)

Summoners have two types of TP, avatar technical points (pet TP), and summoner technical points.

Summoner TP rises as the player melees in combat, avatar TP rises as the avatar melees in combat. If the Summoner heals / rests, his or her TP will slowly start to decrease. If your avatar stops combat, then its TP will start to decrease. If a Summoner uses thier TP on a weapon skill or dies then thier TP is reset to '0'. If your avatar is released, dies, or it uses a blood pact that is effected by TP, then the avatars TP is reset to '0'.

Type of TP	Increase TP	Decrease TP	Reset TP
Summoner	Player melee	Player Heals / Rests	Player dies or uses weapon skill
Avatar	Avatar melee	Avatar stops melee	Avatar dies, is released, or uses a TP blood pact

• Viewing your Summoner TP : /echo <tp>
• Viewing your avatars TP : /echo <pettp>

If your avatars TP is between 100 - 300 percent, then magical blood pacts will cause more damage to the enemy. Physical, enhancing and enfeebling blood pacts are not effected by TP and will not reset TP to '0'.

Not all blood pacts reset your avatar's TP to '0'. This is good playability, as you can summon an avatar, and use it to gain TP and use blood pacts to phyical damage and buff , then do a magical blood pact with damage bonus from the TP, as the phyical and buff blood pacts haven't used any TP up.

*Top Tip* For a list of blood pacts that use TP see the Avatar section or click here.

*Top Tip* All II and IV nukes, all avatar heals, Thunderspark and Meteorite use TP.

Weapon Skills

Summoners do not generally use weapon skills, because they are not a melee class, however on the occasions you can get your TP above 100, for example when you are soloing mobs, you will get Weapon Skills appropriate to the weapon you are using.

Summoners can use three different weapons:

• 2h Staff - Rank B
• 1h Club - Rank C+
• Dagger - Rank E

Two Hand Staff
Ability	Skill Level	Attack	Effect
Heavy Swing	10	Attacks 1 time	Damage
Rock Crusher	40	Earth damage	Damage
Earth Crusher	70	Earth damage/Attacks multiple	Damage
Star Burst	100	Light or Darkness damage	Damage
Sun Burst	150	Light or Darkness damage	Damage
Shell Crusher	175	Adds target's defense down	Defense down
Full Swing	200	Attacks 1 time	Damage

One Hand Club
Ability	Skill Level	Attack	Effect
Shine Strike	10	Light damage	Damage
Seraph Strike	40	Light damage	Damage
Brain Shanker	70	Adds stun effect	Stun
Star Light	100	Mana recovery	Mana recovery
Moon Light	125	Mana recovery for party	Mana recovery
Skull Breaker	150	Adds target's INT down	INT down
True Strike	175	Criticle hit	Critical hit
Judgement	200	Attacks 1 time	Damage

Pet Commands

• Assault - Tells the pet to attack an enemy.

Macro: /pet "Assault" <t>

• Release - Puts the pet away.

Macro: /pet "Release" <me>

• Retreat - Calls the pet back to the summoner.

Macro: /pet "Retreat" <me>

• Bloodpact - This menu will change depending what avatar you have summoned, you cannot use this for spirits, and details are listed under Avatars.

Passive Abilities

These abilities add to your job automatically, you do not need to cast them and they are continuously enabled.

To explain the mana tic system, once you have the Auto Refresh, you will only gain 1 mana per tic while standing. However, when healing you also have Clear Mind, which is a little more confusing. Basically after Clear Mind III, the longer you heal the more mana you regain every three tics.

You still will gain your 1 mana a tic from the Auto Refresh, but once every three tics (every three seconds) you will receive a bonus tic from your Clear Mind III or above. For example, if you gained +24 mana every three tics from your Clear Mind III, it would increase each time by 2 mana...+24, +26, +28, +29; this is in addition to the Auto Refresh.

Therefore, after level 45, the longer you heal the more efficient your mana regain will be, so it would be better to stay standing and use all your mana up then heal all in one sitting, than to use a little and heal a little in-between monsters.

Ability	Job Level	Effect
Maximum MP Up	10	Increased mana.
Clear Mind	15	Mana regeneration +18 every 3 seconds.
Resist Slow	20	Increased resistance to slow spells.
Auto Refresh	25	Mana Regeneration, 1 tic at all times.
Clear Mind II	30	Mana regeneration +21 every 3 seconds.
Maximum MP Up II	30	Increased mana.
Resist Slow II	40	A little more resistence to Slow.
Clear Mind III	45	Mana regeneration +21 and (+2 increments) every 3 seconds.
Maximum MP Up III	50	Increased mana.
Resist Slow III	60	A little more resistence to Slow.
Clear Mind IV	60	Mana regeneration +24 and (+2 increments) every 3 seconds.
Maximum MP Up IV	70	Increased mana.
Clear Mind V	70	Mana regeneration +27 and (+3 increments) every 3 seconds.

Macros

General macro set up for playing a summoner can be done in many different ways, the best set up is the one you feel most comfortable with. Below are some examples to get you started.

A Macro set has twenty buttons Alt 1-0 and Ctrl 1-0, I personally use Ctrl for sub job and Alt for summoner job, but many people mix them.

Press '-' on the Number pad to open the 'Commands' menu and then the right or left direction arrow to move to the next set in the 'Commands' menu. Six options down you will see 'Macros', in here you can edit any macro sets (you have ten sets, but you only need one at the moment). Press the down directional arrow to select Macro Set #2, as Macro Set #1 has all the default macros.

Macro Set #2

Ctrl1	Ctrl2	Ctrl3	Ctrl4	Ctrl5	Ctrl6	Ctrl7	Ctrl8	Ctrl9	Ctrl0
Alt1	Alt2	Alt3	Alt4	Alt5	Alt6	Alt7	Alt8	Alt9	Alt0

Now being a summoner you will need a macro for each avatar, so make Alt 1-8 your avatar macros. Each of these macros will summon the avatar and tell it to attack the battle target (Having <bt> battle target means it doesn't matter what you have targeted, the avatar will attack only the monster whose name is red, unless no monster is red then it will attack what ever you have targeted).

Carbuncle

Assault

 

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