SMN Questions!!!

Hey folks!! First off I would like to thank everyone for there advice on getting Carby mitts. I have them now and have two new question which to ask. First, do I LVL up my SMN the old fashion way??? Or do I burn him till the low 20's and equip the mitts and spend a few hours just summoning to level my skill??? Second and most important question!!! Avatars!!! Do I fought them one on one at LVL20?? Or do I get some friends and tackle the prime aspects?? I was told those were my choices to get my avatars.

Level it however you want lol.

If you have 75 friends willing to help you with primes thats probably easier and cheaper then soloing but either works.

IMO, if you want to take SMN all the way to 75 then don't burn. Leveling summoning skill takes forever.

Also, most avatars can be solo'd easily by a good PLD or RDM and an assortment of other jobs. The only ones you'll need help on are Fenrir and Diabolos.

Thats just my personal opinion, though :)

Thank you very much!!! Please keep the ideas coming!!! I will take all the advice I can get to make things go smoothly.

If you just want a 75 SMN, then by all means burn it. SMN has all the ends and outs of both a mage job and a pet job, tho, so it can be hard to learn at 75 if you have a busy ingame schedule.

Level SMN the "old-fashioned way" is still unconventional as far as most jobs go: to get to 37, prepare to main heal in PTs and make sure you always have MP drinks. from 37 onward, you need to solo most of those levels. Most SMNs chain bombs until the mid 60s. At 65, Fenrir gets Eclipse Bite and you can solo somewhat tougher mobs at that point.

As far as primes go, Leviathan and Garuda sometimes give inexperienced soloers problems as both can spam cure themselves. 75 SMN can also easily solo all primes except Diabolos and Fenrir. Trio SMN can handle Fenrir (I've heard of duo's pulling it off). Top Notch RDMs can solo Fenrir.

No I want a good SMN. I may burn it once so I can equip my mitts, but after that it's the "old fashioned way"!!!

You really don't need a burn to get to 20. A good old-fashioned 2 hr long PL should do the trick. Remember to SC with carby when you are getting PL'd. You don't have sky yet or I'd tell you to use Ambrosia + HP/MP drinks. Being a pet job, you can solo EMs or better all the way to ~13 in one hour, and maybe even all the way to 20 before Ambrosia wears off.

I say, level it the normal way, Leveling it in a burn can leave you unexperienced with SMN. I also think you should get help doing the prime fights if you do, it means you can use the mini fork to warp to the trails instead of walking there in later levels :D

If you want Smn lvl'd fast w/ little to no hassle burn it. You loose nothing by burning it to the low/mid 20s.

For avatars I would suggest you do the Primes instead of the lvl 20 ones just because you can solo all the celestial avatars once you hit the appropriate lvl and make an easy 60k/day.

Edit: Why is this in general and not on the job specific forums lol.

Leveling SMN the normal way is definently the way to go as it helps you know SMN much better.

As for solo avatar fights vs primes, I would say it all depends on the level of challenge you want with it. the solo fights are a good challenge and good in giving you an idea about avatar spell casting time and distance needed to safely cast and get away. IMO you should solo at least 1 or 2 avatars so you have an idea about soloing them.

Do NOT do the solo level 20 fights.
I regret doing the 20 fights because you lose smn warp to the crystals.. does not sound like much. But making the trip to Feyin to help a friend in 10 seconds rather then 10 mintues is VERY nice when you do have an excuse to use it.

I leveled smn the old fasion way (before Bp even gave skillups or there was ward and rage) And also burned it on my second character. Either way.. ehh. Yes solo helps you learn the job more carby kiting, support etc and the skillups are nice.
But you can always learn it later too. and skillups come rather easy if you actually play smn. I use my mule to farm waters in sky where .5 skillups per mountain buster is common. So thats just up to you...

Persoanlly I would do both solo/pty when you cant get burns but do the burns when you can.

First congrats on the Mitts . those can be abitch .
Second i am glad you are choosing not to AFB your way to 75 . this causes alot of problems not only for you but also for those you encounter .
Avatars :
Primes are the way to go . the Main reasons you want primes instead of Lv20 Mini are these ; First and foremost its ALOT easier . I'm all one for a challenge but srsly the Mini fight is not to be taken lightly . one mistake and you're toast . Second is gil whoring . As stated by other posters a SMN75 can pretty much Solo all the primes but Diab and Fen . Garuda and Levi can end in Stalemate because of Whispering Wind/ Spring Water spam , but all being said you can make an easy 40K with out all the running by using the Minifork Warp . just need to get to the NPC which is pretty easy . This is also stated but might as well over state it . Fenrir can be handled by 3 SMN75 who know what they are doin . i havent ever seen it done by 2 but i suppose it could be possible . Most SMNs for some reason are kinda scared of Diabolos , but rest assured he can be defeated w/o 5 BLMs .

As far as EXPing goes you have a few options . If you choose to seek be prepared to be the last one asked to join a PT and be the main healer . This aspect of the job is kinda hard til 22 when you FINALLY get cure2 (WHM sub of course) but it will never be truely easy . SInce you have Mitts and i presume a Light staff Main healing will become easier (providing the PT has a refresh ) by utilizing Healing Ruby and later on Healing Ruby 2 . For the MP they use and the HP recovered they are incredible and allow you do the job with lest Cure Spamming . The down side of course is having to keep the little blue guy out all the time . You'll come to find that a NIN tank is your best friend in these PTs .

The other less travelled road is that of Solo/Lo Lv SMN burning . Yes SMN can burn below 65 . And not just off bombs , tho they are the best target . Goblins come in a close second but take a little more research in order to be on par with bombs . Dont forget Gobbies blow them selves up too . You can Solo Bomb popping @ 51 in Ifrit's cauldron but its a CHALLENGE . it gets easier solo @ 55 or so . you can PT there with other SMNs @51 and take it easily to 60 then you can move to Ulegardwatever Range and pop Snolls instead . Ulegard can actually take you to 75 (Agoolki or w/e its called cons as T-VT @ 75) but srsly with AU theres no reason . @ 65 you can start makin SMN burns and take on Mobs that normal EXP PT would fight . a good Camp for 65-68 is Mt Zylom . the Fire Crawlers go down from 4-6 Eclipse Bites . 68+ you can SMN burn Imps .

If you're feeling adventureous and dont wish to follow the crowd with AFBing there isnt much you cant kill . As long as it doesnt heal it self and you can manage your MP , you can grant it a slow painful death at the claws of Carby . MP managment is what makes or breaks you with SMN . It gets Easier @ 20 with the Mitts , then again @ 51 with Staff . If you have or are thinking of investing in a Vermy to use in place of YYR i would HIGHLY suggest ponying up the Gilz and get yourself a HQ Light Staff . the -3 Perp will give you a 1 MP Refresh Carby (like the big dawgs) all the way til Evo Ring @71 . if you dont have a HQ Staff , a Vermy becomes an Austere's Robe with out the -BP timer (with an avatar out of course) .

one last thing , @ 71+ you may want to consider going to KRT and battling the Spartoi skeletons , particularly the Mages . they have fewer HPs , Titan/Shiva/Ramuh own them , and they Drop Blizzaga 3 wich i am sure is 150k+ .


GL . have patience . have fun .

solo the avatars, so that way you can always get the tuning forks. thats what my bro did so whenever he wanted to make quick cash he got a fork, warped to cloister, droped fork, did it for 10k and repeat. ^^

Congrats on the mitts. :D

Hmm... as far as leveling goes... you'll lose out by burning if this is your first job to 75 (donno if that's the case or not), so probably shouldn't if you can help it. Summoning skill is hard enough to keep up decently with being expected to main heal in parties, without being 20 levels under cap. It doesn't really take that long to get from 10-25 anyways if you fov and find decent parties in qufim.

Edit: actually summoning skill is unique to smn lol, wasn't thinking when I posted that, so the only way to skill it is to either not burn smn in the first place or spend hours skilling up later. Will still lose out on your first 75 though since burning smn doesn't really allow you to learn much about the game as you level.


To the person above, actually if you solo the mini's you lose the forks. Only way to keep the forks is to not complete the mini quests, you'll have to go with friends to fight the full primes.

All good ideas!!! I have a set up for the primes, it is as follows. 75SAM, 75PLD, 75SMN, and 75 MNK, and 75 BST. I will come on WHM for healing and raise if need be. Do you think this will work??

Primes are easy prey for 2 or 3 actually, I'd say you'll have no problem. ^^

Sweet, thanks so much for the info Nymph!!! I just figured I would go in over powered than under. I have taken to many dirt naps in that as of late.LOL!!

You're way over kill with this setup O.O, I soloed easy with nin/dnc, rdm/nin, pld/rdm (Iron ram set good for magic resist)

Even with Dia and Grudy??? I heard those two are bad mofo's!!!

Diabolos, you'll need a full party of 5-6 and the COP mission done. But Garuda wouldn't be too much harder than ifrit, titan and such.

Diabolos you need a full party...it's tricky fight more than hard if you can stun nightmare = you win, Garuda and Leviathan are just take more time to kill with solo cuz healing move but if you fight them on thier weak day then they won't use healing move much (sometimes they didn't use it at all)

Does anyone have an idea how long these fights will last??? Should I stock up on potions and wings before??

solo would take 15~20 mins, if you have a full party then battle not last longer than 5 mins...You'l will see some amazing battle record when you enter the fight (I saw some took under 3 mins). Don't worry too much, it's easy fight...if you not lv75 then stay out of range when avatars about 50% HP

Cool, thank Age. I guess I will stay back and trow heals out.

Oh, on Fenrir fight...remember to tell your PLD save Shield Bash...use it to stun Howling Moon...if he do it right time...fenrir just a silly doggy on your dead list mob :)

Too much to read but I saw a top notch rdm can solo fenny... doesn't really need a top notch. Just a well equipped one with at least a little bit of rdm/nin kiting experience.

Diabolos is pretty easy with a couple of DDs and a rdm/drk. Just stand there and watch and stun every nightmare and decent DDs should have it dead before chainspell wears off. It has like what 6k hp or something lol like that

Will do Age. I will let you know how it went this weekend.

I did diabolos with three sams and a rdm/drk, was fairly easy with that setup.

Yeah first time I did diabolos it was 1 mnk/drk 2 mnk/wars a war/nin a whm and rdm/drk. We were kinda scared cause it was litterally the day they did the magic resistance gimp and we had to go on dark day cause another group was in there. Yeah so everyone 2hrd and we annihlated the best time

These are all great ideas. Thanks guys.