[Kagomea]

Ok, i rarely post here, I'll say that..... But really, why is there no list anywhere that says what each summon is best for?

I know flexibility is awesome an all, but each summon seems to have some kind of niche. Fenrir has a lot of Buffs and Debuffs. diabolos has Dark Damage and a Set damage ranged attack. garuda has speed and Heavy hitting. Titan and ramuh have good damage against Skeletons, Corses, and pots.

Now i'm just giving examples. But has anyone ever wondered what each summons are good for?

For example, Ifrit is pure strength, there is no arguing over it.... but how often do you use him, honestly? Is there a situation where you SHOULD be using him?

One question i've always had is do some summons do more autoattack damage than the others? are any faster than the others naturally?

Feel free to contribute your opinions or your personal list of what each summon is good for.

Maybe if i get my head together, I'll make a complete list instead of example, i just wanted to put this out there.

[Acturus]

Shiva is the best avatar to ignore.

[Kussese]

Use Garuda for low eva mobs and leviathan for high eva mobs.
/end thread.

[Kagomea]

Not end thread, what do you do if the monster is physically resistant? *Merit Bps don't count, pretend they dont exist yet*

[Kussese]

Then you use whatever tier IV nuke they're weak to or nether blast. You seriously need a thread for this?

[spira]

Carbuncle - Best at being free. Is the cheapest avatar, but also the weakest, really. It does have auto-regen and the ability to AoE heal so its not too bad for endurance fights. It is also a light buffer, being able to give 10% def and magic def.

Ifrit - Best at fighting skeletons. His 70 BP is H2H and fire damage, both of which skeles are weak to. He's arguably the strongest attacker as well, since he can buff himself thru Crimson Howl, and this does affect BPs as well.

Shiva - Moderately good for crowd control. Sleepga is useful, and frost armor is good if you're going to be in a situation where everyone is getting swarmed by weak mobs. Rush is often inconsistent, but Double Slap is a particularly useful damage BP, especially if you're 50 capped, or just want to throw a cheaper but decent BP. Shiva is apparently also not too bad with nukes.

Garuda - MVP of the avatar pantheon. Garuda is the strongest 70 BP dmg dealer. Predator Claws is 3 hits slashing and pretty good damage. Great against things with low def and weak to slashing, like hounds. Garuda is also self sufficient due to an ability to throw herself (and others) a decent heal with Whispering Wind. As a buffer, Hastega is also particularly useful.

Titan - Useful for Earthen Ward. Best for 1 hit blunt BP if you need it. If you have Geocrush also comes with the only non-thunder based magic stun that I know of in game.

Ramuh - um.. the only one with the stun 70 BP. is the only one with an aoe magic dmg BP (non astral flow) and is quite cool with his enthunderga jazz.

Leviathan - most consistent. apparently the most accurate avatar. Does well with his 1 hit slashing BP. He can also self-cure and remove debuffs, which is nice. Also an excellent avatar vs anything that attacks with strong fire-based damage / skills.

Fenrir - best 'value for mp' avatar. Cheaper than celestials, but hardier than Carby, and stronger. Best melee buffer, i'd think.. with the acc/eva and all stats. Also good 65 dmg BP.

Diabolos - more consistent magic dmg DD. best nuker buffer. tank friendly with phlanxga and dream shroud. can crowd control too

Elemental Spirits: good for Elemental Siphon.
if you happen to use them to nuke, this is the order of 'nuke-friendly' spirits
Thunder/Fire Spirit > Earth> Air/Water/Ice Spirit if only based on the number of different enfeebles they can do.

[Crispleaf]

Titan - Great against magic pots, or anything weak to Blunt attacks. Geocrush stuns, which potentially makes it a good Dark-based bloodpact to merit, though almost no mobs are weak to earth magic. Earthen Ward is a great, long-lasting party buff.

Garuda - Best all-rounder of the avatars. Has perpetuation reduction gear. Has the best slashing bloodpact. Can Hastega a party efficiently. Can also heal party / self. Aerial armor is a great, long-lasting party buff, especially in a mage party. Wind is a fairly common magic weakness of mobs, so Wind Blade is a good Light-based bloodpact to merit.

Ifrit - only one whose level 70 bloodpact has a magic damage hit (first two swings are hand-to-hand). Can trounce Hpemdes, Arcane, Undead. Fire is a common magic weakness of mobs, but since the 70 bloodpact has a magic component anyway, it's hard to recommend Meteor Strike.

Shiva - Ice is the most common elemental weakness in mobs, so Heavenly Strike is a sound Dark-based bloodpact to merit. She can hurt undead (5 hit hand-to-hand bloodpact, immune to paralyze - skellies, ghosts love Ice Spikes).

Leviathan - Spring Water is a fantastic answer against AoE damage attacks that also spread status ailments. It's the only ability outside of WHM's Stona that clears the Petrified status. Single hit Level 70 slashing bloodpact is notoriously accurate if you haven't leveled summoning skill. Water is a rare mob weakness, so it's hard to recommend investing in Grand Fall.

Ramuh - Has the only AoE bloodpact that causes direct damage without using Astral Flow. His level 70 bloodpact stuns. Thunder is a fairly common mob weakness, so Thunderstorm may be a good Light-based bloopact to merit, especially since black mages are usually heavily invested in this element (of course, it can also be reasonable to avoid this bloodpact for that very reason, as well).

Fenrir - Cheap avatar, Eclipse Bite is efficient for its cost, can buff party, has AoE Dispel. Good soloing avatar against even match and tough opponents.

Carby - Cheapest avatar, strong AoE healing bloodpact, Poison Nails cheap and effective on low level mobs. Good soloing avatar against "too weak" and "easy prey" mobs.

Diabolos - Immune to dark-based sleep. Somnolence is the only Ward bloodpact that deals direct damage. Nightmare damages mobs while sleeping them. Nether blast has 100% magic accuracy (ignores dark elemental resistance completely), though damage still affected by magic defense, magic bursts, day/weather. Dream shroud can reduce magic damage taken significantly the closer it is to noon. He is effective against kited HNMs with low magic defense (particularly with less than stellar summoning skill), and dark elementals.

[Acturus]

Ok, i rarely post here, I'll say that..... But really, why is there no list anywhere that says what each summon is best for?

I know flexibility is awesome an all, but each summon seems to have some kind of niche.

It's not that each avatar has a "niche," It's that each avatar is different.

There is no list that says what each Avatar is best for because there is no need for such a list. All you will get is personal opinions, and those vary wildly.

Garuda is your most common Rage BP dealer. Leviathan is your second best until you get more Summoning skill, then it's Ramuh.

Titan, followed by Garuda, followed by Fenrir are your best buffers.

Diabolos is your best non-physical damage dealer, unless you have the merit 'pacts.

Fenrir is the best to melee with. Carbuncle is the best to run around with.

Shiva and Ifrit are your auxillary avatars.

It's not as simple as "In situation X, use Avatar Y." It's more like "In every situation, assume that you'll use Garuda, and change tactics if necessary."

[DarkRift]

edit:

Wrong topic ><;


to try and contribute. Everything is situational?

[Varizen]

Thank you Mr. Monk.

However, each Avatar does have a situation and monsters they work best on. Spira has the best representation of the situations, and Crisp builds on his. Just assuming you can throw Garuda at everything doesn't really cut it. The damage a monster is weak too is the 1st thing to consider, then its evasion. Cause there's plenty of things where Garuda gimps out on you frequently.

[Crispleaf]

Spira has the best representation of the situations, and Crisp builds on his.

Actually, I was writing my post while Spira was writing his. I find it cool we reached the same conclusions most of the time.

I should also note that it's quite frequent that by pitting an avatar against something that shares the same element works out well.

For example, Shiva works well against undead because their favored ice attacks have little to no effect on her, while she can take them down with hand-to-hand, which they are generally weak to.

Ifrit works well on spell casting bombs since their fire-based attacks have little to no effect on him, and they are weak to fire damage which his bloodpact is laced with.

Diabolos works well on dark elementals since they can't sleep him and his magic-based Netherblast lands 100% of the time despite their strong dark elemental resistance.

[dakpluto]

You know what my favorite part of the update is though....

520ish constant damage on a kited mob now makes me feel weak

[Kairos]

I think the issue of resistances against the enemy also come into play as people have mentioned already. Not only elemental resistance to nukes, but also resistance to status effects. Ramuh for instance is immune to stun, so if you have an annoying mob that spams a stun ability often which will cancel your bloodpacts and cause you to lose your timer, Ramuh can go unaffected by that because he is thunder based.

Enemies that like to sleep very often can be tackled with Diabolos, because of his innate resistance to sleep. Ifrit/Leviathan against amnesia enemies as you know if you have soloed imps or smn partied on them in the mire. I typically fulltime leviathan at Tiamat because he is able to build TP well for merit pact use due to his high fire resistance.

[Jeryhn]

This thread is unnecessary. The reason why? Shit is situational, and a summoner responds to situations through the use of Bloodpacts. Some avatars are clearly better with physical attacks, some are better sticking to magical attacks, but this difference only exists as far as as a difference in Bloodpact availability exists inbetween avatars, not avatars themselves. Otherwise, the avatars are all pretty much equals, with the obvious exception of Carbuncle.

Much of these differences are already well-documented and can be referred to in the Stickies.

Saying "this avatar is the best at this" is mostly fanboyism attempting to proprogate itself into making people choose which is the "best" or "favorite" avatar. A summoner should realize how and why each avatar could be useful, including the elemental spirits, rather than picking and choosing a "go-to avatar" for any specific situation. You should always be looking at how to improve your versatility and sustainability instead of being a simple Predator Claws or Spinning Dive monkey.

Also, "pretending" like merited Bloodpacts and other things don't exist is silly. Seriously.
What purpose could that serve, at all? Let's all pretend that elemental staves and subjobs don't exist too.

[Crispleaf]

This thread is unnecessary. The reason why? Shit is situational

We should just close the job forums on KI then, because, there's no job discussion thread at all where this isn't the correct answer.

[Jeryhn]

We should just close the job forums on KI then, because, there's no job discussion thread at all where this isn't the correct answer.

That's not what I meant at all. My point was that everything this thread represents is already well-documented, stickied, and can be referred to in the millions of summoner guides there are out there in Internetland. Must we have yet another?

EDIT: Not that closing down KI would be a completely horrendous thing as it is.

[Akashi@Caitsith]

All I'm going to add is, in a low-man situation, I prefer to use Ramuh on lower end NMs. The additional effect of a 5+ Stun is AMAZING when you have the proper support to further increase this stat. Stun, flashes, para/slow, and then an added terror-like stun every 45ish seconds is really useful. This is a situation where the extra damage from PC won't help beat the NM, btw.

[Crispleaf]

That's not what I meant at all. My point was that everything this thread represents is already well-documented, stickied, and can be referred to in the millions of summoner guides there are out there in Internetland. Must we have yet another?

EDIT: Not that closing down KI would be a completely horrendous thing as it is.

This is periodical information. We recently had an update that has changed the way the job is played. Sometimes it's good to review what we've learned in the past and reshape it with what we know now. The problem with a lot of these online guides is that they are neglected and dated.

Besides, you're suggesting there's no value in seeing what Spira considers the strength of each summoner pet... and I'm willing to bet you're in the minority there. Heck, I'd even cherish your opinion on it if you wanted to participate...

[Acturus]

Thank you Mr. Monk.

However, each Avatar does have a situation and monsters they work best on. Spira has the best representation of the situations, and Crisp builds on his. Just assuming you can throw Garuda at everything doesn't really cut it. The damage a monster is weak too is the 1st thing to consider, then its evasion. Cause there's plenty of things where Garuda gimps out on you frequently.

You're welcome, Mr. Warrior.

But, perhaps you missed the point. Garuda is the uncontested "all purpose" Avatar. So far, a number of people in this thread have mentioned this to one degree or another.

Funny thing about "all purpose" avatars is that they are useful in... (wait for it)... all purposes.

So, when I say something like:

It's not as simple as "In situation X, use Avatar Y." It's more like "In every situation, assume that you'll use Garuda, and change tactics if necessary."

What you should understand is that Garuda fills the "Which Avatar should I use" role more times than she doesn't, and if we're going to have a silly little thread about how if it's Firesday and Fire Weather and you have your relic body and Horn and you happen to be fighting Hpmedes, then you should use Ifrit, it doesn't change the fact that when you find yourself wearing your relic body and horn and you happen to be in Sea on Firesday with a SCH who accidentally put Firestorm on you while your farming party is fighting Hpmedes so your linkshell's newest BLM alt (who was probably a bought account, but you don't know that, everyone has friends that quit) can get his whatever Obi of the week doesn't mean that Garuda won't still turn out good damage, or provide Haste to the melee (because the SCH sure as hell can't), or give an emergency Curaga when the melee happen to have shadows down and take a Sinuate Rush to the face. It just means that in that very specific (and unlikely) situation, Ifrit might be a better option in case you need to provide a level 70 bloodpact.

So, I repeat myself: Use Garuda as a default, and change tactics as necessary.

Contingency lists on forums don't apply to everyone in every situation, because (gasp) shit is situational, and having a thread like this that builds a contingency list to cover every situation is a pointless exercise in personal opinion. Wait... didn't I say something to that effect already?

All you will get is personal opinions, and those vary wildly.

Will wonders never cease.


also, cocks

[Crispleaf]

But, perhaps you missed the point. Garuda is the uncontested "all purpose" Avatar. So far, a number of people in this thread have mentioned this to one degree or another.

Funny thing about "all purpose" avatars is that they are useful in... (wait for it)... all purposes.

I think there's some agreement that Garuda is highly useful, but that's a long way from "Use Garuda by default."

Contingency lists on forums don't apply to everyone in every situation, because (gasp) shit is situational, and having a thread like this that builds a contingency list to cover every situation is a pointless exercise in personal opinion. Wait... didn't I say something to that effect already?

I find it terribly amusing when someone is of the opinion that everyone else's opinion is pointless.

Will wonders never cease.

Let's not forget chocolate chip cookies. May they never cease, either.