FFXIV: Dawntrail Arcanist/Summoner 1 to 100 Leveling Skills Guide

I was very curious to see this one, as a SMN main for the past 6 years. I am really not the best player, and I also hadn't really gone and re-learned the early rotations after the big changes (removing DOTs etc). I don't do early content often on SMN. Very interesting. I admit I usually use Radiant Aegis on myself to compensate for my errors ;)
Maybe one small detail is that in DT the changed Crimson Strike to be usable later (though not very long) you used to have to use it immediately, but now you can choose to move away and back into melee. Not a big deal but in some cases it can be nice.

LOL about Slipstream... I still see even very seasoned players move away from it or panic when they see it. We're just trying to help, please keep the enemies in the green puddle !

Always delivering the best guides. You never miss, dude.

Hey, he's back!

Justice for Physick

Uh Wesk, I think you made a mistake, it looks like you just uploaded the EW SMN guide again?

Silly question: know any good controller set-up recommendations? Also, thank you, this will help me SIGNIFICANTLY.

If you could make the decisions for Yoshi-P, what summons would you add in 8.0 and, more importantly, how would they be implemented? I personally like the idea of a Shiva install state ala Enshroud or Awakening.

Always appreciated!

Am I understanding right that Searing Light is now cast from you rather than from Carbuncle, and therefore there’s no real reason to keep Place and Heel on my bar anymore?

Funny thing is I like SMN for it's simplicity

I just want you to know my mother (60s) started playing ff14 recently and I sent her your videos to help her learn arcanist/smn. They helped her out so much in understanding not only what to press but *why*. You have consistently made the best intro job guides for years! Even I, a veteran of the game since 2.0, have always referred back to your videos when trying to learn or re-learn a job. Keep up the truly excellent work!!

Tbh I don't even care if we get new summons I just want the class have little more going on
Also I kinda hate how solar bahamut interacts with death or killing a alliance raid boss before summoning regular baha/pheonix desyncing solar from raid buffs possibly for rest of instance

It's easy to be sarcastic about a Summoner guide after the rework, especially with the lackluster additions in Dawntrail, but at the end of the day just because something is "easy" doesn't mean it's inuititive, especially if you have little to no experience in the caster role or even the MMO genre as a whole. As always your effort is appreciated, Wesk.

It does seem like how out of all the casters, Summoner got the short end of the stick with seemingly just Lunar Bahamut at best. Who knows what the future will hold for the class, but it would be nice if there was seemingly more to the class than what it currently is. Either way, Summoner still remains the first caster Class I usually max out before the other casters since it is still fun to break out the moves and how straightforward it is.

It’s a small thing, but the “Watch as you go from this… to THIS” is always one of my favorite parts of your guides, and once again you didn’t disappoint 😂

"Keep in mind that this is an active MMO; Patches can and will change jobs. ESPECIALLY SUMMONER."

Oh... right yeah. Carbuncle has a hotbar. Suddenly I'm getting flashbacks to prepositioning carby before fights. I kinda miss that small detail!

Ok but why did they give us TWO bahamuts over literally anything else

>Calls Solar Bahamut boring

Okay Woops.

Your "watch as you go from this..." is always so incredibly on point. :D
I liked the new rework in EW, but Solar Bahamut... idk. I appreciate a certain symbolism Larry talked about in his video, but imo instead of pulling a reskin out of their hat, they could have used Quetzacoatl instead, adding a neat little extra lore nod with this and adding a Dawntrail region reference. (Not going to elaborate on a video aimed at sprouts obviously.) But that aside, it took me a long while to adjust my brain to Bahamut being the second demi now, and seeing phoenix only once in a blue moon. (Phoenix doesn't even appear on a Stone Sky Sea dummy duty, because the timer runs out after 3 minutes...) The Solar Bahamut heal is neat but I still prefer the phoenix heal because it gives me the feeling of having to use half a braincell on who to put it on, and the healers see they can do more DPS while the tank has the mini excog on them. Honestly, I'd rather have them stay with EW SMN + that extra searing light carby attack, than bloating the rotation up for no real reason other than having to do something new without breaking that damn 2 minute meta. ^^;

I wonder what we're getting with 8.0. 6 minute rotation? :D

I want to add a small aside on the pet hotbar

For summoner is useless
But if you want to branch on scholar to try healing (or to cheat the duty finder queue, I won't judge) a small optimization is placing your faerie in the center of the boss arena since half your healing kit is combosed by skills that originate from said faerie

Just to be sure you actually get everyone regardless

The "watch as you go from this to this" did get a chuckle out of me

One of my friends has been confused by low level summoner, I think because gemshine is the first genuinely complicated button a player is likely to run into, and makes arcanist seem a lot more complicated than the job ultimately is. Glad to see the updated guide so the information is clearly up to date even if it hasn't changed much from endwalker.

They gutted this job and Wesk still can make a guide over 30 mins as he's that good!

“So much potential, maybe in the future of the game but I doubt it.” I HIGHLY doubt summoner is never going to get reworked or changed, I doubt any class is going to go unchanged for the rest of the game. Unless dawntrail is the end, there is no doubt any class that feels “bad” will just get dropped now forever. Have faith, the game isn’t dead yet.

Blue Carby is the best Carby but I did enjoy glamming him into Ruby, Topaz, and Emerald Carby for each of my respective summons pre lv-90. Carby can have fun rolling around in paint, as a treat. (also please let me glam my demis and big lv-90 and lv-100 summons, I miss my bestest boi Carby)

Who else is here cause you play Scholar and haven’t touched Summoner since you got the SCH job stone?

Started off as a SMN main, now I'm almost done with M4S as a summoner main. Your guides help a lot!

... Over 7k hours and I'm still learning new things each time I watch a new guide... Man. I'd be lost without this channel. Tysm for your hard work.

I wonder if they were just really banking on nostalgia for ruin iv spam during pre-EW Bahamut to carry the Solar Bahamut attack animation. "Remember triple weaving and spaming ruin iv and then ruin ii to get as many bahamut autos in as possible? See we listened to your feedback for slightly more complexity by giving you the faint, withering memory of it back"

what do people like more about summoner than pictomancer?
i like the picto flow a lot better, but miss the rez.

Mostly Useless main smn tidbits:

Apart from m1s clone phase, i didnt feel any need to adjust my legos during raiding in dawntrail

Lux solaris proved to be really useful during puddle phase in ex1

And yeah. Smn is only a good entry for casting in this game. After you get comfortable with it, I'm sure you'll be a better caster in other jobs too.

Carbuncle is there to be cute and he's very good at it.

You have insulted my Ruby Carbuncle! It goes three times faster!

I just want my poor carbuncle to do something instead of just stare at me.

I know a lot of people don't like how simple Summoner is, but it was my favorite job throughout Endwalker. I don't like using more than two cross hotbars, so comfortably being able to fit every action I could conceivably need on just those two and not feeling much weaker in synced content made Summoner a ton of fun.

hi do i use the fillers when spamming carbuncle ruin?

Seriously disappointed that SE kept the 3 elemental primal summons but ignored the other three of ARR. Leviathan, Shiva and Ramu need representation!
Although King Mog ain't an elemental primal it'd be funny if a summoner would summon it too.

Appreciate the CC!

Отлично. А скажите пожалуйста, у какого героя самая лёгкая ротация, что бы нажимать меньше кнопок?

Coming from decades of playing other MMOs, I can honestly say SMN is probably the best job. Many times "simple" and "easy" just mean "well designed." More often than not and especially in XIV, when a job is complex or not beginner friendly, the truth is that it's that way because of a lot of jank and clunkiness and leftover spells that don't feel good to press but are necessary to keep up DPS (looking at you pre-7.2 BLM)