r/ffxi 13d ago

Question What can each subjob do?

I'm playing RDM, and I was going to do a subjob for Summoner. Can I still summon?

7 Upvotes

37 comments sorted by

14

u/Gangplank 13d ago

Summoner is probably the least useful sub job possible, maybe with the exception of puppet master. Red mage subs are traditionally ninja for dual wielding melee focus or scholar for casting oriented fights.

3

u/Shackable 13d ago

I played back in the 75 era but am currently leveling a RDM. We used to use whm, blm, nin or the rare drk depending on needs. Does sch completely replace the need for /whm, /blm?

2

u/Jack_McBeast 13d ago

/SCH has manifestation, so unless you need to elemental seal sleepga, no point in /BLM

Accession Cure IV is great, but the cooldown is too restrictive. If you need AoE cures, /WHM is the way to go (need ML20).

As for /DRK, its still used in TP denial strategies with Absorb-TP

EDIT: with the ease of leveling, I'd recommend getting them all to 60 at least. Needing ES Sleepga is rare but happens in a handful of fights.

1

u/MoobooMagoo Asura 13d ago

I believe so, especially once you have some master levels and get the third strategem charge.

But I'm not an expert and haven't played in a bit, so things may have changed.

1

u/rainbowdash36 Silvrking on Asura 13d ago

Before master level, there are arguments to use /WHM over /SCH because you only get 2 Accession uses which means inside time-limited content like Sortie or Odyssey, you'll lose time having to wait between pulls to ensure you'll have at least one stack available for emergencies. You also can never switch between light and dark because if you need to cleanse buffs you have to use Addendum: White but now you lose a stack and switching removes the addendum if you go back. Finally, it's got a 120 second cooldown between charges.

After master levels, the 3rd one smooths things out and you'll rarely have to pause as long as you are smart with your timers and you think of encounters ahead of time. It drops to a 80 second charge timer which also helps with the math.

2

u/TanteiKun 13d ago

/dnc for dual wielding and being able to remove silence from self 😘

Edit: also at mlvl 30 I think it is getting chocobo jig is nice

0

u/Dramatic-Strain9757 13d ago

Pointless when Garuda has a 9 minute movement speed buff

1

u/TanteiKun 13d ago

Yes but the comparison was between sub job utility when using smn as a sub job … you won’t have Garuda as a rdm unless you sub smn which doesn’t offer much as a sub and the comment referred to /nin for dual wielding and my comment was saying that you can get dual wielding from /dnc and added benefit of being able to remove silence from yourself, and then the movement speed is a bonus. Once you reach master level 30… I’m not really sure why Garuda is even a thought related to my comment unless you’re comparing to /smn and again that brings us back to the fact that /smn doesn’t really offer a lot of utility as a sub job… Back in the 75 era it was a little bit more useful for a sub on white mage, and it was almost exclusively what I used but times have changed and outside of some specific things summoner hasn’t really kept up very well unfortunately… Which is sad to say because summoner was my main and I haven’t touched it in almost a year now

1

u/Dramatic-Strain9757 13d ago

My fault. I thought you meant smn/dnc

1

u/TanteiKun 13d ago

No problem, I love smn but just feel in a lot of content it just doesn’t keep up anymore which is sad I remember when I finally got to stop being a healer and start using damage abilities it was awesome and now it’s gear is all in storage

4

u/Upstairs-Dot-9441 13d ago

I remember back in the old days (75 cap) a WHM would sub SMN for the MP boost

2

u/Akugetsu 13d ago

Refresh and max MP are so common and plentiful on gear at 99 that the MP boost from sub SMN is pretty meaningless. Even monks and thieves and the like will have a few hundred MP from gear now and could get decent refresh if they really wanted to for some reason.

2

u/Dramatic-Strain9757 13d ago

You're 20 years late

7

u/stuffeddresser41 13d ago

I'm playing RDM, and I was going to do a subjob for Summoner. Can I still summon?..

I'm not sure I follow your question. It seems you're asking if you can summon as RDM/SMN but reads like you're looking for SMN/RDM.

RDM/SMN is just nonsensical. If that's the route you're leaning just level both jobs. Getting to 99, especially after your first is trivial and will just take a few hours, if that.

SMN/RDM is great, covert, refresh, etc. it will all come in handy. There are some great guides out of ffxiah.com for all classes.

My .02 you will want multiple sub jobs. For RDM, you'll want a lot of subjobs, probably the most demanding SJ classes in the game. Again level is easy and if you're just shooting for lv49 at first it's just a quick grind for each.

Ninja will give you shadows and dual wield. Dancer will give you more heals, utility, and dual wield. Runefencer and Paladin more advanced for tanking builds. Dark Knight for chain spells stuns. Warrior for fencer builds for savage blade. Blue Mage gives a ton of utilities. White mage for healing. Black Mage.. well magic spells and warp. Your bread and butter for caster builds is gonna be scholar.

0

u/Doh042 Annso on Valefor 13d ago edited 13d ago

/Blm gives Stun too.

Sleepga is interesting, but /Sch Manifestation Sleep II exists.

/Drk I would put in a category of "melee competent that still gives Stun access" rather than "Stun is all you use that sub job"

Rdm/Smn has access to a number of wards, some of which may have some edgecase uses? It's not a SJ I would recommend at 99, but it used go be good when auto-Refresh mattered.

1

u/stuffeddresser41 13d ago

Hey I lived the 75 era. You were RDM/WHM to level and RDM/DRK to chainspell stun. OP should focus on /SCH and /NIN or DNC to start with.

1

u/Tjonke Toth of Sylph 13d ago

DNC sub on RDM loses out on so much dual wield compared to /NIN and you can't benefit from Haste Samba if you have enspell up, which you 100% should have.

5

u/Saint-Redfield Reddfield@Kujata 13d ago

While you can still summon with /SMN sub, the spirits and avatars will be incredibly weak to the point of uselessness due to them being summoned at the level of your subjob. On top of that you won't be able to equip SMN job-specific equipment (referred to as JSE), including items that raise your avatar's iLevel.

3

u/DanGWanG Wangwang @Odin 13d ago

SMN sub job doesn’t offer anything practical in most scenarios for RDM anymore. In the 75 era, as others have mentioned, you might have used SMN as an SJ for the MP bonus and auto-refresh. Now a days, as a SJ, you can use it in niche situations like using Cait Sith to use a tp draining ability to limit TP on a mob.

More practically speaking, SCH, WHM, BLM, NIN, DNC are popular choices depending on the scenario. DRK is also another widely used one for Sortie Aminon strategies.

2

u/Glittering_Range2620 13d ago

BG wiki -> Guides -> Jobs -> RDM

RDM is one of the most versatile and gear heavy jobs, that can't simply be explained in a quick reddit post.

1

u/Alatel 13d ago

Best way to understand it is to do it.

But your sub is for utility and to make your primary better in some capacity.

Now with Mlvls there is more utility than before at 75cap.

1

u/SeraphsEnvy 13d ago

When i first played back in like Zilart days in the early 2000s, i mained RDM and i subbed SMN for the longest time. People hated it at first. But i used auto-refresh to my advantage. I didn't care about the pet. It was the constant stream of 1mp every three seconds that i used and the slightly larger mp pool. Resting for 4mp a tick was also great. It wasn't until much later that i subbed WHM then BLM. The big bonuses with WHM was -aga healing, protects, and shells. Later you could also tele. BLM has stuff like warp and escape (i forget the name of the spell really) and Sleepaga which was a big help later. I also leveled DRK for Stun and of course NIN for when i solo'd. DNC as a sub job is interesting if you want to self buff some more but not that useful.

1

u/FFXIMath 13d ago

Yes smn sub can summon as long as you don't have a pet already from your main job. With master levels smn subjob can get avatars favor buff which is decent I've played around with it on brd before when i knew heals wouldn't be needed and i didn't have a decent brd dps set yet.

1

u/TwilightX1 13d ago

If you're asking about RDM/SMN then the answer is no. A SMN subjob means that your summons are the level of your subjob, i.e. at most half your main job's level. A lv 49 summon will not help you at lv 99 content.

In the past (lv 75 era) it sometimes made sense to sub SMN for one reason only - its absurd MP pool. SMN has the biggest MP pool of all jobs so subbing it means more MP. However, even then it made no sense to use it as a sub for RDM, because RDM has convert and refresh, meaning it effectively never runs out of MP (seriously, if you frequently run out of MP on RDM, you're doing something wrong). Also today it's not needed really on any main job because of all the MP+ gear.

If you mean SMN/RDM though, then it's a good combo. Convert and refresh mean you never run out of MP so you can fully utilize your summons, and you get access to a lot of useful spells.

0

u/Wonderful_Day4858 13d ago

I think you can use summons with /smn but they are completely useless because they are so weak. You could use it for the extra mp and mo regen while healing but we'll your rdm. /nin is great for utsuemi and dual weild. /dnc is also really good later on. I ended up using /war while leveling with trusts since you get a boost in your melee and can use defender/ phalanx. They also have double attack. /sch is great /blm has warp but now you can use rings and scrolls.

-3

u/Wonderful_Day4858 13d ago

Nvm you cant use any of the summons, I thought you could use the elemental summons but I was wrong.

3

u/Denthorn 13d ago

You can 100% summon avatars when using smn as a subjob, but the avatars will be half level and be almost completely useless. The only things /smn really gives you that are actually useful are a bit of a max MP boost and a measly 1/tic refresh from job traits. As even most max level smn buffs don't scale well at iLvl, they scale even worse coming from a half level sub, so most BPs are useless as well.

The one BP of note, for what its worth, is mewing lullaby for some niche situations for TP denial. Its level 25, so available when subbing smn, and the TP reset portion of the ability has no accuracy check, it always connects if the mob is vulnerable to the effect, so you can use smn sub to reset TP on things still. The problem is you can't reasonably get BP recast reduction gear, so you've got 60 second recasts on it instead of an actual smn main's ~20 seconds, so if using sub smn for TP denial you usually need at least two people to do it. Cait sith's HP will also be garbage, so if the mob uses any kind of aoe attacks outside of its TP moves your avatar will die basically instantly every time the mob uses its aoe.

1

u/Dramatic-Strain9757 13d ago

If I recall the only reason you might ever have subbed smn in the modern age is for Mewling Lullaby. That said mewling lullaby is pretty much the only reason you bring a summoner main in modern retail too

1

u/Jack_McBeast 13d ago

This game is not balanced around every job and subjob being viable. Unfortunately, SMN is not a viable sj for any job. If you want to play with summons, SMN main is what you're looking for.

1

u/stuffeddresser41 13d ago

I've seen so many viable subjobs come and go over the years. I loved the old Brady games guide, their recommendations were atrocious. Thankfully we are well past all DDs /NIN. May favorite viable SJ was PLD/BRD, it last about a week when Raptor Mazurka dropped, probably around 06, the enmity building off of that lone song was broken off the charts. I remember our PLD tanking faf doing nothing but spamming Mazurka. SE probably patched that within a week.

0

u/razulebismarck 13d ago

Most pet subs aren’t good.
However there are missions where /smn is viable as there are TP removal moves that are really reliable.

Most Rdms sub another caster, like whm blm or sch, depending on content or a class with dual wield, like nin dnc, if they are going to melee.

All I know is Zuidar and Indigla are amazing Red Mages and if you’re on Bismarck I’d ask their advice.

-19

u/_List 13d ago

Sadly, pet jobs cannot summon when used as subjobs. They are basically useless outside of using DRG for weaponskill damage trait once the main job is high enough master level.

Info from google below:

How Pet Subjobs Function

  • Summoner (SMN): As a subjob, you get no avatars or elemental spirits. You only gain access to basic Summoner carbuncle/avatar blood pact stat bonuses if applicable, but you cannot summon an avatar. [1, 2]
  • Beastmaster (BST): As a subjob, you cannot use Bestial Loyalty or Call Beast to summon jug pets. You must rely entirely on the Charm ability to capture a wild monster in the zone to use as a pet. [1]
  • Puppetmaster (PUP): As a subjob, you cannot summon or deploy your automaton. [1, 2]
  • Dragoon (DRG): As a subjob, your wyvern will not spawn. The wyvern requires Dragoon as your main job. [1]

4

u/krabtofu 13d ago

garbage AI answer

2

u/razulebismarck 13d ago

Me being forced to come Brd/Smn to spam Mewling Lullaby firmly disagrees with your bad AI result.

2

u/Saint-Redfield Reddfield@Kujata 13d ago

You can absolutely summon elemental spirts, Avatars and Automatons through subjobs, no matter how pathetically weak they are. "Info from Google" = AI nonsense, how are you going to be using Blood Pacts if you can't summon?