The purpose of this guide is to educate yousimpleallowing you to understand the core Summoner/Arcanist gameplay, safely leveling through the open world and dungeons, and providing a foundation that you feel comfortable with and can improve as you wish.
How Summoners Work in FFXIV?
Summoner is certainly not an easy task to learn on your own. I was pretty desperate to start playing Arcanist myself, and was about to quit because I couldn't understand the nonsense about how this job even works. Guides were, as always, the least helpful: either they roll out a level 90 rotation without any explanation and spells you don't even have and won't have until halfway through the game, or they simply list the entire range of spells - which You can read it in the game itself, thank you very much.
Arcanist/Summoner seemed like one of the simplest jobs in the game - and certainly the easiest among casters once you learned your combos and spell synergy. In addition, it is very mobile and fast, so it has great chances of reaching your favorite track. But enough chatter, let's explain the basics.
Is Arcanist/Summoner a pet class?
Well yes and no. When fighting, be sure to have your carbuncle summoned at all times. But it's not a pet in the usual MMO sense. Your pet's hotbar allows you to show him around – for roleplaying sake, it seems. But your pet does NOT fight alone, it won't grapple, bite an enemy, or tear aggro, and all your "pet" spells are essentially your own rotation spells with a pet animation. So if you're wondering if your pet should also attack the enemy when you start a battle: no, it doesn't. It just sits there waiting for your pet's spells.
Basically, the best thing you can do with a pet hotbar is to disable it completely - it doesn't do anything important in battle.
In the end – less hassle, right? You don't care where your carbuncle goes, how many extra enemies it attracts, or whether it will die - no, it's just here to animate your spells, that's all.
The basics of Arcanist/Summoner rotation
I will explain all this using the example of my own hotbars, of course you are free to assign them as you wish.
Destroy
Ruin is your very first spell and it is your filler. Basically, you throw it if you have nothing else available at the moment.
For AoE situations, you get an Outburst spell that works exactly the same.
Energy Drain / Fester / Pain Flare
The simplest and simplest thing ever: energy drain.
Energy Drain (4) is a spell that deals damage and lights up the yellow gems on your meter. Then you get two loads of very powerful instant Fester or Painflare nukes. Cast them as soon as they become available, as they require no preparation, are all instantaneous, and deal insane damage. Actually this:
- Solodoelen:Energy consumption > Parties, Parties
- AoE:Energy Drain> Pain Bleeding, Pain Flare
Pretty simple, right?
Summons / Carbuncle gameplay
The core of your damage rotation is dealing with the carbuncle spells and it's very simple once you gain enough insight.
First, tap the Aethercharge spell (2). This will start a 15 second countdown, displayed on your meter in a carbuncle tail. When the countdown ends, all gems will be charged and you will gain access to all E-R-Q spells, which are powers of Gemshine (3).
Note that Aethercharge (2) is only available during combat, so you must first hit an enemy with Ruin or another spell to make it available.
So the combination of carbuncle casting is this:
- Engage the enemy
- Use Aethercharge (2) to start the countdown
- Wait 15 seconds and cast something else in the meantime (Ruin/Outburst as filler or Energy Drain combo, if available)
- Use Ruby, Emerald or Topaz (E, R or Q) to make Gemshine stronger
- Spam Gemshine (3) until the stacks run out
- Repeat steps 4-5 until there are no more active carbuncles - so you use them all, red, yellow and green stacks.
What is the difference between Ruby, Topaz and Emerald (later Ifrit, Titan and Garuda)? Well, Ruby/Ifrit is a powerful nuke with a long cast, Topaz/Titan and Emerald/Garuda are direct but weaker nukes. Use them all during a single Aethercharge - apply the order according to the battle situation. For example, if you are moving, it is better not to use Ruby. You get 2 stacks of Ruby Gemshine, 4 stacks of Emerald and 4 stacks of Topaz.
Covenant AoE rotation
Like many jobs, the AoE rotation is much the same and you just replace 3 solo spells with their AoE versions: Ruin > Outburst, Gemshine > Precious Brilliance, and Fester > Painflare:
Arcanist/Summoner Rotation supervision
Simple goal:
- Ruin as filler
- Energy drain > Pins, Pins like an oGCD nuke
- Aethercharge > [Ruby/Topaz/Emerald > spam Gemshine]x3 to no more carbuncles
AoE:
- Eruption as a filler
- Energy Drain > Painflare, Painflare like an oGCD nuke
- Aethercharge > [Ruby/Topaz/Emerald > spam Precious Brilliance]x3 until carbuncles run out
And we're done!
What's next?
There are a lot of additional spells and buffs to discover that will make your damage even more terrifying, but now you have a foundation to build on!
Have fun with your original demons!
