Are You an Antican or an Antican't?

Being so close to being a L49 SMN, I decided to duo with Yawawa in the Western Altepa Desert, using Fenrir to enfeeble the monsters so that Yawawa and I could easily despatch them quickly. It just seemed that no matter how quickly we ran through the monsters, my 850MP just couldn't go the distance and I seemed to rest more often than fight.

Meanwhile BBK announced that he finally got his Empress Hairpin to drop from the Valkurm Emperor which was excellent as he had been after that for ages. If that wasn't enough for him, he ran straight into the Golden Bat, but unfortunately it didn't drop the Bat Cape, just a Bat Wing. He then went off to find Jaggedy-Eared Jack...



The Quicksand Caves were becoming about as familiar as Caedarva Mire did to my WHM, as I finally received an invite to another party here. The wonderful thing was, not only was I not on main-heal duty, but we had a WHM, a RDM and the melee all had /NIN subs, which meant I could put Earthen Ward on them (so that when Copy Image dropped they didn't take damage) and sit back and DD away. The WHM and RDM hardly had to do anything; it was a really fun party. I finished up being 3K to L50.

Thing is, I think I've now come to realise the strengths and weaknesses of being a SMN. At early levels, we get the tier II BLM spells much quicker than a BLM, allowing us to fulfil the role of magic DD in a party. If our SMN skill is maxed, we can also rival melee DD too. However, in recent levels, I've really started to see why we don't get picked in parties often. The Summoning Skill doesn't seem to keep up with the difficulty curve of the monsters as we go up in levels, meaning our summons hit less than melee DD and we don't get the tier IV spells for some time, meaning we can't replace the BLM slot. Most of the other useful Blood Pacts at this level are buffs, like Earthen Ward (Stoneskinga) and Ecliptic Growl (Raises all stats), meaning SMNs take on a more "Bard-like" role. Once we reach 50, we have the introduction of the Austere gear, which enhances Blood Pact speed and ups the Summoning skill by 10, and then after that, we can begin to equip AF and add the Elemental Staves to our summoning, boosting Avatar effectiveness further.

I guess this explains why it's taken me so long to get to L49.