Summoner DPS Guide — Shadowbringers 5.5

Summoner is one of the more unique jobs within the world of Final Fantasy. Classified as a magical ranged DPS, Summoner utilizes pets and high burst actions to provide substantial damage. Summoner maintains a high degree of mobility for free or at a minimal potency cost, thus making Summoner an easy job to play for progression or other learning purposes.

Summoner's kit has a reputation for being the "King of AoE" damage, as it has several abilities capable of providing multi-target cleave damage, as well as the capability of spreading its DoTs to any nearby targets. Summoner also plays well in short uptime scenarios, with its Demi-Bahamut and Demi-Phoenix summons providing huge burst windows.

Summoner is a job that brings a great utility kit to any encounter. Summoner brings several utility actions that are useful for party content, such as Addle and Aetherpact. Because Summoner is tied to the Arcanist tree shared with Scholar, the class also wields a powerful utility action in Resurrection. Summoner's Demi-Phoenix also provides its own utility, with Everlasting Flight.

The combination of providing strong burst damage outputs, powerful AoE abilities, as well as strong party utility actions has traditionally made Summoner an exceptionally strong DPS job, along with being a very popular job for progressing 8-man party content.

Strengths

• Strongest mobility among magical ranged DPS.
• Strong burst DPS output.
• Strong incidental cleave.
• One of only two DPS jobs with combat raise.
• Great party utility kit.

Weaknesses

• Weak filler phase outside of burst windows.
• Some of the on-demand mobility comes at a potency loss.
• Pets can sometimes be unreliable with queueing actions.

If you are looking to level Summoner for the first time or would like to learn more about how Summoner progresses, you can check out our leveling guide for tips on your journey.

Max level Summoner revolves around maintaining a seamless rotation cycle between your Trance and Demi-Primal phases, as well as your in-between filler phases. With Dreadwyrm Trance and Firebird Trance sharing a 55 second cooldown, Summoner has to maintain a near two minute rotation cycle from start to finish. This rotation cycle encompasses five distinct phases as labeled below:

1. Dreadwyrm Trance phase
2. Summon Bahamut phase
3. Filler Phase #1
4. Firebird Trance phase
5. Filler Phase #2

If you are new to the Summoner job and would like to find more information on the fundamentals of Summoner, or the priorities behind each phase of Summoner's overall rotation, you can check out our dedicated beginner's guide.

As you continue to progress and obtain higher item level gear, it is important to know which stats to prioritize to best maximize your performance. You may check out the page below to find explanations on your general stat priority:

Once you reach the max level cap, you can begin building towards your best-in-slot combination. To find specific best-in-slot Summoner builds, you can check out our dedicated gear page to find both general and encounter specific builds.

Once you have reached the point of attempting end-game content, you may look towards more intermediate and in-depth resources to improve your raid performance. Our dedicated Summoner rotation page below takes a deeper look into the job, providing you with key details behind the overall rotation structure, in addition to micro-level optimization material.

If you are looking for ways to improve your Summoner play or for additional resources to assist you with performance analysis, we have a few pages below that will provide you with answers to any potential questions you may have.