The Summoner is an exciting class to play in Final Fantasy 14’s range of PvP modes. Using their Summoned Primals and a range of unique offensive spells, this class can provide effective burst damage that can support any good PvP team composition.

Related: Final Fantasy 14: Guide To Playing Red Mage in PvP

With a range of possible Limit Break options, depending on which type of Primal you’d like to use and high potency combos, Summoner remains a particularly versatile PvP class that can be difficult to approach for newcomers. If you’re looking to harness the power of Primals to win matches, follow our guide to learn the essential tactics.

PvP Job Actions

Summoner has quite a few Job Actions compared to other PvP classes, including a large amount of instant cast abilities and spells that transform into other spells under the effect of certain buffs. This can make the class appear overwhelming at first, however, the majority of these abilities are only for dealing damage or applying debuffs.

Unlike Red Mage or Gunbreaker, Summoner isn’t a multi-purpose class in PvP. Whilst they still offer some small amount of utility, the primary purpose of Summoner’s job skills is to combo into high damage and build to your Limit Break skills, which will embolden your already-powerful Demi-Primals.

PvP Summoner differs from the PvE version of the class, as it cannot have a summoned Egi permanently whilst in combat. Instead, you have spells themed around the Primals Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda that should be used alternately during your rotation as much as possible.

Crimson Cyclone will be essential for opening windows of damage, as it will close the gap and also do a lot of damage with a 15-second cooldown.

In addition to these key skills, you'll also use a solid foundation of basic skills like Ruin III, which deals unaspected damage, Fester which deals additional damage as the target's HP gets lower, and Radiant Aegis, which offers a small barrier shield.

The trick to good play as a Summoner in PvP lies in establishing and following a rotation (explained below) focused around the Summon Skills and Limit Breaks, developing an understanding of how to use these skills together to effectively do a lot of damage in short windows.

Rotations

The skills Crimson Cyclone, Crimson Strike, Fester, and Mountain Buster will be the most important spells in your rotation as Summoner, alongside your abilities to summon Bahamut and Phoenix using your limit break attacks. Using Bahamut and/or Phoenix to do burst damage should be the end goal of your rotation as Summoner, but you can also manage a fairly effective rotation without them first.

Of the various abilities available to Summoner, Slipstream is the attack you should consider using to kick off your rotation. This attack can be cast from a distance and does a form of AoE damage to anyone who enters the 'slipstream'. From here, you can use the skill Mountain Buster as an instant cast, which will follow up with another 4,000 potency to your target and all those nearby.

From Mountain Buster, you can proceed into Crimson Cyclone and follow up with Crimson Strike. This will do a bunch more damage and close the gap. From here, you can take precautions by protecting yourself with Radiant Aegis, which will protect you from any attacks you might receive at close range.

The skill Fester is also essential in stringing together attacks for effective damage, as this becomes more effective the lower the enemy's health is. With this in mind, Fester should be used next up the rotation. Then Crimson Cyclone, then Fester once more.

So far, the rotation should look like this:

• Slipstream > Mountain Buster > Crimson Cyclone > Crimson Strike > Radiant Aegis > Fester > Crimson Cyclone > Fester

The placement of Fester maximises damage, whilst the Radiant Aegis minimises risk when you're at close range. From this combo, we can begin to incorporate the Limit Breaks throughout and use our summons to improve the rotation even further.

Limit Break

The two Limit Break options for Summoner allow you to summon Bahamut and Phoenix respectively. These Summons appear for a small window and will deal damage using their own attacks until they expire.

For the best application in dealing damage, Bahamut should be summoned after Slipstream, and then proceed with the rotation as listed above. For buffing Bahamut's damage, you can incorporate the skill Enkindle Bahamut before your second cast of Fester. After Enkidle Bahamut, you can begin to spam your new skill Astral Impulse, which is what Ruin III will transform into whilst using Bahamut.

As a complete rotation, that will look like this:

• Slipstream > Summon Bahamut > Mountain Buster > Crimson Cyclone > Crimson Strike > Radiant Aegis > Fester > Crimson Cyclone > Enkindle Bahamut > Fester > Astral Impulse x 4

By the time you've cast your fourth Astral Impulse, you can probably cast another Fester to finish off the rotation.

A similar structure can be applied to using Phoenix, but this should be reserved for occasions where you need to support your team from a difficult position.

Common Actions

As with other PvP classes, Summoners have access to a small amount of Common Actions that can be used to heal and defend after escaping from an attack. As Summoner doesn’t have any other self-healing or defensive abilities, knowing when to use these skills and being aware of their cooldown times will be essential.

General Strategy

Summoners have a fairly low HP and pretty average mobility compared to other DPS units. This is something you should consider in your general strategy when playing as Summoner. Always have a Radiant Aegis ready to use to protect yourself, and always be ready to pull out and use your Common Actions when necessary. Radiant Aegis is placed in the rotation before Crimson Cyclone in order to keep yourself protected, so don't forget this step.

This is also the reasoning behind casting Slipstream at the start of the rotation, as casting at range will protect your from a lot of damage. You can cast Ruin III and Fester before engaging the rotation suggested above to do 'chip damage' - this will weaken enemies and still allow you to have the distance needed to protect yourself if they decide to pursue.

Movement is essential to mastering high-level PvP Summoner play - you want to keep as much distance as possible right up until you can commit to your big damage rotation. But at the same time, you don't want to be too alone before this point. As with any other class, it will be vital to stick with your team and not stray too far. As a class with low HP, you'll likely be singled out if you're wandering around the map alone. This is especially dangerous if you can't apply Radiant Aegis.

Don't commit to summoning Bahamut or Phoenix until you know which might be the most useful. In game modes like Crystalline Conflict, it's often better to get the damage provided by a Bahamut-focused rotation, but there is also value in using Phoenix to recover the party in a wide scale team fight.

With both Bahamut and Phoenix, your timing really has to be immaculate to get the best effect of their automatic attacks (Megaflare and Everlasting Flight) and the right amount of casts of the enhanced version of Ruin III (Astral Impulse and Fountain of Fire). If you're too early with your Limit Break activation, you can miss out on the chance at damage or healing across the whole enemy team or your allies respectively. Similarly, the damage buff to Ruin III is substantial, so you want to get as many casts of this as possible within this window.

Next: Final Fantasy 14: Complete Guide To PvP Series 2