Okay, someone please explain NM soloingFollow

There's not really one single way to solo on SMN, but the most important thing to understand is hate mechanics. Summoners roll with very low hate. We have to in order for a fresh avatar to get hate off us. The thing that distinguishes a good SMN from a bad one in solo or pet-burn type scenarios is often their management of enmity.

That being said, a few important things to know:
1. Enmity generation occurs based on how close your target is to anything that your spell/ability might build enmity on. The maximum range is roughly 30 yalms for most monsters (some NMs seem to have extended ranges but it's very rare). What this means is that, say for example you are 15 yalms from the monster your avatar is fighting and you cast Stoneskin. This will generate enmity. Now say you're 35 yalms away and cast Stoneskin, no enmity. Here's where it can get tricky... let's say you are 35 yalms away, but your friend is 15 yalms away and you Cure III your friend. This will generate enmity because even though you're far enough away, they are not. It's the target that matters.

How does this apply to SMN solo? Well for one thing, when you run away to resummon your avatar, you need to FINISH casting your summon before the monster gets within about 30 yalms from you. If you can do this, you will generate no new enmity. If you do this consistently, your avatar will have no trouble pulling hate from you in the first swing, even if the swing is a miss! Secondly, it's important to run away before curing yourself or casting Stoneskin. Don't stand just out of AOE range and start buffing yourself or you will generate enmity. If you build up too much enmity, you will have a very hard time keeping hate on your avatar which, as you discovered, is key to SMN soloing.



That being said, there's really two key ways to solo on SMN:
1. Hate-free kite. Basically you just summon & run away. Wait for avatar to die, repeat. Very simple. Absolutely essential to keep enmity at or close to zero for this. One mis-summon (spell finishes too late) can make it hard for the avatar to pull hate off you for the next 4 or 5 resummons. Carby is often used for this, but if you can get other avatars for free they work better. Fenrir works the best as he attacks faster than other avatars and does the same damage.

2. BP kiting. Basically same as hate-free kite, except that every time you resummon, when the monster approaches, you BP it to do damage and stick hate to your avatar again. Then you run away and wait for it to die, or release it when your BP timer is almost up. This can be risky because using a Blood Pact generates hate on the BP's target, and it's not an insignificant amount of hate. This is counter to the SMN goal of minimal enmity. However, it can speed up the battle by several orders of magnitude. This is the preferred way to solo, if it can be safely accomplished. The other way, as you discovered, is dreadfully slow. A really good tip for this method is to Assault after you BP. Many people Assault before BP but the BP locks their avatar in place and Assault has a 10-second cooldown. BP first (when the monster is about 15-20 yalms away), then Assault after and your avatar won't stand there looking dumb while they ready their BP.

Thank you, I learned a lot from these posts. Definately up for duoing whenever.

Whilst Summoners can solo very well on their own you can get safer, quicker and more consistent kills if you team up with other Summoners. I fell that it's in the duo/trio category that Summoner really begins to shine as a low man way of taking down really tough NM's.

Thanks to the information Pergatory posted on Enmity I've managed to tally up some successful NM kills with my partner who just got Summoner to 90. We've got 6/8 AF3 head seals for her from Aggressor Antlion, and obtained a Caller's Pendant and Cirque Sash from Ironclad Severer (w/o the use of Grand Fall).

Summoner may be a bit slower than PUP on certain NM's (I play PUP and SMN myself) but there are NM's that suit each job. I really wouldn't like to take down Ironclad Severer on my PUP and Gnawtooth Gary would be excruciatingly slow and messy to kill on my SMN.

Thanks for the help all. Just last night I soloed my first NM on smn: Tonberry Lieje. He didn't drop the belt, and I did take a few hits, but I got the win against a nm that can fire off Ancient Magic and has perma-blaze spikes.

What I enjoyed the most was that I wasn't just watching my timers, spamming ja's. I was moving around, playing the map as well as the NM. Really fun. Now I need to get my merits where I want them so I can take out more NMs.

Groups of 3 or 4 were watching for a while, hoping I'd die so they could claim the NM. They quickly gave up, nobody doubted that a single summoner could kill off what they came as a party to take out. Now that's something all in itself.

Can't want to try my next NM.

Peace.

Tonberry NM is tough. I have Vayu Staff +2 (so -15 on BP). I cast Garuda pop Predator Claws and WW. Run as far as I can, rinse and repeat. Have temp items in menu to use if needed. IV buffs from Light Spirit. Is risky, but can be done. Would like to have more HP gear and protection for this fight.

I guess I'm a bit more suicidal than most SMN on this forum lol...

I solo him the same way I fought him when we trio'd him Thydonon, relentless Pred Claws until it dies. I fight him in that little triangular area behind the tonberries. There's just barely enough room to kite a caster there if you're good. Every once in a while he lands a spell on me, but I always kill him before he kills me (I only resummon about 10 times to land 7 or 8 BPs and he's toast, the enmity from using Pred Claws isn't a big deal when Garuda crits for 190 on most swings and since he's a caster, even if she doesn't get hate you just run and eventually he'll stop to cast and she'll get hate back). He's never landed a melee swing and only the occasional spell which, assuming you have HP and good merit abyssites, shouldn't be a problem. I don't even use shell or anything, too lazy... although I did use Convert once for about 1500 HP (my new favorite trick in a pinch).

Oh god yes. Reverse converting has saved my life so many times.

While that's true, and /WHM is generally safer for many reasons including Cure IV, DS+Cure IV doesn't touch Convert for a once-in-10-mins save-your-life ability. You can use Convert while running away screaming bloody murder, whereas DS + Cure IV can only be used once you're already safely far away from the monster and have a few seconds to cast without some monster breathing down your neck.