As sub becomes a reality i have a question. Is PS a good sub (the summons look cool) or should i just go with the normal archer and be done with it. I want some PVP fun at later lvls as being a dwarfy i've seen very little so far.
for some reason a ton of folk have subbed PS recently on Lionna. You PVP better than a dwarf and are pne of the best 1V1 PVPers. In large groups you are THE secondary player. Best secondary healer, best secondary DD, awesome secondary debuffer. But you are not number one at anything except maybe survivability and unfortunately that's the dwarf srtong point too.
It's a fun class, with a WS main you won't have trouble supporting it unless you go nuts on shot spending but if you're going for a heavy PVPer just know that you arne't going to be the guy with 3k pvps, you'll be the guy who healed him while he got them.
Heck yes, go Phantom Summoner. You can fill any gap in any party, you have very few weak points, and are extremely difficult to kill. However, as mentioned you will have no real strong points either as a Phantom Summoner. The few strong points they do possess is the ability to lvl very fast if you can learn to use Soulless in your grind and you will not taste death very often. The PS is extremely moldable and you will never really get bored playing it.
It is also fun to try a vast array of weapon and armor styles. As a summoner you can really equip yourself in any way you wish, so long as you change your play style to correctly match your gear.
For example: I bet the summoner could even use Heavy Armor and disguise themselves as a tank. (Never tried it, but I want to) If you go heavy armor you would naturally use Shadow to grind as he doesn't need as many heals.
*Pictures a PS in heavy with a +HP SA sword and shield with Nightshade healing them and transfer pain and cubics* Could be an SK with your own personal healer. :)
Or, you can go the light armor + DD weapon and fight beside your summon, or you can go robes and use Soulless to DD while you heal him from a safe distance behind.
Only downside as mainhealer is that the pet has a low base cast speed, it gets pretty quick when buffed but coupled with the lack of a mass heal it does poorly in emergency type situations.
Yeah, Nightshade doesn't have a mass heal, but his casting speed is really quite fast I think. He can also debuff and hate monsters to him with a pretty decent Pdef. So if someone is being gang-banged and you need to pull-out, just have nightshade m*******e while the party runs away. You can just resummon him later.
Also, I decided to test my tanking strategy I mentioned above. I donned some Doom Heavy armor, summoned nightshade, and activated transfer pain... I was met with a lot of success. People think you are a blade dancer or an SK (depending if you use duels or a sword and shield) and will generally avoid targeting you first in PvP. Whenever I wore light armor or robes, people imeediatly singled me out as a weak target and I would never last long, but in doom heavy I look like a hard-kill. Went grinding in the gear with nightshade and found it was very easy and safe. The XP did not come as fast as with Soulless and I DDing, but I could get 4-5 mobs on me and could take the damage no problem. It is always risky grinding with soulless b/c if you get gang-banged your screwed as niether of you can take much dmg. I used an acumen pot to supplement the casting-speed issues with heavy armor and was fine. *shrugs* My phantom summoner class still finds ways to surpise me, even in Ag. I think I am going to stick with this heavy armor/ nightshade combo for a while and see what happens.