It occurs to me as I sit down to write this post that, in the four and a half years (give or take a month) since the introduction of the glamour system to FFXIV, I have never used Summoner-specific gear in a glamour until this one. Naturally, that comes down mainly to the fact that I basically never play Summoner. Even back in A Realm Reborn it never clicked with me, largely because it’s always felt like Summoner feels sort of tacked on to the Arcanist kit both mechanically and thematically. That’s been getting better with the incremental redesigns in both Heavensward and Stormblood, but I preferred Enochian to Dreadwyrm Trance in terms of mechanics in the first expansion and vastly prefer Red Mage’s Balance system now.

I did, though, rather like the original Summoner Artifact Armor from 2.0, and I have attempted several times to use various pieces of the Evoker’s Attire, essentially to no success. Because of the pain of obtaining Heavensward Artifact sets, I never put the time to acquire any of the Summoner gear from that expansion (though the only piece I might have used was the Caller’s Loincloth). Stormblood very thankfully alleviated that issue by rewarding Artifact Armor through job quests, just as things were in A Realm Reborn. Eureka has also made dyeable gear relatively straightforward to acquire, and so I figured it was high time I got around to a proper Summoner glamour after so long.

Glamour Components (Required Level: SMN 70)
Weapon: Augmented Hailstorm Grimoire (Pure White)
Head: Silver Circlet (Goshenite)
Body: Anemos Channeler’s Vest (Pure White)
Hands: Demonic Gloves (Pure White)
Legs: Nezha Lady’s Slops (Pure White)
Feet: Demonic Thighboots (Pure White)

I started work on this one a couple of days before the Demonic Attire was added to the Mog Station, having noticed that the Channeler’s Vest works a lot better than the Hailstorm Coat of Casting alongside the Hailstorm Gloves. I’ve been trying to make either version of the Hailstorm Coat work for a glamour for a long time and had no luck, which has largely meant that the lovely Hailstorm Gloves have also sat on my retainers mostly unused (outside of a few healer glamours). I saw an opportunity for the Gloves with the Channeler’s Vest, though, and I got to work.

And then…I got stuck! On top of there being few body pieces that really work with the Hailstorm Gloves, it’s also really tough to find a pair of boots or pants of some kind to go with them, especially for casters, whose Yafaemi Trousers don’t match the Gloves as well as the healer version match theirs. As if by providence, though, we got the Demonic Attire a day or two after I got stuck on the look, and both the Gloves and Thighboots from that set work very well with the Channler’s Vest.

To complete the look, I turned to another recent Mog Station addition in the Nezha Lady’s Slops, which, outside of the scarcely visible gold trim, also fit in quite well, with just enough grey to match the small amount of grey on the dyed Vest. They seemed to me to work much better than something like the Light Steel Subligar, which would have otherwise been my go-to piece for something like this, or the Tafetta Loincloth, which works rather well in terms of clothing style but seems so impractical for adventuring (which is probably a silly concern, given that the whole outfit kind of has that problem, I suppose).

Often, for looks like these, I’m largely done after figuring out the four main pieces, either adding glasses depending on the job or leaving things plain, since hats frequently don’t work with elegant gowns and robes like the Channeler’s Vest. This one felt like it really needed something, though, and glasses really didn’t seem to fit. The Hailstorm Crown seemed like it was too much, as did the Aurum Regis Circlet. I honestly considered using the new Angelic Circlet, too, but the halo being gold really stood out in a bad way (if only that part of it were dyeable!). The best available circlet I could find, even if it’s quite simple, was the Silver Circlet.

Due to my never playing Summoner, this one is likely to last throughout most of Stormblood I think, unless we get vastly different versions of the Artifact Sets in future installments of Eureka. At this point I don’t know what the chances of that are like since the team hasn’t said anything about rewards for Eureka: Pagos. My best guess at this point is that we’ll see versions of the current sets with extra flair, reminiscent of the way the Savage versions of the Alexandrian gear had additional bits and different color schemes, but if the tradition of Relic weapons taking on different forms continues, we might also see entirely new gear for each weapon form, too. We’ll know more soon, I hope!