Summoner Gameplay

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Originally Posted by Victros

Yeah, I guess Contagion adds 15 seconds to the DOTs' durations. Can you keep them up indefinitely that way?

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You cannot.
Contagion has a rather long cool down. You get it about once every other or every third cycle of DoT maintenance. Picking when to extend your DoTs is crucial in some fights (Leviathan Extreme comes to mind).

My rotation for SMN in Turn 8:

Aetherflow/Obey > Raging Strikes > X-Potion of Int > Miasma > Bio II > Bio > Fester/Contagion (both of these are during cool down) > Spur/Rouse > Swiftcast > Shadowflare > Fester (during cool down) > Enkindle > Ruin Spam > Fester.
Rinse and repeat as able and time everything with Battle Voice/Foe's Requiem.

SMN is more involved than BLM, generally. But the payoff is better.

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Originally Posted by Victros

Can you keep them up indefinitely that way?

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No, you can only use that a maximum of once every 60(?) seconds.

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Originally Posted by Victros

OK. Coming from WoW where my mage had about a 6-button rotation and a few cooldowns, it seems like a lot to manage.

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This combat system is a tad slower, but involves a lot more situational/complex rotations.

Nope you'll always have to recast your DoTs. Contagion has a 60s recast and your longest DoT, Bio II, lasts 30s. You'll want to cast our DoTs in order of longest duration to shortest. This means Bio II will be down to about 18s remaining if memory serves by the time all DoTs are placed and ready for a 15s extension.

Well... you will want to get Thaumaturge to 26 for Swiftcast for all casting jobs and Arcanist gets the very useful Eye for an Eye at 34 so if you want you can level both up for cross-class skills and to see which you like better. I feel that by level 35 both SMN and BLM will have enough of their tools for you to get a good idea how they will play and which you like better.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

SMN:
Buff up first so all your DoT's are peak DPS
Maintain Bio
Maintain Bio II
Maintain Miasma
Maintain Miasma II
Manage Aether stacks for DoT utility/burst DPS
Shadowflare
Ruin spam when everything's peachy
Pets:
Garuda - maintain Contagian and her DoT
Ifrit - Prevent from stunning

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You absolutely do not want to "maintain" Miasma II. It's potency unbuffed is the same as a Ruin so you're wasting tons of MP. Only use Miasma 2 when you're ready to cast Contagion to extend the potency

Aetherflow does more then DoT Utility and Burst Damage. Yes Fester is nice, but Aetherflow also restores MP inate

Shadowflare is the 4th DoT you need to maintain

So is it my imagination or does this game have more complicated rotations or priority systems than most MMO's?

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Originally Posted by Victros

So is it my imagination or does this game have more complicated rotations or priority systems than most MMO's?

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Honestly I find WoW "rotations and priority" systems more complex then here, and those systems are already easy enough to understand (example would be Frost DK Dual Wield VS 2H rotations). It's all about getting used to it. Playing SMN becomes second nature once you get the hang of the gameplay. I'd recommend just beating on a training dummy until you get the hang of things

Good luck

Good idea, I like enemies that don't fight back! :)

I'm not experienced enough at FFXIV to know, I suppose. It just seems that most of the jobs I look at have a lot more than the 6-7 button rotations I'm used to in WoW! Maybe I'm making it out to be more complicated than it is.

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Originally Posted by Victros

So is it my imagination or does this game have more complicated rotations or priority systems than most MMO's?

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The rotations/priorities sound complicated if you're still at the beginning and hear what they'll be at endgame, but the game introduces you to it gradually, adding a skill each few levels, so you get a chance to experiment with how they work together. (It's one reason I actually don't always like getting too many XP boosts at once. I want a while at each level range to get used to one set before it changes again.)

But anyway, if you do decide they're too complicated, you could also consider Archer/Bard. True, it's not a magic casting class, but it's still ranged DPS, so in many ways plays similarly to a caster. It's got a pretty simple main rotation with a few cooldown buffs to add in whenever available, and (when getting to the Bard job) a few support songs to play as needed.