Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

Interested in how Enhanced Pet will work now. I get the impression from the notes that all classes will have a set Crit % with Crit Rate effecting the Damage % over a normal hit.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

I get the impression from the notes that all classes will have a set Crit % with Crit Rate effecting the Damage % over a normal hit.

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CRT will increase crit damage in addition to crit chance... That's pretty bad for a single-stat to do, as it scales exponentially. (the more you have, the better every point gets)

About the crit rate. I guess it's to make the life of an AST easier. Since they got 2 stances.... it would require them to get 2 set of gear, one crit heavy and the other one spell speed heavy.... With a set %of crit rate, it makes switching a lot easier.

Glad pet accuracy and food problem is fixed.

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Originally Posted by ilmynasa

According to E3 test play.... (source <- contains sch and nin skill as well)
Enkindle: 180s CD
Painflare: 200 potency aoe, 1 aetherflow (dunno CD)
Ruin 3: 170(?) potency, 10x the mp as ruin under normal stance
Tri-Disaster: instant skill, 90s CD, applies 3 dots to target (I assume 1 aetherflow)
Dreadwyre Trans: Obtain a dreadwyre stack for every aetherflow spent (30s duration). Dreadwyre trans skill becomes usable when the stack reaches 3. During the trans, 10% overall damage increase, ruin 3's mp consumption becomes 1/2 of ruin
Deathflare: 400 potency aoe, usable only during dreadwyre trans. Using this skill automatically ends the trans

I'm not the test player/original poster. If anyone wants me to remove this reply I will.

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Ruin 3 is 530 mp O.O stone 2 is 170 pot and only costs 159 mp. So the idea is to maintain a steady use of aether stacks to keep trance up for dps boost and mp reduction then use deathflare right before aetherflow is off cooldown.

Edit; ok, I didn't read all the posts but some contradict your info. They said each stack of aether you spend grants 1 stack of alteration and at 3 stacks trance is activated. Not sure if trance has a duration or goes until you use deathflare, which would be OP so I think it has a duration limit.

Arrrgh, I wish they would've nerfed SMN so I can go and play machinist in peace =(

Now it seems I have to grind two jobs...

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Originally Posted by Romsca

Ruin 3 is 530 mp O.O so the idea is to maintain a steady use of aether stacks to keep trance up for dps boost and mp reduction.

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It is under normal stance. Under dreadwyre its 53/2 so approximately 26~7. So I guess dreadwyre is like a resting phase for mp usage.
.....or not since you'd scrabbling to get as many dots in as you can during that time

I guess another rule to optimal raging strike. Use it optimal when you can cast 3 dots (4 if garuda) + shadow flare, starting near the end of dreadwyre stance.
Bio -> Miasma + Bio 2 -> Deathflare + aetherflow + fester before 10s remaining -> shadowflare + ruin till fester's up again, fester -> bio ?
Seems very risk to fit 3 skills before usage of fester....

Not a big deal either way. Its 60 pot over 3 minutes, which is, well, 0.3 pot/s

Also, unsure if sflare even snapshots.

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Originally Posted by ilmynasa

According to E3 test play.... (source <- contains sch and nin skill as well)
Enkindle: 180s CD
Painflare: 200 potency aoe, 1 aetherflow (dunno CD)
Ruin 3: 170(?) potency, 10x the mp as ruin under normal stance
Tri-Disaster: instant skill, 90s CD, applies 3 dots to target (I assume 1 aetherflow)
Dreadwyre Trans: Obtain a dreadwyre stack for every aetherflow spent (30s duration). Dreadwyre trans skill becomes usable when the stack reaches 3. During the trans, 10% overall damage increase, ruin 3's mp consumption becomes 1/2 of ruin
Deathflare: 400 potency aoe, usable only during dreadwyre trans. Using this skill automatically ends the trans

I'm not the test player/original poster. If anyone wants me to remove this reply I will.

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Anything on the potency of Enkindle abilities?

I just have a feeling it is going to go like this; stack two, maybe three depending how trance activates, then activate trance as aetherflow comes off cooldown, then aetherflow, trance boosted dots, ruin 3, fester/painflare to rebuild alteration stacks and deathflare followed by third alteration stack just as aetherflow resets again, repeat.

With how DWT is sounding, maybe the rotation will remain as normal (except Tri disaster in the opener so we can use our first Fester sooner), but after expending Aetherflow for Festers, ideally Aetherflow will be at 30 seconds remaining. Would DWT be Ruin 3 spam and Deathflare at 15 seconds for Aetherflow? Maybe a Tri disaster in there so you have the buffed DoTs rolling?

Also very happy to see Tridisaster will cost no aetherflow but instead have a long cooldown

It sounds like Garuda is going to scale very well with Spell speed seeing as Auto-Attacks are not affected, ifrit will not be getting a boost there, I assume this is the part of why were seeing adjustments to ifrits abilities and nothing from Garuda. So In essence, SMNs may have two viable options, Crit/Det for Ifrit, what with him hitting more often and is able to better maximize the crit stat and det will affect his auto attacks, and Spell Speed/Crit for Garuda, as her standard attack is a spell and as such will scale well with Spell Speed, as with no auto attack, she wont benefit as much from Det. At the very least no stat will be absolute trash now.

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Originally Posted by FreeLancer4

It sounds like Garuda is going to scale very well with Spell speed seeing as Auto-Attacks are not affected, ifrit will not be getting a boost there, I assume this is the part of why were seeing adjustments to ifrits abilities and nothing from Garuda. So In essence, SMNs may have two viable options, Crit/Det for Ifrit, what with him hitting more often and is able to better maximize the crit stat and det will affect his auto attacks, and Spell Speed/Crit for Garuda, as her standard attack is a spell and as such will scale well with Spell Speed, as with no auto attack, she wont benefit as much from Det. At the very least no stat will be absolute trash now.

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Garuda is already effected by Spell Speed and Ifrit is not at all. With these changes Ifrit will be the one receiving the buff, although I'm curious if he will still retain his Blunt type skills if his are now going to be magical as well. (Foes + Blunt Resist Down = WIN?)

I suspect the changes in Ifrit's skills we may be seeing
Flaming Crush - Either expanding the AOE range or just making it a stronger single target skill. I suspect it should become a stronger single target skill for Ifrit since that is his true purpose.
Radiant Shield - No idea what they will do with this skill other than whatever they do to change it will absolutely be better than what it is currently.

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Painflare: 200 potency aoe, 1 aetherflow (dunno CD)
Ruin 3: 170(?) potency, 10x the mp as ruin under normal stance
Tri-Disaster: instant skill, 90s CD, applies 3 dots to target (I assume 1 aetherflow)
Dreadwyre Trans: Obtain a dreadwyre stack for every aetherflow spent (30s duration). Dreadwyre trans skill becomes usable when the stack reaches 3. During the trans, 10% overall damage increase, ruin 3's mp consumption becomes 1/2 of ruin
Deathflare: 400 potency aoe, usable only during dreadwyre trans. Using this skill automatically ends the trans

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I like the sounds of that. So you need to keep using your Aetherflow to keep your Dreadwyrm Stacks (30s) @ 3 Stacks you are Trance'd. Then basically ride the 10% Damage + Cheap Ruin 3's till your Stacks are about to wear or Aetherflow comes off CD and then Death Flare and repeat.

Things I will be interested in:

Will Ruin II Spam (Increased AA Damage) while building the Trance be offset by the Ruin III MP Cost during Trance.

Will it be better to keep the Dreadwyrm Trance Buff by cycling into other Aetherflow Stacks (10% Damage) or to blow the stacks on Death Flare and then build the Trance back up (~30s with Ruin/Ruin II and no Damage buff)

During Trance, will it be better to use 3D to keep Dots up for those additional Ruin III casts.

you'll be stacking spell speed anyway.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

you'll be stacking spell speed anyway.

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Well yes and no? We don't exactly know how much SS will overcome Determinations affect on our overall damage. If Determination still proved to be a stronger stat for our damage then well, it just means SS has use now.

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Originally Posted by Havenchild

Well yes and no? We don't exactly know how much SS will overcome Determinations affect on our overall damage. If Determination still proved to be a stronger stat for our damage then well, it just means SS has use now.

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Yeah, somehow I can see us trying to stack SPD/DET. With so many low damage attacks we are more negatively effected by rounding on Crits than other high damage classes (cough, BLM cough). If SE changes it so everyone has a static Crit Chance (with Crit only effecting the damage of a crit) - Then with our pets we will already have the highest chance of Enhanced Pet Procs for higher Spell Speed. So there shouldn't be any reason to stack Crit over SPD/DET.

But yeah, Spell Speed for sure. Gotta get all those Ruin III's off during Dreadwyrm Stance.

question remains if aetherflow will actually work under trans. if it does then there would never be a reason to ever leave that stance after initial activation. sounds way too powerful... so i guess it won't work like this

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Originally Posted by Saggo

Anything on the potency of Enkindle abilities?

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Nope, doubt they'd change that.

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Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont

question remains if aetherflow will actually work under trans. if it does then there would never be a reason to ever leave that stance after initial activation. sounds way too powerful... so i guess it won't work like this

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My guess is it's a 30s duration mode regardless of your choice of ending it or not, to be balanced around the 30s of Festers you will normally do in a ST rotation. To keep up the excitement and burst of the class instead of the terribly boring, ineffective lull SMN currently has after stacks are used up.

Brace yourselves.
All the crappy BLMs will hop on the SMN train.

Can you extend your stance duration after you have 3 stacks if you keep using aetherflow in that form? if that is possible ruin 3 is doing 170 potency + 10% = 187 potency = 107 potency more than normal ruin = no point of leaving that form. Like if you need use 5 or more ruins in normal form, Deathflare is dps loss on singletarget except if boss have 1% hp.

I do not know where ilmynasa got his info, but after going though his source link none of the posts there match his info regarding trance. This is the source info;

"Enkindle: cooldown reduced to 180 seconds.
Painflare: 200 potency AoE centered on the target, consumes 1 Aetherflow.
Ruin III: 170 (?) potency casted ability like Ruin. Costs 10x as much MP as Ruin.
Tri-disaster: Instant cast, 90 sec CD. Applies Bio II, Miasma, and Bio to target.
Dreadwyrm Trans: Every time you use Aetherflow, you gain a stack of Alteration (lasts 30 seconds). When you have 3 Alteration stacks, you can become TRANS BAHAMUT. While in this state, damage is increased by 10% and MP cost of Ruin III becomes half the MP cost of Ruin. (Ex. Ruin normally costs 100 MP and Ruin III costs 1000. While Trans Bahamut, Ruin III would cost 50.)
Deathflare: 400 potency instant-cast AoE on the target. Ends Dreadwyrm Trans and can only be used while it's active."

So there is some issue regarding which post is correct.

So forget 3D>bane on mob packs. 3x Painflare>trance>deathflare>are they dead yet? No, aetherflow>repeat.

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Originally Posted by Romsca

sry snipping due to limitation

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Isn't that what I typed (well except the name...)? O_o
I didn't word it exactly as the original thread though

I'm deleting my reply now anyways, since they removed the pictures from twitter so I think SE isn't too happy about leaking info... :/

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Garuda is already effected by Spell Speed and Ifrit is not at all. With these changes Ifrit will be the one receiving the buff, although I'm curious if he will still retain his Blunt type skills if his are now going to be magical as well. (Foes + Blunt Resist Down = WIN?)

I suspect the changes in Ifrit's skills we may be seeing
Flaming Crush - Either expanding the AOE range or just making it a stronger single target skill. I suspect it should become a stronger single target skill for Ifrit since that is his true purpose.
Radiant Shield - No idea what they will do with this skill other than whatever they do to change it will absolutely be better than what it is currently.

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Ah right you are, I guess when you've been avidly trying to avoid SpS, that fact gets overlooked.

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Originally Posted by luizf_sp

Brace yourselves.
All the crappy BLMs will hop on the SMN train.

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Just like all the doom and gloom smn jumped on the blm train in final coil?

OK So with 3.0 here we have to test a few new things:

1) Ifrits / Titans damage modifiers. (BRD- Foe / Slashing debuff (WAR/NIN) / MNK Dragon Kick
2) Pet Accuracy (Confirm if it is in fact equal to a SMNs or not)
3) The immensely long opener (lvl 60 preferably)
4) INT / SS / DET: Strongest damage modifiers and how they balance against each other for both SMN skills and Pet abilities, particularly interested in SS vs DET for DoT damage individually and overall damage done entirely, and SS + DET vs CRIT +SS vs CRIT + DET

Gonna add this to the second post as well and will edit that as we figure this out. Eventually it will be absorbed into the main post.

Det has been nerfed. Crit and Spell Speed will be king

No... Determination for Auto-Attacks was nerfed. It scaled 2.3 times more than it did for Weapon Skills.

Summoners don't rely on Auto-Attacks. Determinations value will remain the same in 3.0 for Summoners. You'll be DET/SS spec'ed I'd say.

We cannot say how anyone will spec, yet Dervy, but it is a safe assumption the focus will be Det/SS, depending on which has a larger impact. Or potentially SS to a point where the DoTs tick at once a second (If possible), then a focus on Crit/Det.

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Originally Posted by Dervy

Summoners don't rely on Auto-Attacks. Determinations value will remain the same in 3.0 for Summoners. You'll be DET/SS spec'ed I'd say.

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With exponential crit scaling - why would anybody avoid crit?

CRT + X or everyone, unless crit conversion is bad, then CRT for nobody.

No one will be avoiding Crit, obviously. But, I personally think Summoners will have a greater emphasis on DET/SS. I could be very, very wrong. We'll have to wait and see tomorrow!

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

With exponential crit scaling - why would anybody avoid crit?

CRT + X or everyone, unless crit conversion is bad, then CRT for nobody.

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Monk and Dragoon will prioritize Critical, if simply for the free critical hits they get ALA Bootshine and Life Surge. I still feel the overall goal will be to get DoTs to one tick a second, and then focus on crit/det, depending on which scales better.

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

With exponential crit scaling - why would anybody avoid crit?

CRT + X or everyone, unless crit conversion is bad, then CRT for nobody.

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I haven't seen anywhere with it stated that the crit stat will effect both crit potency and rate. IMO that would be much too powerful as you are correct in the exponential scaling.

I suspect it would be something like a set 50% crit rate (this would allow for linear balancing for things like Bloodletter procs and Enhanced Pet Procs) with Crit ONLY effecting critical damage. So basically just reversing it from Crit damage = +50% with crit effecting your rate.

DoTs aren't increasing in speed. It's just their damage. Was confirmed via an audio recording in the Media Heavensward thing they did in France.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

I haven't seen anywhere with it stated that the crit stat will effect both crit potency and rate. IMO that would be much too powerful as you are correct in the exponential scaling.

I suspect it would be something like a set 50% crit rate (this would allow for linear balancing for things like Bloodletter procs) with Crit ONLY effecting critical damage. So basically just reversing it from Crit damage = +50% with crit effecting your rate.

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Preliminary Patch Notes.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...0a926fddc9eca8

[2.0] Player attributes have been adjusted as follows:
Skilspeed and spellspeed now affect damage over time and healing over time effects.
The effect of determination on auto-attacks has been reduced.
Critical hit rate now affects damage dealt with a critical strike.
Certain attributes no longer affect parry or block.

Very broad wording indeed... And 50% flat CRT would be too broken. BLMs having a 50/50 chance to smash targets for 6k damage with Fire IV?. Lmao

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Originally Posted by Eardstapa

I still feel the overall goal will be to get DoTs to one tick a second

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SS increases DoT-Damage, it does not change tick speed.

As SS does not affect a pretty hefty portion of our damage (Fester and maybe Deathflare - most classes have signficantly less off-GCD damage), i doubt we'd consider SS over CRT/DET.

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I haven't seen anywhere with it stated that the crit stat will effect both crit potency and rate. IMO that would be much too powerful as you are correct in the exponential scaling.

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Japanese Patchnotes. The english one is once again pretty bad. "Increases damage dealt by crits" is flat out wrong. Japanese states "It now also affects the strength of critical strikes".

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

SS increases DoT-Damage, it does not change tick speed.

As SS does not affect a pretty hefty portion of our damage (Fester and maybe Deathflare - most classes have signficantly less off-GCD damage), i doubt we'd consider SS over CRT/DET.

Japanese Patchnotes. The english one is once again pretty bad. "Increases damage dealt by crits" is flat out wrong. Japanese states "It now also affects the strength of critical strikes".

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The patch notes say the effects, which would imply ticks. If it only increases damage, then that is a terrible change, and SE would know that as well.

Ah my bad. I was sure they nerfed Det for everything not only auto's.

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Originally Posted by Dervy

Very broad wording indeed... And 50% flat CRT would be too broken. BLMs having a 50/50 chance to smash targets for 6k damage with Fire IV?. Lmao

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Yeah, the NA wording is pretty vague then. Will have to check it out when the game goes live, but +Crit Rate and Damage seems so broken, unless it scales extremely slow. Which negatively effects skills that rely on crit procs, and not necessarily the increased crit damage.

50% flat crit wouldn't be too bad.

Base Crit would be a 50% chance at 5% more damage. (instead of 5% chance at 50% more damage)

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Originally Posted by Hustensaft

Japanese Patchnotes. The english one is once again pretty bad. "Increases damage dealt by crits" is flat out wrong. Japanese states "It now also affects the strength of critical strikes".

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"Affects damage dealt with a critical strike." (verbatim from patch notes) and "affects the strength of a critical strike" sound awfully similar to me. Any way you split the hair, we know that critical hit rate influences not only frequency, but strength as well.

Edit: Just to make my thought clear, even with the lack of the word "also" the patch notes still implied (at least to me) that it still affects hit rate, or it wouldn't be called "critical hit rate." It may also be worth mentioning in the JP patch notes the name of that attribute was changed, but apparently wasn't in English.