SMN tips for AS3?

Hello all, about to set foot into AS3 for the first time this week (we went in and did a few herp-derp blind pulls on Saturday for lulz but nothing serious), and was wondering if there's anything I should be aware of when it comes to SMN DPS. Namely, I'm a bit concerned about add phase because add phase was a straight up kick in the dick for SMN DPS on A3 normal. Is the Savage version as soul-crushingly terrible?

I know the fight is a big mechanics check, so my intention is to primarily focus on that, but if there's any stack usage suggestions for the various split/add phases I'd love to hear them.

Only semi-related, but I feel like I'm underperforming on the other turns as a SMN as well, though we clear stuff well before enrage etc. On AS1 I did 970 without filtering for jumps (ie unmerged), and on AS2 I did about 1675. Some things of note are that I died about 10 seconds before AS1 clear (our healers toggled Cleric and DPSed rather than rezing me since both Oppressor were at like 1%), and our group doesn't run a BRD or MCH, so I'd imagine I lose quite a bit on big AOE in AS2 without Foe's/Bishop. My group insists I'm doing well, but I think they're a bit too kind, so some comparison feedback would be nice. I enjoy SMN, but the changes are a bit difficult to juggle at times.

the adds phase on a3 is actually smn friendly, it just requires you to have good rng and smart play. I got out of the adds phase with 1.2k dps at ilvl 198 a while ago because adds kept spawning close to each other and painflare kept hitting all of them. I would suggest you use most of your stacks via painflare and once you dreadwyrm trance deathflare the living liquid, your deathflare should hit all near by spawns immediately. Always dot with bio because nothing will last long enough for miasma and don't forget to set your pet on the adds otherwise it'll keep hitting the living liquid. I also try to time my enkindle on spawns so everything gets hit. I've tried painflaring the living liquid to get all the targets hit but sadly you don't get AA stacks to deathflare so it's up to you to whether hit all targets with 200 potency damage or hit 1-2 targets and then deathflare near the end. Your scholar should be able to run around spamming miasma 2 for heavy so you don't really have to do that.

Ideally you want to come into final phase with everything if you're combating the enrage. That means Rouse/Spur, Aetherflow, 3 stacks of Aetherflow stored, everything. That also means the only things you can spend in add phase are a 3D and a Rouse, everything else hurts you. If you don't really care about specifically combating enrage, or you guys can't otherwise beat add phase, go wild with 3D > Bane on 4 mob spawns, Painflare, Enkindle on tornado for spawns, the works. In add phase SCH will do more per his GCD, IE Broil or his personal DoTs due to Cleric Stance's 10% bonus and raw Broil potency, so you should be the one to Heavy mobs if he is actively DPSing.

The fight is essentially a mechanics check but it's also the tightest DPS check of an enrage of any raid released thus far sans A4S, so don't think it's just about getting through the fight in one piece. For DWT, you get 3 pre-add phase, one of them being on the Pain DPS check itself. Add phase, you shouldn't go into it except for a Deathflare to use, but if you are going HAM for the big numbers on a parser or because your groups needs it, you can get another one. Final phase I find DWT after magnets lines up with all phases afterwards, including having a DWT for Hand-that-captures-healer which means you can Bane 10% stronger DoTs and Deathflare it if you time it properly so the hand spawns with a couple seconds left on DWT. Except for hand the fight at that point is basically dummy plus movement and of course magnets, which don't change much at all for SMN unlike other classes.

Other tips:

- You can Virus every Cascade with SMN + SCH. Timing is right as Pepsiman spawns, right after Digititis cast bar is gone, shortly after 6 stomps, shortly after second orb spawns in orb phase. Loop.
- Make sure you E4E or someone E4Es at the start of every final phase piece. I find E4E on the first loop, with Protean + Sluice, is one of the most valuable times if your group's still learning it, you may be able to survive a double hit of Protean with enough debuffs on the boss.
- Can M2 the Hand-that-captures-healer for the Heavy if you're LB3ing it. Otherwise you either want to omit the M2 in favor of a raw 24s Miasma, or just make sure Miasma goes up in 12s (but it will be weakened and only give you 12s at that point). I recommend Miasma if you're playing it safe.

Best tip I can give is to recruit a bard into your group, then sit down with your bard and plan out exactly when you need him to use foe's requiem / battle voice for you. gotta be able to say "give me foe's," "cut foe's," "cut that mana song!" "foe's + battle voice now!!" and have that perfect synergy

hint: adds phase is more sustained dps for smn but if ur group's dps is actually not that good for last phase, save the cds and don't aoe for pain check.

also pls no bard drama here :c

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Originally Posted by Minorinz

also pls no bard drama here :c

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Buff bards?

oh god it's contagious.