Mini guide on aoe/stack management for SMN's in dungeons.
Ater hearing numerous, unending amounts of complaints from fellow SMN's everywhere I look, about how dreadwyrm stacks keep falling off because the tank is too slow and what not, I decided to make this thread, you could call it a mini-guide of some sort I suppose. :3 Hopefully this will make your dungeon runs as SMN a lot smoother! Keep in mind that I will only talk about Aetherflow stack management and aoe rotations, I will not cover anything single target related, since there's more than enough guides on that part out there. :3
Before I begin, SMN is not my main, I've been a BLM main since the first day I play and also raid only on BLM. I've only been playing SMN since 1 month after 3.0, it is now my secondary alt and I exclusively play it in dungeons.
Either way, the short version of it is:
Just don't use more than 3 stacks per pull! It's that easy, I know it's very tempting to do a pain flare to finish a group of low-health mobs off, but it's really not worth it. If the tank isn't as fast as you want him to be, you risk losing a full dreadwyrm stance on the next pull/boss. On top of that, it's NOT a dps gain in the end, even if you still manage pull the dreadwyrm trance off in time. Basically you want to do 2 painflares and 1 bane for every pull, this is more than enough to finish 99 % of pulls before your dots have ran out. (There is sometimes the exception where your other dps may be slacking on top of your healer not dpsing, in this rare case, you can do another rotation of 2 painflares + a bane, totalling up to 6 stacks.)
The long version is this:
What I have found to be most optimal for speedrunning with premades or pugs is this, I usually pull 4K-5K dps with this when I'm running with full premade groups:
- As soon as mobs are grouped together -> Quelling + Raging -> painflare (you want to have Painflare on CD asap)
- Tri-disaster on a mob that is in the middle-ish
- Swiftcast (this give some time for the dots to actually be there when you do contagion)
- Contagion (I usually spam this cause my garuda seems to like not listening to me at times.)
- Shadowflare (with swiftcast)
- Bane
- Miasma 2
- Rouse + Spur
- 1x Blizzard 2 while waiting for painflare CD
- Aerial Slash during previous Blizzard 2 cast
- Enkindle
- Painflare
- Aetherflow (should be up now if you're preparing Aetherflow stacks correctly (see tip #1 below)
- Dreadwyrm Trance
- Blizzard 2 spam untill 2 seconds left on raging strikes (depends on how fast your Garuda decided to use contagion.)
- Refresh Miasma 2
- Deathflare during the GCD of previous Miasma 2
- Spam more Blizzard 2 to finish off low healths
If you're getting comfortable with the rotation you can optionally keep up Ruin 2 GCD's for optimisation and OGCD weaving purposes, but this isnt going to make a difference in a pull with 10+ monsters.
Some tips and key points to keep in mind:
1) Make sure that as soon as you know you're going to queue as smn, you use Aetherflow, this results in Aetherflow being up by the time you're fighting. This will allow you to always prepare the next 3 stacks for the next pull, during the previous pull.
2) After you did your 2 pain flares and bane, refresh Aetherflow A.S.A.P. (this will most likely be in the middle of the pull) but refrain from using any stacks!
3) At the end of a pull, don't use a 4th stack for a painflare to finish the low health mobs off, I know this is very tempting, but more often than not this results in you losing your dreadwyrm trance for the next pull, which is a huge overall dps loss.
(Exceptions are when you know there's a bossfight coming up after the pull, and you know 100% sure that you're going to make it in time, THEN it's an overall dps gain, but only do this when you know the tank isn't going to wait before pulling the boss, aka do this with premade tanks, and ONLY on the last aoe pull before a boss)
4) Unless it's the final boss, make sure that you judge the CD on Aetherflow correctly when the end of the bossfight is nearing. You want to have 3 stacks ready for the upcoming pull and preferably have Aetherflow's CD already ticking down, so you can prepare the stacks for the 2nd next pull, during the next pull. (see tip 1)
5) General (obvious) tip: Don't use Enkindle on a bossfight (unless it's the final boss), it's a pure waste, save this for an upcoming aoe pull.
6) When Tri-Disaster, Shadowflare and Miasma 2 are ticking on all enemies, Blizzard 2 is your best AoE filler skill for 2 or more monsters. With exception being when you're in Dreadwyrm trance, then it's better to use Ruin3 on 2 monsters, and Blizzard 2 on 3 or more monsters.
That's it! Hopefully this will prevent a lot of dreadwyrm trance losses! Have fun Death Flaring every pull ever, without having to worry about stack timers in between pulls! ;D