Smnr and PvP

So, I am trying to figure out how to play Summoner in pvp. What does your cast bar look like for it etc?

Think of how you did when fates were up and stuff was dying super fast, you cut 1 dot and try to energy drain the person. Since we have the least about of health and MP, we must be quick and light on out feet, Anything that can boost spell speed is need, alone with the ability to avoid focus fire.

Simply rotation: Swiftcast- Bio II, Bio I, Fester, Energy Drain x2. repeat

Healer Swiftcast-Bio II, Virus, Miasma II. (Keep them from healing)

Pet put Ifirt on the BLM or Caster.

Speed is the keep, long first do use no good

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Originally Posted by RegentP

Think of how you did when fates were up and stuff was dying super fast, you cut 1 dot and try to energy drain the person. Since we have the least about of health and MP, we must be quick and light on out feet, Anything that can boost spell speed is need, alone with the ability to avoid focus fire.

Simply rotation: Swiftcast- Bio II, Bio I, Fester, Energy Drain x2. repeat

Healer Swiftcast-Bio II, Virus, Miasma II. (Keep them from healing)

Pet put Ifirt on the BLM or Caster.

Speed is the keep, long first do use no good

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I wouldn't recommend a lot of that advice.

#1-- Use garuda, not ifrit. Ifrit will never catch up enough to hit someone as they kite around the arena. If someone stuns an enemy so he can, then that enemy is probably dead anyway while your teammate is stunlocking him.

#2-- Swiftcast miasma first to give people the heavy & 50% cure debuff.

#3-- Unlike pve I've noticed that it's usually better to simply put a swiftcasted miasma (if possible) + bio on a guy and fester, since it's difficult to get all 3 dots on a capable player. You actually do good damage even with just 2/3 of the main dots, and when you go fester --> energy drain --> ruin II (as garuda pounds away at him) it can kill a person outright.

#4-- Use shockwave to get a stunlocking melee class (usually pld) off your healer, followed by miasma to heavy them. It's all we can really do to help our healer in that situation. Maybe throw in a ruin II to blind them and hope that RNG causes them to miss.

Some general things I've found useful is abusing the LoS objects and movement to constantly interrupt people that are after you. Fighting a BLM is easy-mode because you can simply run through their character, back and forth, and they will never finish a cast on you (unless they swiftcast it). You don't even have to interrupt them.

* Get purify as your first PVP skill.

Awesome thank you, i'll have to lvl my blackmage to get swiftcast though, but I will definitly set my bar for pvp with those skills first. Should make it easier.

I've found Ifrit to be significantly better than Garuda, mainly because of LoS. You're going to put Ifrit on classes who have to stand still to cast, namely BLMs, SCH or WHM. Garuda can be easily LoS'd by these classes for long enough to get a cast off. And since you aren't microing Garuda the whole time via Place, you pretty much get boned by the AI. Ifrit will chase people down, and is not LoS'able, and if they want to stop to cast, they're going to get hit. If they want to kite Ifrit around the arena the whole team.. GREAT! That just made the fight a 4v3.

Swiftcast->Miasma is definitely superior to anything else. But, with Sprint and Miasma 2, it is generally not even very important. It is pretty easy to run around throwing Miasma 2 on every, but Miasma will last a good deal longer. I find it generally is a good thing to throw on the person you have the pet chasing, especially a healer. It both makes them get hit more, and makes them unable to recover as easily. Swiftcast->Misama and Sic Ifrit on a WHM, and you can pretty much count them out of the fight until at least 1-2 other peopel are dead.

Ruin 2 definitely causes people to miss. Throwing one out on BRDs that are screwing with your healer is a fast and easy way to get some heal spells out more reliably.

I didn't find myself using Fester much at all.. mainly because I wanted to heal myself fairly often (being an SMN, I got targeted by multiple people fairly often) and most of the time it was only ever for 200 potency, so I might as well be doing Energy Drain. The times I did use it were mainly when I needed to burst out a quick 200 potency in combination with ED, or I actually had time to stop and hardcast Bio.

Virus is good to toss out on healers and hard hitters. I'd usually throw it on the class I didn't have Miasma+Ifrit on. And Eye for an Eye is good on anyone who gets focused.

I didn't find myself ever using Blizzard 2, like people were suggesting would be huge in PvP. Nobody stood near me for 2 whole seconds unless they were a melee trying to kill me, and that is precisely the situation where B2 would suck.

Don't swiftcast stuff like bio 2 and miasma or even tri disaster (most of the time). If your healer goes down and your swiftcast is on cd you'll forever hate yourself.

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Originally Posted by Seobit

Don't swiftcast stuff like bio 2 and miasma or even tri disaster (most of the time). If your healer goes down and your swiftcast is on cd you'll forever hate yourself.

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Any team that is focusing your healer first instead of your DPS, is going to lose anyways. And if your healer is an SCH, it won't matter. And them reviving at 20% health with almost no mana, unless they are a SCH, are pretty much screwed anyways.

I'll take a guaranteed WHM or BLM kill via Swiftcast -> Miasma -> Sic anyday.

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Originally Posted by T0rin

I've found Ifrit to be significantly better than Garuda, mainly because of LoS. You're going to put Ifrit on classes who have to stand still to cast, namely BLMs, SCH or WHM. Garuda can be easily LoS'd by these classes for long enough to get a cast off. And since you aren't microing Garuda the whole time via Place, you pretty much get boned by the AI. Ifrit will chase people down, and is not LoS'able, and if they want to stop to cast, they're going to get hit. If they want to kite Ifrit around the arena the whole team.. GREAT! That just made the fight a 4v3.

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I'll try out ifrit some more with that miasma-heavy combo. That's actually a good idea for other casters to keep them interrupted or constantly moving. I don't like the sound of putting him on Sic though, because his stun could be pretty useful to seal the deal with a healer or something.

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Originally Posted by xxalucard

I'll try out ifrit some more with that miasma-heavy combo. That's actually a good idea for other casters to keep them interrupted or constantly moving. I don't like the sound of putting him on Sic though, because his stun could be pretty useful to seal the deal with a healer or something.

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In theory, you are right. In practice, you will be running around and probably won't even see Ifrit fighting. The thing about Swiftcast -> Miasma -> Sic is that you can kick it off and forget about it. Between the occasional autoattack and the ability spam, they won't be casting anything. Run around and focus on other stuff, like putting Miasma 2 on everyone and Blinding the other DPS. The stun is by no means necessary, Ifrit kicking it out whenever is just icing on the cake.

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Originally Posted by T0rin

In theory, you are right. In practice, you will be running around and probably won't even see Ifrit fighting. The thing about Swiftcast -> Miasma -> Sic is that you can kick it off and forget about it. Between the occasional autoattack and the ability spam, they won't be casting anything. Run around and focus on other stuff, like putting Miasma 2 on everyone and Blinding the other DPS. The stun is by no means necessary, Ifrit kicking it out whenever is just icing on the cake.

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Yeah I can already see how it's more efficient just to put him on auto pilot. It seems to be better to have him chase after a healer/blm even if you aren't focusing them simply because of the constant interrupts. Ifrit's actually a good distraction for whoever you target, and then if they decide to kill him you can swiftcast-summon him right back up again.

Rethinking my strategy I think swiftcast should be saved for re-summoning and ressing only, and just surecast the other spells if you want to make sure they go off. Ressing usually isn't too helpful when you're playing against a competent team (they'll just camp the body until he gets up and have the 4v3 advantage), but the swift-summoning can really frustrate people-- almost reminds me of dark souls.

I still need help with some match-ups though. For example, I have no idea what I should do when a good monk focuses me-- it feels like they can stun/silence/dps the hell out of me while dancing through my character model so I can't get any non-instant casts off on him. I'll Miasma II and he'll respond with a shoulder tackle; if I don't run far enough for the tackle he'll beat the hell out of me from the front. That new "every 30 seconds shoulder tackle" buff is really difficult to deal with, since it's like the monk has infinite gap closers and can constantly dps and interrupt me without fear.

One thing I have to say about pvp is they actually gave us reasons to use the spells/summon that we complained were useless.

My response to monks has been a mix of Ruin II, Miasma II and Sprint. I also pretty much play with the right mouse button held down, specifically for quick positioning of the camera to get off a Ruin II or Bio. And if you do get Sprint and Miasma II in, you can strafe away and toss the Ruin II/Bio/ED/whatever as you put on a little distance. Don't underestimate the benefit of Blind.

On the swiftcast/summon issue, I've never had Ifrit killed.

Hmm i usually to Surecast -> Bio2 -> Swiftcast -> Miasma -> Bio -> Fester -> Bane (when they are together) -> Sprint -> Miasma2 -> Fester on old target -> Ragin Strikes -> Equanimity (PvP Skill) -> Cast Dots again and Fester + Bane.
I use Ilfrit Egi and set it on Healer mostly
And ofc i use ruin2 always :o

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Originally Posted by T0rin

Any team that is focusing your healer first instead of your DPS, is going to lose anyways. And if your healer is an SCH, it won't matter. And them reviving at 20% health with almost no mana, unless they are a SCH, are pretty much screwed anyways.

I'll take a guaranteed WHM or BLM kill via Swiftcast -> Miasma -> Sic anyday.

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It's not so black and white. They can focus your dps and then do a switch to your healer. They can kill your healer while you managed to kill theirs, and then being able to get your healer back up even at low mana can still secure your team's victory. They can kill your other dps and it's better for you to instant rez them so that your healer can save their own swiftcast. Instant rez is one of SMN's biggest strength along with disease and giving it up only so you can get a spell off that you can already get off with relative ease with good positioning doesn't strike me as a good idea.

Zoinks, Black Mages and Monks hit like trucks. Has anybody seen if the Crafted PVP gear helps out any? The market boards for some of the materials are kinda crazy right now...

I'm still trying to figure out how SE thought it was 'balanced' that any form of melee (auto attack or abilities) interrupts any of a Summoner's casts. The best I've managed to do is throw Bio 1 on everyone, cast Ruin 2, spam Miasma 2 and Energy Drain before I'm invariably picked out as the 'softest' target and dogpiled by the entire team.

Any advice? How are you supposed to ensure casting? Surecast doesn't even allow you to finish a single cast either.

I have that same issue, where surecast gets interrupted constantly too. I'll give ifrit a go and see how it works on if I stick him on the healer together with Ruin II and Miasma II. I learned about the crafted pvp gear today and going to have to see what it costs on the market, but appearently you can get materia on the market that have pvp resistance stats too, like sleep. so that is going to be interesting.