Part-Time SMN in T4

So last week I posted in the General Discussion about having only one caster in our new static for turn 4:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...urn-4-Question

Now, needless to say the answers were helpful and we are able to get to P6 like this, but still have trouble finishing the turn.

But then it hit me, being a SCH main, I obviously have access to SMN..

"oh god he is going to ask that question isn't he"

How important are the 30 allocated points when taking t4 into consideration, ie, can i get away with crafted gear and food?

Because i thought maybe, one of out physical could go healer as they have a WHM and then I could switch to SMN to help with Soldiers. (with the current SMN changing to BLM)

Would this be possible with 30MND (as it will only be for one instance) or will the 30 points put me out of grasp of T4

Thanks

You'd prolly be better off with everybody running their mains, and changing strategy. We needed every bit of our deeps. Depends on how well your alts are geared, I guess.

If you can't allocate 30 points to Int, don't bother playing SMN.

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Originally Posted by T0rin

If you can't allocate 30 points to Int, don't bother playing SMN.

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Okay this wasnt the question..

I wasn't asking can i play SCH and SMN.. i always tell people to choose one..

I am asking what are the limits in T4 and would a SMN with 30MND be able to be boosted to that so i can help a group..

Well... when I first cleared t4 I was in mostly DL gear (with the non upgraded relic and hero necklace and hero ring)... my summoner buddy had ~the same gear and the other dps aswell. If you have a better gear than I had when I first killed it... I guess you could clear it without the 30 int.

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Originally Posted by DenzelTaru

Okay this wasnt the question..

I wasn't asking can i play SCH and SMN.. i always tell people to choose one..

I am asking what are the limits in T4 and would a SMN with 30MND be able to be boosted to that so i can help a group..

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30 points of int would put you our of grasp of T4 (unless your group carried you) unless you had very good gear (i85+) on. So in short: If you can't allocate 30 points to Int, don't bother playing SMN.

What part of phase 6 are you not able to get past?

We run BLM, BRD, DRG, MNK.

Brd kites rook. DRG, MNK, BLM focus full-hp soldier (melee LB, dies VERY quickly), then we kill the weaker soldier, BLM switches to help BRD with rook while melee down last 2 robuts, burn dread, profit.

Think about it for a second. The difference between a SMN in full i70 and full i90 is about 60 INT. If you want to be on par with a full DL SMN, you're going to need the equivalent of i80 gear just to remain viable. Most people expect more than that.

If you're getting to P6, having a second caster will not help you kill the rook/dreadnaught any faster or absorb the incoming damage any better. Just refine your strategy and stick with it.

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Originally Posted by T0rin

30 points of int would put you our of grasp of T4 (unless your group carried you) unless you had very good gear (i85+) on. So in short: If you can't allocate 30 points to Int, don't bother playing SMN.

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SMN shines brightly on T4 with its "cleave" style DPS for AOE waves and its ability to pull DOTs on multiple mobs at 75% DPS for mobs that aren't stacked together. Considering SMN is #1 DPS for 1-4 (including not stacked) mobs and #2 for 4+ mobs SMN has a lot of room for stat error (which scales very low). As long as he plays the job perfectly he can have -60 INT (estimating around 20% DPS loss) and wipe the floor on T4.

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Originally Posted by Soulburn32

What part of phase 6 are you not able to get past?

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we tried p5 where DPS kill the S/K then move to the DN.. but with the slow DPS on the Soldier we had a situation that there would be 2 soldiers and a knight on the OT and 2 DNs on the MT.. and bugs of course on the OT or munching on healers..

so we swapped and blew everything onto the DN then moved to the S/K's but the soldiers in these two phases just seem too much for our caster (not forgetting this is a new group i am training) they are 5 new coilers.. and after a week are already 1 shotting turn 1 and 2 shotting turn 2 (without the silly click thing) so i think their dps is fine.

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Originally Posted by OmegaNovaios

SMN shines brightly on T4 with its "cleave" style DPS for AOE waves and its ability to pull DOTs on multiple mobs at 75% DPS for mobs that aren't stacked together. Considering SMN is #1 DPS for 1-4 (including not stacked) mobs and #2 for 4+ mobs SMN has a lot of room for stat error (which scales very low). As long as he plays the job perfectly he can have -60 INT (estimating around 20% DPS loss) and wipe the floor on T4.

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thanks for this.. i just wanted to know it was possible.. i hear about accuracy caps and stuff etc and being under a certain level means youll miss i wanted to know if the int made a difference.. all our caster needs is a little extra support on the soldiers

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Originally Posted by DenzelTaru

we tried p5 where DPS kill the S/K then move to the DN.. but with the slow DPS on the Soldier we had a situation that there would be 2 soldiers and a knight on the OT and 2 DNs on the MT.. and bugs of course on the OT or munching on healers..

so we swapped and blew everything onto the DN then moved to the S/K's but the soldiers in these two phases just seem too much for our caster (not forgetting this is a new group i am training) they are 5 new coilers.. and after a week are already 1 shotting turn 1 and 2 shotting turn 2 (without the silly click thing) so i think their dps is fine.



thanks for this.. i just wanted to know it was possible.. i hear about accuracy caps and stuff etc and being under a certain level means youll miss i wanted to know if the int made a difference.. all our caster needs is a little extra support on the soldiers

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We reularly one-shot T4 with only 1 Caster (DPS-Setup is: DRG, MNK, BRD and BLM) using the following strat in p5 and p6:

- instantly feed any bugs remaining from p4 to the dread that spawns in p5
- MT picks up dread and all of your DPS focus on the dread
- OT picks up Soldier and Knight, most of his DPS goes to knight, so he already whacks off some of its HP. If inc dmg is too high on the OT, just let him do the fancy kiting thing
- after dread is dead try to get some DPS on the knight for the remainder of the phase (well, caster is on Soldier for obvious reasons); just make sure that melee is in place where the rook spawns just before the transition to p6
- when p6 begins, your MT picks up the new dread (remember, the dread from p5 is already dead); all bugs are fed to this dread and then he does the kiting to reduce inc dmg
- OT picks up knight, so he's got one soldier and two knights on him and pops hallowed ground
- our BRD instantly picks up the soldier that spawns in p6 and kites it around while DPSing it at the same time; this way the OT doesn't have 4 mobs ob him
- rest of the DPS kills Rook as soon as it spawns, using Melee LB to finish it off earlier
- when rook is dead, physical DPS (except for the kiting BRD) switches to the knight from p5 (as this knight is lower on HP and will die faster), caster switches to the soldier from p5
- when hallowed ground on the OT wears off, the MT uses hallowed ground, so both healers can focus heal the OT for 10 seconds
- after first knight is dead, physical moves on to second knight, then onto OT's soldier (if still alive)
- when only one mob is left on the OT, he provokes the bard's soldier, which is finished after all of the OT's mobs are down
- stack up behind the dread and kill it

Did all of coil and then did full primal sale run (3 dps, buyer suicided) today before I remembered I was on 30 MND from playing my scholar the day before. So, if you're full i90 with allagan weapon, not that big of a deal I guess. Full darklight/crafted would probably be a bit harsh though.

We cleared T4 with DRG DRG BRD SMN last week before Enrage.

I wasn't paying complete attention to our SMN (focusing on my own stuff) but I know he DoTs up everything (except Knights) and then focuses one target, but keeps DoTs up always.

Our Phase 6 kill order is: OT grabs Knight/Soldier, I tank Rook as the other DRG LBs it, then we focus and finish it quick, Phase 5 Dread dies, then Knight/Soldier, then Phase 6 Dread (I'm pretty sure we fed the Bugs to that Dread, but not 100% on that...they weren't alive at this point at the very least). By the time we switched to Knight/Soldier, the Soldier was almost dead (like I said before, SMN had DoTed everything and was keeping DoTs up) and the Knight fell quick to the three DPS and OT. Phase 6 Dread fell before Enrage.

EDIT: I can't give exact ilvs for the DPS, but the BRD is between i70 and i75, SMN is over i80, other DRG is between i85 and i89, and I'm i90.

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Originally Posted by DenzelTaru

"oh god he is going to ask that question isn't he"

How important are the 30 allocated points when taking t4 into consideration, ie, can i get away with crafted gear and food?

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To throw a few numbers at you:

A SMN putting 30 points in INT grants roughly an additional 4.7% damage once you're in endgame i90 gear.
This is essentially the same buff that you'd get from swapping from the i90 Omnitome to the i95 Allagan Book.

For comparison, a SCH putting 30 points in MND grants roughly an additional 5.5% in Raw Healing.

On inital glance it looks like stat point allocation favours the SCH, but there's a flip side to that...

A SCH in i90 gear can still cast a Physick for a little over 1k HP without any stat points allocated to MND at all (1009 at +0 MND versus 1064HP at +30 MND). This figure ignores the same SCH's >20% chance to crit; the fairy's healing buffs; and the fact that a lot of endgame SCH spike healing comes from Lustrate (which is a flat % healed unaffected by MND) and the fairy heals (which only slightly rely on MND!) so it really depends on how much healing power you think you're likely to need.

Frankly as a Tank main, if I'm running with someone who can hit me with a standard Cure or Physick for anything over 900 I'm usually more than happy on T4, and on T5 it's more down to damage prevention anyway (Stoneskin, Virus, Eye for an Eye, Sacred Soil... all of which are a flat rate, and Adloquium which relies a lot on Crit).

There is one other thing to consider though: On easier content, if a SCH has additional MND then they will be able to contribute to DPS a little bit more in cleric stance, but on harder content they likely won't have the accuracy or spare GCDs needed to be able to do that very regularly (though I probably should point out that my brother has a SCH main at present and was Cleric stancing in Titan EM the other night whenever I was tanking!!)

I've been trying to plan out the balancing act myself, since my ARC is getting to the point where I need to choose how to specialise. I'm leaning more towards a full INT spec.