Summoner and DoTs

[shinros]

I play a Demonology Warlock in WoW.... and Summoners are nothing like Demo Locks.

With that said Summoners make me pretty sad panda. They game play is incredibly stale. I find it difficult to see how anyone would argue how its NOT stale.

With the combo system they have, the black mages feast and famine mana system. The Summoner appears to have been rushed and fallen on its face as it went out the door.

I played a demo warlock as well in WoW I was hoping they were going to be more based off demo but nope square picked affliction I hate affliction warlock. I have a class that summons demons as pets. I went straight for the spec that improves them and gives them skills and you support them in damage. Plus I found affliction boring imo.

[MidnightS]

Personally, I kinda wish they'd change all post-30 traits to be unique to the equipped Job. Having to share traits with Scholar means we don't get anything like Thundercloud or Firestarter to mix our combat up.

[Tanabe]

i agree with op.

[Reslon]

I don't see it mentioned anywhere else, but another reason to never forget your Bane is if your group is mass-sleeping mobs, Bane will spread the dots without waking the mobs up. Same with Tri-diaster, you can spread the dots to binded mobs without removing the bind.

Also, having done AK with every other DPS class now, and failing the Demon Wall only once with a healer who hadn't done it before getting blasted off the side at the first repel, SMN is fully capable of rocking that fight. Especially with Ifrit-egi when he gets stuck behind the wall and just keeps wailing on it :3

[Djokhan]

Hey mates

So forgive me if this has already been posted/responded to by Square, but is anyone else a little underwhelmed at how unimpressive the 'egi' summons are? I understand that people don't hulking monstrosities all over the place, but the reality of it is, I feel as though I am running into battle with little more than a 'fighting pet'.

Again, major apologies guys if this has has been posted or discussed already. If so, I would love a link to what was said.

Cheers mates

[MartaDemireux]

I definitely think our DoT's should either renew a cooldown or grant some sort of buff to us/pet. Doesn't have to be anything powerful, just something. BLM gets Thundercloud to make their use of the spell more worth it/interesting and BRD has bloodletter cooldown reset when venom/windbites crit. We don't have anything to ours outside of maintaining them to Fester with or to Bane them to other targets. Yes those are both great abilities but if one of our DoT crits they should at least add a temporary minor determination buff to the pet or something.

[Kasandaro]

Personally, I kinda wish they'd change all post-30 traits to be unique to the equipped Job. Having to share traits with Scholar (length)

As both a summoner and a scholar (and someone fond of honking big axes who's not great yet at tanking), I endorse this heartily. Considering how much of a benefit there is post-30 to have _any_ soul crystal equipped (serious - check the stat bonuses; 5 extra actions does not make up for it), I don't understand why there's any class action or trait post-30 instead of putting them all under the job.

We've already got one ability that hooks off a pet action - specifically, Spell Speed Up off pet crits. (Have I ever said how much the RNG loathes me?) Following that, they could hook in all sorts of things to work back and forth: a bio dot crit causes the pet's next hit to crit (hit a rotten spot), while a miasma crit causes the next mob hit on the egi to be reduced. Maybe a pet dodge/evade causes the next Ruin to crit. And I'm not even thinking about all the positioning fun we could set up: "here, look at the nice shiny guy with the horn on his head, and ignore Ifrit ripping your back off."

[XenabelleS]

I don't really agree. There are over 10 things to keep track of as is without even doing manual pet control : ie

1) Is raging strikes up? If yes, use it.
2, 3, 4) Are you three dots up? If not refresh then.
5) Is Aetherflow up? If so are there adds? If so, Bane. If no adds, Fester. If no Aetherflow, Aetherflow.
6, 7, 8) Pet abilities (Spur, Rouse Enkindle).
9) Has your pet taken damage, sustain.
10) Thunder?

On top of that, dodge AOEs.... Shadowflare... Emergency Res/Heals.

There is A LOT to keep track of as smn. We use a lot of abilities. It is by no stretch boring or stale.

[Karnage720]

snip

I agree, last night was my first real test at micro managing everything. It was during the dungeon with the doom boss, forget its name. Had to make sure all dots were up, killed bees when they popped, removed doom when it was on me. Etc etc. On top of that, had to deal with horrible lag and the horrible targeting mechanics on ps3, I wish I didn't have so much to keep up with.

[pandabearcat]

I sort of agree with what you're saying, but really with practice it boils down to three things.

1. Do I have aetherflow, do I not need to save it? If so, then fester.
2. Keep up dots.
3. Use rouse/spur.

As MMO veterans know, the key to successful consumption and processing of the information the game throws at you is keeping a good "area of focus". Your eyes shouldn't have to move much at all. The area underneath your feet is generally the most important area to focus on, as well as your target's facing.

Idealy, your HUD is setup that your bars, target and self, and cooldown watching, are all very close to each other, near your feet where you should be watching.

Staring at this, its really "1" step to check all these things.

If dots are down, refresh them. My buff bars are right under my debuff target bars, so I can easily glance and check if shadowflare is up. If its not, and the boss won't move, drop that down as well.

Similarly, I have contagion, rouse (you DON'T need spur or enkindle here, as you can just count rouses, spur every 2nd rouse, enkindle every 5th unless you know you ahve to save it) on a hotbar right below my buffs.

Watching your pet position is important, but mostly once you learn a fight it becomes trivial.

I suppose being used to playing WoW locks, this is essentially an afflict lock with no procs, which is monotonous.