Summoners useless in 24mans?

[Krisan]

it's not a display error, it's actually a limit

and this isn't just summoner

tanks put up 2-3 debuffs, melees put up 3-4, bards another 2, blm 1, summoner 5-6

summoner's have it worst, but 30 debuff slots into 24 people means every class but black mage is performing sub-par

which means to have the best chance at killing things, you tell your dragoons and monks and summoner to come as black mage today, or sit out

Bio, Bio 2, Miasma, Miasma 2 (sometimes, it's radial and requires going in, also is one of our shorter debuffs so it's not always worth it), Virus doesn't do damage and doesn't last very long regardless so ignore that one.. so yeah, roughly 18 debuffs at any one time if there's 1 SMN per group. BLM and BRD should be able to stack their debuffs in the remainder - if there's three BLM that's about 21 debuffs, that leaves 9 for BRD's and misc - the other jobs aren't as vitally needing to stack debuffs (nor are they likely to pop them in the first few seconds, meaning they shouldn't interfere with the cap). This also assumes you have 3 SMN's at all, you might not, you might just bring two, or even just one. It's not that big a deal, it just requires people to actually pay attention and let the SMN's do their job first, rather than spam skills ASAP for the sake of spamming them. (SMN DoT stacks do tons of damage, there's no reason at all not to let them take priority after the tank initiates)

Also.. our DoT's refresh upon recasting em, as long as we keep them up, they shouldn't get pushed off the list. (Not to mention we can spread all our debuffs to every nearby target, we'll virtually always have our stuff up on SOMETHING)

[Vmage]

so yeah, roughly 18 debuffs at any one time if there's 1 SMN per group.

don't forget thunder

it may not affect fester, but it's a lot better dps than ruin, same goes for shadowflare which may or may not be taking up a debuff slot with slow (although this is probably the best debuff there is so it should absolutely have priority)

I don't attribute ruin II to summoners as the tank is probably (should be) flashing anyways

but yeah, if you wanted to count defensive debuffs that may or may not be important depending on the fight, we could look at virus taking 2 slots, eye for an eye proc taking another

[Yamimarik]

same goes for shadowflare which may or may not be taking up a debuff slot with slow (although this is probably the best debuff there is so it should absolutely have priority)

Shadowflare is actually showed up as a "buff" on the Summoner. Not as a debuff on the mob, so Shadowflare is safe from the cap.

EDIT: Ignore me I'm not all here today @.@ Yes the slow takes a slot up I'm sorry. ; ;

[Vmage]

edit: bah, beat me to it

yeah, summoner's have the best slow in the game (non-diminishing)