Summoner tips?

[Kevee]

A good rule of thumb is never cast Bio by itself, it should always followed by a casted spell

There's no reason to ever think/do this.

Always start Bio II -> Miasma -> Bio.

Always.

Period.

There is no reason to delay Bio, and subsequently Fester/Bane and the next Aetherflow.



What do you think you're gaining by doing Thunder->Bio and not Bio->Thunder? You're still applying 1 DoT/GCD and they're the same total potency, but doing Bio first allows you to use other abilities sooner.

I don't want to activate Aetherflow in advance because you are full MP at the start? I use it as a mana restore, and Energy drain to keep my mana in check. Why would I want to activate it when my Mp is full and it does not boost my dams at all?

You activate Aetherflow in advance so you have 3 stacks at the beginning of the fight.

[NekoTheCat]

As a Bard that decided to roll summoner as an off-class for our coil group that's up to turn 5, I've been gearing it up, Going from what Kevee has been saying for a Rotation I can already see how what he/she says is optimal for GCD min-maxing, Did Ifrit with Full Demagogue with HQ level 49 Jewelry and a Grand Company level 50 Summoning book, against a Semi-Darklight summoner with a Normal relic, I set him to focus target to see how he would play, he opens with Thunder before bio wasting GCD's and being inconsistent with his Rotations by refreshing too early, I managed to out DPS him by a full 100k, and even replaying the fight back to watch EVERY cast he did in order, All in all I find it a serious DPS loss to waste GCD opportunities.

TLDR, Ask yourself, if someone is claiming their Rotation is superior, give it a try instead of being stubborn

Edit: I've played Summoner at level 50 for less then 5hours practicing Kevee's Rotation as he/she is a well known Summoner.

[Kevee]

Going from what Kevee has been saying for a Rotation I can already see how what he/she says is optimal for GCD min-maxing,

And like I said in the post, that's the general safe way to get all your timers working.

If you want to min/max further you can move around the ruin/ruin II during RS if you know you have time to cast everything, you can use one of the pet CDs earlier(during the first Bio), etc. That's something I need to work on doing, but generally in a fight like Titan or Turn 2 of Coil, I'm fine with executing the general rotation. That's my current issue is that I have put that general starting rotation into my "muscle memory," even though I know in some circumstances I can move the abilities around to get 1-2 extra DoT ticks.

I accept there are improvements to be made. In some instances, it's also better to Swiftcast Shadowflare as it shaves ~.5s off total time. There's little things you can do to improve.

Edit: And something to note if you're pushing timers. Bio/Bio II have animation lag. Roughly .5-1s after the cast/finished cast. Miasma is near-instant after the cast, and Thunder has travel time, but is near-instant to the projectile hitting. There is a delay between when a debuff completely drops off, and when you can re-apply it. It seems to be a ~.5s window of sorts. If miasma is dropping off(say, from RS), you want to start casting in between the 1-2s timer of DoT left on the mob. Bio II you can start casting end of ~2s on timer. Remember, when it says 2 is left on the timer, that is anywhere from 2.99~s to 2s left.

[Spythe]

There's no reason to ever think/do this.

Always start Bio II -> Miasma -> Bio.

Always.

Period.

There is no reason to delay Bio, and subsequently Fester/Bane and the next Aetherflow.

Because doing Thunder to a Bio makes the timer line up perfectly instead of having Bio ending before Thunder. You can do Bio after Miasma then a Thunder to a Fester but at that point its only a 2-3s difference in getting the fester off quicker. I just like the Thunder being linked to Bio which may be a personally preference but it just makes the job play smoother imo. Whenever I have to recast Bio Thunder always comes first, it just easier for me to keep track of dots that way, the other way I found I was forgetting to cast Thunder sometimes which is a must. You can get off to Fester before you have to reply apply Miasma/Bio again, I also manually control my Garuda so pushing the dots 15s is never an issue.

[Kevee]

snip

Well if it's a personal issue/preference, that's fine.

You even acknowledge the time difference.

Have my LIKE.

[Spythe]

Well if it's a personal issue/preference, that's fine.

You even acknowledge the time difference.

Have my LIKE.

Thanks for the like and I only been playing a SMN at 50 for a day so still getting use to it may change up the rotation later down the line. What do you suggest for adds that don't have much life? Full row of dots to a fester or half dots to ruin spam?

[Kevee]

snip

Can you give an example of low-HP adds?

Only thing I can think of is Garuda, and for that(if you even kill the feathers), you should have a higher timer so you can Bane right as they spawn.

Maybe the first boss in AK? Bane the DoTs on the Golems if you can, if you can't Thunder-> Miasma -> Ruin Spam. Make sure to use OBEY so your pet helps.

Demon Wall? Should be able to Bane on to the Gnats. If not(and if you have a melee LBing one of them since you don't have enough DPS to ignore them), Obey your pet on to the one that is being LB'd on, start putting your full DoTs on the other.

For last boss of AK I always tell whoever else is in the party to ignore the add, as it's best for SMN to take care of it(full rotation of DoTs), as we will still have DoTs rolling on the boss anyways.

[Spythe]

Can you give an example of low-HP adds?

Guess the only fight I can think of would be in Praetorium speed runs, 2 bosses have small adds with barely any HP so its not worth putting up a full set of dots but you still want to do dmg to them. Coil up to turn 2, the only thing I can think about is the oozes which are extremely risky to dot in the first place and probably not the best idea to have a SMN do them. I guess its really not a big deal til they add more content or move from Praetorium bosses to HMs.

Think I'm just link Thunder to Miasma II for trash and when I have Contagion up.

Ah got 1, the stone jail on Titan.