Garuda might lose Contagion.

[RyuDragnier]

Dang whats all this hate towards Ifrit, he will do the most damage over Garruda any day against single bosses and extremes fight period. Garruda will not beat ifrit in that aspect. What i think is some people just don't want to have to worry about moving ifrit out of harms way if need be. And i have used stun tho very little for an enemy that the tank doesn't see or cant get to with a stun.

Now if you throw in raging strikes, Garruda will out class Ifrit dps by a good margin, but the cooldown is to long and Ifrit will come back out on top in dps for single bossfights.

I only and rarely decide to use Garruda when there is a large amount of adds stacked nicely together with raging strikes, contagion, bane. Boom lots of dps over time. But still the fights will end quicker if you use ifrits Enkindel with rouse and spur. Not mention its an aoe and you can litteraly see the life of your grouped up adds destroyed. And Garrudas enkindle is single target anyway? and its even weaker than ifrits. Garruda has its moments but i rather get better at controlling my pet replacing my dots and just having more to do in fights period.

Now in light of contagion, please give it to summoners. Its silly that we don't have that in our arsenals.

I hope everyone knows that you as the SMN can place all your dots use raging strikes use bane and boom same thing that Garruda does, while ifrit has a field day. Its like people don't want to be bothered with replenishing there dots or something.

I had someone literally screaming at me USE GARRUDA for ultimas bane... He and his lasers are the only target the entire fight,with ifrit you will kill him faster and you will kill the little lasers faster?? I had to tell him to take a hike cause he was zealous about it.

Best advice I've heard on it is Ifrit for trash mobs, Garuda for bosses. Simply because in most cases Garuda will not be in any major danger of being wiped by a boss (exceptions exist, such as Shiva EX), whereas Ifrit most certainly will be, which can lead to unnecessary summoning and MP usage. Plus Contagion seems to be better used for resetting the cooldowns so you don't have to waste MP again while in a boss fight (which is the ONLY TIME MP consumption should really come into play).

Ifrit's best kept on adds and trash mobs because of Radiant Shield for that damage reflection, Burning Strike (normal attack) for the cleave, Flaming Crush for that AoE around himself, and his Enkindle'd Inferno for that glorious AoE burst and debuff. His full potential is less likely to occur on bosses, due to the likely event that he will die (but there are exceptions). Trash mobs his death is less likely to happen, so he's going to do more damage in the long run against them.

[ZairaRavvu]

She's from a short animation called Me!Me!Me! by Teddyloid. I advise watching it by yourself before showing others.

ty for that sir, just finished watching, that was a pretty strong mind f*ck. awesome vid though.

[Bigcat9715]

ty for that sir, just finished watching, that was a pretty strong mind f*ck. awesome vid though.

Agreed an amazing video, but it leaves you saying what the hell I just watched.

[Suggestion]

Best advice I've heard on it is Ifrit for trash mobs, Garuda for bosses. Simply because in most cases Garuda will not be in any major danger of being wiped by a boss (exceptions exist, such as Shiva EX), whereas Ifrit most certainly will be, which can lead to unnecessary summoning and MP usage. Plus Contagion seems to be better used for resetting the cooldowns so you don't have to waste MP again while in a boss fight (which is the ONLY TIME MP consumption should really come into play).

Mp can't argue that for realz SMN needs at least a little push for help there, but i really haven't had trouble except when i get rezzed in a fight. Im a nub i die

wuuuuuuuuuuuuahhhh >.> .... everyone ignores my little comments Q.Q i did say you can learn to move your pet out of harms way its called place, and we have a pet heal people... I guess some just don't want that challenge >.<

Garruda has moments, but on boss fights shes an excuse to be lazy :P

Ya i said it! oh snap

[Malusion]

Well I remember the more extensive math on it being something along of the lines:
T6 = Ifrit, T7 = Garuda, T8 = Ifrit, T9 = Garuda.

Contagion is not as strong as a lot of people THINK it is, when you average out its bonus potency over time, Ifrit still puts out more than contagion in fights where he is not at risk of dying and stand still. I honestly don't know Final Coil and don't play summoner these days so I don't know which fight suits which pet there. As for moving Ifrit out of AoE with place, the DPS is close enough between the two that Ifrit needing to move out of aoes will push him lower DPS than Garuda. Ifrit is only top DPS if the boss stays put and he doesn't have to avoid anything.

Also if you use miasma 2 with contagion, which is how to max its potency, you actually spend more mana than you save by using contagion in the first place. Just a little tidbit for you on the mana conservation point.

More on topic I'm totally for buffing Garuda's own damage and making contagion a SMN CD though.

I can list common fallacies that make people overvalue contagion, but I don't want to get into a too long rant.

[coldreactive]

Ramuh-Egi will probably have chain lightning.

[Lemuria]

The thing is that Contagion is a direct DPS increase to SMN but comes with one specific pet.

The thing is, contagion isn't strictly a DPS increase on its own. It's an extension of the duration. That extension could just as easily come from a summoner recasting it, so the DPS increase is really based on what you're doing in the time saved by not casting. It's definitely better than the competition, and that's kind of sad, but I think people put it on a higher pedestal than it deserves.

i did say you can learn to move your pet out of harms way its called place, and we have a pet heal people... I guess some just don't want that challenge >.<

The time you waste constantly repositioning your summon is time not spent attacking the boss or dodging. It's not a simple case of "place boss here", since most of them move around the arena and force different tactics out of you. This is why Garuda excels. She can hit the target no matter how much it moves around. Ifrit has to waste time chasing after it, which can result in lost DPS.

And using the 'Place' command results in Ifrit NOT following bosses which move. He'll remain rooted for the duration of the fight, so again you'll have to send him back after the boss after each reposition.

The difference in potency isn't nearly large enough to consider using Ifrit over Garuda for any reason other than appearances sake.

[Sunako]

DPS increase is really based on what you're doing in the time saved by not casting.

It is not only that. If you apply your dots while using cooldowns, your whole dot duration is gonna be with the same power than once u apply those with cds. And second thing that matter, you save like 200 - 300 mana every minute and that is like worth of one energy drain which mean you can fester more = dps increase.

[Velox]

I still think Summons should carry passive traits that effect the whole party. This would create scenarios where certain egis are better than others. For example (and I strongly emphasize "example" as I'm just throwing out numbers without balance in mind).
Ifrit-egi grants +5% ATK to all party members within 10 yalms of the summon.
Garuda-egi grants +5% MATK to all party member within 10 yalms of the summon.
Titan-egi gratns +5% DEF to all party members within 10 yalms of the summon.

Now these are just numbers meant to illustrate a point and not to be taken literally, but what something like this is allow for optimal egis depending on the content and/or the party makeup. For example, if you're in a party with 2-3 melee DPS, the overall damage increase granted by having Ifrit-egi out would greatly outweigh the SMN losing Contagion. Likewise, a a caster-heavy party would benefit from Garuda-egi.

[alsims2007]

Contagion doesn't even make garuda better than ifrit. contagion only conserves mp so garuda is a better choice on long constant uptime bosses (T8, FCOB). contagion can also be used with raging strikes but raging's cooldown is too long to over come ifrit. Garuda also wins on T7 since she can sit in one location and ignore circle blade at melee and fireballs at range. Every other fight ifrit just does more damage than garuda and gives roughly 2.1(auto attack slightly faster than skill recast) times more chances to proc spell speed increase. Those percentage increases are huge and I think that's the reason our smn either matches or does more dps with ifrit . Basically ifrit's higher damage, smn higher damage but the trade-off is burning mp due to higher spell speed plus losing an mp conserving move in contagion.
Anyway my point is that there is a balance between garuda and ifrit. I think ifrit should be the go to summon and then ask 2 questions: mp need and type of aoe/heals