Can someone give me an in-depth explanation why Summoner is arguably the worst DPS?

[Judge_Xero]

Are you sure about that? To Converse MP that means you will have to deal less damage anyway. Is there any concrete math on how much damage PIE adds vs Det/Crit or SS?

Well if you were to swap 31 Crit (2% Crit Chance) for 31 Pie (215 MP)

43 MP/Aetherflow + 86 MP/min (129 MP/min = 1.63 Ruins = 130 Potency/min if you are MP starved (~8 DPS @ 512 DPS)

1% Damage from the 2% Crit = ~5 DPS

But because that's only if you are MP starved and say 5 minutes into the fight.
that 1% Crit is 1536 Damage where as the MP = 0

Further down you might have 10 minutes where you are limping your MP and touching 0 before Aetherflow comes up.

Crit = 3072 Damage @ 10 mins ~ 5 DPS
Pie = from 5-10 minutes @ 130 Potency/min = 2600 Damage from extra Ruin casts. ~4 DPS

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If you can swap SSP for Pie then it's no question.

Edited: I would like to add that PIE can also reduce the number of Energy Drains you would use over Fester over the course of a long fight. So in that regard I suspect that PIE is pretty close to the weight of Crit (up to the point that it offers no additional benefit)

I.E. - 1290 MP over a 10 minute fight = ~ 5 Energy Drains worth of MP = ~ 5 DPS

Estimated 1/3 Energy Drain without Ballad over 10 mins

So you could probably stack 60ish PIE with the same weight as Crit. But too bad that it wont effect the pet damage because using i110 Crafted pieces with PIE would probably be more of a loss to pet damage due to primary stats from i130 gear.

I wouldn't even chose i125 Zodiac with PIE over i135 Dreadwyrm for that reason.

[Akiza]

The problem with the Summoner is it's a Green Mage/Saboteur with less effectiveness in parties.

[Tex_Mex]

Sooooo....is it wise to put Pie on the relic and crafted gear? I'm going to start fcob soon with an alt and i heard that smn has a lot of MP management issues, so that extra pie should help right? I will lose some crit/det but i suppose that 20 pie points weigh much more that 20 crit/det. Also some suggestions on the pet? I heard that Ifrit is better in fcob but wouldn't that hurt ever more the mana pool?

Ifrit is superior to Garuda in any fight that has:
1) High up time on a single target (so virtually all of FCoB)
2) No mechanic that requires you to do magic damage (Garuda does magic damage, Ifrit is physical - this can matter in T11 if you are assigned to kill the cube, which has high physical defense)
3) Weak adds or no adds (Garuda shines in AoE situations against adds with high HP due to the contagion+bane combo, but if adds are low HP, this benefit is lost)
4) No circular knockback attacks around the boss (Ifrit getting knocked away sacrifices some of his DPS, as well as requiring you to heal him often)
5) Minimal additional damage mechanics for melee DPS (obvious but additional healing hurts your DPS)

And as far as mana, Ifrit does cost a very small amount more mana (I mean really small) but it is still well worth it. I consistently see 20-30 higher DPS with Ifrit when I can use him.

[Akiza]

For average players the DoT system causes a lost of 30-60s dps because their damage ticks as one massive DoT on a global timer instead of each DoT having it's own damage tick and timer. Also Summoners initial damage starts of high but quickly drops off after 4min because of potency issues and how SE designed the DoT system. The Summoner is in the Saboteur slot which involves weakening enemies to increase party DPS but they are treated as pure DPS. These issues all combine to make the Summoner a sub par DPS.

[Natsuno]

For average players the DoT system causes a lost of 30-60s dps because their damage ticks as one massive DoT on a global timer instead of each DoT having it's own damage tick and timer. Also Summoners initial damage starts of high but quickly drops off after 4min because of potency issues and how SE designed the DoT system. The Summoner is in the Saboteur slot which involves weakening enemies to increase party DPS but they are treated as pure DPS. These issues all combine to make the Summoner a sub par DPS.

SMN:
Healing received reduction
Heavy
Primary stat reduction
Blind
Slow
Bind


SCH:
Healing received
heavy
Primary stat reduction
Blind
Slow
Bind (x-class)

BLM
Heavy
Sleep
Bind
Slow
Stat reduction (x-class)

NIN
Stun
Silence
Slashing resistance reduction
Healing received reduction
Increased Damage taken
Heavy
Bind
Slow (X-class)

If anything, there's your Sabatuer job right there. Even if you discount stun and silence, it's still a tie with the fact that slashing resist doesn't suffer from DR in its favour.

edit: apologies if I missed anything. It's very late & I'm tired.

[Dyvid]

Saboteur, SMN is not. DoTs =/= Debuff.

[Dyne_Fellpool]

Saboteur, SMN is not. DoTs =/= Debuff.

Akiza frequently just makes things up. Most of us have stopped paying any attention to him.

[Dyvid]

Akiza frequently just makes things up. Most of us have stopped paying any attention to him.

Oh I know. It's why Akiza is on my forums /blist but sometimes I see something so mind numbing I have to call it out.

[Riyos]

Thanks for the answers, but i was thinking about a crazy thing, with a pie build would it be possibile to continuously swap between pets to take full advantage of contagion+rs with garuda and spurouse+enkindle with ifrit? And would that improve dps?

[Sen_Terrechant]

Thanks for the answers, but i was thinking about a crazy thing, with a pie build would it be possibile to continuously swap between pets to take full advantage of contagion+rs with garuda and spurouse+enkindle with ifrit? And would that improve dps?

Most likely not, no. Contagion isnt a huge DPS buff, its only a small DPS buff when its extending RS DoTs, and it only igves them 5 extra ticks if the server favors you. 4 if it dosent.

Couple that with the fact that resummoning ifrit means it has to run to the boss from your standing point, and the fact that they share CDs. (Contagion shares CD with Ifrits 4 slot ability)

Makes it not worth it.