Another Upset Summoner

[Havenchild]

Well let's talk non raiding stuff and on stuff we do on a daily basis.

Ifrit - Boss fight with a melee heavy party
Ramuh - boss fights with a range heavy party
Shiva - trash mobs with melee party
Garuda - trash mobs with range heavy party

Last two are break glass situations like the new tank can't hold hate and mobs keep going after healer or tank dies and need emergency tank real fast.

Key word is situation and a pet that fits well. But whatever, SE made their design choice and now we get to make ours. I'll most likely change to Astrologian because it seems like a gambler class that I've loved in FF.

Dungeons? Maybe the AoE Pets can be interchangeable depending on the buff they add, and what is your fellow DPS true, but their default attack would have to be AoE also, otherwise, the single target pets that are doing stronger damage like Ifrit already can still best the "AoE" based ones if things are dying fast enough, which they tend to unless your total DPS is that low.

Ask yourself right now, what defines Garuda as the "AoE" pet right now? It's simply Contagion. If Contagion is rendered useless? Ifrit wins hands down including on trash mobs.

What you're saying, for example, is adding new effects sure but more to have something different, with no regard to howthe damage will balance out. So basically adding egis to add them without giving them a definitive situation they will ALWAYS be better.

Look at Garuda vs Shiva: If Contagion stayed on Garuda? Unless Shiva is doing much more AoE damage (assuming shes not getting a Contagion like ability also) she won't win. If she IS doing that much more AoE damage, Garuda loses by default. Take away the utility, and whatever adds more damage will come out at the top. Add back in the utility and it's still the same.