Summoner's Ifrit is bad

[Havenchild]

Any SMN that always uses Garuda, is just shorting themselves. You have to use both accordingly when necessary. There are actually very few things that are that dangerous to Ifrit, that he won't survive simply from AoE heals and most of those tend to be in Savage coils only. As for the stun point, you could just leave him on obey and manually use the skills. Also the only things that needed to be stunned are like dungeon bosses, you know the ones you can heal through pretty much any mechanic?

[Sanguisio]

OMG youre soo cute !!!

I think you need to play around with managing your pets. First of all pets never use skills unless they are directed to or are on SIC. Apart from selene who even then im a little meh about never have your pet on SIC, they will do less damaging, generating unnecessary NRs, and waste skills. Pet AIs are good you just need to know how to deal with them,I mean selene even when on SIC will only try to silence a skill when its being cast.

As it stands ifrit when placed correctly doesnt die. Manage your pet placement, e.g. when you know a skill like crackle hiss is coming out move your pet a little if needed.

The whole moving between targets with ifrit is very negligible. There isnt a fight where ifrit needs to move a great deal, the most I would say is in t12 and t13 and even then he seems to maintain uptime on the target.

When you add the above to the fact he does more base dmg than garuda and when you add the buffs from melees he does more there really is little reason to use garuda. The one benefit she brings is reduces overall MP usage via contagion and 5min a slightly more bursty AOE blast.

[Neophyte]

It's all about micromechanics. Always have your egi on Obey.

Example with T9 (weaved in Ruin2 ignored)
Start with garuda and open with RS+Bio2+Miasma+Bio+Fester+Miasma2
+Contagion+Shadowflare+Sponti+Fester+Ifrit
+Egi-Buffs+Enkindle+STAY(? so ifrit wont come to you while meteordives)+ etc.
Let him do his Counterattack-Action while Nael does his dives to get an extrahit when he dashes on the tank. You may have to repeat OBEY, if ifrits bit out of range.

Then switch to Garuda at golemphase (too much moving for ifrit) and repeat opener on P3.

[ShinryuReishiki]

Ifrit: Pro: Benefits from NIN Dancing Edge/War Storm's Eye as Ifrit's attacks are Slashing

Ifrit uses Auto Attack and Burning Strike every 3s. The Auto Attack is Slashing while Burning Strike, Flaming Crush, and Crimson Cyclone are Blunt; they benefit from MNK's Dragon Kick instead. Even without either of these two things to increase Ifrit's damage, it still does 20~25% more DPS than Garuda on a single target.

So, Smn pets do more damage just auto attacking?

Ifrit's stun and AOE are essentially off-GCD attacks. When used manually in Obey, they'll be used in between Burning Strikes rather than instead of Burning Strike, so it's a noticeable gain.

[Fatshine]

So, Smn pets do more damage just auto attacking?

Yes by actually controlling your pet and weaving skills in. For example: Ifrit (Burning Strike > Crimson Cyclone > Burning Strike > Flaming Crush > Burning Strike > Auto Attack > .....)

This is why I believe maximizing dps as a SMN is the hardest out of all the jobs. So many people do not synchronize with the pet.

[OmegaNovaios]

Ifrit's stun and AOE are essentially off-GCD attacks. When used manually in Obey, they'll be used in between Burning Strikes rather than instead of Burning Strike, so it's a noticeable gain.

Ifrit's stun and AOE are not truly oGCD. There is a global delay to "Queing" the Crimson Cyclone, Flaming Crush, and Radiant Shield immediately after any pet action and then another global delay after any of those actions are used (probably based on SS). The global delays don't seem to be quite as high as Ifrit's static recast time (not affected by SS) of 3.0 seconds of Burning Strike. I have 401 SS currently and it feel more like 1.25-1.5 seconds delay.

You can either "Queue" any "oGCD" actions and they will occur automatically when the global delay is up or you can press the "oGCD" action after the global delay but before the next auto attack action and it will go off IMMEDIATELY.

There is little to no DPS increase and if any then possibly 2 DPS max of using any "oGCD" IMMEDIATELY after auto attack action. Either way it's not worth your time and just serves as a distraction and builds frustration.

In fact if you use any "oGCD" after the delay but before the recast time of Burning Strike then you are just lowering your DPS as you are postponing Ifrit's highest DPS action (the auto attack action) further than the recast time of 3.0 seconds, which is why Sic mode is terrible.

Yes by actually controlling your pet and weaving skills in. For example: Ifrit (Burning Strike > Crimson Cyclone > Burning Strike > Flaming Crush > Burning Strike > Auto Attack > .....)

No.

I believe maximizing dps as a SMN is the hardest out of all the jobs.

Yes.

[sackm]

SMN's who actually know what they are doing stopped using garuda for most things months ago. at the current gear level ifrit outperforms garuda in just about every situation

[ShinryuReishiki]

Ifrit's stun and AOE are not truly oGCD.

There is not a GCD for them, it's just animation lock. It does delay the next Burning Strike slightly, but not enough to make it not worthwhile.

(probably based on SS).

At the moment, Ifrit is completely unaffected by Spell Speed. You would need Skill Speed in order to have any impact on its recast times.

There is little to no DPS increase and if any then possibly 2 DPS max of using any "oGCD" IMMEDIATELY after auto attack action. Either way it's not worth your time and just serves as a distraction and builds frustration.

This image is a little old now, but it still makes its point.

[Meleoffs]

So, Smn pets do more damage just auto attacking?

I said let. You're still making them use their abilities, just not when they want to and not that useless 3rd one that only does dmg when he's hit.

[Sanguisio]

I would still say Garuda is good for PVP if you ever play it.

As it is alot harder to force a de-summon on her and the knockback is pretty helpful