Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Sen_Terrechant]

Remember guys that Radiant Shield is only for physical damage.

Aparently it also scales with the physical damage of the person its on- so Melee DPS and Tanks and such will proc higher on Radiant Shield.

[Odowla]

I said it procs 8x because ravana's cleave is physical, not his titan stomps..

[Koyuki38]

I parsed damages from Ifrit and Garuda in 2.55

The only thing i saw was a difference of +10dps for Ifrit, using their respective normal attack.
This is only 600 damages in 1 minute, while Garuda cast contagion every minute, giving 5 more ticks, 500 damages/ticks => 2500 damages/min

Garuda : her auto hit + 2500
Ifrit : auto hit of Garuda + 600

+ we cast me ruin, etc.
The fact Garuda uses a GCD to cast contagion should lower the difference.

The difference is HUGE.

How is it possible that every body agreed since 2.5 that Ifrit is better on dummies bosses than Garuda.
I'm maybe missing something

Does someone have a parse of the difference of auto hit damages from thoses egies ?

[pandabearcat]

Garuda doesn't "save" you 5 ticks a minute.

It saves you roughly 1.8 GCDs a minute.

Its not like if you don't have garuda you simply won't have dots for 15 seconds.

It is that if you do have garuda you won't have to apply 45 seconds worth of DoTs. Which is roughly equivalent to 1.8 GCDs.

Since our weakest attack is ruin it saves you a whopping 144 potency or so.

Even if your math is correct garuda's damage contribution isn't nearly as high as you think it is.

[Tonberrian]

Question from a new SMN in Heavensward: how do you handle add phases in boss fights? They are usually timed DPS checks and it's the only occasion where my SMN feels weak. DOTs are slow to cast and slow to tick and my best burst is tied to Aetherflow, which feels like a waste on adds? Additonally, they often can't be grouped up for Fester/Painflare. Examples are final boss of Fractal or final boss of Vault

I feel I haven't mastered this yet. Is it better to instant cast Bio and then Ruin spam? Does it depend on who your other DPS is? Is double SMN doomed on this? All advice appreciated!

[pandabearcat]

You should save Tri-D for add phases, for a quick 3D > Bane.

If you cannot do that, then you still should apply dots if the add will live more than ~10 seconds.

If it will live less than 10 seconds, depending on whether or not it needs to die IMMEDIATELY you will either Ruin III spam (yes you can do that, regardless of Dreadwyrm) or Ruin II > Painflare (yes, this is less damage than fester, oh well).

You can also save Dreadwyrm trance for it, to facilitate Ruin III spam and/or finish with deathflare.

If an add will live longer than 6 seconds it is good to Bio, but Ruin II is just as effective.

[RosaAtra]

Hello Summoners

I started leveling SCH when I first started, got to 50 and realized that healing wasn't for me. After the BRD changes I am looking to start SMN as a main.

My problem is starting straight from 50 as a SMN I don't want to do dungeons until I have a good idea of how to play one effectively.

I have been doing fates and reading this (and many others) guide but am having troubles with what I should macro and not macro and controlling the pets like
do I leave them to do their own thing or have their moves macro'd in with some of my spells?

Basically I want to learn in a step by step kind of way if anyone could be so helpful?

On a side note I wish these summons looked more like FFXI's summons

[Minorinz]

I parsed damages from Ifrit and Garuda in 2.55

The only thing i saw was a difference of +10dps for Ifrit, using their respective normal attack.
This is only 600 damages in 1 minute, while Garuda cast contagion every minute, giving 5 more ticks, 500 damages/ticks => 2500 damages/min

Garuda : her auto hit + 2500
Ifrit : auto hit of Garuda + 600

+ we cast me ruin, etc.
The fact Garuda uses a GCD to cast contagion should lower the difference.

The difference is HUGE.

How is it possible that every body agreed since 2.5 that Ifrit is better on dummies bosses than Garuda.
I'm maybe missing something

Does someone have a parse of the difference of auto hit damages from thoses egies ?

Contagion is powerful with buffed dots since u can extend the dots to tick 5 more times. However the reason why so many people use garuda is because when they are moving it's pretty difficult to dot and keep yourself collected on the priority system including cds. It's easier to use garuda on single target but it doesn't mean it's the maxed output you can do since ifrit can deal more damage. It really depends on your style, if you think you can focus more with garuda then you will pull your weight with her, because eff'ing up with ifrit will get u much loss at dps, it is also extremely rewarding to know when to activate its buff and know when you can move and not. Also for raid purposes and progression garuda is recommended so you can focus on mechanics and help with the party whenever. so to sum it up i'd say:

Extremely good summoner can use ifrit all day everyday with high dps output.
Extremely good summoner can use garuda and out dps an average summoner who is using ifrit.

[Sleigh]

I parsed damages from Ifrit and Garuda in 2.55

The only thing i saw was a difference of +10dps for Ifrit, using their respective normal attack.
This is only 600 damages in 1 minute, while Garuda cast contagion every minute, giving 5 more ticks, 500 damages/ticks => 2500 damages/min

Garuda : her auto hit + 2500
Ifrit : auto hit of Garuda + 600

+ we cast me ruin, etc.
The fact Garuda uses a GCD to cast contagion should lower the difference.

The difference is HUGE.

How is it possible that every body agreed since 2.5 that Ifrit is better on dummies bosses than Garuda.
I'm maybe missing something

Does someone have a parse of the difference of auto hit damages from thoses egies ?

The main thing you're missing is you can and should use Ifrit's oGCDs, either by Obey or, if you're lazy/newer and not saving Radiant Shield for any specific time, Sic. Once you add those in Ifrit can start putting in really heavy DPS over Garuda (not counting Contagion's effect on SMN) and that's where the potential edge is. I haven't tested it at 60 yet myself, but don't forget to add in the potential Radiant Shield damage on the tank(s) when comparing.

[Minorinz]

Question from a new SMN in Heavensward: how do you handle add phases in boss fights? They are usually timed DPS checks and it's the only occasion where my SMN feels weak. DOTs are slow to cast and slow to tick and my best burst is tied to Aetherflow, which feels like a waste on adds? Additonally, they often can't be grouped up for Fester/Painflare. Examples are final boss of Fractal or final boss of Vault

I feel I haven't mastered this yet. Is it better to instant cast Bio and then Ruin spam? Does it depend on who your other DPS is? Is double SMN doomed on this? All advice appreciated!

hello dear, you can burst on single target with tri-disaster, for vault's last boss during the fireballs you want to tri-disaster one of them, set garuda on another one, dot 1 one more with full dots and bio the fourth one. never let ur pet attack the same target ur dotting otherwise it's a dps loss. Fester which ever and keep ur AA stacks until the boss is done with the aoe, start your trance and dot it up and deathflare it after ruin 3 spam, try not to activate your pet's off gcd during dread trance, it's a dps loss -since u'll have to spam ruin 2 while activating buffs- also try to squeeze a ruin 2 while ur spamming the deathflare button just as it ends also bio 2 if it's about to fall.

on fractal, the adds are usually packed together so dot the middle one if there are 3 and bane, it'll reach the rest. if it's 3 blocks of adds bane the middle one OR bane from the boss if they reach the boss. Adds will die pretty fast, you can also use enkindle.

as for using bio on things before they die, don't do that if you know they will last 5-6 more seconds. keep in mind that bio will tick every 3 secs and not necessarily when you put it on, so it's a waste of gcd and ruin 2 can deal more damage than bio for sure.

I hope this helps!!
edit: i know i'm wording this in a vague way, kind of, so feel free to ask anything else if it causes confusion x: