Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Allyrion]

Now I know this guide has a lot of information all over (largely because this class has a lot of tools to utilize) but don't feel overwhelmed.

For dungeons exclusively (starting at level 50), your main tools will be Bio II, Miasma, Bio, Shadowflare, Bane, Miasma II and Contagion. Essentially each pull, you will use the three main DoTs, Bio II, Miasma and Bio and then use the Bane skill on that mob to spread those skills (free of charge) to all nearby mobs. Now if you have Contagion available (Garuda skill) you want to make sure you are able to use it when you want to, so you basically press a pet command called Obey.

This makes it so pets cannot use skills whenever and just use a normal attack. When you use Contagion on a set of DoTs, it will extend the duration of those DoTs for 15 seconds, this will work alongside the Bane skill to spread those longer duration DoTs onto nearby monsters.

From then on you have skills like Miasma II and Shadowflare which are AoE spells you will use to place DoT damage on the pile of mobs. Rinse and repeat in a dungeon.

Another AoE skill you have is the job skill you have , Enkindle, which tells the pet to use its signature AoE attack (damage boosted by rouse and spur).
Blizzard II from BLM is also pretty handy.

Macros, you can use of course in the form of tying pet skills with some of your abilities like Bane for example. Overall you shouldn't use Macros because they can bug out or just cause overall DPS loss but things like Bane + Aerial Slash ( Garuda skill) is ok to combine.

If you are using Garuda, you will want to make sure after you summon her to put her on the Obey command, so she doesn't use Contagion on her own. With Ifrit, you will also want him on Obey, but you will need to manually press his skills to achieve higher gains then Garuda. So often people use the Sic Command (fires off pet skills as they become available) with Ifrit for less hassle.

That's pretty much it. Now when you get to more raiding scenarios, essentially its the same thing but it ramps up with more proper time management on the DoT skills and fitting every possible skilll you can every single second of the fight. That's when you should really start to read through guides such as this one and piece together what it takes to accomplish that.

Hope that helps a little.

Thanks for that.
I'm levelling SMN again from 50 just to have a caster alt.

It's been a while since I played though.
It seems Ruin II is the default filler now. Do you ever use Ruin?
You mentioned getting "trying to get free Ruin III's when Tri-Disaster is on cool down", in the DWT description.
Maybe I'm thinking too far ahead since I'm still only 50, but is there some kind of Ruin III proc that makes it free?
Or are you talking about how cheap it is while in DWT, that it's practically free?

It'd be nice if those acceptable AoE macros were in the OP.
Do you have a link? Though it doesn't seem hard to figure out.