Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Keldion]

While putting my nose to the grindstone for maximizing damage on A1S and A2S, I stumbled across Kakashe's opener which utilizes ED to initiate DWT faster. He arranges a confluence of active cooldowns (RS, DWT, Drac Potion, raid buffs) to frontload exceptionally hard hitting attacks.

http://angered.guildwork.com/forum/t...ide-by-kakashe

I have difficulty following his opener with 100% precision, but it helped me realize that delaying the first Aetherflow was an actual loss of damage.

[Brinzy]

While putting my nose to the grindstone for maximizing damage on A1S and A2S, I stumbled across Kakashe's opener which utilizes ED to initiate DWT faster. He arranges a confluence of active cooldowns (RS, DWT, Drac Potion, raid buffs) to frontload exceptionally hard hitting attacks.

http://angered.guildwork.com/forum/t...ide-by-kakashe

I have difficulty following his opener with 100% precision, but it helped me realize that delaying the first Aetherflow was an actual loss of damage.

I was just thinking about that myself. I think that getting your Aetherflow up and running 8-10 seconds sooner again is worth the 50 - 150 potency loss of damage. That was likely common knowledge here, but I learned something.

Once I get some melds in, I think I'm going to give the A7S dummy some more tries. I may have been very far off from just weaker execution, since I did not use ED in the opener.

[Havenchild]

While putting my nose to the grindstone for maximizing damage on A1S and A2S, I stumbled across Kakashe's opener which utilizes ED to initiate DWT faster. He arranges a confluence of active cooldowns (RS, DWT, Drac Potion, raid buffs) to frontload exceptionally hard hitting attacks.

http://angered.guildwork.com/forum/t...ide-by-kakashe

I have difficulty following his opener with 100% precision, but it helped me realize that delaying the first Aetherflow was an actual loss of damage.

I read most of his reasoning for his opener but, not following the line where he says essentially other Summoners are wasting damage for not blowing all their cooldowns when "all buffs are up", when in actuality most of the current openers are manufactured with the mindset of maximum efficiency over a 60 second or so period that takes full advantage of all of these said buffs.

Now, it is not impossible to believe that a more bursty opener might apply better to certain encounters. (EX: Where a boss goes invincible at a certain part of your opener/encounter that causes you to have only two Aetherial Stacks when they become invincible, thus you don't have to ability to drag out the DWT timer for when a mob might be able to get targeted again.) However, I've never seen some dynamic difference in damage over the course of an encounter for doing so. Ultimately, any Summoner should be tailoring their openers for maximum efficiency for the ENCOUNTER at hand.

No dummy test opener can properly be translated into a fight for maximum efficiency over an encounter. A Dummy stands there. A Boss does not.

[Keldion]

No dummy test opener can properly be translated into a fight for maximum efficiency over an encounter. A Dummy stands there. A Boss does not.

Kakashe has stated the same thing in his guide.

Summoners will need to adapt and learn every fight they encounter and frankly speaking , no guide will show you a perfect rotation on a dummy that you can use in every fight, however this will be just an idea of what you will be looking forward to do on a single target fight.

I am not representing his suggested opener as gospel or the 'only true way' to doing summoner DPS. What it did do was challenge me to approach openers differently and think about how they applied to the nuances of specific encounters.

I will state that the frontloaded approach has made it easier for me to manage DPS during encounters with heavy movement, such as Sephirot EX. There are specific moments in the fight where you can plant your feet and do several seconds' worth of hard casting, while others demand that you focus on proper positioning.