SMN and 4.4 Changes

[Grimoire-M]

I -ran- a triple caster on Exdeath. It's not worth it if your healers are trigger happy with their raises (unless the WHM has Thin Air up). SMN should get raise priority in that comp because they can afford to do that and Mana Shift on cooldown. It takes all three casters Mana Shifting on cooldown to equal one ranged DPS using Refresh on cooldown for just the healers, not even factoring in the benefits PLD/RDM would get if they had it. Hell the RDM can't afford to do it if they're raising.

I really hope they remove Refresh/Tactician and turn Mana Shift into a single target ally-only version of Refresh, then give it, Goad, and Diversion to BRD/MCH. That would free up a lot of space for casters.

[Shiroe]

question:

4.4, Smn + Ifrit still does overall more dps than Smn + Garuda (in standard comps)?.. cause of more procs?

[Sunako]

question:

4.4, Smn + Ifrit still does overall more dps than Smn + Garuda (in standard comps)?.. cause of more procs?

it depends on your healers. If you have good healers that dps well, Garuda should be better regardless.

[TaiyoShikasu]

I -ran- a triple caster on Exdeath. It's not worth it if your healers are trigger happy with their raises (unless the WHM has Thin Air up). SMN should get raise priority in that comp because they can afford to do that and Mana Shift on cooldown. It takes all three casters Mana Shifting on cooldown to equal one ranged DPS using Refresh on cooldown for just the healers, not even factoring in the benefits PLD/RDM would get if they had it. Hell the RDM can't afford to do it if they're raising.

I really hope they remove Refresh/Tactician and turn Mana Shift into a single target ally-only version of Refresh, then give it, Goad, and Diversion to BRD/MCH. That would free up a lot of space for casters.

BRD/MCH should get Diversion anyways, everything else you said was awful.

[ChaoticCrimson]

So I've been conducting my own "tests" since 4.4 dropped, and thus far my findings have led me to the conclusion that... Well, it's sort of variable. My raid static has two casters and two melees for DPS. However, we've found that while Garuda's contagion did assist my co-caster's numbers and the healers, overall my raid leader has helped me to confirm that Ifrit still seems to have somewhat higher numbers in terms of both my personal DPS as well as raidwide gains. Despite that, Garuda still has her place. We're presently working on O9S, and to ensure things go more smoothly during the Earthquake/Crystal phases I've found it safer to ensure Garuda's out beforehand so that Radiant Shield doesn't inadvertently go off and kill off the DPS by mitigating just enough to stop fatal damage from removing the earth debuff. Since Aetherpact is also dangerous to use in these phase, Contagion also becomes essentially your best bet for raid buffs at these spots, unless it would come off cooldown just after the debuffs wear off, in which case you might have time to Swiftcast Ifrit out in time for your physical attackers to benefit from RS.

In short, aside from certain specific situations, Ifrit appears to remain the more useful of the two for now. I wouldn't say what I've found is conclusive, exactly, but it's a start.

[Kabooa]

Radiant shield mitigates damage?

[Sunako]

Radiant shield mitigates damage?

No, it only bring 2% physical vulne to the opponent.

[ChaoticCrimson]

Double-checking the new tooltips, and you are actually correct: It doesn't appear to have any kind of mitigation effect. Granted, while this means it's probably fine during the Earthquake phase, Garuda is still probably a better option during crystal if only because the crystal itself is not inflicting any damage on players to make it more susceptible to Radiant Shield's debuff.

[TaiyoShikasu]

Learn the two pet opener and dazzle your static mates.

[Zerathor]

So I've been conducting my own "tests" since 4.4 dropped, and thus far my findings have led me to the conclusion that... Well, it's sort of variable. My raid static has two casters and two melees for DPS. However, we've found that while Garuda's contagion did assist my co-caster's numbers and the healers, overall my raid leader has helped me to confirm that Ifrit still seems to have somewhat higher numbers in terms of both my personal DPS as well as raidwide gains. Despite that, Garuda still has her place. We're presently working on O9S, and to ensure things go more smoothly during the Earthquake/Crystal phases I've found it safer to ensure Garuda's out beforehand so that Radiant Shield doesn't inadvertently go off and kill off the DPS by mitigating just enough to stop fatal damage from removing the earth debuff. Since Aetherpact is also dangerous to use in these phase, Contagion also becomes essentially your best bet for raid buffs at these spots, unless it would come off cooldown just after the debuffs wear off, in which case you might have time to Swiftcast Ifrit out in time for your physical attackers to benefit from RS.

In short, aside from certain specific situations, Ifrit appears to remain the more useful of the two for now. I wouldn't say what I've found is conclusive, exactly, but it's a start.

I'm curious how the data was interpreted, because garuda has been higher rdps with double caster even before radiant shield was nerfed. Is your other caster just.... dead 90% of the time for these tests?