Summoner DPS Rotation

[Lycia]

My only problem with your rotation (aside of the Ruin 2's ) is the time it takes in a fight. One quality macro can save you so much time in that rotation, with a .5 break you can have enkindle up in 1.5 seconds....saving 3 ruin cast...and 7.5 GCD seconds. My intro rotation of Virus, .5, E4AE, .5 seconds, Rouse, .5 seconds, Spur, .5 Seconds, Enkindle is done in 2.5 seconds.

I'm wondering if you seriously use this in Titan, Garuda, Ifrit and such. I have a hard enough time getting through my entire rotation, let alone adding more stuff. My priority is to keep the crap up that I can, while staying alive.

Finally, I disagree with us being in melee range...considering we're a ranged fighter. Personally, I think when you get down to the numbers, you're doing a bit to much to squeeze out more DPS...in a situation that isn't really that realistic. Time your attacks out, and you probably let so many things fall off the proc just to get an extra hit with your book.

[pandabearcat]

I'm a bit confused here.

You might be able to get enkindle up in 5 seconds, but why would you need to? Going by your reasoning that the tank has no aggro, wouldn't that immediately snap aggro to your pet?

Also where are you pulling these GCD saving numbers from? You never save GCDs, doing anything. In fact by using your stuff immediately you actually push back your DoT application by at least 2.5 seconds, which is a big nono.

Furthermore this is the opening rotation. You won't see a rotation like this again until 60 seconds later, when swiftcast (if you choose to use it) and contagion are back up.

Because contagion increases the duration of your spells, its actually a time of relaxation right as you finish miasma II...you get ~20 seconds of "free" time where all you need to do is spam ruin.

Just because we're ranged doesn't mean we can't be in melee...and thats the rub right there, why melee get screwed so much. Its not that they have to dodge more than ranged. Its because they can't dps at range, while we can dps in melee, giving us freedom of movement while they're chained to the boss.

I'm not advocating the necessity of staying in melee all the time, but frankly many bosses don't move much, and don't fart in your direction, so staying in melee is as easy or easier than going ranged, and running in (or staying in) to miasma or melee isn't all that hard.

[Regis]

I play Dragoon and just recently unlocked my relic on Summoner and have been playing it more. To be honest being in melee range is much easier in most fights because mechanics don't really target you. Tail swipes and cleaves just mean don't go in front or behind. If you are melee DPS you don't do that anyways because if you do get hit chances are you are going to die.

I have been enjoying summoner though and am going to switch it to my main most likely. Just need to get more used to these rotations and re-organize my hotbars because it seems like summoner has more situational buttons that need to be easy to access than Dragoon does.

Thanks for all the rotational tips this is pretty much what I try to do but I wanted to make sure I am not screwing it up.

[Lycia]

First off, Enkindle doesn't do nearly enough enmity to snap threat away from a tank...vs a cure 2. The only time a DPS can take threat away from a tank is when they try, and blow as much crap as possible to out threat the tank...healers cast one medica or one other spell and they shoot straight up the chart. Its called game mechanics, healing generates way more enmity than a DPS spell. I pop cool downs at the start of the fight to help the tank and the healer out...you think about your DPS

Second of all, you're rotation is a pure mess. You don't need to constantly be blowing GCD's, you don't need to be spamming ruin 2. You throw enkindle out so you can HAVE it again during the fight faster. What you're doing is a big no-no. Their is no efficiency, just you casting away. You obviously haven't studied your class because your entire rotation is around having Garuda up, when Ifrit fits in well at the start of some fights. Its why I save my swiftcast for after the starting burst.

[dragonflyseksparade]

First off, Enkindle doesn't do nearly enough enmity to snap threat away from a tank...vs a cure 2. The only time a DPS can take threat away from a tank is when they try, and blow as much crap as possible to out threat the tank...healers cast one medica or one other spell and they shoot straight up the chart. Its called game mechanics, healing generates way more enmity than a DPS spell. I pop cool downs at the start of the fight to help the tank and the healer out...you think about your DPS

This is really cracking me up. Dude thinks healers are just spamming medica and cure II as soon as the tank pulls? U foar realz?

[Lycia]

You still haven't (nor never will) address the fact that you are blowing the diminishing return on blind. You still haven't justified a single reason as to why you do things in your order. If its just to not waste a global cool down then wow....way to research your class.

Everything I've read on SMN states that ruin 2 is a waste of mana. Good in specific situations like constant movement fights, hell I use it on Titan while moving...why not, but you just throwing it out there for GCD reasoning is silly. Yes their is an animation for rouse and fester, but you get the big priority things out of the way. 2.5 seconds of NO DOTS at the beginning of the fight doesn't hurt anything, especially when I'm hitting the boss for 800 before one of your dots even begins to tick.

[Lycia]

Oh and btw, the GCD for ruin starts when you cast it....the GCD for ruin 2 starts AFTER the cast. So you can do your rotation with ruin 1 at the same time, and conserve some mana

[pandabearcat]

Do you have any data that supports Ifrit being superior to Garuda? I mean I certainly haven't tested, but contagion is pretty nice for RS'd DoTs and Ifrit being melee makes it hard to use on most fights.

I don't understand what you mean by "constantly blowing GCDs". Do you mean constantly casting? If you're not constantly casting, are you just sitting there looking pretty? I mean I'm fairly attractive myself, but I don't think I could make a boss fall down just by batting my eyelashes.

Snarkiness aside, I feel that you should always be casting. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here. My rotation isn't a "mess" because its pretty straightfoward in what it attempts to accomplish.

It sets up dots, festers early to make sure you can fester again within RS timeframe, and it uses contagion to max effectiveness, while also putting up pet buffs and enkindle in a reasonable timeframe.

I understand what you're saying about using the cooldowns early, but you may be a little overzealous in that. You will only miss 1 Enkindle if the fight lasts exactly 5 minutes. If it lasts any more than 5 minutes and 15 seconds, I'll get the same number of enkindles as you do.

The philosophy is sound, that is, "use your shortest cooldowns as quickly as possible to get as many uses as possible", but prioritizing a 5 minute cooldown like enkindle is kinda silly. Furthermore delaying spur/rouse by around 10 seconds isn't the end of the world either...you get far more damage out of getting your dots up early.

Again, this is the very opening rotation, aka, when everything is up, and going by the philosophy (which I agree with) that you need to dump your cooldowns asap, ruin II provides that without losing GCDs, which is a huge dps decrease.

Every time you use an off GCD ability on a GCD, you lose at least 40 potency from pushing back half a ruin. That does add up, you know.

I have never had a healer rip aggro immediately (let alone Eos), isn't that what coordination and stoneskin is for? Furthermore, it is not your job to worry about healer aggro. Your job is to stay alive and kill enemies asap. It is true that healers do put out tons of threat, but unless you have a crazed WHM spamming medica II like its going out of style, and one that forgets what shroud of saints is for, its a nonissue.

You can certainly pop virus and eye for an eye immediately, but their intended purpose again isn't to save healer threat, its to keep your tank alive. So just like you want to save swiftcast for an instares, I choose to save virus and eye for when the tank actually needs it (say, right before/after a mountain buster).

But that isn't even really the issue here. You can pop them whenever, but I don't see why that rotation is so anathema to you. It is of course inefficient mana wise, but that is the cost of being the most efficient damagewise. Furthermore, the goal is to get your festers out asap so you can aetherflow again, putting you at max mana. So initial mana use is kind of a moot point. What will OOM you is DoT upkeep, specifically Thunder.

EDIT: also you can edit your initial post to more than 1000 characters instead of posting more than one post.

[Hyrist]

-SNIP-

I've stayed primarily out of conversations concerning Damage Rotations mainly due to the heat usually spurred in the conversation.

If we're talking single damage rotation, I will initiate with DoTs and then move into Summoner skills while in the enhanced duration of Debuffs.

My rotation may end up looking like:

Command, AF(If down) RS, Bio II, Miasma, Bio, Fester, Thunder, Contagion, SftCst->Shadow Flare, Fester, | Spur, Rouse, Enkindle

After that, it's prioritize refreshing debuffs as they are presented. Ruin is used in situations when I have a brake in cool-downs long enough to justify it. (Usually during contagion after Enkindle Segment) Ruin II is most often used when I interrupt a spell to evade a charged attack. (At discretion, sometimes I'm on the edge of the AoE and just make a minor adjustment and resume casting the spell I had intended to. However, any evasion noting more than two steps typically merits a Ruin II.)

On Ruin II:
I'll also use Ruin II in tandem with Ruin while solo to increase initial burst, as there's plenty of off-cooldown abilities like Fester that can be used while Ruin II Is in cooldown, but not while Ruin I is in cast time. As most same-level monsters don't live long enough to merit a long term-concern, going for burst shaves a second or two off the combat time.

However in group runs, I will completely disregard the Blind component of Ruin II entirely. Effectively I see it as a self defense tool, so using it while I'm attempting to evade makes the best use of the Blind Component while at the same time shoring up the loss of DPS I suffer while being stalled to evade. Using it on behalf of another is not my concern as I've already the rotations of Virus and Eye For an Eye for this purpose.

Enemy group rotations wind up a bit differently. If cool-downs are up I lead pet buffs while allowing the tank to establish first flash, then I Enkindle followed immediately by Shadow Flare, then my debuff rotation, swapping out the first Fester with Bane (Swapping Contagion in first for a boosted duration Trio on all enemies.), then making a judgment call on whether Fester or Bane will be the better choice for the remainder of the Aether Flow cooldown. In group fights, Miasma II also becomes a viable DPS tool due the exponential growth of damage when distributed across multiple targets.

On the subject of range of combat. I do not agree that ranged combatants need to stay at a distance from the opponent as a default. Especially in cases of deviating hate and adds it is better that the monsters not roam far so the tank can reacquire hate if it is lost. In cases of boss fights without adds, it is simply a matter of knowing the enemy's most common attack patterns and evading them, staying out of easy to anticipate ranges to allow for cleaner cast times. As most bosses will have attacks that effect or even specifically target ranged opponents, it becomes a matter of case by case basis as to which boss or miniboss is best to keep at range or not.

Chimera, for instance, is rather irrelevant, as is Hydra, Titan, and Garuda's later stages. In fact you are sometimes encouraged to keep close range except for very specific points.

Anyways, that's just my view on things. I try to remain flexible in my adaptation and abilities, and not be judgmental of others.

[Kevee]

Never use Ifrit.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Summons/page2

Ever.

Not to mention if you "switch out" of Ifrit, like the poster is implying, then you'll run into serious mana issues where a Bard has to use Ballad, just for you, and that's bad. You want ballad when the healers need it. Not to mention no Swiftcast for Shadow Flare or Resurrection.

Also, don't pop Enkindle+Rouse/Spur at the beginning. That hit will pull off the tank if it's the very first thing that's done. A tank can't match up to a ~1.3k crit, in aggro, in 1-2 GCDs. Don't leave your threat to RNG.

Oh and btw, the GCD for ruin starts when you cast it....the GCD for ruin 2 starts AFTER the cast. So you can do your rotation with ruin 1 at the same time, and conserve some mana

Wat? Ruin II has no cast.

So the GCD starts at the same time for both--But when you use Ruin II, you are free during the GCD for off-GCD skills, which you can't use while casting Ruin.