Summoner DPS Rotation

[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.