Don't Tell Others How to Play Their Jobs

[Bedford]

Maybe to help you out a little. Ruin and ruin II are the same dps. Ruin II is simply insta cast with a blind. Use it for a filler when you need to move. Fester is far more damage than energy drain not because of their respective recast times but because they require aetherflow stacks, and you only get 3 stacks every 60 secs. Assuming you are putting up dots. Almost all of them will do more damage than ruin if the target lives for 9 seconds or more.
Keep an open mind. Just because someone's delivery was bad does not mean it's without merit.

[neizero]

OP you are bad dude.

[Kalandros]

Ruin 1 and Ruin 2 can be used together or alternating according to when you have to move or when you have mana to burn.
Energy Drain is only and ONLY useful for getting mana back when you need it right away or when a bard is unavailable - like when you had to res 2 people in a boss encounter (Titan comes to mind) and run low on mana.

Fester is way way superior to Energy Drain and should be the majority of your Aetherflow usage.

[Asriah]

Am I a heartless person for bumping this?

But.. it made me smile.

[Somi]

Not that I know anything about my SMN (I chose SCH), but that "rotation" seems all wrong..

For future reference and so I can help others who may want to improve, unlike Mr. OP, what IS the most effective SMN rotation?

[CrimsonQueen]

Have you even used Fester Correctly? It hits for 700+ for me with all my Dots on. And I use both Ruin and Ruin 2. I'm a big DPS in my FC, i'm always being asked to do Titan because of this. But whatever play the class how you want, sure i'll listen to what people have to say but In the end its my choice if i do it, if the're rude i just tell them how to do the're job in return since I have tank and healer leveled. Giving advice is fine being an ass is not.

[Ignnis]

Oh god if I saw a fellow smn with that rotation I'd have an aneurism. Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Fester, Thunder, Ruin II (Depending on situation Miasma 2 or another DoT) Ruin I until you need to apply DoTs again, repeate. Between Festers if you don't want to use Ruin I do some pet stuff I personally don't use energy drain too often for groups because I save for Festers, in bosses I use Energy Drain to conserve MP.

[RyuujinZERO]

I'm playing SMN and I just came from an AK run where our SCH healer was ragging on me, right from the very first pull, about how bad of a player I am because I wasn't using a DPS rotation she thought was better.

I was using Ruin II + Energy Drain, and he thought I should be using Ruin I + Fester because he thought it did more damage.

Ruin I (2.45 cast time + 2.45 recast, 80 potency) + Fester (300 max potency)
You can cast 9 Ruins and 3 Festers every 60 seconds: (9 * 80) + (3 * 300) = 1620 total potency damage per 60 seconds.

Ruin II (instant + 2.45 recast, 80 potency) + Energy Drain (150 potency)
You can cast 21 Ruin IIs and 3 Energy Drains every 60 seconds: (21 * 80) + (3 * 150) = 2130 total potency damage per 60 seconds.

A difference of 510 potency, or 32% more damage. This is not an insignificant amount.

So please, just let players play how they want. Just because they're not following the norm, doesn't mean they're bad players.

Your maths is wrong, and he is right.

Ruin 1 has a 2.45 cast time, and no cooldown. Ruin 2 has no cast time, but a 2.45 cooldown. They both do the same DPS but their attacks are rear and front loaded respectively. To all intents and purposes they yield identical damage output, but ruin 2 also inflict blindness and costs slightly more MP. Due to aetherflow restrictions, both fester AND energy drain can be cast 3 times per minute, and fester does infinitely more damage than energy drain (Up to 400 potency - Bio + Bio II + Miasma + Miasma 2 - Vs 150 for energy drain)

To re-do your formula:

Ruin I (2.45 cast time, 80 potency) + Fester (400 max potency)
You can cast 21 Ruins and 3 Festers every 60 seconds: (21 * 80) + (3 * 400) = 2880 total potency damage per 60 seconds.

Ruin II (2.45 recast, 80 potency) + Energy Drain (150 potency)
You can cast 21 Ruin IIs and 3 Energy Drains every 60 seconds: (21 * 80) + (3 * 150) = 2130 total potency damage per 60 seconds.

His method yielding a 35% increase in DPS. This of course omits the fact you spend much of the 60 seconds maintaining your DoTs, which of course provide the bulk of your DPS along with fester. Ruin is simply icing on the cake to do something with those periods of time where you are not casting anything more important - this puts less emphasis on Ruin's damage output, further skewing the numbers in favour of the fester option



tl;dr: Do you even lift?

[Fadigre]

Not that I know anything about my SMN (I chose SCH), but that "rotation" seems all wrong..

For future reference and so I can help others who may want to improve, unlike Mr. OP, what IS the most effective SMN rotation?

What I tend to roll with is -


Summon Garuda but on engage make sure to use the Obey command. This will force her to use her basic attack and not waste Contagion!

Use Raging strikes!

1. Bio II
2. Miasma
3. Bio (Instant cast, Fester and move if needed)
4. Thunder
5. Miasma II (Instant cast, move if needed. Do not cast without Contagion as damage is too low to be worthwhile!)
6. Shadow Flare

Raging strikes should have about 2 seconds left in the best case scenario.
Now use Garuda's Contagion.

Your debuffs will now stay for an extra 15 seconds at 20% extra potency!

If you're in dire need of DPS (Titan's heart) Swiftcast Ifrit after Contagion and let him go HAM as he does about 5% more damage than Garuda as his attacks are 105 potency rather than 100.


With this rotation you'll find that between Contagions you'll only get one or two Ruins off - Which is useful because the spells bites

I should note that Contagion has the same recast as your Aetherflow which will help the Summoner to monitor it.

Only use Ruin II if you are moving as this prevents you from wasting the GCD window otherwise you are going to be pumping out the same damage as Ruin but at a higher MP cost.

Have you even used Fester Correctly? It hits for 700+ for me with all my Dots on.

fester does infinitely more damage than energy drain (Up to 400 potency - Bio + Bio II + Miasma + Miasma 2 - Vs 150 for energy drain)

Just to clarify (because I made this mistake) Fester only takes Bio II, Bio and Miasma into account when calculating damage based on DoTs.

[Ronyx]

So ya Basically Ruin 1 and 2 are the same in terms of damage and how fast they are except that Ruin 2 does a status effect. I hope you are using Fester with Bio 1, 2 and Miasma otherwise there is no point on using Fester.