SMN newb

[Swear_Bear]

So... I'm not exactly a new player, but I'm new to SMN and apparently need some guidance.

When I started playing a month ago, I already knew I wanted to try out SCH. I kept current with SMN class missions to unlock new abilities and egis but never touched them because I always played as SCH through the story missions and dungeons.

Last night, I got access to Stone Vigil and my friends suggested I sit out as SCH and go as SMN instead so I can study the dungeon. while a fellow LS member that also needs it can go as WHM.

Que Doodie Finder for a tank, fast-forward about an hour and a few wipes later, we cleared it, but I realized early that I didn't know how to put Fester, Tri-disaster, Egi abilities, and available cross-class abilities into a rotation.

Basically, what rotation and cross-class abilities are ideal for SMN? I never want to feel that clueless again.

While soloing on SCH, I do: Miasma > Bio2 > Bio > Ruin2 > Virus (if it's up)

Am I at least doing that right? Ha.

Thanks in advance.

[Zer0mr]

All that stuff is situational man. So you can start it out by practicing using Obey > Shadow Flare > Raging Strikes > Bio II > Miasma I > Bio > Fester > Thunder > Contagion > Ruin > Fester (Still in Raging Strikes) > And just repeat. Make sure you let your DOT's fall off, but not by much. Clipping DOTs is just as bad (if not worse) than not having DOTs up. Tri disaster does not belong in a normal rotation. It's simply an AoE bind. My main use is Garuda HM.

[TheHolyPug]

why let the dots fall off? im just curious.

[Swear_Bear]

I think I read somewhere that regular dots don't override buffed dots (Raging Strikes)

[Bixby]

why let the dots fall off? im just curious.

DoTs and HoTs don't add onto their own existing times, they just overwrite any remaining time with their standard duration. And all DoTs and HoTs tick at the same time, regardless of when they were applied. Every 3 seconds. So let's say I cast Aero, and one second later, you cast Miasma. Both of those are going to do their damage at the exact same time, anywhere from 0s to 3s after I cast mine (0s to 2s after you cast yours). It's unrealistic to know when exactly the server's tick is going to happen, so it's unrealistic to know when exactly you could recast an existing DoT without simply wasting a tick.

If you recast when Miasma has 2s left, and the server ticks at 1s left, you get one less tick total than if you'd waited until it had fallen off entirely. It's possible to clip your DoTs and still get every tick, if you happen to land it at just the right time. But not clipping them is the only way to know for sure you've gotten every tick out of every cast.