Summoner: A Guide

[dron13]

Hello,
thank you for very useful guide.

Anyways, I have several questions:

1) what does pet attack really mean? For example, 100 potency of Garuda means that it will be increased only if you use rose/spur? Or it is increased by Raging strikes or Mime and Mend II
2) Does Mime and Mend II stack with Mime and Mend? Will the resulting damage be +30% from MaMII only or +40% from both MaM?
As I can see from traits like "+4 INT", they stack with each other.

[Aetherdancer]

Sol,

I am finally a full i90 SMN. My DET is 289 with food, and I did some testing. Wind Blade was 207-228. Ruin was 197-218.

With 479 critical hit rate, Garuda crit 15% of the time. I crit 19% of the time. Numbers appear to show that Garuda scales off of your numbers, but lower. Ruin hit for less, but of course, it's only an 80 potency move. Wind Blade is 100.

[Sol_Aureus]

Hello,
thank you for very useful guide.

Anyways, I have several questions:

1) what does pet attack really mean? For example, 100 potency of Garuda means that it will be increased only if you use rose/spur? Or it is increased by Raging strikes or Mime and Mend II
2) Does Mime and Mend II stack with Mime and Mend? Will the resulting damage be +30% from MaMII only or +40% from both MaM?
As I can see from traits like "+4 INT", they stack with each other.

1) Your pets attack is only affected by your base stats and Rouse/Spur. No player buffs affect it (Raging Strikes / INT Potion / Etc). Foe Requiem does affect it, however that's because it's a debuff applied to the mob. Not sure about Mime and Mend II, I haven't done heavy testing on it.

2) No idea. Since it's a passive trait I saw no reason to heavily test it, it's always active so there's no strategic importance to it as far as I'm concerned.

[Sol_Aureus]

Sol,

I am finally a full i90 SMN. My DET is 289 with food, and I did some testing. Wind Blade was 207-228. Ruin was 197-218.

With 479 critical hit rate, Garuda crit 15% of the time. I crit 19% of the time. Numbers appear to show that Garuda scales off of your numbers, but lower. Ruin hit for less, but of course, it's only an 80 potency move. Wind Blade is 100.

So from 281→289 DET (+8, the difference between using Allagan earrings and Hero's [+16 crit vs +8 det]), Ruin didn't gain any damage and Wind Blade gained 1. I'm sure that other spells gained some damage off of the DET as well, but it couldn't have been too much.

As for the crit, how many casts did you do? Crit testing is a bit different than DET testing since it's a chance rather than a constant, so when I get around to doing crit testing I'm going to be casting at least 1000 before I feel decently confidant about my crit rate being close to accurate. And even then I'll probably do a couple sets of 1000 just to be sure.

[T0rin]

I've found that Garuda crits as often as me if you have a large enough pool of data. Small sets of data will show her being the same, higher (by 5% or more) or lower (by 5% or more), simply based on luck.

[dron13]

1) Your pets attack is only affected by your base stats and Rouse/Spur. No player buffs affect it (Raging Strikes / INT Potion / Etc). Foe Requiem does affect it, however that's because it's a debuff applied to the mob. Not sure about Mime and Mend II, I haven't done heavy testing on it.

Well, in terms of DPS, if pets are affected by MaM, it will greatly increase their damage. +30/40 potency per attack maybe? As far as I can see from others testing, Ruin does less damage than Wind Blade. But even with MaMII ruin's potency should be at least +30% more powerful, so it should be 80*1.3=104 potency at least (and if traits cumulate, then it will be even more powerful: 80*1.4=112 potency). If we still think that pets are not affected by MaM, then Wind Blade with 100 potency should deal less damage, than Ruin with 104/112 potency.

That seems strange.

[NintenPyjak64]

I took a look at the guide, it looks very informative.
I'm starting to pick up SMN as my primary DPS class (I main WHM) and since I started spending Myth on SMN, I'd like to improve my rotation if I could have any advice

Currently I'm using RS > Bio 2 > Miasma > Bio (Rouse + Spur off GCD) > Ruin II (Fester off GCD) > Shadow Flare (Contagion) > Ruin > Ruin II (Fester) > Ruin x3 > Ruin II (Fester + Aether) > then weaving Ruin, Ruin II and Festers while reapplying dots as they hit about 0-2 seconds remaining.

Any help and advice for this would be greatly appreciated. What I can say is I have a habit of saving Shadow Flare for Contagion since the longer casting time feels good for setting up Garuda, should I try what you posted earlier and do Contagion after Fester? and swiftcasting Shadow Flare when need be?

[dron13]

Forgot one question:

Why do you think that dots must be always up?

I mean that if the last tick will be at last second, then isn't it better to reapply dot after that tick? If you lose ~0.5ms instead of one more tick, it will be better, no?

[Sol_Aureus]

Forgot one question:

Why do you think that dots must be always up?

I mean that if the last tick will be at last second, then isn't it better to reapply dot after that tick? If you lose ~0.5ms instead of one more tick, it will be better, no?

DoTs must always be up because if they're not you risk missing a tic of the DoT because of how the mechanics behind DoT tics work. If you can flawlessly reapply all your DoTs the second they fall off, then yes, that is the most efficient use of MP. However, realistically that will almost never happen. You'll have to move to dodge a move or be attacking an add or passing rot or something, there are practically no fights that you can just stand there and throw out the ideal rotation. That's why you want to err on the side of caution and clip your DoTs early if you think you're DoTs are going to fall off at a bad time, because you can lose a lot of damage if your DoTs aren't all ticking whenever possible.

[Sol_Aureus]

I took a look at the guide, it looks very informative.
I'm starting to pick up SMN as my primary DPS class (I main WHM) and since I started spending Myth on SMN, I'd like to improve my rotation if I could have any advice

Currently I'm using RS > Bio 2 > Miasma > Bio (Rouse + Spur off GCD) > Ruin II (Fester off GCD) > Shadow Flare (Contagion) > Ruin > Ruin II (Fester) > Ruin x3 > Ruin II (Fester + Aether) > then weaving Ruin, Ruin II and Festers while reapplying dots as they hit about 0-2 seconds remaining.

Any help and advice for this would be greatly appreciated. What I can say is I have a habit of saving Shadow Flare for Contagion since the longer casting time feels good for setting up Garuda, should I try what you posted earlier and do Contagion after Fester? and swiftcasting Shadow Flare when need be?

Whatever works and flows well for you personally. It sounds like your opener is fine, you hit the key points you need to (DoTs go up, 2x Fester during RS, Rouse/Spur). Swiftcast Shadow Flare is nice because when you cast Shadow Flare you can use another off GCD during its GCD. Contagion is a bit different than off GCD abilities since it's pet and you can command your pet without having to wait for any animations, so you can contagion whenever you'd like after your DoTs are up. If you're only casting Shadow Flare whenever contagion is up, I would reccomend trying to keep Shadow Flare up at all times since it's another DoT and can increase your damage.