Summoner: A Guide

[Sol_Aureus]

A few people have asked me to put in a "Rotation" section in the guide. Honestly I'm reluctant to because Summoner doesn't really lend itself to the basic "Use Ability A → Ability B → Ability C → repeat" tactic.

Summoner has a lot of versatility in what it can be doing at any given time and should change based around the situation at hand, and I encourage players to use the information in the guide to come up with their own ideas of what they should be using. Also given the multitude of off GCD abilities that we have and their differing cooldowns, it is difficult to have a set rotation since it's more of a "use it when it's off CD" kind of thing.

However, a baseline to build off of couldn't hurt so I'll post what I usually open with:

Raging Strikes → Bio II → Miasma → Bio → Fester [off GCD] / Contagion → Ruin II → Swiftcast [off GCD] → Shadow Flare → Rouse [off GCD] → Spur [off GCD] → Ruin II → Fester → Ruin → Ruin → etc.

[T0rin]

I agree, there should not be a Rotation section, because there isn't a rotation. Or there shouldn't be.

Raging Strikes → Bio II → Miasma → Bio → Fester [off GCD] / Contagion → Ruin II → Swiftcast [off GCD] → Shadow Flare → Ruin II → Rouse [off GCD] → Spur [off GCD] → Ruin II → Fester → Ruin → Ruin → etc.

If in melee range (should be, auto-attacks), you should fit in Miasma 2 before Contagion.

Ruin II → Swiftcast [off GCD] → Shadow Flare → Ruin II → Rouse [off GCD]

You can swiftcast during the Ruin II GCD, but you cannot actually cast the Shadow Flare until the Ruin II GCD ends, and then it prompts another GCD when you cast Shadow Flare. The only real reason to do it this way is to fit an off-GCD skill after the Shadow Flare, during its GCD. So the above rotation would become:

Ruin II → Swiftcast [off GCD] → Shadow Flare → Rouse [off GCD]

But given how convoluted things become when DoTs start to fall off, encouraging the idea of a rotation is just asinine. Some good additions would be all the tips and tricks that make up a good spell order.

Making sure to fit off-GCDs in after instants, when it is worth it to cast 2 off-GCDs back to back for damage stacking purposes, when it is better to cast off-GCDs (like RS) by themselves, how Swiftcast actually works in that it doesn't create an off-GCD ability, but it lets you fit one in, when to Enkindle vs Contagion (in what order), how to fit two Festers into a single cast of RS, etc.

[Davechan]

Great guide. I main a summoner and I learnt alot from it.

Thank you for taking the time to write it.