Summoner / Scholar, In Math and Practice

[SokoSplat]

So I was a bit bored and figured I'd try to analyze summoner to determine SCH vs SMN DPS mechanics.

It's extremely lengthy (about 4 pages) but can be found here: http://sollabs.net/media/xiv/ffxiv_s..._breakdown.txt
I'd post here, but forums don't like 15k character posts .

After running through about 150-200 mobs in SCH and SMN I came to the conclusion that the DPS breakdown between the two was almost on par (<50 DPS variation in potency calcs) when including a pet using xiv world examples (in combat between the two in dungeons and individual mob fights) the variation between the two became even less noticeable.


At the bottom I added 2 mechanic changes (tri-disaster, a 4 part breakdown of pet mechanic changes) that would shift the DPS back in favor of the SMN vs SCH and also move SMN slightly lower than my MNK/DRG in terms of dps.

[SokoSplat]

Oh, and I haven't slept in like 2 days so if there is some f'd up math or a suggestion that makes more sense... let me know and I'll fix it when I wake up.

[Seobit]

You forgot to include raging strikes (especially coupled with contagion). Also if you were to assume that a scholar and summoner will always have roughly the same personal dps, then as your gear gets better then the dps difference becomes greater from the pet. For example at ilvl90 a summoner's garuda will do a little over 70 dps, which is substantial.

[Typrix]

The lack of accuracy in scholar gear will severely mess with scholar DPS in end game content.

[NeonC]

Does Sch Gear give about equal Mind as Smn Int? I would figure that Sch would do very similar damage with the 10% bonus from cleric stance.

[Deifact]

With cleric stance SCH can do pretty well. In terms of utility SCH beats smn. I wish smn had egi specific party buffs so they had more utility than DPS only

[Shamirah]

Of course SCH will beat SMN in term of utility... they're healers duh.

SCH won't be a viable dps "class" until.... never. No accuracy.

And SMN, for a DPS class has quite a few nice skills that brings utility.

[SokoSplat]

I used similar gearsets to show that the gain would be equiv as gear got better (cleric stance giving +10% offsets the dif, IL70 is a great starting point since it's the stage after entry gear at 50).
When looking at the stat bonuses on IL90 MND for SCH stays the same as INT for SMN but you'll see a loss of det and acc with a gain of piety and spell speed (ex: arg gloves vs smnr gloves for example).

As for accuracy, I've ran all except coils as a SCH dps in our premades (which we all had a pretty good laugh at while doing it) and was able to hold the same to an equiv gearset SMN. in our extreme premade I didn't really notice the accuracy issue either. So by endgame for acc that pretty much means 'coils'

[SokoSplat]

Thanks for the input Seobit. However, I excluded raging strikes and contagion on purpose.
The goal was to show a baseline of SCH <-> SMN in a skillset.
RS is nice, I have it bound to bio II and use it religiously on SMN, so don't take it as me saying not to use them but while it sounds like a pretty substantial boost (since you can tick it off pre-dot)
the output of a RS vs non RS is not as appealing as a 10% perma CS:
w/o RS:
92,95,88,91,88,87
bio: 541 (30.1)
w/RS:
104,113,109,104,104,106
bio: 640 (35.6)

RS comes out to be a lower end version of cleric stances native 10% damage increase. CS is perma 10%, RS is 20% over 20 sec 180s cooldown.

As for pet DPS with gear:
I unequipped all but omnilex, summoned garuda
Attacked a lightning sprite in mor dhora with these results (first 9 wind blade attacks):
int: 302 (no gear)
windblade:
123,117,120,125,122,118,126,118,121
total damage: 1090
recast: 2.94
41.2 dps
int: 437 (dl gear):
180,190,183,194,185,176,191,194,188
total damage: 1681
recast: 2.92
63.96 dps

int dif between IL70/90 : 50 (so like 10.242 dps on a low level mob). [only includes 1 ring] (does not include zenith weapon, also there might be other factors to determining pet damage that I am unaware of).
*edit* other pet skills are not included because of their high recast [aerial slash] and shockwave not casting unless mob is close

Contagion is a whole other bag of worms. The principle is the same, but the damage variation depends on your GCD usage during (depending how fast you spam ruin II it changes the impact of how much damage contagion really does increase). The math for contagion comes out pretty high if a fight lasts that long but in longer fights bosses often disappear (and don't take damage from dots even though their timers still tick down) and the several events that come into play really hurt the potential benefits of contagion. In the end the variables become somewhat improbable to determine proper damage without substantial analysis [things like bane, for example can throw the numbers way off].

[SokoSplat]

I imagine this has already been mentioned but here goes.
Arcanist dps vs. summoner DPS pre IL90 and +1. changed weap to GKoT, and a casting cowl.
You can pair: Internal Release, Blood for Blood, and raging strikes. B4B is 10% dmg increase on an 80s cd which gives a sustainable DPS higher than fester using aero. All in all it puts it over the top for a sustained fight, far enough that ECs 10 potency loss per skill and then some (by over 44.2 DPS).

I also packed on Mercy stroke into my ruin II macro, it requires melee range but it's an extra 100-200 dmg if you're in melee range and it's below the mark (it's a non GCD event so perfect with ruin II) if you're in melee range anyways you can also use MA2.

With all 3 buffs, the 4 dots hit between 382-448, (144 DPS AVG just from the dots alone) pair that with the ruin II averaging 195 a hit (80.2 DPS) you are over 200 DPS in that 20 seconds.
Aetherflow is also freed up for ED rotation spam so there's an extra 7.5 potency/sec.