Quote Originally Posted by Strawberrycocoa View Post
Working (slowly, I'm a bad grinder) on progressing through content and I am seeing some pretty big drawbakcs to Summoner in some aspects. Specifically, if my pet dies to aoe damage I lose a lot of DPS because Garuda's gone and I can't always stop to re-summon without dying myself. Plus aoe scenarios like Garuda's Razor Plumes are giving me trouble because I don't seem to have much effective AOE ability unless I am missing something. I can dump three dots then Bane but that still leaves them alive and doing damage while the dots eat them. Can spam Blizzard 2 or Miasma 2 but they're not that strong damage wise.

Kind of feeling like I should have leveled Black Mage; no pet reliance, and stronger AOE. :\ Advice?
Unless something's changed recently, SMN are the best for handling Garuda HM's plumes due to Tri-disaster.

You time the cast of tri-disaster so that it hits right after they spawn. Then NOBODY TOUCH THEM! Just focus on Garuda and make sure everybody has AoE moves turned off (no flare, pets on obey, etc). They'll be stuck in place till they blow up, and when they do they're too far from the pillars to do anything.

Granted, I haven't fought Garuda HM in months but it *used* to work at least.