Arcanist / Summoner Help: Maximising DPS

[vanityobscene]

So I am currently levelling an Arcanist/Summoner. Not too long ago I was informed that I should cycle targets with my Bard and DoT them to maximise DoT DPS.

This advice seems to work generally pretty well. But it depends on the tank and their ability to hold aggro.

I figured that the same would apply to the Arcanist/Summoner, afterall, they do have Bane, which allows them to spread DoT to nearby monsters.

But what I'm finding over and over and over again is that I keep drawing aggro from tanks. And it's frustrating. I wind up defaulting to one target at a time solely because if I don't my squishy self gets belted which is no good for the healer, and the tank can't recover aggro from me once I've got it.

I'm conscious as I can be when DoTing. I'm hitting priority targets first. My first DoTs always follow the tank's marked first, or which ever the tank begins their rotation on. I even wind up waiting till 50% health before I even consider switching to the next now because I'm trying to balance DPS with not getting aggro.

But it's just stifling, and not really working well. Level 30+ provides me with great abilities and I'm starting to worry that the Arcanist / Summoner is going to be stuck behind the tank, and therein behind every other DPS.

Can anyone shine a light on the situation with Arcanists / Summoners? Is it worth cross-classing Quelling Strikes? How do I get the best damage outputs without also becoming the new tank?

[SeraviEdalborez]

It's an issue with bad/lazy tanks, or inexperienced ones. I would advise the tank to concentrate more on AoE enmity. If they don't comply, use a tank pet on secondary/tertiary mobs. Or accept that you're stuck with going 1 by 1 in such parties.

[Sagittarian]

What pet are you using?

Topaz and Titan generate extra aggro much like a tank does.

[Lithera]

What pet are you using?

Topaz and Titan generate extra aggro much like a tank does.

It sounds more like THEY are getting aggro not their pet. ACN/SMN DoTs are much more potent than ARC/BRD so when you Bane those DoTs onto the secondary targets you're generating huge amounts of aggro. Some tanks will pick up on your use of Bane and use Flash/Overpower more frequently but not every tank is that aware. They'll assume you're DoTing their target and spamming Ruin. It can help to say something to the tank.

[vanityobscene]

What pet are you using?

Topaz and Titan generate extra aggro much like a tank does.

Tank pets never come out during instances unless I've been grouped with a tank who isn't tanking, and even then sparingly. It's Emerald and now that I've gotten the SMN job, Ifrit-egi.

[vanityobscene]

It sounds more like THEY are getting aggro not their pet. ACN/SMN DoTs are much more potent than ARC/BRD so when you Bane those DoTs onto the secondary targets you're generating huge amounts of aggro. Some tanks will pick up on your use of Bane and use Flash/Overpower more frequently but not every tank is that aware. They'll assume you're DoTing their target and spamming Ruin. It can help to say something to the tank.

One of the problems here lie in communicating. I'm on Tonberry, and when using the Duty Finder am by and large paired with JP only speakers. I really wish there were language options so that I could type to them in JP or set up a macro to alert them to the problem in Japanese.

[Palian]

One of the problems here lie in communicating. I'm on Tonberry, and when using the Duty Finder am by and large paired with JP only speakers. I really wish there were language options so that I could type to them in JP or set up a macro to alert them to the problem in Japanese.

If I'm in a group where the tank isn't very good at AoE aggro, I generally stick to one target and use the Aetherflow stacks for Fester (which you don't have yet) instead of bane. That doesn't maximize my DPS, but I don't worry because the group isn't about max efficiency in the first place, if the tank can only hold aggro on one target.

And to communicate with Japanese players, you could try auto translate (tab key) and build some macros with that.

[Estellios]

Yes, quelling strikes is useful for this situation.

Anyways, you just have to remember that tanks are much much worse at holding AOE hate at low levels than they are at high levels irregardless of skill, they just don't have valuable enmity tools at that point. WAR picks up the slack a lot sooner once it gets Defiance at 30 but PLD needs to wait until Shield Oath at 40. Having leveled SMN through Duty Finder, my advice is at the very least to wait until the first enemy is a little closer to death before using Bane. It gives the tank a little more time to build a hate lead. It could also just be that you are capped in the dungeon and the tank isn't which leads to them having to do a bit more work to make up for the extra gear you have.

My point is really just don't worry about max DPS as much in pre-50 dungeons, getting through them smoothly is much more important.

There are actually a good amount of Japanese FF14 players that do speak at least a small amount of English, so something as basic as "more (Flash) (please)" can probably get the message across and if the dude you are trying to talk to can't understand chances are someone else in the group will.

Your DPS won't suffer in endgame fights since most of them are against one enemy that summons adds later which is a lot easier on enmity.

[SeraviEdalborez]

One of the problems here lie in communicating. I'm on Tonberry, and when using the Duty Finder am by and large paired with JP only speakers. I really wish there were language options so that I could type to them in JP or set up a macro to alert them to the problem in Japanese.

I've hear JP players aren't big on AoE damage in duty finder. So if the tank isn't trying it's probably because of their different expectations.