SMN in T8

[Seaku]

I think its useless to continue my post here since people will never listen and will not open their mind and yet will truly believe Contagion conserve their MP and able to out DPS Ifrit in T8 fight, I bet you people not even care to do experiment and open your eyes to the truth, I don't see what the point to post more because only bullcrap all I see is Contagion almost everywhere and with MP conserve, I even wonder if your Bard never do their jobs or Bard is hard to find for T8

Alright.. I'll bite, let's do some simple math for contagion. Every minute you get to extend your dots 15 seconds, which means you get to use 5 more ruins (89 mana each) instead of recasting your dots and two ruins (106+186+133+89+89) in the same amount of time. You can probably fit one more ruin into each set there but that's not going to broaden the gap more.

So comparing that you get 445 compared to 603 mana spent in the same time. Take this over a 10 minute fight, you save 1588 mana. That's 2 Aetherflow and an energy drain it saves you. So this puts you a full 2 minutes ahead in terms of mana over titan or ifirt. (This is off course a rough estimate). So yes it does conserve you MP, a LOT of mp.

I have tried ifirt and garuda on this fight, over the course of the WHOLE fight, garuda makes us a pair do more damage. Simply because of foes and the fact that I have to use ED far less. On T8 with a solitary bard and healers that don't need that much from mage's ballad will cause you to use ED over the course of that fight. Especially since a soilitary bard in this fight will be using army's paeon or foes if the healers don't need the mana. If I'm using ifirt I have to ED a good two minutes ahead of when I'd need to as garuda. That's 150 potency loss per ED. Ifirt is not going to make up for that with his 10 dps difference. I don't currently use pots but even then having 3 contagioned raging strikes over the course of that fight pushes garuda way ahead already.

I done here, My purpose here is not to convict people to use Ifrit, I come here to say I use Ifrit in T8 in first place and if people wonder why Ifrit, I answered. People happy with Garuda so I don't see why I should try to argue on that

Also you've said this like 2-3 times, you've offered no proof to the contrary that Ifirt is better other than your hearsay. You've said you aren't trying to convince other people but you seem to be trying pretty hard without any evidence at all.

[Marcusow86]

.... I don't see what the point to post more because only bullcrap all I see is Contagion almost everywhere and with MP conserve, I even wonder if your Bard never do their jobs or Bard is hard to find for T8 ....

My BRD is there to do their job, bait missile, deal DPS and then sing FOE for melee cause they really need it as they TP hunger faster than healer/mage mana starve.

I am a SMN in my static and let's face it, no matter how perfect your run is, your DPS will not win melee. Conserving BRD's mana for FOE is what you should be doing to sustain your melee's DPS. Garuda's profile fits nicely for mana conservation.

You can say your ifrit deals more damage and you will not run out of mana cause your BRD is constantly ballad-ing you. But did you manage to see the big picture as a whole team?

[Erai]

My BRD is there to do their job, bait missile, deal DPS and then sing FOE for melee cause they really need it as they TP hunger faster than healer/mage mana starve.

I am a SMN in my static and let's face it, no matter how perfect your run is, your DPS will not win melee. Conserving BRD's mana for FOE is what you should be doing to sustain your melee's DPS. Garuda's profile fits nicely for mana conservation.

You can say your ifrit deals more damage and you will not run out of mana cause your BRD is constantly ballad-ing you. But did you manage to see the big picture as a whole team?

Except on what fight does a SMN using ifrit need a ballad specifically catered to them? 1 Ballad on Turn 8, which is the most mana-intense fight is more than enough, and at least during progression healers get that ballad at some point. Mana concerns are mentioned a lot in this thread, but there really isn't any situation where it's relevant. Turn 6 is too short, Garuda is close on Turn 7, Turn 8 1 Ballad is enough (A short one), Turn 9 you don't even need a ballad at all.. even if you pet swap constantly. So in what way is the whole team affected?

I only lose to our Monk on Turn 8, and not by much. (He's in the 440-450 range) The rest I can take if I try hard enough - SMN should easily top T9 DPS.


Also yes, ifrit does do mixed damage. The more you take away from him debuff wise, the less his dps is. If he has all debuffs available, he will smoke Garuda. (My other post still stands though, there's no reason not to use both on a fight.. Garuda should always be used at least for the opener, and ifrit from then on.)

[Marcusow86]

snip

I believe this topic is all about T8 as a summoner, thus all my comment were based on T8.

You can argue swapping pets for more dps, but factoring in the mana cost for summon swapping (everytime RS off CD), downtime when swapping happens (both you and the pet), pet position allocation time wastage (certain fight). My conclusion/instinct tells me i am going to stick to Garuda for the whole fight.

In T8, i am responsible for landmine and tower, so i did couple of ruin II while running/getting into position. So my mana will be in critical condition if i do not watch it. Usually the BRD would only PEON our DRG/MNK and we are left with no mana song until close to the end of the fight where healer's would be in danger of OOM. It is completely up to me to utilize my mana reserve the best i can. I just do not have the luxury to summon swap every 3 min.

Alas, everyone have their own play style, not trying to hard force my play style on to you. Just continue what you believe and are comfortable with and what work best for your team.

[Seaku]

Except on what fight does a SMN using ifrit need a ballad specifically catered to them? 1 Ballad on Turn 8, which is the most mana-intense fight is more than enough, and at least during progression healers get that ballad at some point. Mana concerns are mentioned a lot in this thread, but there really isn't any situation where it's relevant. Turn 6 is too short, Garuda is close on Turn 7, Turn 8 1 Ballad is enough (A short one), Turn 9 you don't even need a ballad at all.. even if you pet swap constantly. So in what way is the whole team affected?

Speaking from T8, past a certain point you don't need ballad anymore though the melee definitely need paeon so your own mana becomes an issue at least from what I've seen. Since the bard will only be casting paeon and foes. Also this thread has only been for turn 8 where mana and tp does become and issue for dps except blm.

As for the others, T6, why use ifirt? Bard can just use battlevoice foes twice in the fight which will pull Garuda way ahead. Not like you need the other songs for that turn. T7 and 9, a lot of movement on adds or cleaves and the like so why take ifirt again? When garuda is far safer, likely increases your damage more and doesn't need to move. In T9 you can stand in melee range for a lot of the fight meaning miasma II can easily be contagioned. T9 also pushes back your pet with heavens fall, garuda doesn't really need to re-engage after being pushed away.

Also generally curious, what would be the benefit to swapping pets? It's a mana sink and isn't it better to have garuda out every minute for contagion. Even if you don't want to swap for that you'd want to swap back every 3 min for raging strikes. Why spend a swiftcast and a global to do that? When swiftcast can be better spend on SF or a res.

[Madoka]

There's no "opening our eyes"

Ifrit simply does not do enough increased DPS to outweigh stat boosted dot damage to begin with. 5 more ticks of 20% boosted damage every 3 minutes, 5 more ticks of 84 Int boosted damage every 7 minutes, 5 more ticks of your potent poison potion (static damage) for 2 potions per 3 minutes. Garuda also benefits from Foes which will be up for at least 2 minutes of the fight, and possibly 3-6 minutes depending on if you have 2 bards and if mages ballad is needed. Ifrit's dps lead is usually 8~12 dps, assuming garuda's dps is 90 and ifrits is 100 unbuffed, garuda ends up at 99 while foes is up, 108 with BV. If you have a mnk then ifrit is gaining from dragon kick for one of his attacks, if not then nope. So as an 11 minute fight at the longest, and assuming a minimum of 2 minutes where Garuda and ifrit are at least matched, we have 9 minutes of Ifrit possibly doing more damage. 540 seconds. If his dps is 10 higher thats 5400 more damage than Garuda would put out. We'll round up to 6000 for his enkindle dot and gaining more from rouse/spur than garuda.

In an 11 minute fight we will use Contagion at least 10 times. This is 150 seconds of more ruins. Ruin is a 2.5 GCD. In i90 gear your ruin should be hitting 200 minimum. In 150 seconds you can fit in 60 Ruins. 60x200 is 12000.
Every potent poison pot is getting another 5 ticks, doubling its damage from 250 to 500. We'll assume you got to use 6 in the fight for 9 minutes worth of CD on it. Thats 1500 damage normally, 3000 damage thanks to contagion. 1500 more damage over the course of the fight that wasn't there as well.
Now this is obviously not how your extra time from contagion always goes but after factoring in at least 75 seconds of either RS or Int potion boosted dots that otherwise would have expired I think you get a comparable gain it's pretty clear from a bullshit math standpoint that Contagion is doing a lot more than anything Ifrit is doing.

[Zamii]

i considered at first explaining how ifrit works in relation to garuda, along with many other points, but since im to lazy and lets be honest, no one who is in the "garuda only or gtfo" catagory wont really care to read it, so i decided this;
most of these groups people are in are more than capable of loosing 200+ raid dps and still beating the fight with room to spare, so i say this, any of the people who sware to use garuda and only garuda and have a monk in their turn 8 party, try it out once or twice and post back, you will be surprised with the results.

[NightReach]

It seems that people dont really like to read what they dont agree on. I tried ifrit, it didn't get me a dps increase, I run out of mana by 4-5 min and had to be that guy that ask for mana, when our MNK who is doing well over 450 needs peon. I did about 320 with ifrit back then, while 340 with garuda. Now im doing 390+ garuda. Did I mention garuda scales alot harder with gear?

Maybe its cuz ur undervalue/lack of good understanding of contagion thats holding you back on T9.

[Orophin]

I think Contagion's ability to save some MP for the SMN will win in the long run. It's a long fight with very little breaks and it's not always feasible to use Ballad. But I haven't tried it so I can't knock it until I do.

[Erai]

Ifrit is significantly more dps as long as you have a monk, even with proper use of contagion. This holds true for Turn 6/8/9, Garuda is closer on T7. I've only played with Ifrit since i103, so can't speak for anything less than that. The difference from then on though is very significant.

My question is, why does everyone think you have to start with and stick with 1 pet? I open with Garuda, Contagion my raging+pot+poison pot dots then swiftcast out to ifrit for the remainder of the fight. On T9 I can bring Garuda out for every Raging Strikes because of the fights downtime and not be affected mana wise.

For reference I can sustain ~415 dps on T8, where I use Ifrit the entire fight after I Contagion my opener. No poison pots. (i110 book)

Ifrit pulled 116 dps this week on Turn 9 - keep in mind T9 has A LOT of downtime, which makes that number much less than it would be on a 100% uptime fight. Find me a Garuda that can even get close to that. I also swap out to Garuda to Contagion every Raging Strikes which lowers Ifrits DPS as well.

Plain and simple - if you must use 1 pet for the entire fight, use Ifrit if you have a monk. Proper use of contagion on a fight like Turn 7 brings Garuda closer, and Garuda is better in situations where there is AOE and your dots will get to run their full Contagion duration. That leaves Ifrit by far better for T6/8/9.. if you have a monk. I highly suggest learning what your mana pool can handle though, and swap between pets accordingly for the best of both worlds. Usually only worth it on the opener, but in T9 there's plenty of downtime to hard-cast pets so you don't get stuck with Garuda out and no swiftcast after using Contagion.

As for the Mana concern, 1 short Ballad during T8 is enough to sustain ifrit - assuming the fight goes its full duration. T9 your mana should never be an issue. As I said I swap to Contagion every Raging Strikes, then swap back and can sustain myself for the entire fight. (Energy drain during golems)