Contagion is way too overrated!

[mvenom]

You cant have 3500-3800 mp, unless you put your attributes in piety, melded everything with piety etc. I have 2983 MP, depending on race you can have few points more or less.

[StouterTaru]

You cant have 3500-3800 mp, unless you put your attributes in piety, melded everything with piety etc. I have 2983 MP, depending on race you can have few points more or less.

It's 7.25 MP/PIE for smn, right? (or maybe just a flat 7, I forget)

Between relic and 110 crafted gear, you can add +169 PIE. That is well over 4k without touching your 30 bonus attributes.

[Eloah]

It's 7.25 MP/PIE for smn, right? (or maybe just a flat 7, I forget)

Between relic and 110 crafted gear, you can add +169 PIE. That is well over 4k without touching your 30 bonus attributes.

Thank you!

[Tex_Mex]

Ya this one really is a no brainer. There are a ton of people that still believe that Garuda is superior to Ifrit due to contagion, but it just simply is not true.

Garuda is only better than ifrit if:
1) The enemy you are attacking takes more damage from magic attacks (garuda=magic, ifrit=physical)
2) The enemy uses a lot of circular knockbacks (knocking ifrit away frequently and causing you to have to heal him more often)
3) The encounter requires a lot of running around (travel time is high)
4) The encounter has A LOT of AoE adds with high health (bane+contagion is great against adds that will live longer than 30 seconds)
5) You are not adept at repositioning your pet

That's it! And oddly enough, there are WAAAAAY more encounters in the game that do not have these issues than there are that do. This pretty much makes ifrit the stronger egi in the majority of situations.

For FCoB, I only use garuda for T11 (this is because I am sometimes the only mage and it is my job to kill the cube (high physical defense)). Ifrit is superior in all other situations I have run into so far (I have not done T13 yet)

[alsims2007]

I'm glad this thread was made to hopefully finally clear up this misconception.
Titan- solo (obviously)
Garuda- aoe/ slight mp management
Ifrit- single target dps

Raging strikes cooldown is just too long to make garuda a better choice. She is by far the better aoe pet. Bane/contagion combo plus her higher damage from magical attacks is far superior to ifrits physical damage plus an Autoattack on 1 enemy

[Kuwagami]

I'm glad this thread was made to hopefully finally clear up this misconception.
Titan- solo (obviously)
Garuda- aoe/ slight mp management
Ifrit- single target dps

tbh, I'd prefer ifrit for AoE situation (dungeon usually, I don't raid with my SMN) because his skills are all AoE based. Monsters do not live long enough to justify the use of contagion most of the time

[Kikosho]

tbh, I'd prefer ifrit for AoE situation (dungeon usually, I don't raid with my SMN) because his skills are all AoE based. Monsters do not live long enough to justify the use of contagion most of the time

Uh.. I dunno where you got the idea that all of Ifrit's skills are AoE based but it's just not quite right. His auto attack, Crimson Cyclone, and Burning Strike are all single target. Flaming Crush is a circular AoE but it is centered around Ifrit and has piss poor range so you practically will not hit anything unless they are hugging Ifrit's hitbox. Radiant Shield only works if Ifrit takes damage from the enemies so unless you have him sitting in every AoE attack, it's not going to give you anything. His Enkindle is a conal attack so unless you place him properly, it has a chance to miss a group of adds. Including Enkindle, Garuda is just the better pet for trash packs/adds.

[Kuwagami]

snip

is that so ? I always thought his basic skill (not auto attack) was a cleave. Well, I don't know (all in all, I'm not a SMN main and rarely use it out of dungeons), I vaguely remember some consensus back in days when people were saying "Ifrit for trash, Garuda for bosses" and I just stuck with it, guess I was wrong

[Osmond]

Contagion as a regular ability can help SMNs alot at the same time increase their DPS if they switch from garuda to ifrit due to him being buffed patches ago.

[Tayolynn]

I just use Garuda so no one will bitch at me about, being noob or not know what they're doing. I'd like to use Ifrit-egi for the dps, but last time I did that some a-hole called me out about it and nagged me to use Garuda saying, "Why aren't you using Garuda, Garuda gives more dps blah blah blah."

Using Garuda = no one bitches
Using any other egi's = someone will bitch

So in conclusion: I use Garuda to shut up the a-hole crowd.