SMN Opener and CD usage

[Havenchild]

In an effort to gather more SMN information into one place (cause really the only things available seem to be a generic SMN thread and complaints about Egis), this thread is dedicated to find the best SMN opener and CD usage!

This is what I remember.

• Fester, Energy Drain, Bane, Aetherflow can be used during another oGCD animation, but cause animation delays of their own. So you can go Swiftcast > Fester but not vice versa.
• Garuda is still more useful generally than ifrit, despite ifrit bringing more autoattack dps.
• Pets still made of paper and die miserably to most anything.
• Tri-disaster still useless.
• No reason not to stand in melee, unless constant movement will lower your dps.
• Mana still a problem if fight lasts more than 4/5 minutes. However, Ruin/Ruin II mana cost reduction helps a lot in allowing more Ruin II + oGCD dps.
• DoTs still snapshot raging blows.
• DoTs seem to be able to overwrite buffed DoTs now.

Now you hold it right there buddy, I'm making a guide thread! Although I fully welcome a thread like this I can link to for reference.

1) Raging Strikes does not affect Enkindle. Foe's Requiem / Trick Attack do.
2) Ifrit > Garuda in generally any fight unless there is a scenario where you get a good duration on a Contagion'd Bane. Even then it needs to be something like 2 or more adds Baned onto. There are very few exceptions here, for example, opening on T9 favors Garuda over Ifrit I find up till the Heavensfall phase.
3) Pets take damage still. They are omitted now from Ground Targets?
4) The animations are still the same. So like you said, Swiftcast seems to be a outside scenario here.

Opener wise:
There are 2 openers which are fairly close although I've never been able to beat my current ones with it. The other one, which Xero uses I believe (with Ifrit as well?) and he'll elaborate on I'm sure, begins with Bio and ends with refreshing it then using Contagion if using Garuda. I think down the road it hurts you for delaying your Enkindle to maximize that open as if you use Enkindle during the open before you switch to Ifrit that's just less potency overall.

The one I've used for Garuda with the best results personally was:

Raging Strikes -> Int Pot ->Bio II -> Miasma -> Bio -> Rouse -> Fester -> Miasma II -> Potent Poison Pot -> Contagion / Swiftcast -> Shadowflare -> Spur -> Ruin II -> Enkindle -> Ruin II -> Fester -> Ruin II -> Ruin II -> Ruin II -> Ruin II -> Fester -> Ruin II -> Aetherflow

The first Rouse doesn't need to be placed that early as Enkindle doesn't need to be in the opener, but I do it more for a convenience sake of minimalizing animation delay in the opener to get that last Ruin II after Fester into Raging Strikes while simultaneously reducing the wait time for Bio -> Fester to 0 so I never have to worry about Festering too soon or taking too long to do so.

With Ifrit, I use the same rotation up to the second Fester but instead of Miasma II, I use a Ruin II and minus contagion of course.

However, after the second Fester, I do:
(Fester) -> Ruin II -> Ruin II -> Bio -> Miasma -> Ruin II -> Fester -> Aetherflow -> Bio II

I'm sure judge will come along in a bit to add to this.

Ifrit does more damage now, if you can afford it contagion full buffed stuff and get Ifrit out for the remainder

Can anyone clear this up, do DOTs snapshot foe req as well ?

Yes, DoTs snapshot Foe but forum user Sunako I believe argued out it was not worth using Garuda in the opener. In using SC to summon Ifrit, you now have to manually use a Shadowflare that may or may not be in your opener buffed from Raging Strikes. This may cost you Ruin's in your opener. This is also assuming that you are using Ifrit's Enkindle, not Garudas post contagion as using Garudas would be a further DPS loss. Down the line, Ifrit's DPS which is that much higher then Garuda will inevitably top the Contagion'd DoTs within a couple GCDs. Which means ultimately it's a waste of 532 MP, even if you didn't really need it.

Maybe my "opener" isn't maxed, but I enjoy not being a control freak, and looking up from my hotbar on occasion. That doesn't make me a "terrible" SMN.

If you applied this mentality to an overall fight, you would likely being doing a noticeably lower DPS then SMNs that do maximize, in which case if you winded up that low, wouldn't you then be considered a terrible SMN by others? Maxing your opener is the highest core contributor of a SMNs DPS in any given fight.

You need a timeout as well. No one was trying to be offensive here but simply figuring out what is optimal.

[Judge_Xero]

The other one, which Xero uses I believe (with Ifrit as well?) and he'll elaborate on I'm sure, begins with Bio and ends with refreshing it then using Contagion if using Garuda.

Yeah, unless I will be keeping Garuda up for any duration during the start of a fight I only use Ifrit now. I used to start with Garuda to Contagion those Potted, Raging Stiked, Foe'd, Trick Attacked initial Dots, but... yeah with animation delay and the possibility of a non-perfect execution + delayed pet buffs, higher Ifrit Enkindle, losing attacks from re-summon of the pet, it really wasn't worth nearly breaking even. (Although the burst Damage looks really cool)

Edited to clarify: While you might gain in the area of 600 Potency on the opener, in the gran scheme of things it's such a small amount for so great an effort.

Sunako was right that overall there is really no gain all things considered, to Contagion + SC Ifrit etc. (maybe that will change when SS buffs dots?)

So now for me it's just Ifrit all the way. RS, Bio, XPOT, Miamsa, Bio 2, *Fester, RuinII, Rouse/Spur, Ruin II, Enkindle (if you use it here), RuinII, RuinII (get in all those auto attacks on the boss) .....reapply Bio and get that last Fester off while your XPOT and RS are still up.

* you need to wait just a fraction of a second for Bio 2 to register, but I decided to move the Fester here as GCD dots register faster than Bio (instant cast) there was a risk of not getting that second Fester under both RS and XPOT if you used it after the Ruin II, due to animation delay.


Snapshots - DOTs snapshot all buffs. Foes, Trick Attack, RS, Pots, (Hopefully Selene's SS buff in 3.0 )

MP - Not so much an issue unless you are dotting tons of stuff or using a lot of Ruin II. You can literally cast Ruin now for 0 loss of MP as it matches your MP recovery tick. So all you need to worry about is that your Dot casting will match your Aetherflow recovery or at least to the degree that you don't run out of MP before the end of the fight.

Sick VS Obey
- Never leave Garuda on Sick. Contagion on a single DOT is terrible since you can't control her casts.
- Ifrit - Never leave on Sick. Flaming Crush will not always be within range of the mob you are attacking (DPS Loss, interrupts Burning Strike). Radiant Shield does nothing unless Ifrit will get attacked by something (DPS Loss, interrupts Burning Strike)

If you don't want to position Ifrit to hit mobs with Flaming Crush then that's fine. But at the minimum, keep him on Obey, so he doesn't use those other skills and will only use Burning Strike. Also stop being lazy and at least use Crimson Cyclone as a DPS increase when you don't have to worry about causing Stun Resist.

I'm sure judge will come along in a bit to add to this.

I just can't resist a SMN thread.

[Sanguisio]

I just can't resist a SMN thread.

I know, I am starting to warm to you.

Cheers for clearing up the snapshot. Surely, BV'ed foe Xpot +RS DOTs then swiftcast ifrit buffed enkindle > ifrit from start?

[Natersby]

Reading through the thread the only thing missing for me was raging strikes. "Oh no, how much Archer levelling am I going to have to do to unlock this one move?" I pondered. After a quick google search I return, hiding my face in shame.

[Judge_Xero]

I know, I am starting to warm to you.

Cheers for clearing up the snapshot. Surely, BV'ed foe Xpot +RS DOTs then swiftcast ifrit buffed enkindle > ifrit from start?

It probably is a few hundred potency better. I think I ran some numbers on it a while back, which showed like 600 Potency if all the stars aligned. But I've started so many fights where you wipe like 2 minutes in and then you just blow all those timers out the window. That's a lot of work for like 5 DPS. (8 minute fight)

I guess SMN could have a few different options. Like:
Standard Opener Garuda
Standard Opener Ifrit
Max Opener -> Insert Gil here.

Although OP did ask for the best possible SMN opener, which I guess is subjective lol. Best for me is, costs no Gil. (RS onwy) But, your right, the best possible would include, XPOT, RS, BVFoes, Trick Attack, Poison Pot, Contagion, SC Ifrit - Rouse/Spur Enkindle.

[Sanguisio]

Yeah that sounds about right, I did some numbers a while back when I exposed to myself how shity garuda actually is.

[pandabearcat]

People keep giving me differing info on whether garuda or ifrit is better. Ifrit is dying a lot even if I place him behind the boss. Garuda does too, surprisingly. Enkindle is placed far enough behind that tanks should at least have opening rotation in, but maybe its still pulling. We had problems with this when reborn first came out. Garuda's enkindle hits hard w/ rouse/spur.

So idk. The opener without contagion is pretty much the exact same just dropping Miasma II.

I toyed with the idea of Bio first but don't really care either way. Are you able to do 2x RB fester if you open with bio?

Since I server xferred and haven't played in a year I have no money so I haven't used any pots at all. I don't do progression content anyhoo (yet) so not too worried about that part.

[Ronove]

People keep giving me differing info on whether garuda or ifrit is better. Ifrit is dying a lot even if I place him behind the boss. Garuda does too, surprisingly.

What fights are they dying in? I haven't had much issue with my pets dying (unless I did something stupid like place them in front of the boss or they somehow wandered up there--but even then one attack isn't gonna kill them.). I had a tank once in Titan EX who decided it would be fun to mountain buster my Garuda who was off minding her own business on the side ;_; .

[pandabearcat]

I'm just doing T1-9 coil! Its like really easy stuff, but my pets are exploding.

[Sleigh]

I'm just doing T1-9 coil! Its like really easy stuff, but my pets are exploding.

T6 - as long as you don't have a Briar spawn in the center Ifrit should be as survivable as it gets. If you use Garuda and don't place it after the fight starts it can have a Briar spawn on it.
T7 - IIRC tail swipe can mess up your pets if it's the add's tail swipe. Not sure, I always used Garuda since MP was an issue when T7 was relevant.
T8 - nothing should kill either pet. Maybe mines? Don't think they can hurt your pet enough to 2 shot it so should be fine no matter what.
T9 - Only thing that should mess your pets up is Heaven's Fall, which you can place your pets away from. Anything else would be insignificant or pretty dang weird, like the Raven's Beak explosion hitting Ifrit.