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.