Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Avia_Frost]

What a to the extra dwt right before adds phase? I tried popping it and could get a few r3s off but deathflare wasn't up before the transition. Another way was that i delayed getting 3 stacks and saved it for the beginning of adds phase. Wondered how ppl do this part.

[alphamax112]

U can cast deathflare on the water sprout for 2 & 4 pistons.

[Havenchild]

What a to the extra dwt right before adds phase? I tried popping it and could get a few r3s off but deathflare wasn't up before the transition. Another way was that i delayed getting 3 stacks and saved it for the beginning of adds phase. Wondered how ppl do this part.

You pop DWT at the transition, place a Shadowflare down before the adds spawn and Deathflare the tornado when the two pistons spawn (make sure to refocus Garuda immediately).

[Sleigh]

I think what Avia Frost is asking about is the potential to do 4 DWT sets in the first 3 minutes, which is possible and likely a large (applicable to the fight's enrage) DPS gain but it would be a bit clunky, haven't given it too much thought. You would severely weaken at least one set of Aetherflow + Contagioned DoTs but you would gain a bunch of extra R3s and a potentially double hitting Deathflare, AKA 880 potency which is more extra potency than you gain from the 5 Festers + 3Ds getting buffed by 10% in all of the other 3 DWTs.

Haven't done this as I mentioned but it'd be something like ...

Opener 15s > Aether
DWT at 1m15s > Aether
DWT at 2m25s, must Deathflare within 1-5s due to 30s CD of Deathflare
DWT at 2m55s, get as much milk as you can, Deathflare a baited hand in

Your Hand of Pain DPS becomes doo-doo but before then is the same, and if you do get that free 880 potency Deathflare it's a huge gain. You won't notice it on a parse though, in fact it weakens your parse because DWT Shadow Flare + Deathflare on adds is basically the same thing (on paper) but your Hand of Pain is better. Probably recommended just for people trying to beat 1% enrage or trying to really speed run.

[Avia_Frost]

Its not perfect either way.

I probably prefer to keep it for adds (pop during transition), but time it so that it lasts till Pistons. Sometimes i could only get shadow flare off and that because I popped it and R3 one of the hands with a few secs left over into the transition.

[Anze-chan]

Hi

I wasn't sure where to post this but I have been suffering from tridisaster>fester registration where it says fester has no effect after tridisaster. This started ever since chaos moved to Europe and it is very frequent. Has anyone suffered from this because I keep losing my AA stacks or it gets all messed up.. Do I have to delay fester for 2-3 secs every time?

thanks

[NovaLevossida]

Hi

I wasn't sure where to post this but I have been suffering from tridisaster>fester registration where it says fester has no effect after tridisaster. This started ever since chaos moved to Europe and it is very frequent. Has anyone suffered from this because I keep losing my AA stacks or it gets all messed up.. Do I have to delay fester for 2-3 secs every time?

thanks

You're probably not lagging anymore so the DoTs take a brief moment to show up on the target before you can use Fester. Without the lag, you actually hit Fester before the DoTs land and that's what causes your problem. So either wait a moment or fill that downtime before the GCD with something like Swiftcast.

[Sunako]

I have one question from A4. I have watched few video from A4 SMN pov and SMN most of time sacrifice himself in the pentacle phase. I wonder how it is good idea sacrifice summoner since you lose pet and mana and you need swiftcast for the ress then hardcast pet? Do dots really do that much damage while you are dead that cover other sacrifices?

[Havenchild]

I have one question from A4. I have watched few video from A4 SMN pov and SMN most of time sacrifice himself in the pentacle phase. I wonder how it is good idea sacrifice summoner since you lose pet and mana and you need swiftcast for the ress then hardcast pet? Do dots really do that much damage while you are dead that cover other sacrifices?

No, they do not. Groups that sacrifice their SMNs and down the fight, only can do so because they are making up the DPS (in strides) elsewhere. Sacrificing a SMN might have the biggest Raid DPS loss of all the classes. Now in theory, you would without a doubt need to save Aetherflow for when you come back but you still need to put up DoTs and manual summon your Pet and the rev time for a SMNs DPS is decidedly longer than any other class. This goes double for groups that ignore Straf Dolls to meet the overall DPS check. You are crushing your SMNs DPS considerably. Mana Burns + Suicide, honestly that SMN should just go BLM at that point or just accept the carry cause that's literally what it is.

Now on another note, if the SMN was the lowest DPS to begin with, it potentially makes sense to sacrifice them also. You do want to keep your highest single target DPS members on the boss for as long as possible.

For my group, we sac the NIN/MCN/WAR for the first and second pentacles and the third would be healers and OT. With FC buff there's no double weakness and we are certainly on track to beating the enrage with no issue.

[ShinryuReishiki]

In my group we sac WAR, BRD, and WHM for first and second. WHM swift raises WAR, I swift raise BRD, and SCH swift raises WHM. It think it work pretty well; we don't seem to have any issues with healing unless we take unnecessary damage somehow. Our WHM isn't particularly happy about it, but our overall DPS leaves us at the point where the third Royal Pentacle exploding may as well be the enrage; we need that extra DPS without weakness.

On our final pull on Wednesday, they exploded with 3000 HP left on the boss. The LB gauge dinged LB1 as we died lol. We can't go again until next Sunday, so we get to dwell on that for a bit...