Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Sidra]

Radiant shield affects everyone in the party including other pets (lol selene and eos). I also believe that (based on logs) Ifrit does a counter attack whenever other targets get hit. It doesn't seem right that Ifrit is using radiant shield only when he is hit when in some fights he'll take literally no damage and still counter attack (take A3 for example).
http://www.fflogs.com/reports/7zZ4TR...-done&source=2

It goes without saying that no pet have an attack called "attack" (pet's don't auto attack, they use their base attack, in this case burning strike every 3 seconds). In the log I linked, Ifrit also used "attack" more times than burning strike, which leads to believe that he used attack for every physical hit received under the duration of radiant shield. Further digging through that log reveals that Ifrit took no damage during the encounter outside of splash and (aside from splash not being physical anyway) radiant shield was not active during the damage intake. Looking at the log though it seems that he will continue to use attack well past the duration of radiant shield.

Lots of controversial opinions here (particularly I'm challenging the opening post's opinion of Ifrit in post 58 content) so feel free to discuss any obvious oversights in the thought process, errors in the provided data, or contradictions in the logic.

You whole argument is based on of something factually incorrect, it's not opinion based. Ifrit DOES auto attack (honestly not sure how you can play SMN and not know that - he literally hits after every Burning Strike). Ifrit DOES NOT get attacks off because of the Radiant Shield buff when other party members get hit. And Radiant Shield does exactly what it says. The person or people getting hit while the Radiant Shield buffs are up are the ones who get off the attacks. In general, it helps the main tank as they are the one getting hit, but 50 potency attacks from a tank are not very strong. You can niche use it, like during a cleave. Works in A3 and I remember using it for fun in Ravana when we were solo tanking thus turning cleaves into the party. It gives everyone a free 50 potency whack like that. Buy keep in mind those are still pretty weak - the SMN hit is like half that of a normal book smack (at i208 and a Thordan weapon I hit for like 45 dmg with it). Also it does not show up in the log as an attack, it simply says "The X takes Y damage." ACT actually attributes it to the skill “Radiant Shield.” I am unsure how fflogs handles it, although from the looks of it, it adds a Fluid Strike to the user which is really odd. Regardless – most of you argument comes from the fact that it gives Ifrit far more attacks which is simply wrong.

For all the effort you put in to research fflogs, I am surprised you did such a bad job on the in game stuff.

[IceSpear]

Now that it's been a few months since Heavensward came out does anyone know which is better; Spell speed or Determination?

[Sidra]

Determination. Per Dervy's blog at: https://dervyxiv.wordpress.com/2015/...ghts/#more-162

Summoner w/ Garuda – No book smacking:

WD: 11.602
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.137
CRT: 0.147
SS: 0.119

Summoner w/ Ifrit – No Book smacking:

WD: 11.602
INT: 1.000
DET: 0.136
CRT: 0.147
SS: 0.115

Also of note he does his testing on single target. Any AOE or double tapping moves it more towards det.

[Judge_Xero]

Speaking of Stats, has anyone noticed if the Pets are properly scaling with SPD yet? I see the bug report is still in Accepted Bugs and haven't heard otherwise.

[Morningstar1337]

Okay I am leveling SMN (among SCH for obvious reasons, as well as AST and WHM) and Right now I'm at 56 and regained Tri-Disaster. I'm wondering if a macro involving this, Contagion, Miasma II and Bane could be viable.

Normally the usual questions to DPS rotation macros are "lol you suck scrub", but mostly because most of the attacks in the rotations are on the Global Cooldown, However the Aetherflow abilities and Pet Abilities for both SMN and SCH are off the Global Cooldown. With the only GCD attacks being considered are Misama II and Ruin II (mostly for the extra DoT and because both are instant-casts). What do you think. Can this macro work, can it be expanded to a full blown Aethertrail Attuning macro or would it be just as unviable on SMN as it is on the other DPS classes? Also in the event that this idea is viable, I'd like to know how long it takes for Contagion to take effect

[AnimaAnimus]

Imo no. Macros are bad for smn. You want to learn to manually control your pet.

Mainly because if garuda is doing a move or is on cooldown herself, the time between hitting the contagion button and it actually taking effect can vary greatly from one contagion to the next so you may not bane the contagion or chance loosing a few ticks on all the mobs around by making the wait time longer.

I will Tri and then immediately start a ruin and hit contagion (which if done right is seamless) while I'm casting so I can either bane immediately after if it take effect or hit ruin 2 for a an extra bit of dps on the main target while waiting on contagion and still be able to bane as soon as it does take effect. Make sense?

Also miasma 2 is weak so unless you have it hitting multiple targets (it doesn't bane so you can technically make contagion extend the durations of it on the original target) its worthless and you don't want to delay casting or anything to move in to do it, so it can be very situational

[ShinryuReishiki]

You can't compare Ifrit's potency to Garuda's potency. Garuda's damage is calculated using the Magic Damage stat of you weapon, while Ifrit using the Physical Damage stat which is not shown in the tooltip (~70% of MD generally).

Ifrit's auto attack count and Burning Strike count will not be in sync if other attacks are used; Crimson Cyclone and such will delay the next Burning Strike slightly, but will have no impact on the auto attacks.

[Sidra]

Dude - just pull out Ifrit on anything and watch it's animations and the chat log. It freaking Burning Strikes and Auto attacks. This is borderline ridiculous you are making this argument. Also - SMN have known forever that the potency of Wind Blade and Burning Strike are not apples to apples comparison. Despite Wind Blade's weaker potency it hits much harder. Commonly believed to use the weapon's Magic Damage dmg as opposed to Burning Strike's weapon Auto Attackck dmg as different basis for the attacks.

I love fflogs, its an amazing tool for research and as a source of positive motivation to get better as it's cool to see yourself rise in rankings. But you need to get out of it and play the game, you're making yourself look like a pretty know nothing Summoner.

[audi5000]

what openers have people been using recently? im still using sleighs opener since its what im used to but i noticed that a lot of top smns have opted to use a r3(swift) r3 (raging tri) r2 (fester pain) r2 (ed aether) etc etc -> manual dot reapplication inside dw trance. not sure how i feel avout hardcasted dots inside dw trance, but it is becoming a pretty common opener that has good results. thoughts on this opener vs 2f1p/2p1f?

[ShinryuReishiki]

Lately I've been using that style of opener, seems to work fairly well; all of my personal bests have been after I switched openers, but that doesn't mean much honestly. I feel like the opener ends up being fairly insignificant as long as you're not doing something weird like not putting up DoTs at all.

Pre-cast SF, Swift R3 (RS + 3D), R2 (F + P), R2 (ED + DWT), R2 (AF + Pot), R2 (Rouse + Spur), R2 (Enkindle + F), B2, M, B (DF), R2 (F), SF (Contagion), ...

I put it all on a spreadsheet somewhere to compare to other openers, I think it was like ~130 potency higher than Sleigh's around the 30s mark if you were able to pre-cast SF? Could be wrong, was just something I did to pass the time at work. I'm not sure how standard our NIN's Trick Attack timing is, but with this opener, I'm able to get all DoTs, Enkindle, and DF off during Trick Attack. Being "ahead" on AF CD has been nice in some situations as well.