Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Jeckyl_Tesla]

I would suggest it may be a dps increase, however iirc you don't even have tri disaster up for that phase for 30 seconds (if assuming you tridisastered the carapace, which I don't see how you can do damage to it unless you did). That phase lasts at most 130 seconds, so if you have 100 seconds you may have time to use it twice, while losing all the AA damage from ifrit. I think I'll pass on that, for 30 seconds of more dots (if that, they should be dying much faster).

Furthermore, the mana cost of summoning means unless your bard is playing Ballad you will likely see a higher dps increase casting more Ruin II and autoattacking or throwing some nonDT Ruin III.

Just hope you're lucky with choosing which one to dot.

I'd wager that mana is really a non issue at this point. I'm constantly casting Ruin II in that fight, while using SC - Garuda before the Dragon adds and still being at a decent level of mana.

Though I'll have to parse somewhat more to see if Ifrit is a better choice. By the looks of it, the longer the add phase, the better Garuda may be, but then again the add phase should not last that long. So Ifrit would be the better choice.

The main question is, how much of a DPS increase is it to use Ruin III instead of Ruin II+AA? Especially in that phase with it's heavy movement required. I'd wager Ruin II+AA's would pull ahead in DPS.

It should be about a 40 DPS increase to Contagion. I haven't compared Ifrit VS Garuda damage recently to see what the difference there is, but like you said, 3D just goes on CD. By the time it is back up you are part way through the debuff. If you wait till the debuff resets again you are losing potency and if you use it and the debuff swaps elements then you just lost most of that advantage.

There's no need to wait for the debuff to reset at all.

The damage you take is minimal, since it's only 3k dmg to place your 3 DoTs onto the target. IT's worth to do it even when you have the opposite element.

But as you said, yes, that's the problem with using it, since if your element swaps with contagion, then you'll lose all your potency. But without contagion, then it should play out evenly.

[Judge_Xero]

It should be about a 40 DPS increase to Contagion. I haven't compared Ifrit VS Garuda damage recently to see what the difference there is, but like you said, 3D just goes on CD. By the time it is back up you are part way through the debuff. If you wait till the debuff resets again you are losing potency and if you use it and the debuff swaps elements then you just lost most of that advantage.

[pandabearcat]

Hmm, I have mana issues during the fight because I painflare more than I bane, I prefer to multidot as I believe it is a dps increase. Certainly I tend to be more free with tri-d in phase 3 since i only hop on during carapace 1, 3 so I have ~2 free tri-d to use.

I also ruin II constantly which is not quite sustainable - our bard usually does not play ballad but sometimes I'm happy when other dps die because then it means he does, then I get to free dps =D

I find melee is not even worth the hassle anymore. Previously when it was maybe a 5% dps increase I don't see it even being a 1% dps increase now...my melee is still ~90-100 damage, which means it is 30 MAX out of 800+, which is...really trivial for the effort. Bottom line is, melee will almost never save you a cast, and may save your raid something like 2 seconds off a kill which...for the hassle, is not worth it.

Ruin II during tornados I completely endorse, however.

The other issue is that imo dps isn't everything - if you can safely melee and stand there then sure, but if its a hassle, leads to more AoEs dropped on top of real melee, then you need to think real hard about whether its just dps padding or actually helping your comp. I'm not a dps queen - I dislike all the talk about stats and stuff - I simply wish to be a good (and better) player, so that is the philosophy I go into the fights with.

I'm far more impressed with an SMN that knows when to virus than I am with someone who does 20 more dps =D

EDIT: i'm not sure why I was talking about melee. I sometimes go off on tangents...

[Jyle]

Apologies if these were answered already but I have a few questions:
Raging strikes + dreadwyrm trance.... do they stack? If so, is it a clean stack (20%+10%=30%) Or does it matter which I use first (20%+10%=22%)... something like that
Assuming raging strikes increases dot damage..... if you pop raging strikes AFTER you use bio, does the bio that had already been cast get the damage increase? Or does it only work if you recast the bio?

Thank you

[pandabearcat]

Dots snapshot buffs so you'll need to cast them before applying a dot.

All damage modifiers stack and should be multiplicative, it doesn't matter which one you pop first.

[NovaLevossida]

I'm leveling SMN currently and wanted to ask for general leveling purposes and farming law in dungeons with all the groups of trash mobs in there, which pet is better?

I've been using Garuda with the normal stuff stacked (shadowflare, contagion -> bane DoTs, painflare when available, blizzard 2 spam when I have nothing else to do). Would Ifrit and his radiant shield actually outperform Garuda's contagion and better AoE nature of Enkindle? Or am I just better advised to use Garuda for trash packs and save Ifrit for single target bosses without much movement?

[Minorinz]

I'm leveling SMN currently and wanted to ask for general leveling purposes and farming law in dungeons with all the groups of trash mobs in there, which pet is better??

honestly i'm recommending garuda for trash because you will have more crowd control and you'll notice the damage being spread out almost equally from the mob you are targeting then everything around your target will be taking a wave of damage accordingly. with ifrit it's a little less balanced since he is the center of his own aoes. although i would say radiant shield with a warrior aoe'ing on trash mobs is something i haven't tested yet. might be absolutely powerful.

[Sleigh]

I'd say it depends on kill speed, and comp. If you're running with a DPSing WHM, Radiant Shield can actually be pretty garbage in trash pulls since it won't work for roughly 10s out of its duration. On the other hand, if you can kill stuff before you have to re-Bane with Ifrit, might as well take Ifrit.

Garuda is by far the safer trash pull pet though. Quicker Shadow Flare and Bane, and as long as you kill before a re-Bane then the extra Painflare you'd get can really pay off.

[Judge_Xero]

Going to add to this with another general rule.

Lvl 50 dungeons > = Ifrit
Lvl 50 dungeons < = Garuda

Any new dungeons you are super over geared for will probably be Ifrit later on due to how fast things die.

[Minorinz]

Going to add to this with another general rule.

Lvl 50 dungeons > = Ifrit
Lvl 50 dungeons < = Garuda

Any new dungeons you are super over geared for will probably be Ifrit later on due to how fast things die.

lvl 60* dungeons? :P

Also guys what are your thoughts on mch vs brd in the party for smn magical resistance debuffs damage boost? is it almost the same? feels like bard gives a better boost s: