Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Charybdis]

Increase of Damage.

As I mentioned, get a linear regression of X Skillspeed with the same WD, DET, INT, CRT, on the impact of damage. You can get random ass Accuracy/SS DEX/STR accessories to try it out and absolutely max out your right-side.

Or just get the data and I'll do it. The only issue is that Skillspeed buff that you get. Is there any way to mitigate this?

I don't think so. Can't stop the pet from delivering a crit and proc'ing it. Is there a way to track/turn it off or ignore the data via ACT?

Was just going off of Judge saying SS wasn't affecting Ifrit. Still collecting the data for you, not drawing my own conclusions by any means.

[ShinryuReishiki]

- To save you some time on Pet Data. Ifrit does not seem to benefit at all from SS, either through faster Burning Strikes or increased damage. - Over 22 Minutes he didn't deviate at all from 3s per skill use (used over 700 Spell Speed for testing)

It is affected by Spell Speed, it's just not a big change. Looking at the time it takes for damage to appear, each Burning Strike hit 3.26s apart at 354 and 3.10s at 679. Looking at the difference in the CD timer countdown, 679 speed was also 0.16s faster than 354. Testing over an extended period of time is difficult due to the speed buff from pet crits.

[Dervy]

I don't think so. Can't stop the pet from delivering a crit and proc'ing it. Is there a way to track/turn it off or ignore the data via ACT?

Was just going off of Judge saying SS wasn't affecting Ifrit. Still collecting the data for you, not drawing my own conclusions by any means.

Nope, and it won't be easy to change the values either as we don't know at which scale SS affects Pets... Unless someone smarter than myself can think of something, I'm out of ideas. I guess you could just set your pet not to attack when you get the buff? Like, you need to eliminate that SS buff otherwise it'll screw a lot of things

[Judge_Xero]

Increase of Damage.

As I mentioned, get a linear regression of X Skillspeed with the same WD, DET, INT, CRT, on the impact of damage. You can get random ass Accuracy/SS DEX/STR accessories to try it out and absolutely max out your right-side.

Or just get the data and I'll do it. The only issue is that Skillspeed buff that you get. Is there any way to mitigate this?

It's really tricky, since your only source for that combination of stats, is through using healing accessories or swapping around casting gear to get a combination of DET, INT, CRT etc while raising or lowering your spell speed. (Spell Speed ><)

It is affected by Spell Speed, it's just not a big change. Looking at the time it takes for damage to appear, each Burning Strike hit 3.26s apart at 354 and 3.10s at 679. Looking at the difference in the CD timer countdown, 679 speed was also 0.16s faster than 354. Testing over an extended period of time is difficult due to the speed buff from pet crits.

Was hoping you would chime in here, since you were using the recording software to measure the difference in frame animation.

I didn't account for Enhanced Pet procing, but I thought I would see a more significant gain than what I did in my quick testing just measuring # of attacks over time. Relying on just recorded attacks, I didn't measure any difference between Base SPD and 721 SPD

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Edited: Did a few more tests, Low Crit with Garuda to try and limit any procs, 10 Trials of 5 mins each.
354 SPD - 100 Hits
731 SPD - 102 Hits

Possibly a ~0.06 increase on cast time. (2% Damage Increase)

Compared to the increase that the SMN should see (+377 SPD = GCD 2.35 or 6% increase in casting speed)

So maybe the pet only sees 1/3 of the gains that the SMN does in regards to SPD.

Still not sure though, because I had 1 run @ 731 SPD of only 100 hits and 1 run @ 354 of 99 Hits. User error could have been an issue, so looking forward to what Chary finds.

[Charybdis]

I can turn off the pet attack when the buff comes up. It's micro manage-y but doable. I can do that.

For the Spell Speed request though it's going to be trickier. Does SKILL Speed interact with caster spells at all? For example- if I bought melee/healing accessories with no CRT, DET, INT, on them and melded Spell Speed slowly to build up an increase, it would work. however would any Skill Speed on accessories skew the data collection? Just thinking out of the box here.

Judge raises a good point that makes the request extremely tricky. Many healing/melee accessories are going to grant some semblance of CRT/DET buff which I'm trying to keep constant via my left side pieces.

[Charybdis]

Interesting observation, Ifrit provides a staggering (annoying) increase of uptime on the spell speed buff. This is likely due to his autoattack swing being separate from his ability swing meaning either or can crit and can trigger the trait separately.

EDIT: Spreadsheets are being updated regularly - working on the pet one at the moment.

[T0rin]

What is legitimate ~i200 3 min dummy parse damage now without food or potions? Recently redid my opener (B2, M, B1 + Swiftcast + Fester, SF + Rouse + Spur, R3, R2 + RS + PF, R2 + Fester + DWT, R2 + Potion + Enkindle, R2/M2 + Aetherflow + 3D, R3, R2 + Fester, R3, R2 + Deathflare) and have noticed an improvement there, but beyond keeping DoTs up and saving DWT for a fresh Aetherflow stack to fit 2 Festers in and keeping Rouse/Spur on CD, my 3 min DPS seems lackluster. (1150-1200 or so)

I can't help but feel I'm missing something, though I don't know what it is. I'm also book smacking, using Ruin 3 when above ~5k mana and doing lots of Ruin 2 to maximize AA.

[Tsilyi]

Something I'm really not understanding, though I've read as many pages as I can both in this guide and the Googledoc by Hai Hai, is this: assuming the openers include contagion and are relatively set for approximately 1.5 minutes if possible, when do you switch to ifrit? Everywhere says he is the better single target pet, but if contagion is up for every DWT... I don't know. I just don't use ifrit that much and I don't want to be a baddie.

I guess what I'm saying is... do you always start with garuda for the initial contagion? And if so, when would be an optimal time to swap? Is it simply at your next swiftcast?

[Sleigh]

Something I'm really not understanding, though I've read as many pages as I can both in this guide and the Googledoc by Hai Hai, is this: assuming the openers include contagion and are relatively set for approximately 1.5 minutes if possible, when do you switch to ifrit? Everywhere says he is the better single target pet, but if contagion is up for every DWT... I don't know. I just don't use ifrit that much and I don't want to be a baddie.

I guess what I'm saying is... do you always start with garuda for the initial contagion? And if so, when would be an optimal time to swap? Is it simply at your next swiftcast?

As far as I've tested, Ifrit being the dominant ST pet is true but not to a degree you should specifically switch to Ifrit for. Have gotten above 1350 with both pets at 3:40ish. They're very, very close to each other on one target, and honestly in real fights you always have something to Bane unto (usually lined up with a DWT set of DoTs), or a reason to break away from the boss for mechanics/attacking something else so that Contagion is pure DPS gained. The big thing really is that Ifrit will put out Radiant Shield, which depending on which tank is tanking, among other things, has varied usefulness (almost completely useless in A4S, for instance).

Most of A1-4S is designed with Garuda in mind, IMO. I don't use Ifrit in any of it as of present. My attempts as trying out Ifrit rarely lead to more DPS.

[xxalucard]

I always say the same 3 words when someone asks about Ifrit: "Nothing beats contagion."

Especially when you consider trick attack can line up with Dreadwyrm + Tri-disaster + contagion every minute (if you have a NIN in the group)