Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Havenchild]

While putting my nose to the grindstone for maximizing damage on A1S and A2S, I stumbled across Kakashe's opener which utilizes ED to initiate DWT faster. He arranges a confluence of active cooldowns (RS, DWT, Drac Potion, raid buffs) to frontload exceptionally hard hitting attacks.

http://angered.guildwork.com/forum/t...ide-by-kakashe

I have difficulty following his opener with 100% precision, but it helped me realize that delaying the first Aetherflow was an actual loss of damage.

I read most of his reasoning for his opener but, not following the line where he says essentially other Summoners are wasting damage for not blowing all their cooldowns when "all buffs are up", when in actuality most of the current openers are manufactured with the mindset of maximum efficiency over a 60 second or so period that takes full advantage of all of these said buffs.

Now, it is not impossible to believe that a more bursty opener might apply better to certain encounters. (EX: Where a boss goes invincible at a certain part of your opener/encounter that causes you to have only two Aetherial Stacks when they become invincible, thus you don't have to ability to drag out the DWT timer for when a mob might be able to get targeted again.) However, I've never seen some dynamic difference in damage over the course of an encounter for doing so. Ultimately, any Summoner should be tailoring their openers for maximum efficiency for the ENCOUNTER at hand.

No dummy test opener can properly be translated into a fight for maximum efficiency over an encounter. A Dummy stands there. A Boss does not.