Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Havenchild]

Hello Summoners

I started leveling SCH when I first started, got to 50 and realized that healing wasn't for me. After the BRD changes I am looking to start SMN as a main.

My problem is starting straight from 50 as a SMN I don't want to do dungeons until I have a good idea of how to play one effectively.

I have been doing fates and reading this (and many others) guide but am having troubles with what I should macro and not macro and controlling the pets like
do I leave them to do their own thing or have their moves macro'd in with some of my spells?

Basically I want to learn in a step by step kind of way if anyone could be so helpful?

On a side note I wish these summons looked more like FFXI's summons

Now I know this guide has a lot of information all over (largely because this class has a lot of tools to utilize) but don't feel overwhelmed.

For dungeons exclusively (starting at level 50), your main tools will be Bio II, Miasma, Bio, Shadowflare, Bane, Miasma II and Contagion. Essentially each pull, you will use the three main DoTs, Bio II, Miasma and Bio and then use the Bane skill on that mob to spread those skills (free of charge) to all nearby mobs. Now if you have Contagion available (Garuda skill) you want to make sure you are able to use it when you want to, so you basically press a pet command called Obey.

This makes it so pets cannot use skills whenever and just use a normal attack. When you use Contagion on a set of DoTs, it will extend the duration of those DoTs for 15 seconds, this will work alongside the Bane skill to spread those longer duration DoTs onto nearby monsters.

From then on you have skills like Miasma II and Shadowflare which are AoE spells you will use to place DoT damage on the pile of mobs. Rinse and repeat in a dungeon.

Another AoE skill you have is the job skill you have , Enkindle, which tells the pet to use its signature AoE attack (damage boosted by rouse and spur).
Blizzard II from BLM is also pretty handy.

Macros, you can use of course in the form of tying pet skills with some of your abilities like Bane for example. Overall you shouldn't use Macros because they can bug out or just cause overall DPS loss but things like Bane + Aerial Slash ( Garuda skill) is ok to combine.

If you are using Garuda, you will want to make sure after you summon her to put her on the Obey command, so she doesn't use Contagion on her own. With Ifrit, you will also want him on Obey, but you will need to manually press his skills to achieve higher gains then Garuda. So often people use the Sic Command (fires off pet skills as they become available) with Ifrit for less hassle.

That's pretty much it. Now when you get to more raiding scenarios, essentially its the same thing but it ramps up with more proper time management on the DoT skills and fitting every possible skilll you can every single second of the fight. That's when you should really start to read through guides such as this one and piece together what it takes to accomplish that.

Hope that helps a little.

[RosaAtra]

Wow thank you so much! That's exactly what I was looking for

[Koyuki38]

Thx for your tips about pets. I didn't know ifrit has oGCD

[Sleigh]

Hey any tips for Ravana extreme as SMN? I noticed if you use your stacks on CD you will either have to enter DWT early and can't Deathflare or you will lose your stacks.

Tried Ifrit vs Garuda, even without 8 way split cleaves I was getting higher with Ifrit but I'm still fresh on the fight as SMN.

[PerihVashai]

So I've heard from some SMNs that opening with energy drain and holding off on CDs to pop them in dreadwyrm trance is the ideal route what is your opinion on this Avalen? :P

[Havenchild]

Hey any tips for Ravana extreme as SMN? I noticed if you use your stacks on CD you will either have to enter DWT early and can't Deathflare or you will lose your stacks.

Tried Ifrit vs Garuda, even without 8 way split cleaves I was getting higher with Ifrit but I'm still fresh on the fight as SMN.

So using Ifrit, if you have a group with average DPS, then you can enter DWT twice in a row before he finishes Preparation to Liberation and get two Deathflares before then.
However when your group is pretty good, this will no longer be possible to make full use of the skill the second time, so you will have to start timing your last use of an AF skill, say Fester right before he finishes casting a type of Liberation. This will refresh the Aetherail counter back to 30 seconds, which will cover the downtime. When he returns, pop DWT , Manual DoT / Tri - D if it's up, Raging/Pot as accordingly when he returns.

Most of this fight will revolve around you knowing when the Liberation skills are coming, and timing your AF skills before they finish. Once you lose the Aetherail stacks, you take a big hit over the course of the fight and lose pretty much one full DWT phase. Optimizing the add phase is also pretty essential.

So I've heard from some SMNs that opening with energy drain and holding off on CDs to pop them in dreadwyrm trance is the ideal route what is your opinion on this Avalen? :P

I think that's the widely accepted route, not sure if it's the best route. At the moment, largely what I've been doing is testing different openers in fights with Ifrit and trying to see how I can spin it for higher damage overall by moving different skills in different locations and such. I won't really get a solid understanding of most optimal openers until I see how Alexander raids are. I'm not exactly impressed with some of the striking dummy parses I've seen with full 180+ hive book either but I'm also not as geared as they are. A lot of people seem to be stacking a lot of their skills in the beginning and think it's optimally sound because it gives them a bigger burst. A bigger number in the beginning, is not what I care about but rather what puts you higher after a set amount of time (3 or 4+ mins).

So far the ones (SMNs) I've went against start out higher in the beginning but come out lower then me in the end but I haven't asked their rotation to tell if it was just user error that lowered their parse or was it the fact that it was simply a worse rotation overall than the one I was using. Need to DPS race against some more people to see what's better. However, there are a few rotations I've seen that look pretty good. A lot of them don't use Energy Drain or save Raging Strikes solely to use before going into DWT.

[OneWingedSora]

Hey any tips for Ravana extreme as SMN? I noticed if you use your stacks on CD you will either have to enter DWT early and can't Deathflare or you will lose your stacks.

Tried Ifrit vs Garuda, even without 8 way split cleaves I was getting higher with Ifrit but I'm still fresh on the fight as SMN.

Depending on your groups DPS like Haven said, you could get two DWT before the first liberation but I doubt you get that so the way I do it is, I just use the normal Shadowflare prepull > Bio 2 > Miasma > Bio > Painflare > Fester > Ruins till fester is up then Fester > Ruin 2 > Spur+Rouse+ Ruin 2 > AF+RS > Ruin 2 (Liberation is usually starting to cast at this point)> DWT > Pot > Fester > Tri-D > Ruin 3 > Ruin 2 > Enkindle > Ruin 3 > Ruin 2 > Fester > Ruin 2 > Deathflare(Shouldn't bother refreshing Shadowflare since it won't get the full ticks) since use the laster fester just as the boss is about to jump.

Then when the boss is back, your DWT should be ready along with AF and you can just refresh your dots using Tri-D after you go into DWT and use festerx2+painflare+deathflare(with ruin 3s in between) and your DWT should be up by the time the boss comes back again from those ifrit dives.

Basically like Haven said, it's all about knowing when Liberation phases are coming and making the best use of your buffs then to get the most damage and making sure you always have DWT ready everytime the boss goes offscreen. And if you are lucky, you can get those sweet AOE painflares/deathflares during the adds phase.

I personally don't bother using Garuda on that fight since the boss jumps a lot and Contagion doesn't get its full effect most of the time save for a few parts of the fight.

[Sleigh]

Thanks guys that actually helped a bit, especially that Ravana-specialized opener Choco. My biggest weakness is add phase I think but I was doing about 850 on good runs. Need to do better.

For add phase I basically just Bio'd small ones if no Moons/Ravana to DoT, tried to save DWT for when AoE was possible, and did a Tri-D for one of the Moons. Otherwise DoTed Moons and tried to upkeep stuff on Ravana once everything was up on the current Moon. Felt not strong though.

[Havenchild]

Ok so, saw this on reddit and can confirm:

Ifrit and Titan, only benefit from Foe Requiem / Bishop now. All skills AND Auto Attacks are magical and do not receive bonuses from Slashing as well as Blunt.. This may be unintended for now as the patch notes stated AAs were unaffected but for the time being this is true.

Slaves to Foe forever now.

[Allyrion]

Now I know this guide has a lot of information all over (largely because this class has a lot of tools to utilize) but don't feel overwhelmed.

For dungeons exclusively (starting at level 50), your main tools will be Bio II, Miasma, Bio, Shadowflare, Bane, Miasma II and Contagion. Essentially each pull, you will use the three main DoTs, Bio II, Miasma and Bio and then use the Bane skill on that mob to spread those skills (free of charge) to all nearby mobs. Now if you have Contagion available (Garuda skill) you want to make sure you are able to use it when you want to, so you basically press a pet command called Obey.

This makes it so pets cannot use skills whenever and just use a normal attack. When you use Contagion on a set of DoTs, it will extend the duration of those DoTs for 15 seconds, this will work alongside the Bane skill to spread those longer duration DoTs onto nearby monsters.

From then on you have skills like Miasma II and Shadowflare which are AoE spells you will use to place DoT damage on the pile of mobs. Rinse and repeat in a dungeon.

Another AoE skill you have is the job skill you have , Enkindle, which tells the pet to use its signature AoE attack (damage boosted by rouse and spur).
Blizzard II from BLM is also pretty handy.

Macros, you can use of course in the form of tying pet skills with some of your abilities like Bane for example. Overall you shouldn't use Macros because they can bug out or just cause overall DPS loss but things like Bane + Aerial Slash ( Garuda skill) is ok to combine.

If you are using Garuda, you will want to make sure after you summon her to put her on the Obey command, so she doesn't use Contagion on her own. With Ifrit, you will also want him on Obey, but you will need to manually press his skills to achieve higher gains then Garuda. So often people use the Sic Command (fires off pet skills as they become available) with Ifrit for less hassle.

That's pretty much it. Now when you get to more raiding scenarios, essentially its the same thing but it ramps up with more proper time management on the DoT skills and fitting every possible skilll you can every single second of the fight. That's when you should really start to read through guides such as this one and piece together what it takes to accomplish that.

Hope that helps a little.

Thanks for that.
I'm levelling SMN again from 50 just to have a caster alt.

It's been a while since I played though.
It seems Ruin II is the default filler now. Do you ever use Ruin?
You mentioned getting "trying to get free Ruin III's when Tri-Disaster is on cool down", in the DWT description.
Maybe I'm thinking too far ahead since I'm still only 50, but is there some kind of Ruin III proc that makes it free?
Or are you talking about how cheap it is while in DWT, that it's practically free?

It'd be nice if those acceptable AoE macros were in the OP.
Do you have a link? Though it doesn't seem hard to figure out.