SMN vs BLM

[Jambi_Grace]

Hi, I have played blm main all through 2.0 and it was the first class I leveled to 60 in Heavensward. However, I am having a hard time staying motivated to play it. I have thought that maybe its just getting used to the new rotation and Enochian timing, but the more I play it I am still not finding a groove where I am enjoying playing the game again. At this point I have begun thinking that a job change may make the game interesting for me again. This has got me thinking about SMN. I was just wondering what people are thinking about SMN these days? From some of the threads I have read on the forums it seems like DPS wise SMN is a in good place. So here are a few questions I am hoping to get answered:

[Jambi_Grace]

-Is the rotation overly complicated? I don't mind a challenge but I do play on a gamepad so I am concerned on trying to balance all the abilities and a pet on it. Could someone that is knowledgeable with both blm and smn compare the rotation difficulty? I don't mind the blm rotation at this point, but really dislike the way enochian works atm.

-Garuda vs Ifrit? I know in 2.0 Garuda was considered the best, but I have read Ifrit made a comeback in Heavensward. Are both pets viable atm?
-Enochian really annoys me because to get the best DPS you have to push it, but then one mechanic can force you to miss a cast and lose it and you are forced to revert back to 2.0 rotation at a very steep dps loss until the timer is up again. Does SMN have anything like this where your rotation changes drastically?
-Pet management? I'm not a big pet fan in MMOs but it doesn't seem like there is a lot of management needed in this game. Any tips?

Thanks for your insights!

[Sleigh]

"Is the rotation overly complicated?"

No sir, not really. In fact I dare say it's one of the simplest if you're using Garuda, since everything lines up with the opener and every minute after so that you're using filler for a large portion of it.

"Garuda vs Ifrit?"

They're both very good pets. Garuda is the popular choice right now though, the DPS isn't much lower than Ifrit and Contagion is not only stronger due to Dreadwyrm Trance, but doing mechanics is much easier while being able to R2 without any DPS loss while doing them. You should probably play it by fight, though I'd say most would favor Garuda.

"Does SMN have anything like this where your rotation changes drastically?"

Yes, but it's simpler than Enochian upkeep since it isn't so strict. The SMN game is about keeping up DWT, or more importantly, using a DWT per every 3 Aetherflow stacks, never dipping past that or dropping your stacks before you use DWT. It's actually pretty simple unless there are a lot of phase shifts and you don't plan for it. Nothing too crazy.

"Pet management?"

If using Garuda, basically you Contagion along with your DWT, use the AoE skill when there's AoE to be done, and otherwise Obey it to the target you wish to be focused down (80% of fights you don't even have to or want to switch it off from the boss). It's very basic and simple. Ifrit, it's mostly the same except you want to use ALL the skills as much as possible, which is why many SMNs just use Ifrit on Sic which is even easier than using Garuda on Obey.

[Jambi_Grace]

Thanks for the response! So basically if I use Garuda on obey, on single target fights I would just let it attack like normal and then use contagion during DWT and that's it for pet management?

[Sleigh]

More or less yeah. I've heard talk that using the AoE as a non-GCD attack is a single target increase but it's less noticeable if it is than Ifrit doing the same.

[winterreise]

Any class is simple if you're not playing it to its full potential. You don't want to clip your 4 dots (5 with miasma 2 + contagion) too early or refresh too late and instead squeeze as many ruin/II as you can, you're not going to tri-disaster and contagion the moment they lineup and off cooldown, you will ALWAYS use oGCD aerial slash for Garuda single target or not, you will not put Ifrit on Sic because he spends his GCD casting his oGCD skills and unoptimal use of skills like radiant shield (would you set scholar pets on Sic and it uses selene/eos buffs during encounter downtime?) Basically yes it's easy to be mediocre at the game.

Google Hai Hai summoner 3.0 for in depth summoner play.

[Saggo]

"Does SMN have anything like this where your rotation changes drastically?"

Yes, but it's simpler than Enochian upkeep since it isn't so strict. The SMN game is about keeping up DWT, or more importantly, using a DWT per every 3 Aetherflow stacks, never dipping past that or dropping your stacks before you use DWT. It's actually pretty simple unless there are a lot of phase shifts and you don't plan for it. Nothing too crazy.

Additionally, we have a lot of control over when we enter DWT since attunement stacks are 30s each, which I think I prefer after reading BLM testimonies of struggling to keep Enochian up. Makes it relatively easy to control your buff for boss phase changes and trash downtime.

[Bishop81]

It's more complicated than it used to be ...

Personally for me, after the initial struggle of dealing with all the new mechanics, I got used to it. (It helps a lot when you stop given a crap about squeezing every last bit out of the Dreadtrance buff and using every ability on CD.)

[ShaolinMike]

It's more involved than it used to be, but once u get used to lining up the timers, everything will click. However, there's a lot of leeway in terms of the timing of your Aetherflow stacks and Aetherial Attunement. After the opener, I like to space out of Aetherflow stack usage until all the timers line up perfectly for big damage during Dreadwyrm Trance.

[Eul]

It's more complicated than it used to be ...

Personally for me, after the initial struggle of dealing with all the new mechanics, I got used to it. (It helps a lot when you stop given a crap about squeezing every last bit out of the Dreadtrance buff and using every ability on CD.)

Off topic but I lol'ed at your sig.