Summoner and the upcoming changes

[Chocolys]

Summoner was my favorite DPS class to play. 4.0 changes killed my interest for it. I'm gonna have to find another.

Also I loved using Titan-egi for open-world, now with Sustain skill removed, i'm better off using Ifrit or Garuda. The update made using Titan-egi worthless. R.I.P beloved Titan-egi, R.I.P Summoner (for me).

[Vallhallix]

Dunno what people are going on about. It still plays and feels like a SMN to me. I don't get how people are unable to do solo content. I don't even use titan myself in most solo content. Just beat the big Xaela battle without him. I used to use titan to hold off an enemy while I set up dots. This was before 3.0. After 3.0 and SMN got tri-disaster plus deathflare titan became useless for me. He'd pull the enemy but my tri-disaster plus following aetherflow stacks would just pull the enemy to me anyway. After 3.0 I normally just used titan for crowd control. Keeping a hold on one enemy or two as I handle others, keep them from becoming overwhelming basically. And as far as i'm concerned he's still capable of that. With the nuclear arsenal SMN is packing now it really should not take you that long to burst down PVE enemies before titan dies. PVE is trivial, especially when in most cases you always get an npc healing you. Most classes should be able to solo. As I said I rarely even use titan in PVE garuda is better imo because the contagion buff which is an increase to your magic damage. It really isn't hard to burst PVE enemies down before even Garuda is half health.

[Chocolys]

...

For example, then I guess you don't do solo Fates very much with Titan-Egi.

In 3.X, If I engage in a Boss fate (I mean the normal one, not the 30 min special ones), with Sustain skill available to me, Titan-Egi managed to stay alive.

In 4.0, Titan-egi always die, it simply don't have enough HP to survive the length of the fight. Now if my chocobo was healing Titan-Egi like it heals myself, that could be ok, but sadly chocoboes ignore egi. So there is no way to prevent Titan-egi from slowly dying.

Which means I have to re-summon it when it dies. But even using Swiftcast for that purpose, all the aggro the now dead Titan-Egi had built is gone, and the newly summoned one can't catch up with me. It basically defeat the purpose of having a Tank egi, if you have to tank yourself anyway.

So I think for Titan-egi to feel worth again, either at least allow chocobo to heal egis, or give back some version of Sustain even if its less potent than before.

[Vallhallix]

For example, then I guess you don't do solo Fates very much with Titan-Egi.

In 3.X, If I engage in a Boss fate (I mean the normal one, not the 30 min special ones), with Sustain skill available to me, Titan-Egi managed to stay alive.

In 4.0, Titan-egi always die, it simply don't have enough HP to survive the length of the fight. Now if my chocobo was healing Titan-Egi like it heals myself, that could be ok, but sadly chocoboes ignore egi. So there is no way to prevent Titan-egi from slowly dying.

Which means I have to re-summon it when it dies. But even using Swiftcast for that purpose, all the aggro the now dead Titan-Egi had built is gone, and the newly summoned one can't catch up with me. It basically defeat the purpose of having a Tank egi, if you have to tank yourself anyway.

So I think for Titan-egi to feel worth again, either at least allow chocobo to heal egis, or give back some version of Sustain even if its less potent than before.

Normal fates? that's it? Just put chocobo in healing stance and tank the hits yourself lol. If I can make it work with a BLM, SMN can without titan. Garuda is better single target anyway, titan just draws out the fight longer. Besides whats the point of doing the lower ones besides level grinding? and there are usually other people around doing those or parties up anyway. I rarely see no one fighting at a boss fate especially in the xpac areas.

[Keian]

Normal fates? that's it? Just put chocobo in healing stance and tank the hits yourself lol. If I can make it work with a BLM, SMN can without titan. Garuda is better single target anyway, titan just draws out the fight longer. Besides whats the point of doing the lower ones besides level grinding? and there are usually other people around doing those or parties up anyway. I rarely see no one fighting at a boss fate especially in the xpac areas.

I think that is the problem why do we even have titan if tank it ourselves would be more efficient. what on earth is the point of having a tank pet when it can't tank. In fact what's the point of having pets if they constantly die. we we're somewhat of a pet class back in 3.x and previously. now if our pets constantly die and we can't summon bahamut (therefore loss in dps), yes we can resummon our pets (loss in mana, swift cast, and global cooldowns). overall a loss in dps and utility. thanks yoshi p </3

[Vallhallix]

I think that is the problem why do we even have titan if tank it ourselves would be more efficient. what on earth is the point of having a tank pet when it can't tank. In fact what's the point of having pets if they constantly die. we we're somewhat of a pet class back in 3.x and previously. now if our pets constantly die and we can't summon bahamut (therefore loss in dps), yes we can resummon our pets (loss in mana, swift cast, and global cooldowns). overall a loss in dps and utility. thanks yoshi p </3

I agree, I vote remove Titan completely and give us Alpie's moonstone carbuncle, he lays down a small healing field. That would be awesome to have, and help keep us alive since physick sucks. It would also give us amazing support if it effected other players, one other at the very least.

[PotatoTree]

Another big issue with SMN is how long it takes to set up the bahamut aetherflow combo. On a dummy it's fine but on a boss by the time you have your ace set up the boss has already transitioned. For example, in Susano I found that it lined up with the sword if you don't rush the first two dreadwyrms and want to wait for the AF, and using Bahamut during sword phase lost dps as it dies so fast.

[Achelon]

Hi guys, one question.
I'm still not sure about our AoE Priorities regarding Aetherflow stacks.
I know that I have to use Shadow Flare every time it's up, but for the stacks, when should I use them on Bane and when on Painflare?

Thanks!

By the way, personally, I'm totally in love with new Summoner, even tho I'm still not sure if I should always be using Ruin III or stick with Ruin I while I'm not in Dreadwyrm Trance...

[Brinzy]

I know that I have to use Shadow Flare every time it's up, but for the stacks, when should I use them on Bane and when on Painflare?

So here's a bit of napkin math:

Painflare is 200 potency to everything it hits. So the idea is that you want to Bane when you do more than 200 potency x the number of enemies hit by Painflare.

On your original target, it takes 3 global ticks to do more than that 200, since each tick is 80 potency with both dots. So if the pack is going to die in under 3 ticks, Painflare. Most packs won't, so Bane. That's the easy and obvious example.

Less obvious is when you're on a pack of, say, 3 enemies. The third enemy takes 40% reduced damage from your Bane, so 48 per tick. This means that you need 5 ticks on the 3rd enemy to do more damage than Painflare would've done. At 4 ticks, you do 192 potency, so it's still generally worth using Bane over Painflare if a pack of three is gonna live for at least 12 seconds - usually a bit less since the first tick generally happens in under 3 seconds.

On 4 enemies, the 4th takes 60% reduced damage, so 32 potency. Now you need 7 ticks for the 4th enemy to take more damage than they would've from Painflare.
On 5 enemies, the 5th takes 80% reduced damage, so 16 potency. At this point, Painflare will always do more damage to the 5th target and beyond.

Now, recall that Bane on the 2nd and 3rd target will do a lot more damage than Painflare over a reasonable amount of time. I would recommend Bane and Painflare x2, because Deathflare + Shadowflare + your pet's AoE will generally make up for the very low Bane damage. However, if the enemies are so healthy that they're gonna live for a long time (45 seconds+) AND you just used Aetherflow, I would Bane, Painflare, and then set up a second Bane once the first one is almost out. This lets you enter Dreadwyrm, and Aetherflow should be coming back up very close to the end of it.

tl;dr Bane + Painflare x2 in the vast majority of situations

[Mreed]

tl;dr Bane + Painflare x2 in the vast majority of situations

That's what I've been doing too.