Thread: SMN 4.06 Changes

All we got was a buff to our damage over time spells. However, that appears to be actually significant when you look at DPS over the course of a raid and so forth. I thought I would take this moment to review and examine whether Bane matters or not.

First, just so no one needs to go to another tab or window, here are what the spells and abilities do.

• Miasma III: 50 potency on hit, 50 potency DoT for 30 seconds (overall 500 potency)
• Bio III: 50 potency DoT for 30 seconds (overall 500 potency)
• Ruin: 100 potency
• Ruin III: 150 potency
• Bane: Spread Miasma III/Bio III you cast on target to enemies within 8 yalms, potency reduction for hitting 2+ mobs
• Painflare: 200 potency damage to target and enemies within 5 yalms of target

Now, remember that Bane will reduce your DoT effect potency by 20% on the second enemy hit (according to the tooltip), by 40% for the third, 60% for the fourth and 80% for the rest. Therefore...

Miasma III/Bio III w/Bane: 40 potency DoT on 2nd hit, 30 on 3rd, 20 on 4th, 10 on the rest (20%=0.2=1/5, 50*0.2=10, so potency -10 per hit)

This used to be 40, 32, 24, 16 and 8 on the rest (40*0.2=8, so potency -8 per hit). Now, considering Painflare does its damage right up front and has a five second recast, the question is where Bane begins to outperform Painflare.

Let's say you're up against only two enemies (insert Sith master and apprentice references here). If you decide to Tri-Disaster, Ruin II and Bane a single enemy, you get this.

100, 100 (2 ticks/6 seconds)= 200 potency overall per DoT, +50 to the one guy from Miasma III
100, 80 (2 ticks/6 seconds)= 180 potency overall per DoT, +50 to the one guy from Miasma III (no assumption)

If I'm right about the tooltip, that means you're doing 400 potency overall just with the damage over time, which is double that of one Painflare (or equal if we count two Painflares). If I'm wrong, it's only slightly less (360 overall), which makes Bane more viable with really just one more enemy, as I show below using a six-enemy horde model. Remember all those huge pulls people like to do in dungeons?

100, 100, 80, 60, 40, 20 (2 ticks/6 seconds)= 400 potency overall per DoT, +50 to the one guy from Miasma III
100, 80, 60, 40, 20, 10 (2 ticks/6 seconds)= 310 potency overall per DoT, +50 to the one guy from Miasma III (no assumption)

150, 150, 120, 90, 60, 30 (3 ticks/9 seconds)= 600 potency overall per DoT, +50 to the one guy from Miasma III
150, 120, 90, 60, 30, 30 (3 ticks/9 seconds)= 480 potency overall per DoT, +50 to the one guy from Miasma III (no assumption)

At the worst, that's 480 potency overall in six seconds against three enemies, which beats the 400 from two Painflares without even including the extra 50 potency damage to the one enemy if you decided to simply cast Miasma III and Bio III instead of using Tri-Disaster. This allows you to do more damage if you only need one more Aethertrail Attunement stack for Dreadwyrm Trance, especially if you're up against more than three enemies.

Conclusion: Bane is weaker than it once was, yes, but it is not completely irrelevant.