Quote Originally Posted by Raikai View Post
I have this same impression when trying to play SMN now... It's so focused on the trance phases right now that dots, and even the Aetherflow/Fester spells feels like something second-rated, or out of place.

I don't think there are any true "DoT jobs" in XIV... The ones that have to babysit more than one DoT always have bigger "toys" to entertain themselves with, leaving the dots as forgotten cousins over a corner... Until 30s passes by and you have to refresh them.
In Bard's case they actually mean something because they enable Repertoire. In Summoner's case, they're just the caster equivalent to pet autos, and are there mostly to help with the sustained DPS section of the rotation. To me, they should interact with the Egi in some manner, such as enabling gauge generation when Egi autoattack afflicted targets, which then gets spent on Enkindle/Egi Assaults or their functional replacements. It wouldn't be the only source, but probably the largest source. People didn't like FesterRuin, but it did make you care about DoT uptime in this manner. I think I would limit it to gauge generation and burst cooldowns like Fester rather than some direct damage tax on Ruin or other filler, as then it's akin to SAM's gauge bonus for landing positionals in terms of proportion. It's less upsetting that way, at the very least.


The only other way to make DoTs interesting is to add some additional layer to them directly. An example of this would be making the DoT accumulate stacks while it ticks (up to some cap), that increases the potency or frequency it deals damage and can then be spent as a resource to empower burst, or borrowing WoW's overcap duration protection so you can refresh them without dropping potency, and have the remaining duration itself be the resource you spend.

To me, SE should make DoTs interact with Egi to make SMN's filler more varied. I could see the baseline gauge generation replace Further Ruin IV & EA Charges for movement outright, while additional sources could come from Demis and enable Egi burst.