Summoner and DoTs

[Katlyna]

I play a Demonology Warlock in WoW.... and Summoners are nothing like Demo Locks.

With that said Summoners make me pretty sad panda. They game play is incredibly stale. I find it difficult to see how anyone would argue how its NOT stale.

With the combo system they have, the black mages feast and famine mana system. The Summoner appears to have been rushed and fallen on its face as it went out the door.

[shinros]

I play a Demonology Warlock in WoW.... and Summoners are nothing like Demo Locks.

With that said Summoners make me pretty sad panda. They game play is incredibly stale. I find it difficult to see how anyone would argue how its NOT stale.

With the combo system they have, the black mages feast and famine mana system. The Summoner appears to have been rushed and fallen on its face as it went out the door.

I played a demo warlock as well in WoW I was hoping they were going to be more based off demo but nope square picked affliction I hate affliction warlock. I have a class that summons demons as pets. I went straight for the spec that improves them and gives them skills and you support them in damage. Plus I found affliction boring imo.

[MidnightS]

Personally, I kinda wish they'd change all post-30 traits to be unique to the equipped Job. Having to share traits with Scholar means we don't get anything like Thundercloud or Firestarter to mix our combat up.

[Kasandaro]

Personally, I kinda wish they'd change all post-30 traits to be unique to the equipped Job. Having to share traits with Scholar (length)

As both a summoner and a scholar (and someone fond of honking big axes who's not great yet at tanking), I endorse this heartily. Considering how much of a benefit there is post-30 to have _any_ soul crystal equipped (serious - check the stat bonuses; 5 extra actions does not make up for it), I don't understand why there's any class action or trait post-30 instead of putting them all under the job.

We've already got one ability that hooks off a pet action - specifically, Spell Speed Up off pet crits. (Have I ever said how much the RNG loathes me?) Following that, they could hook in all sorts of things to work back and forth: a bio dot crit causes the pet's next hit to crit (hit a rotten spot), while a miasma crit causes the next mob hit on the egi to be reduced. Maybe a pet dodge/evade causes the next Ruin to crit. And I'm not even thinking about all the positioning fun we could set up: "here, look at the nice shiny guy with the horn on his head, and ignore Ifrit ripping your back off."

[Tanabe]

i agree with op.

[Reslon]

I don't see it mentioned anywhere else, but another reason to never forget your Bane is if your group is mass-sleeping mobs, Bane will spread the dots without waking the mobs up. Same with Tri-diaster, you can spread the dots to binded mobs without removing the bind.

Also, having done AK with every other DPS class now, and failing the Demon Wall only once with a healer who hadn't done it before getting blasted off the side at the first repel, SMN is fully capable of rocking that fight. Especially with Ifrit-egi when he gets stuck behind the wall and just keeps wailing on it :3

[MartaDemireux]

I definitely think our DoT's should either renew a cooldown or grant some sort of buff to us/pet. Doesn't have to be anything powerful, just something. BLM gets Thundercloud to make their use of the spell more worth it/interesting and BRD has bloodletter cooldown reset when venom/windbites crit. We don't have anything to ours outside of maintaining them to Fester with or to Bane them to other targets. Yes those are both great abilities but if one of our DoT crits they should at least add a temporary minor determination buff to the pet or something.

[pandabearcat]

I sort of agree with what you're saying, but really with practice it boils down to three things.

1. Do I have aetherflow, do I not need to save it? If so, then fester.
2. Keep up dots.
3. Use rouse/spur.

As MMO veterans know, the key to successful consumption and processing of the information the game throws at you is keeping a good "area of focus". Your eyes shouldn't have to move much at all. The area underneath your feet is generally the most important area to focus on, as well as your target's facing.

Idealy, your HUD is setup that your bars, target and self, and cooldown watching, are all very close to each other, near your feet where you should be watching.

Staring at this, its really "1" step to check all these things.

If dots are down, refresh them. My buff bars are right under my debuff target bars, so I can easily glance and check if shadowflare is up. If its not, and the boss won't move, drop that down as well.

Similarly, I have contagion, rouse (you DON'T need spur or enkindle here, as you can just count rouses, spur every 2nd rouse, enkindle every 5th unless you know you ahve to save it) on a hotbar right below my buffs.

Watching your pet position is important, but mostly once you learn a fight it becomes trivial.

I suppose being used to playing WoW locks, this is essentially an afflict lock with no procs, which is monotonous.

[pandabearcat]

When you open on the boss, just hotkey (you can hotkey, but not macro) pet abilities, so macro obey onto your target.

Then do your opener.

Theres really nothing to feel lost about. Refresh your dots when they're about to fall. Remember bio is instant, so if bio + something else (typically either thunder or miasma) is falling off, cast that first, then follow immediately with a bio then (fester if you have it).

You don't have to be exact, but what you need to remember is you cannot overwrite snapshotted dots (aka Raging Strikes). You must wait for the dot to fully come off before you recast it. Also note that even when the timer is gone, that just means the time remaining on the dot is <1second, and you still have 1 second before it falls off.

So don't cast bio until you count half a second after the number dissapears, and cast miasma/bio2/thunder after you see the number 2 pop up.

Shadow flare is counted as a "buff" on your bars, recast when its at 3 seconds or lower, only if the boss will not move for at least 10 seconds or so.

[KaosPrimeZero]

My rotation is:

Bio 2 > Miasma > thunder > Bio > Contagion > Fester (if a boss or still time for a boss, i use RS > Fester. I like to have RS rdy for Boss fights) > Shadow Flare > Ruin 2 > Fester > Ruin > Ruin > Fester.

Thats my typical rotation. Its imperative you have Garuda in OBEY.

How do you macro Hot keys for such like OBEY? If you could tell me that would be fantastic as i'd always use that for opening Bio 2 ^^

If i am fighting fodder adds my rotation is similar:

Shadow Flare > Bio 2 > Miasma > thunder > Bio > Contagion > Bane > Fester > Ruin > Ruin 2

By this point the mob is already dead and the rest have had severe damage dealt already

But macroing hot keys that i would like to know how to do so if anyone could enlighten me to this i would be very grateful!