Forum Settings
       
Reply To Thread

SMN pets in end game dungeons and HM PrimalsFollow

#1 Nov 01 2013 at 9:43 AM Rating: Decent
*
72 posts
Let me preface by saying, I'm posting more in regard to class choice (Summoner or Black Mage) as my second class to level. In every mmo I've played, there came a time when the pets got put away due to becoming a nuisance or a hindrance near, and into, endgame content. Since class boards don't seem to have much activity, I thought I'd just post here. I've run the first 5 dungeons on my Summoner and freely admit, the pet wasn't needed, nor required. I can only imagine with mechanics in instances such as HM Titan, it would be more of a hindrance. However, since I have not participated in that content as of yet, I can only speculate.

Back to the preface, as I researched over both class's skills, it seems they are relatively similar in both DPS and DOT. And as far as party compilation, I would also venture to guess Black Mage is probably more in demand for its potent single target damage. However Summoner can tactfully fill all three roles in a pinch.

So to get on with it, how are pets and their usefulness in end game; How do these jobs compare in terms of DPS and DOT?
#2 Nov 01 2013 at 9:46 AM Rating: Default
Scholar
Avatar
*****
12,820 posts
To keep a long story short:

Amazing Gear SMN is one of the top DPS (along with their DoTs) in terms of Mages, an Amazing Geared BLM is the top DPS especially in terms of Mages.

Adequately gear SMN has to have a solid rotation and pet control to stay competitive.

AF SMN is worthless.

SMN is one of the few classes where gear literally makes the class because your pet shares the stats of your gear, same goes for SCH.

Edited, Nov 1st 2013 8:46am by Theonehio
____________________________

#3 Nov 01 2013 at 10:27 AM Rating: Good
***
2,214 posts
Summoner and Scholar are hands down the most complicated jobs in the game, as, not only do you have your own abilities, but, to be "optimal" you need to also control your pet. And since there are no pet macros, you have to resort to single command binding to your bars. For Controller players, this can be more than daunting to manage (as you will have 2 pages for your class, and at least 1 page, more likely 3 pages for your pets).
____________________________
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/729735/
#4 Nov 01 2013 at 10:33 AM Rating: Good
Avatar
****
4,780 posts
The default go-to on Summoner is Garuda-Egi, and it is potent due to the ability to extend debuffs (which works with Bane and allows you to DPS with ruin in addition to your DOTs) as well as the range it has and the steady damage from it's primary attack skill.

The biggest crutch for a Summoner playing on gamepad is control of pet due to the cross hotbar and how wonky the pet controls are on them, but it's not enough to prevent a Summoner from playing on PS3/4 outright.

As far as damage goes, Summoner ranks among the top DPS in the game, though the degree by which is debated due to the inability to accurately parse DOTs.

The only standing issue with Summoners is the debuff limit on enemies during large group activities such as FATEs, due to evidence of a 30 debuff limit upon monsters and the incredible number of Debuffs that can be piled during popular activities. There is fear of this effecting Arcanist participation in Crystal Tower due to it being a 24 man run, but there's no active reference to work for yet, so it is a speculative fear at best.

In the end right now I'd say choice of which to play between BLM and SMN is a matter of prefrence. BLM hands down has the better passive crowd control with Sleepga, where Summoner can defer to their Titan Egi if off tanking is at all required. Both have a decently strong AoE game, though Black Mage has more damage potential per number of monsters due to the limit on how many enemies Bane spreads to.
#5 Nov 01 2013 at 10:52 AM Rating: Decent
**
556 posts
rfolkker wrote:
Summoner and Scholar are hands down the most complicated jobs in the game, as, not only do you have your own abilities, but, to be "optimal" you need to also control your pet. And since there are no pet macros, you have to resort to single command binding to your bars. For Controller players, this can be more than daunting to manage (as you will have 2 pages for your class, and at least 1 page, more likely 3 pages for your pets).


This is the reason I will be doing endgame stuff using the keyboard, not so much easier but much smoother.
#6 Nov 01 2013 at 2:00 PM Rating: Decent
**
826 posts
Theonehio wrote:
To keep a long story short:

Amazing Gear SMN is one of the top DPS (along with their DoTs) in terms of Mages, an Amazing Geared BLM is the top DPS especially in terms of Mages.

Adequately gear SMN has to have a solid rotation and pet control to stay competitive.

AF SMN is worthless.

SMN is one of the few classes where gear literally makes the class because your pet shares the stats of your gear, same goes for SCH.

Edited, Nov 1st 2013 8:46am by Theonehio


This is very, very true. And with that gear, and a player who knows how to both control their pet and micromanage the myriad of abilities you have available, you will pull hate off any tank or other dps in the game. Yes, even the almighty BRD hate machine. I'm not saying you should AIM for that in speed runs per se, but team up with some FC members you know are solid at their jobs and see if it's not the truth.
#7 Nov 01 2013 at 2:03 PM Rating: Decent
**
826 posts
Hyrist wrote:
The default go-to on Summoner is Garuda-Egi, and it is potent due to the ability to extend debuffs (which works with Bane and allows you to DPS with ruin in addition to your DOTs) as well as the range it has and the steady damage from it's primary attack skill.

The biggest crutch for a Summoner playing on gamepad is control of pet due to the cross hotbar and how wonky the pet controls are on them, but it's not enough to prevent a Summoner from playing on PS3/4 outright.

As far as damage goes, Summoner ranks among the top DPS in the game, though the degree by which is debated due to the inability to accurately parse DOTs.

The only standing issue with Summoners is the debuff limit on enemies during large group activities such as FATEs, due to evidence of a 30 debuff limit upon monsters and the incredible number of Debuffs that can be piled during popular activities. There is fear of this effecting Arcanist participation in Crystal Tower due to it being a 24 man run, but there's no active reference to work for yet, so it is a speculative fear at best.

In the end right now I'd say choice of which to play between BLM and SMN is a matter of prefrence. BLM hands down has the better passive crowd control with Sleepga, where Summoner can defer to their Titan Egi if off tanking is at all required. Both have a decently strong AoE game, though Black Mage has more damage potential per number of monsters due to the limit on how many enemies Bane spreads to.


Ifrit is far more useful on speed runs or where there won't be a prolonged battle. Ifrit for trash, Garuda for bosses, even Titan. Granted I haven't done Coil yet, but this seems to be a general rule of thumb.

Sleep is highly useful, but don't forget SMN has an equal duration Bindga, though it suffers the same diminishing returns as BLM. We also can pair it with Swiftcast, just like BLM can with Sleep. Pop your DoTs, run up and Miasma2, then Tri-Disaster and stand back and laugh as the numbers fly! The definition here, of Bane:

Spreads a target's Bio, Bio II, or Miasma to all nearby enemies.
Duration: Time remaining on original effect. Additional Effect: 15% chance that Bio, Bio II, or Miasma duration resets. Only available when under the effect of Aetherflow.

If there's a limit to the number of mobs, it must be more than ten or so, as I haven't seen it personally.

Edited, Nov 1st 2013 1:10pm by Dallie
#8 Nov 01 2013 at 2:44 PM Rating: Excellent
Avatar
****
4,780 posts
Quote:
Ifrit is far more useful on speed runs or where there won't be a prolonged battle. Ifrit for trash, Garuda for bosses, even Titan. Granted I haven't done Coil yet, but this seems to be a general rule of thumb.


General rule of thumb is incorrect. Completely ignoring Contagion, Garuda out DPSes Ifrit cleanly, there's something off on how his scaling works with your primary stat. Garuda always comes out ahead.

Also, Bane is limited to 3 additional targets, The tooltip is wrong and the Community team has already acknowledged it. One moment while I get the reference.

Edit: Here it is.

The parse of Ifrit vs Garuda is buried in the DPS forums. I'll have to do some digging if you want it.

Edited, Nov 1st 2013 4:50pm by Hyrist
#9 Nov 01 2013 at 8:15 PM Rating: Good
***
1,556 posts
What SMNs lack is burst. That's pretty much it. In a sustained fight, my FC summoners keep up with me (and surpass me at times) just fine.

But when you get to something that requires burst damage (like turn 5 conflag), SMNs begin to suffer a bit. At the same time. SMN pets sometimes act as secondary targets on split damage moves. In other words, you can split the damage between a SMN and his pet whereas a BLM is just a BLM with no one else to soak the damage.

i.e., An ability does 8000 damage dealt equally among anyone in a small radius of the target. BLM takes 8000 damage. SMN takes 4000 and pet takes 4000. SMN lives, BLM dies.

Be safe and level both. :D The Allagan gear is shared for BLM and SMN. If an encounter needed utility, I'll use my SMN. If it's a DPS burn, I'll just use my BLM. When the boss (or adds) aren't immune, the constant slow provided by shadowflare is wonderful.
#10 Nov 02 2013 at 6:11 AM Rating: Decent
Scholar
Avatar
***
1,339 posts
Hyrist wrote:
The parse of Ifrit vs Garuda is buried in the DPS forums. I'll have to do some digging if you want it.


It came down to the fact that while Ifrit has slightly higher potency attacks than Garuda, Ifrit (and Titan) have longer cooldowns between their attacks than Garuda. The two melee pets have an additional hidden second wait delay on their primary attack and Garuda doesn't.

She wins just in sheer spamming potential.
#11 Nov 02 2013 at 7:24 AM Rating: Excellent
Avatar
****
4,780 posts
Viertel wrote:
Hyrist wrote:
The parse of Ifrit vs Garuda is buried in the DPS forums. I'll have to do some digging if you want it.


It came down to the fact that while Ifrit has slightly higher potency attacks than Garuda, Ifrit (and Titan) have longer cool-downs between their attacks than Garuda. The two melee pets have an additional hidden second wait delay on their primary attack and Garuda doesn't.

She wins just in sheer spamming potential.


Actually it has to do with more than just that.

It also has to do with the fact that as the levels scale up, Physical Resistance on monsters scales higher than Magical Resistance.

It is such that 100 Potency from a physical attack is resisted much more than 100 potency from a magical attack.

You can always set both pets onto "Command" to make them spam only their main damage attacks and the references would work. But Ifrit will always struggle against the heightened physical resistances of the opponent.

Then when you add in the additional damage opportunities you get when using Contagion, there's absolutely no contest. Not only does Garuda deal more damage, but it also lets you deal more damage as well.

Honestly, both issues need to be fixed. Ifrit sustains much more risk when fighting at close range, and should deal more raw DPS in exchange. But right now the resistances just don't play into his favor unless you have all 3 Melee types in group using their resistance down skills. (Ifirt's attacks count as all 3 physical damage types)
#12 Nov 02 2013 at 1:02 PM Rating: Decent
***
1,004 posts
the pets arent really a hinderance at all during any endgame fights outside of a few exceptions. If you want to sneak by enemies you need to put pets away since they can agro mobs. for fighting there is no downside to having them out.

The only real downside is maybe for scholar. if your fairy dies they have a 7 second cast timer to summon them. As a healer thats a lot of time on certain fights that you dont have such as post heart titan and coil. You could swiftcast summon if you wanted too, but that puts one of your best skills on cooldown for no reason. Especially if you need it for a raise or on titan to help deal with stomps.

The pets do have a high resistance to AoE damage though so they don't die instantly. But if they keep getting hit they don't take very long until they die.
#13 Nov 02 2013 at 6:07 PM Rating: Decent
24 posts
To add to the list of awesome things about summoner:

We get swiftcast+raise. I can't tell you how many times this has been the difference between a successful fight and a wipe. Also, summoner is less common than black mage, so you get to feel all special (and have a better shot of looting on primal weapons.) Feeling special is key. :D
#14REDACTED, Posted: Nov 04 2013 at 7:19 AM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) [#f36] [i]Something I wished SE had done from stealing loads of Tera concepts. Put rating on the roles as Tera, Tera had the fairies and thing, which you can see were copied. Arcanist is mystic chopped up, it is bold to steal powers that look the same and react the same. They had rating on the roles so people could not dumb it down. It just showed they were lazy and not willing to do everything.
#15 Nov 04 2013 at 10:25 AM Rating: Excellent
HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
What SMNs lack is burst. That's pretty much it. In a sustained fight, my FC summoners keep up with me (and surpass me at times) just fine.

But when you get to something that requires burst damage (like turn 5 conflag), SMNs begin to suffer a bit. At the same time. SMN pets sometimes act as secondary targets on split damage moves. In other words, you can split the damage between a SMN and his pet whereas a BLM is just a BLM with no one else to soak the damage.

i.e., An ability does 8000 damage dealt equally among anyone in a small radius of the target. BLM takes 8000 damage. SMN takes 4000 and pet takes 4000. SMN lives, BLM dies.

Be safe and level both. :D The Allagan gear is shared for BLM and SMN. If an encounter needed utility, I'll use my SMN. If it's a DPS burn, I'll just use my BLM. When the boss (or adds) aren't immune, the constant slow provided by shadowflare is wonderful.


More great advice. I'm not surprised this is how it plays out.

Good to know that there is indeed usefulness in leveling both, because SMN looks awfully fun!
#16 Nov 04 2013 at 11:08 AM Rating: Excellent
***
2,550 posts
Theonehio wrote:
To keep a long story short:

Amazing Gear SMN is one of the top DPS (along with their DoTs) in terms of Mages, an Amazing Geared BLM is the top DPS especially in terms of Mages.

Edited, Nov 1st 2013 8:46am by Theonehio


As blm, in a total of 4-5 seconds i can deal 3475 to 5150 on average. I have pretty good gear (2 allagan pieces, slotted vanya, rest darklight, relic +1, and one stupid AK earring piece that i refuse to replace with 375 tomes darklight since it only gives one point in three categories). Depending on the enemy the numbers can go higher or lower. My numbers are lower on ADS, but higher on other enemies (Dullahan and Succubus do not like blm damage). Once I FIre III firestarter (with Astral Fire III and raging strikes active) crit one of the statue adds on the final boss in AK for ~2250. That was the highest I've seen it and I haven't went above 2k since.

But from experience I can say that unless you put flare in your rotation, your aoe will stink as blm. Actually there are times where blizzard II is simply more efficient than Fire II. But the summoner, wow, I've seen those guys tank WP and AK runs (very effectively) giving 3 damage dealers, and that aoe is unparalleled. Once in a party with myself, a healer, a bard , and a summoner, we cleared the demon wall before the second push (and about 5 seconds before the bees spawned. Summoner tanked with titan and aoe'd. Good stuff.

Edited, Nov 4th 2013 11:09am by Valkayree

Edited, Nov 4th 2013 11:11am by Valkayree
Reply To Thread

Colors Smileys Quote OriginalQuote Checked Help

 

Recent Visitors: 254 All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (254)