Summoner
Feast PvP Guide
Written by Tokidoki Dokidoki and Brian Ricardo
Skills, Abilities, and Your Gauge ➤
Your Role in Feast
As a summoner you fill in the role of the ranged dps. Your strength comes mainly from the constant pressure of damage that summoner is able to provide when played correctly. Situational awareness of skills and abilities however, plays a big role in summoner-gameplay.
+ High pressure, High total damage
+ Strong spread of damage
+ AoE-abilities
+ Wither increases whole party damage
– Predictability, experienced players will know when you are ready to burst
– Bahamut has a mind of its own, occasionally resulting in mistimed ability use
– Lack of CC (crowd control)
– Suffers from having to move and punished heavily from dying
– No self defensive tools compared to other jobs
Skills, Abilities, and Your Gauge
Aetherflow in PvP works in a way very similar to its PvE-counterpart. It gives you three stacks of aetherflow which give you access to a set of new abilities. Every time you use one of these (Energy Drain or Fester), one stack gets replaced with a stack of Aethertrail Attunement (portrayed in the aetherflow bar with a picture of Bahamut). These all remain in your bar until you enter Dreadwyrm Trance at three Aethertrail Attunement stacks. Thus, you will never want to use aetherflow, before you have entered and exited the Dreadwyrm Trance.
Additionally, Aetherflow also restores 2,000 of your MP. All in all, it’s a very vital ability and keeping track of both its cooldown and the number of stacks you have left is crucial.
Energy Drain
The first of your abilities which consume your stacks of aetherflow while granting you stacks of Aethertrail Attunement, is Energy Drain. While it doesn’t have a very high potency (merely 1,000) it does restore some of your HP and MP – HP restore being useful in a pinch. If wise to use energy drain while you are being bursted and kiting. MP restore helps you keep your damage-over-time spells in play through the match.
Furthermore, as the ability can be weaved in-between your other casts, it’s necessary for a proper burst, but can also be used alone if necessary or deemed useful for the situation.
Fester
The second of your abilities which consume your stacks of aetherflow while granting you stacks of Aethertrail Attunement, is Fester. Fester has a higher potential for damage than Energy Drain does (up to 1,500), but in exchange it has a longer recast time and requires a set-up. Fester does nothing unless your opponent already suffers from either (preferably both) of your damage-over-time spells; Miasma III and Bio III. Weaving both Fester and Energy Drain right after each other, is a nice little burst of damage when combined with the rest of your summoner skills.
Dreadwyrm Trance / Deathflare
As mentioned briefly before, after you have used all your three stacks of Aetherflow, you may (and eventually should) choose to enter the Dreadwyrm Trance. Dreadwyrm Trance slightly increases your damage dealt, but more importantly it gives you access to Deathflare and Ruin IV. Ruin IV is a more powerful version of Ruin III, and Deathflare is a powerful AoE-spell, which ends the Dreadwyrm Trance upon use. Otherwise, it ends in 15 seconds after which you return back to your normal state (this time with Summon Bahamut ability unlocked!), therefore you would always want to use Deathflare before the time expires, even if the opportunity for it is not the greatest.
Make sure to weigh carefully however, when to do this. Casting Deathflare right after a Ruin IV is a nice (considerably small) burst at total of 3,500 potency, and may sometimes result in a kill but, if you cast Deathflare too early, you miss out on a lot of possible Ruin IV casts. Another way to use your Deathflare is to aim it at a group of stacked enemies – suddenly the opponent healer is faced with multiple team members taking considerable amounts of damage.
Sometimes you may even wish to use Deathflare right after entering the Dreadwyrm Trance! If you enter the Trance right after Ruin III + Fester + Energy Drain and immediately cast off Deathflare, it is a considerable burst, worth keeping in mind.
Ruin III / Ruin IV
While Ruin III and Ruin IV are technically different abilities, they replace each other in your summoner rotation depending on the phase of the rotation you’re in. You start the match with access to Ruin III. At 750 potency it’s not a very strong spell, but it is your default spell for little bit of damage. Once you enter the Dreadwyrm Trance however, your Ruin III turns into Ruin IV, gains a cast-time (of 1,8s) but also doubles up in potency to 1,500. Suddenly, it becomes a lot more powerful. Spamming Ruin IV as much as you can during your Dreadwyrm trance adds up to a lot of pressure.
Summon Bahamut / Wyrmwave /Enkindle Bahamut /Akh Morn
After you have used your Deathflare, you may now Summon Bahamut. Bahamut will appear on the battlefield, following you and much like in PvE he’ll be casting Wyrmwave on your targets. In PvP this Wyrmwave is worth 500 potency. Unlike during Dreadwyrm Stance, when your Aetherflow was unavailable, you are now able to refresh that again, and gain access to both Fester and Energy Drain. Summon Bahamut is the window when you as a summoner are able to deliver your biggest, most potential burst. This burst requires the use of Enkindle Bahamut – an ability, to which you now should have access. Once you use this ability, your Bahamut will try to cast Akh Morn – A 2,000 potency ability for the first target. Combined with a Wither (more on this ability later!), well-timed Ruin III, Energy Drain, Fester and hopefully damage-over-time ticks from your Miasma III and Bio III (more on them soon) – is the highest burst you may achieve as a summoner.
Be aware however: Bahamut is unpredictable. If you are forced to move for any reason, whether it be chasing down a target trying to move behind a wall, or trying to kite yourself away to safety, your Bahamut will try to move with you. Every summoner is familiar with the feeling of seeing Bahamut be multiple seconds late with his Akh Morn cast. Personally, seeing a countdown macro go off, I would use Enkindle Bahamut about 3 seconds prior to the burst. The time it takes for the Akh Morn to happen however varies. Thus, it can be hard to time properly.
Bio III / Miasma III
Bio III and Miasma III are your damage-over-time spells. They both cost 1,500 MP to cast and run for a total duration of 18 seconds. Assuming you keep both spells up on a target, that is 700 potency every 3 seconds from the dot-ticks. The more you dot, the more damage you end up dealing. The main difference between the two is the additional effect added on Miasma III. It reduces target’s HP recovered by healing magic by 10%. This is significant debuff. It makes healing for the healers a lot more stressful activity. If you find it hard to keep dots up on multiple targets, or tend to run out of MP for doing so, it might be a good idea to only have Miasma III up on multiple targets, and placing Bio III (with its instant cast!) when necessary. The two spells being cast often indicates an-incoming burst – as in order for Fester to fully function, both dots are required. Bio III is instant case and can be used while kiting and running. Miasma is hardcast so be aware to use when the occasion allows, you should not miasa when
Wither
This ability was only added in a patch during the Stormblood expansion. It is a two-edged blade. While it seems to do a lot: it deals damage, refreshes the dots on the targets and even increases the damage taken by your hit opponents by 5% for a duration of 5 seconds it does come with its own downside. It requires you to move quite close to your enemies. Summoner as a caster does not have a lot of HP. Furthermore, Summoner lacks the mobility of some other classes. Ruin IV requires a cast, Bahamut struggles with movement and Summoner himself does not have an ability meant for escaping. What this means, is that every time you move in to use Wither, you also place yourself at a risk of being bursted. Hence, be careful but not afraid to Wither. If you are NOT a win condition and you need a kill aggressively to win. You can be super aggressive with this ability and become a big threat.
Additional PvP Actions
Other guides have discussed the additional PvP Actions in detail; I will only list a few of the most useful choices for a summoner here.
Muse
As one of the strengths of the summoner is the constant pressure of his abilities, it only makes sense to have Muse available. Running out of MP is always annoying. If you die a lot however, you may be better off to pick something else. It helps with the main focus of bringing SMN, high damage/pressure. But, if your team comp is not great for doing that, this is a useless skill.
Safeguard
An incredibly useful and a MUST PICK. Reduces your damage taken – saves your life and makes your healer thank you later. Just be sure to try and use it at the best possible moment to make those opponent bursts weaker.
Recuperate
Just like Safeguard, Recuperate increases your chances of survival. A self-heal is always nice. Picking both Safeguard and Recuperate is the safest option you can have.
Bolt
While not so common as a pick anymore, Bolt is not a bad choice. Some might argue against it, as other options are arguably better but it does help the summoner to both kite away to safety from your opponent but also to chase them down.
Concentrate
The last option that I’m listing here is Concentrate. As the summoner burst is quite easy to predict (dot-requirement, Bahamut and Dreadwyrm Trance for example all being telltale signs), Concentrate may help the summoner to get his casts off without being stunned or silenced. Then again, using Concentrate is a sign in itself of an approaching burst, and might even play against itself.
PvP Traits
PvP Traits in general don’t offer massive bonuses and most of them are irrelevant to a summoner. Just like with Additional Actions, I will only briefly mention the useful ones in here.
Increased MP regeneration
Self-explanatory; you do not wish to run out of MP as a summoner. It will seriously gimp your total damage output. This trait helps you maintain your MP. This is a MUST PICK.
Increased HP
An additional HP of 500 may not sound like much, but considering the low HP value of a summoner it does help a bit. If you think it will help you survive, feel free to pick.
Increased Action Speed
At 3% the Increased Action Speed is not a life-changing trait – you may wish to use it if you really want to, but I’d argue there are better options available. 3% will not considerably increase your damage output, so it not a great skill to take overall generally.
Increased Damage Dealt
Your job is to deal damage, it increases the damage you deal – can you do the math? This is a MUST PICK for DPS jobs.
Decreased Damage Taken
One of the more useful ones – makes you take less damage. Always welcome.
Increased Resistance Duration
If you find yourself constantly pestered by those classes that actually have access to crowd-control abilities(?!) you may want to pick this one. Resistance in this case means the immunity you have to a specific source of crowd-control after it was last applied to you.
Caster Limit Break
Caster Limit Break is one of the best ways to carry a match on SMN. It does a ground AoE of 4000 damage and applies a 15 second debuff that increase enemies damage taken by 25%. Due to SMN’s already high damage pressure and healing reductions, this can create some unhealable situations. There are couple ways to use it.
1. If you are in culling and are in a safe position or safeguarded, you can turn the tides of the match if you hit even one person. 25% on top of culling if unmitigated with tank limit break, safeguard or protect will make them extremely easy to kill.
2. If there is ever a situation to hit 3+ people you should do it. This amount of pressure not only forces the team to burn defenses it causes them to fall back. Hitting 3 people and having 1 person open is extremely powerful to trick opposing tank and healers.
3. Cover punishment. If you are against a PLD and they are using Cover you can use this to land two hits on the PLD because they take damage from the covered targets and themselves.
TIPS: Use a Cometeor Macro
/macroicon “Cometeor” pvpaction
/pvpaction “Cometeor” <t>
This macro allows you to instantly use cometeor on the person you are targeting. Meaning you don’t have to aim the Limit Break on the ground and potentially miss or be a second to late.
Another tip. Make sure you have BURST ready before you limit break. Do not limit break without Aethertrails, or Dreadwyrm Stance at least. That way you can take advantage of the 25% damage increase as best as possible!
Rotation
If you made it this far with the guide, I assume you would by now have a basic understanding of how to play summoner. If you did not and started from here, I recommend going back to the beginning, as I have detailed certain things with more accuracy above.
Summoner doesn’t have a strict rotation set on a stone, but rather depends on your situational awareness. At the very basic level however, you do start with a limited amount of actions available (be sure to apply and use Aetherflow while waiting for the gates to open and the match to start)! After you have consumed your Aetherflow stacks, you move on to Dreadwyrm Trance. After this trance is over, you may summon Bahamut, use your Aetherflow again and go back to Dreadwyrm Trance. Rinse and repeat.
For the burst you need to remember that your strongest, most valuable burst is available when you have your Bahamut up, are stacked on Aetherflow, and are yet to use your Enkindle Bahamut.
Helpful Tips and Macros
There are couple of things that you may wish to pay attention to specifically as a Summoner:
- Do not forget to use your Aetherflow ability before the gates open.
- Do not use Aetherflow if you have any Dreadwyrm stacks – especially if you have three.
- Deathflare has a longer cooldown than Dreadwyrm Trance – you may not always have it available right at the start of your Trance.
- If you have just used Aetherflow and then proceed to die – you do not spawn with Aetherflow available. If you foresee your imminent death coming, try not to waste your Aetherflow. You will have to wait for its cooldown after you spawn in case you did.
- If the match goes deep into culling time, don’t forget to cast your Miasma III and Bio III. The two spells create incredible pressure at that point due to the increased damage from the culling time.
Thank you for the read and good luck in PvP!
- Tokidoki Dokidoki (Moogle)
Brian Ricardo
