Summoner Guide 5.4

Starting Off / Returning To FFXIV Shadowbringers Summoner

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Welcome

If you are new to Summoner, welcome, or if you are returning back to playing the game & the Summoner job, welcome back!

Below will be information about Summoner to help you get started on getting up to speed with the current iteration of the job.

Summoner Actions Summary

Summoner is a unique job with its emphasis on pet & DoT gameplay. Like the other casters Summoner uses MP to cast its spells. Most will be hardcast Ruin GCDs. However, unlike the other casters it does not have random proc based gameplay but instead revolves around the cooldown management of numerous abilities.

GCDs

Most Commonly Used GCDs

  • Cast Ruin/ Ruin III as your main filler GCD.
  • Cast Ruin II/ Ruin IV when you need to move or weave.
  • Cast Egi Assaults to generate Further Ruin stacks for Ruin IV casts.

DoT GCDs

  • Cast Miasma/ Miasma III into Bio/ Bio II/ Bio III to apply both of your 30s duration DoTs.
  • Despite the 30s duration, in later levels they are cast infrequently for reasons discussed further.

AoE GCDs

  • Cast Outburst against 3+ targets.

Infrequently Used GCDs

  • Cast Resurrection to revive dead players.
  • You are never expected to cast Physick.

Special GCDs

  • Egi Assaults cannot be used while a Demi-Summon is out.
  • Ruin II becomes Ruin IV when you have Further Ruin stacks.
  • Ruin III becomes Fountain of Fire in Firebird Trance.
  • Outburst becomes Brand of Purgatory in Firebird Trance.
  • Using Fountain of Fire grants you the Hellish Conduit buff, allowing you to next use Brand of Purgatory.

OGCDs

Use On Cooldown

  • For single target use Energy Drain to generate 2 Aetherflow stacks and Fester to spend them.
  • For 3+ target AoE use Energy Siphon to generate 2 Aetherflow stacks and Painflare to spend them.
  • Enkindle and Devotion cannot be used while a Demi-Summon is out.

Part Of The Core Rotation

  • Use Tri-disaster to instantly apply both of your current Miasma and Bio DoTs to your target.
  • Using Dreadwyrm Trance reduces GCD cast times by 2.5s, grants access to Deathflare and makes Summon Bahamut available when the Trance ends.
  • Using Summon Bahamut replaces your Egi with Demi-Bahamut for 20s, allowing Enkindle Bahamut to be used twice before the timer ends.
  • When Summon Bahamut ends, Dreadwyrm Trance is replaced with Firebird Trance. Trances share a cooldown.
  • Using Firebird Trance reduces GCD cast times by 2.5s, buffs the party with the Everlasting Flight HoT, replaces Ruin III with Fountain of Fire and Outburst with Brand of Purgatory and summons Demi-Phoenix for 20s, allowing Enkindle Phoenix to be used twice before the timer ends.
  • Using Dreadwyrm Trance and Firebird Trance resets your Tri-disaster cooldown, reducing how often you need to hardcast your DoTs per cycle.

Situational

  • Use Addle to reduce the damage of enemy magic attacks.
  • Use Bane to spread your DoTs against 3+ targets.
  • Use Surecast to prevent yourself being knocked back by enemy attacks.
  • Use Swiftcast to make your next GCD spell instant.
  • Use Lucid Dreaming to recover MP.

Returning To The Game

Whether you have started Summoner fresh in Shadowbringers or have come back to FFXIV from A Realm Reborn, Heavensward or even having taken a break mid Stormblood, Summoner has changed considerably from how it used to be.

Here is a list of current mechanical changes since Stormblood:

Aetherflow

  • The Aetherflow action has been removed, stacks are generated by using Energy Drain/Siphon against a target with a cap of 2 stacks.
  • Fester has a base potency of 100 when used with 0 DoTs instead of doing 0 damage.
  • Bane no longer consumes an Aetherflow stack when used.

Trances

  • Aethertrail no longer exists with Trance being on a rigid 55s cooldown.
  • Trances reduce the base cast time of spells by 2.5s. This includes Resurrection.
  • Firebird Trance (FBT) shares a cooldown with DWT.

DoTs

  • Tri-Disaster has a 50s cooldown down from 60s.
  • DoTs all last 30s instead of later level upgrades increasing the duration to 30s.
  • Shadowflare has been removed.

Pets

  • Pets have been tweaked to have dedicated roles with aoe, single target & support options.
  • Pets can can be placed directly under enemies without aggroing them, no longer take damage & cannot die.
  • Egis redirect all of their enmity to us just like Demi-Summons.
  • Titan-Egi can no longer tank for us.
  • Pet actions have been replaced with Egi Assault command GCDs.
  • Demi-Summons only react to GCDs instead of GCDs + OGCDs making the goal 8 Wyrmwaves/Scarlet Flames.
  • Devotion is a 5% damage 3 minute cooldown party buff only.
  • Rouse has been removed.

Spells

  • RNG Ruin IV procs have been removed. Using Egi Assaults generates Further Ruin stacks.
  • Tri-bind has been replaced with Outburst.

You can read more about the historical Summoner changes here.

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