BLM: Endgame guide and rotations

[Pacifyer]

Hello all,

I have always been a hardcore raider. I am using parsers to keep track of my DPS as a BLM and I noticed that way many people are seriously underperforming on many encounters even being pretty seriously geared. And if I start to give suggestions to people it just hurts their personal feelings for whatever reason.

So I decided to write a small guide for other BLMs to make sure if they are doing it right for the sake of peace.

This guide does not pretend to be "the most optimal" or "the most accurate". It will not include any videos or gear guides. It is here just to prevent my fellow BLMs from being totally useless.

If you want some crazy theorycrafting on numbers pls visit PuroStrider's thread.

So here we go.

Basics. Mana management

Black mage mana management is quite different from how it is usually done for other classes or in most other games.

The core of mana management is managing 2 of your buffs - Umbral Ice and Astral Fire. You can have only one at a time and they can have up to 3 stacks.

Umbral Ice serves you to regenerate mana. The more stacks you have the more mana it will give you per server tick. Mana regeneration tick server side every 3 seconds and that is not related to your actions in any way so for better management you will have to get used to feel when the next tick will be as it really makes a difference if you make well timed actions. Umbral Ice also greatly reduces cast time for fire spells however greatly reducing their damage.

Astral Fire serves a DPS purpose. While it is active mana regeneration is blocked totally, Your Fire spells do much more damage while consuming much more mana. It also greatly reduces cast time and damage for ice spells.

All this you can read even in spell description. What does it mean on practice?

This means we should maximize time under Astral Fire buff dealing damage and minimize time under Umbral Ice as this period is definitely a DPS loss. Also every buff switch is obviously a DPS loss so we have to minimize those.

What tools do we possess for mana management?

Generally we will be managing mana using:
Fire III - This spell while being the hardest hitter applies Astral Fire 3 no matter what buff did you have before. Obviously we will be using this one to start DPS sequence.
Blizzard III - This spell does low damage but it applies Umbral Ice 3 no matter what buff did you have before. We will be using this to start mana regen sequence most of the times
Transpose - This one removes current buff (Umbral Ice or Astral Fire) and replaces it with 1 stack of the opposite buff. While being the most effective buff swapper on low levels, on 50 it has a very limited use. There are 2 situations for it. First is a prolonged disconnect from targets while being under Astral Fire (example Garuda disappears to cast wind being invulnerable for the duration and forsing to LOS her). In this situation we use Transpose to switch to Umbral ice to regen mana while there is no targets. And the second situation is when you end up OOM (Out Of Mana) while under Astral Fire. This can happen if you payed no attention and just spammed Fire losing all, or after Flare cast which drains all your mana.

The Single target DPS

I am starting combat with Thunder II but you may go to Fire III right away. The result is very much random and you can never tell if it is really effective or not. You can also boost your start with Swiftcast for Fire III however this may only be done if you should not save Swiftcast for Flare for some purpose. So.

- Thunder II
- Fire III
- Fire I spam with Fire III on Firestarter procs until < 1000 mana
- Blizzard III
- Mana regen filler: Thunder II or Scathe
- Fire III
- Fire I spam with Fire III on Firestarter procs until < 1000 mana
... rince and repeat

The most variations for the rotation is within mostly a single point - the mana regen filler. My personal preference is Thunder II but you can replace it with Thunder or Thunder III or Scathe. The problem is that using low cast time spell (Thunder or Scathe) may have a bad timing and you can miss out a mana regen tick. If you are feeling this will currently happen you may just insert an extra Scathe there to make sure you will regen mana. Also if you see that the target will die soon there is no point casting Thunder at all - just use Scathe.

You should also use Thundercloud procs to cast Thunder III trying to select a target which will not die fast. If the proc is triggered when you are low on mana I would recommend waiting and using it as a mana regen filler.

Some extra suggestions are:
- Never use Flare in a single target rotation. In theory you could use something like Swiftcast -> Flare -> Convert -> Blizzard III... but I would not recommend you doing so on a single target. However this could be nice if you have an extra target. Again however this would be only effective with Convert or Mana potion which have a pretty long cooldown. I would not recommend using it with Transpose which will definitely end up in a DPS loss on single target.
- Use Raging Strikes (ARC) right after Fire III for a DPS burst.

AOE rotation

This is where the most BLMs fail. There are many options here but quite a few end up being really effective.

Thanks for this development to SirGazuntai http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-BLM-rotations

When starting a fight with 3 or more targets this rotation should be done netting you the most DPS possible.
- Fire III
- Fire II x2 (or x3 if your tank gathers mobs for too long)
- Flare
- Transpose
---------------
- Fire III
- Fire II
- Flare
- Transpose
... rince and repeat
You have to spam Fire III button right after Transpose to minimize downtime and begin casting right after mana regen ticks. Also try to select a target closest to the center of pack and with maximum HP to avoid interruption.

This is without burst and most tanks will manage to hold agro if they are not complete noobs.
However here is a total buster which you can do if you are sure if your tank can hold it:
- Fire III
- Fire II x3
- Raging Strikes
- Flare
- Convert
- Swiftcast
- Flare
- Mana potion
- Flare
- Transpose
- Usual AOE rotation

This combo really rips through the crowd netting you cosmic DPS and also Threat so make sure your tank is awesome on it. And I never tried if Quelling Strikes work here cause I still don't have it.

For a real example I am using this particular rotation on Coil Turn 4 on 1st and 4th phases as Raging Strikes go off cooldown exactly at Phase 4 if you use it near start of phase 1.

[Sinaloa]

Reads about right beside potions sharing a CD

...
- Int potion
- Raging Strikes
- Flare
- Convert
- Swiftcast
- Flare
- Mana potion...

[EasymodeX]

I never tried if Quelling Strikes work here cause I still don't have it.

That's all I read in this thread.

[Royze]

Just some observations, corrections on some things you've said

1. Single Target:
You're missing out on an additional Fire1 and potentially another Firestarter Fire III - Huge dps decrease over the course of a 5-10 minute fight.

If your MP is above 700, cast another Fire 1, then swift cast flare to use the remaining MP. If convert is up, use it and then cast another Fire 1 followed by Blizard III -> ThunderII or Scathe.
You need minimum 250sh MP to cast flare. That's great DMG potential and MP efficiency when combined with swiftcast.




you can either start with a swiftcast ThunderIII if its a boss with a large enough HP pool to justify using your swiftcast, or incorporate Swiftcast-> Flare


2. AOE
You can transpose and then spam BlizardII as you climb the MP refresh.

Another side note, BlizardIII is not poor DMG by any means. Its inferior to FireIII and Fire1 spam in Astral Fire mode, but it isn't weak by any means. My BlizardIII's can crit for more than 1k.

[Pacifyer]

Just some observations, corrections on some things you've said

1. Single Target:
You're missing out on an additional Fire1 and potentially another Firestarter Fire III - Huge dps decrease over the course of a 5-10 minute fight.

If your MP is above 700, cast another Fire 1, then swift cast flare to use the remaining MP. If convert is up, use it and then cast another Fire 1 followed by Blizard III -> ThunderII or Scathe.
You need minimum 250sh MP to cast flare. That's great DMG potential and MP efficiency when combined with swiftcast.

you can either start with a swiftcast ThunderIII if its a boss with a large enough HP pool to justify using your swiftcast, or incorporate Swiftcast-> Flare

Swiftcast + Flare is great for ST only if you can Convert + Blizzard III out of it. If you are saving convert or it is on CD using Flare is way too bad as getting up from 0 mana with transpose will be too painful as both Fire III and Blizzard III are slow cast at that point so you will be losing DPS.

Also Thunder III has no sense cause its DoT will cover like 1.5 cycles forcing you to use scathe on next mana regen and miss out half of cylce in Thunder DoT. I have said about swiftcasting Fire III on pull - that at least has some sense. Use Thunder III only on Thundercloud procs.

2. AOE
You can transpose and then spam BlizardII as you climb the MP refresh.

Another side note, BlizardIII is not poor DMG by any means. Its inferior to FireIII and Fire1 spam in Astral Fire mode, but it isn't weak by any means. My BlizardIII's can crit for more than 1k.

Yet again spamming Blizzard II is a major DPS loss. Just try rotation from my post.
And Yes, Blizzard III has poor damage if under Astral Fire and there is no sense in casting it in any othre situation cause its cast time is very long

[xRitzx]

Scathe should only be used for moving, never just for a filler. Even blizzard 1 (150 potency) is better than scathe (100 potency with 20% chance it will double). Also, you shouldn't suggest replacing thunder with blizzard or scathe while waiting for mana to regen during Umbral Ice. Keeping thunder up for potential thundercould procs is better DPS.

[Pacifyer]

Just some observations, corrections on some things you've said

1. Single Target:
You're mst flare. That's great DMG potential and MP efficiency when combined with swiftcast.

you can either start with a swiftcast ThunderIII if its a boss with a large enough HP pool to justify using your swiftcast, or incorporate Swiftcast-> Flare

Swiftcast + Flare is great for ST only if you can Convert + Blizzard III out of it. If you are saving convert or it is on CD using Flare is way too bad as getting up from 0 mana with transpose will be too painful as both Fire III and Blizzard III are slow cast at that point so you will be losing DPS.

[Holyhunter]

BLM is severely gimped without quelling strikes. No quelling strikes basically means you have to force yourself to not do the full damage possible

[Sinaloa]

Get some sleep before answering. You are seeing double ^^

[SirGazuntai]

Blizz I (or even Blizz III) are good fillers, however I love Scathe for end-game content for the same reason I love Firestarter/Thundercloud procs. They all allow movement. I refuse to move with the group in Turn 4 until I've gotten a proc (sometimes I'll get both procs at the same time and I can reach the other end of the elevator without losing DPS).

If it's a fight that requires little-to-no movement, by all means use spells with cast-times but the mobility Scathe provides can be invaluable (not to mention I get the double-potency pretty regularly, so it usually does way more damage anyway).

It's a good start to a BLM guide. More of a rotation guide than an actual BLM guide, but I guess it covers the majority of important stuff.