Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

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Originally Posted by FunkyBunch

I have one macro for Mana Ward and Mana Wall, you know for when you get preyed. Means you can survive without the healing. Reason, I don't like Mana Ward and Mana Wall taking up two spaces on my hotbar.
My AM macro needs some work, cuz it just auto-targets the closest person, which sometimes puts me right into an AoR =/

On another note, I'm going to try T1 instead of T2 in my Enochian rotation, see if that gives me some downtime.
I really want spell speed lol.

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T2 is garbage except for possibly when under Leylines, with enough MP.

T2 takes longer to cast (bad for Enochian), costs more MP (this is huge, BLM is all about the MP game and unless you got the holy 1700~ MP going into B3, which is RNG, you probably can't afford T2), and with such a decent rate of TC per rotation, it's actually a DPS loss to have done T2 if you get a TC in the first place.

The MP cost alone is enough to generally skip T2.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

T2 is garbage except for possibly when under Leylines, with enough MP.

T2 takes longer to cast (bad for Enochian), costs more MP (this is huge, BLM is all about the MP game and unless you got the holy 1700~ MP going into B3, which is RNG, you probably can't afford T2), and with such a decent rate of TC per rotation, it's actually a DPS loss to have done T2 if you get a TC in the first place.

The MP cost alone is enough to generally skip T2.

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Grazie, I will adjust that. T1 goes on my hot bar, T2 goes away.
I was under the impression that T2 fit perfectly into the rotation, but it was always tight. But anyways, thanks I will try out the T1.

Hey everybody I have a question.
I was in Thordan EX earlier today and another blm told me my opener was "bad" basically. I usually always hit about 1500+ in the first phase and at the end of the fight I have about 1220+ or 1250+.( I don't really always know my dps at the end of the fight because I don't always ask the person looking at the dps, but those are the numbers I was told before.)
My opener is;
Swiftcast - Sharpcast - LeyLines - F3 - Enochian - Raging Strike - Pot - F1 - F4x4 - F3 - convert (end of pot) - F4x2 - (end of RS) B3 - T1 - B4.
I'm always looking to improve so if this isn't a good opener...should I just use the ones in the first page?

For Thordan, I'm doing the normal F4x3 - FS - F4x3 opener and use Swift after FS to dodge meteor and use Convert one GCD later. This puts me over 1700, up to 1900 with some good luck, without food/pots when Thordan leaves. I think just over 1750 was the usual when I last did few runs. And then there's that one random run where you get literally 0 crits in p1 with 2x DRG, and you sit like 250-300 DPS below normal... Stupid game.

In general, I don't think doing F4x4 - FS is a good idea as I'm pretty sure you AF3 will drop before your F3 goes off and you don't get the extra damage for that. It also feels unnecessary to do it like that. If you also use your pot after F1, so the opener would look like stuff - F1 - pot - F4x3 - FS - swift - F4 - convert - F4x2 - B3 etc., it will affect one extra F4 instead. Another thing you can also do is to time your first F3 to hit just as the pull happens and then drop Ley, making you essentially to get it for "free".

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Considering how even .1s can make or break an Enochian rotation, I would not use any GCD macros on BLM, more so than just the fact that you will lose DPS from doing it.

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I believe you misinterpreted my original macro. The macro does not cast B4 then B3 in a sequence. It cast either B4 or B3 depending on what conditions are up...one action only. This way I do not need two separate buttons on my hot bar for both actions. I fail to see how this results in a lost any time whatsoever. Do you care to explain?

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Originally Posted by luckystrikes

I believe you misinterpreted my original macro. The macro does not cast B4 then B3 in a sequence. It cast either B4 or B3 depending on what conditions are up...one action only. This way I do not need two separate buttons on my hot bar for both actions. I fail to see how this results in a lost any time whatsoever. Do you care to explain?

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The only thing I can think of is that you might miscast a B4 when you don't have enough time to cast it this way. EG-Enochian is still up but enough up for a cast of B4.

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Originally Posted by FunkyBunch

The only thing I can think of is that you might miscast a B4 when you don't have enough time to cast it this way. EG-Enochian is still up but enough up for a cast of B4.

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The ONLY issue I have had with this method is if you somehow cast a B1 and want to follow up with a B3 to refill your mana faster. I have seen no rotations that fall in to this so far. And there is no reason to cast a B3 after a B4 under normal circumstances.

Try it out on a casting dummy. I think you will be pleased in how it works out for you. Or it could be something that only a space-constrained PS4 player is interested in. For me, when I switch cross-bars...that is a dps loss with the .1 seconds adding up you discussed earlier.

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Originally Posted by luckystrikes

I believe you misinterpreted my original macro. The macro does not cast B4 then B3 in a sequence. It cast either B4 or B3 depending on what conditions are up...one action only. This way I do not need two separate buttons on my hot bar for both actions. I fail to see how this results in a lost any time whatsoever. Do you care to explain?

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I understood what your macro does. Macros cannot be queued, and you will, for certain, lose a small amount of time with each button press of a macro. This can literally be tenths of a second each time.

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Originally Posted by xxvaynxx

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Don't use swiftcast to cast F3, pre-cast it instead, you will then have Swiftcast up for anything else, e.g. cast F4 while dodging an AoE or whatever you want, you won't gain or lose any dps when swiftcasting your first spell as long as your tank isn't shit.

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Originally Posted by luckystrikes

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There is one (probably a few more) situation where you are in UI and you want to cast B3 and not B4, and that's right after you Flare -> Transposed and want to get back to full mana.

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Originally Posted by Hontaro

Don't use swiftcast to cast F3, pre-cast it instead, you will then have Swiftcast up for anything else, e.g. cast F4 while dodging an AoE or whatever you want, you won't gain or lose any dps when swiftcasting your first spell as long as your tank isn't shit.


There is one (probably a few more) situation where you are in UI and you want to cast B3 and not B4, and that's right after you Flare -> Transposed and want to get back to full mana.

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That is very accurate hontaro. You would lose the +5% dps under aoe for flare.

The other above posting claims there is a time loss under this macro. That is inaccurate..there is no animation lock or casting delay with trying to cast a skill you do no meet the condition for. It is instantaneous.

I offer this as a general quality of life improvement for all blms...there is no other downside on this.

There is a delay. If you press a skill during the GCD of another skill, it will be queued, causing it to be activated the instant it is possible. If you press a macro during the GCD of another skill, nothing will happen, it will not queue. The action will only come out if you press after the previous GCD has fully completed. You will, no matter what, lose a fraction of second each time you choose to use the macro over using the skill manually. This doesn't sound like much, but in practice, this tiny amount of time adds up.

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Originally Posted by luckystrikes

I believe you misinterpreted my original macro. The macro does not cast B4 then B3 in a sequence. It cast either B4 or B3 depending on what conditions are up...one action only. This way I do not need two separate buttons on my hot bar for both actions. I fail to see how this results in a lost any time whatsoever. Do you care to explain?

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This is exactly like the trend going around where some DRGs macro Fang and Claw with Wheeling Thrust. My sentiment is the same here as I was to those DRGs, it is a DPS loss because no command queuing.

I say go for it, if you manage to get higher numbers with than without the macro, but it would be optimal to learn to play without one. It's not that huge of a loss to delay skills for 0.1s every 25 seconds or whatever. You lose, what, 2-3 spells in a 10 minute fight?

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Originally Posted by Waliel

I say go for it, if you manage to get higher numbers with than without the macro, but it would be optimal to learn to play without one. It's not that huge of a loss to delay skills for 0.1s every 25 seconds or whatever. You lose, what, 2-3 spells in a 10 minute fight?

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If you're fighting optimally and not moving.
Actual DPS loss approximately zero.
You can't queue B4 anyway because you have to wait for UI to be up.

And you can queue with macros, I did it yesterday with my manawall and manaward cast. I pressed the macro before it was done casting F4. It cast my macro'd spells without me having to hit the macro button again. It also cast both even though I moved in between casts of manaward and manawall which I wasn't sure it was going to do.

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Originally Posted by Waliel

I say go for it, if you manage to get higher numbers with than without the macro, but it would be optimal to learn to play without one. It's not that huge of a loss to delay skills for 0.1s every 25 seconds or whatever. You lose, what, 2-3 spells in a 10 minute fight?

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Probably doesn't apply with blm and cast times but as a monk main that 0.1sec is huge. I can have a skill qued and start to dodge an aoe and it still goes off as I run out of range and I'm back on the boss before my gcd refreshes. Someone with a macro would lose an entire second if not more and each time it occurs cause they would need to dodge before their gcd was ready.
Anyway I'm here to learn more about blm. I have a static member that could use some improvement but I don't know the first thing about blm so I got it to lvl 60 and now I'm trying to grasp it

Let me put this into perspective for those who favor macros. You cannot queue macros unless something changed in the last two minutes (I just personally tested something we've known for two years, just to be sure), and I doubt it will ever change as it seems a design philosophy. Assume (correctly) you can't queue macros but also assume (incorrectly) that you can somehow macros non-queued with zero GCD loss, hitting that button on the first frame possible and it registering.

We play in an environment where we are eternally out of sync with the world, the enemies, and other players. We are always ahead of others on our screen, where the world pulses on a 3s universal server tick. Some of the byproducts include ...

- You can literally walk through other players without passing vital debuffs because positioning doesn't update in real time. Anyone who's moved 1s before someone got to their spot in T2, T12, or A3S knows exactly what I'm talking about.
- You "die" 1-2 seconds before you die, and no healing can save you. In fact, attacks are snapshot to such an effect that if you don't have a CD up 1-2 seconds before an attack lands, you're taking full damage.
- Benediction, Hallowed Ground, even some attack buffs can literally go off without taking immediate effect. You can attack after a buff without the buff applying to said attack.
- You can constantly slidecast ridiculous distances because the game isn't updating right. You can walk through instant death orbs in A4S and take two before dying because you are not recognized as dead before the second orb hits you.
- If you are not standing in a server tick item during the pulse, you won't receive its effect. Oh you put Soil up 2 seconds before Gigaflare cast? Let's hope the tick happens before then! Oh you wanted that Collective set of 150 potency HoTs, but you only walked in and out of the bubble? Too bad, no soup for you.

You can't queue up pots in this game, a non-macro, and it takes about .1-.5 seconds of mashing to activate your pot. Even using WTFast, with 30ms ping, I can't pot precisely when I wish to pot unless the game is ready for me to pot.

Now, knowing all of the above, why on earth would you ever (even if somehow you could without any delay activate a GCD macro) play in "real time" in FFXIV? If queueing didn't exist, this game would require you to literally jack into their servers with ethernet cables to even stand a chance. Moral of the story is, don't mess with GCD macros, unless you just really don't care.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

You can constantly slidecast ridiculous distances because the game isn't updating right.

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I wish that was true for me after we got our new shiny EU servers. Only thing that seems to matter is the last 0.5 seconds. Start moving before that and everything gets interrupted in 0.1-0.2s. Are you looking away from Thordan during the 0.1s window when your cast goes down to its last 0.5 seconds? Too bad, cast interrupted even if you turn back with 0.4s remaining.

Apologies if this is a stupid question, but in the initial post, there's 3 openers compared in an image. Is there any reason this one isn't?

quelling+sharp
Fire III
ley+enoch+rs
Fire I
potion
Fire IV
Fire IV
Fire IV
Fire III [proc]
swiftcast
Fire IV
convert
Fire IV
Fire IV
Blizzard III
Blizzard IV
Thunder I

It looks like it'd be a strict pps increase over the 6 f4 opener proposed in that image ( http://i.imgur.com/dhwdO0N.png ) with no real changes done to it. Just curious if there's any reasoning behind not considering it, or if it's already been considered elsewhere and I haven't dug it out of the 95 pages of this thread.

Thanks!

No one should do B3 > B4 > T1 unless they have to, that's an error, especially in the opener. You are tossing away Enochian time for the next rotation, possibly a lot. Also Leylines post-F3 really doesn't get you anything because it probably saves you less time used after F3 from an additional spell cast under Leylines than it takes to raw cast (roughly .5s or so), and the sooner it's off CD, the better, since lining up the third Ley + RS + Sharp can be a bitch.

But yes the whole Swiftcast > F4 > Convert thing wasn't really thought of at 3.0 launch AFAIK. Everyone thought it was double weave or you're wasting, even though Convert is almost never used on CD. I think I wrote it down a couple months later and no one seemed to pay attention to it, but it has become common place these days that I see. Probably because the best A3S opener that I know of has it mandatory.

There are actually slight modifications that can be done to every opener in that list, IMO. Aikaal doesn't play anymore so that's why they're still as they were when created I believe, though they're good enough regardless.

There's something I don't understand about the sharpcast opener. If you get a F3P why do you swift cast flare and not fire 4 . They are both instant cast with swiftcast but fire 4 is stronger than Flare and you can still convert do another fire and switch, I really can't wrap my head around why flare is stronger.

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Originally Posted by jmdude

There's something I don't understand about the sharpcast opener. If you get a F3P why do you swift cast flare and not fire 4 . They are both instant cast with swiftcast but fire 4 is stronger than Flare and you can still convert do another fire and switch, I really can't wrap my head around why flare is stronger.

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It depends. If you don't get a proc you really can't do a Swiftcast F4 ... you'll run out of Astral Fire (F3P > F4 F4 > F1 (10s) > F4 F4 (5s left) Swiftcast F4 F4 (no AF left) B3 will fail terribly).

If you get a proc, it's still somewhat iffy. You have to go by pot/Trick Attack timers too, getting any of those makes Flare stronger than F4. A standard pure potency upgrade with a proc is F3P > F4 F4 F1 F4 F3P Swift F4 Convert F4 F4, which is fine MP wise and AF/Enochian wise, but it may not sync up with your pot/TA in such the way that F3P > F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F3P Swiftcast Flare Convert F4 B3 does. We're talking min/maxing here, it's really not even a big enough deal to care or change your parse in a way that anyone would notice.

Me I just do the Swiftcast Flare usually because of that, even with the proc, because my personal pot and TA timers make that stronger - which may vary BLM to BLM. What I WILL adapt to though, is if I got an MP tick before combat started ... if you get the MP tick and the F3P, you can do F3P > F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F3P Swiftcast F4 Convert F4, which is as lenient as it gets to interacting with TA/pot because you can put your Swiftcast in one of two places if you wish.

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Originally Posted by jmdude

There's something I don't understand about the sharpcast opener. If you get a F3P why do you swift cast flare and not fire 4 . They are both instant cast with swiftcast but fire 4 is stronger than Flare and you can still convert do another fire and switch, I really can't wrap my head around why flare is stronger.

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You don't have enough mana to use F4 unless you get an MP tick after casting the first F1.

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Originally Posted by Hontaro

You don't have enough mana to use F4 unless you get an MP tick after casting the first F1.

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I have no problems doing that as a Dunesfolk lala : ^ )

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Originally Posted by OneWingedSora

I have no problems doing that as a Dunesfolk lala : ^ )

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Strange, last time I tried I was left at around 1040 MP, nowhere near a Fire IV, it doesn't matter which race I am at that point. I'll try it again tomorrow since Chaos datacenter is currently dead it seems.

F4 X6 + F1 works every time with the F1 opener, with a F3P, regardless of race or MP ticks.

The only thing that is altered is if you try to do it later, IE Hontaro's 1040 MP conundrum; most F4 X6 with F3P openers just do F4 F4 F1 F4 F3P instead of F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F3P, so you have a larger amount of MP at that point. If you try to F4 X6 at the Swiftcast Flare point, normally you can't afford it in place of a Swiftcast Flare. You need an MP tick from the start of the pull, to succeed here.

tl;dr - don't do F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F3P F4 unless you know what you're doing, your opener allows for it, and you care about literally 300 damage or so, which even I barely do. If you get a F3P, yes go for F4 F4 F1 F4 F3P F4 F4 because it's only better to do anything else if TA/pot make it better to do anything else.

Sleigh, if you don't mind, whats your email? I have something I'd like you to go over if you are willing

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

But yes the whole Swiftcast > F4 > Convert thing wasn't really thought of at 3.0 launch AFAIK.

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I've been doing it since week 1! :P

Hi, just curious how much baseline dps should be expected from this set: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/SFJ3
Assuming no party/food/pot over a 3-4 minute duration.

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

Sleigh, if you don't mind, whats your email? I have something I'd like you to go over if you are willing

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I'm no math guy really but if you want any advice or something, hit me up on my Reddit account, Mockbuster.

Gotcha, I'll do that

So question maybe someone can help me with, lots to read through though sadly not gonna skim 9x pages. However I feel like I may be doing something wrong, being only level 54 but I feel I got a good grasp on the class but when I go for the Flare>Convert>Flare>Transpose, is this viable? Only ask cus when I do this during mass pulls I feel like something is wrong because I sit there waiting on the MP tick, which sometimes is almost instant then others I feel like I am waiting much longer than I should be

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

So question maybe someone can help me with, lots to read through though sadly not gonna skim 9x pages. However I feel like I may be doing something wrong, being only level 54 but I feel I got a good grasp on the class but when I go for the Flare>Convert>Flare>Transpose, is this viable? Only ask cus when I do this during mass pulls I feel like something is wrong because I sit there waiting on the MP tick, which sometimes is almost instant then others I feel like I am waiting much longer than I should be

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You will wait for an MP tick, but it's still better than skipping Flare and doing B3->F3->F2x4 instead. When you're waiting for a tick, pop a sharpcast for a Thundercloud proc during your UI phase

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

So question maybe someone can help me with, lots to read through though sadly not gonna skim 9x pages. However I feel like I may be doing something wrong, being only level 54 but I feel I got a good grasp on the class but when I go for the Flare>Convert>Flare>Transpose, is this viable? Only ask cus when I do this during mass pulls I feel like something is wrong because I sit there waiting on the MP tick, which sometimes is almost instant then others I feel like I am waiting much longer than I should be

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If you're doing the dbl Flare on 3+ enemies then you are doing fine. It's normal to wait a tick. Although if you time it right when you transpose you might have an immediate B3 ready to be cast.

I had a very wild thought... Is the initial TC damage affected by SS, because it technically does the full dot damage, or is it just a flat 390 potency nuke?

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Originally Posted by Waliel

I had a very wild thought... Is the initial TC damage affected by SS, because it technically does the full dot damage, or is it just a flat 390 potency nuke?

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I'm not sure and that's basically near impossible to test, but from the testing I've done and seen on other DoTs, SS is really negligible right now on DoT damage. A few percentage here or there with a decent amount of SS. Even if it'd be, say, 400 potency after the SS buff, it wouldn't really change how you use it or its priority vs F4.

I'm frustrated by the job. Basically, what I really enjoyed about it before was watching my mana, pumping out solid abilities, and ultimately not worrying if things go south because I can recover.

I just hit 60 today and I'm using gear that is better on my SMN (mostly crit) - already I'm feeling the lack of spell speed. On top of that, not only do I have to watch mana, but now I have to watch enochian and heavily pay attention to umbral ice/fire? Did this overwhelm anyone when they started playing Black Mage? Or were you all fine with it. I had a horrible run of AV (granted, the tank didn't pick up any of our ads, and the plant boss ran around like mad for the first minute, and our healers weren't healing for crap because "deeps"), but still. I become obsessive about keeping up enochian. I'll have to run around to avoid mechanics sometimes, then when I do I'll notice umbral fire is low, so I'll use a quick fire so I can continue fire 4. But then I see that my enochian is low -- yet I have plenty of mana for more fire 4's. I'll switch to blizz 3. Blizz 4. (forget about EVER using thunder again. Maybe it's easier for those with spell speed..I do not have SS). I'll use fire 3. and basically the pattern repeats itself. I can NOT seem to dodge mechanics effectively with this new black mage rotation.

I miss old BLM. Thank god for new bard. I'm not one for keeping up DoTs like the SMN. (simple refresh/ 2 dots on bard is plenty for me). Am I just doing something wrong? Does the job get easier with more spell speed? (my cast time is something like 2.91 seconds for fire 4 I believe). I have 690 crit. I can only get off 2 Fire 4's before I need to use Fire 1. Then I'll Fire 4 -- and if I DIDN'T have to dodge any mechanics, I can potentially use another before I have to Blizz 4 to renew enochian.

I swear I'm doing something wrong. I'm frustrated as hell because I really like black mage. But dammit if I don't think I can play the class anymore...

Gonna sound jaded but Enochian changes nothing about the job. Just another icon timer to watch. And only serves to gate 2 spells. And increase damage by 5%.

Pfffft. Padding and Filler. Where are the real spells at? I want a spell on Blm that will even make a Fell Cleave Crit Warrior crap their pants and go WTF.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Pfffft. Padding and Filler. Where are the real spells at? I want a spell on Blm that will even make a Fell Cleave Crit Warrior crap their pants and go WTF.

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Well, you got that one with Fire4, and you can use it way more frequently than a Fell Cleave...

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Originally Posted by GarnetTribal

I swear I'm doing something wrong. I'm frustrated as hell because I really like black mage. But dammit if I don't think I can play the class anymore...

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Well, I think we all went through this at first, cause BLM really "changed" alot when you hit 60. But then, you realise you just have to adjust your muscle memory and youre fine.

It is still like in 2.x where movement killed dps, and you really excelled when you knew the fight ahead. I always called it the "dance of the blackmage", as sliding out of AoEs and still pulling off that cast i´m in always felt like a little choreography, thanks to the scripted fights.

They just threw in some more variation, where variation means "blow out as much F4 as possible" xD

It is not anymore the simple blow out your mana with fire and don´t forget your procs.

It got more interesting, but it´s still the old meta "easy to play, hard to master"

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

I'm not sure and that's basically near impossible to test, but from the testing I've done and seen on other DoTs, SS is really negligible right now on DoT damage. A few percentage here or there with a decent amount of SS. Even if it'd be, say, 400 potency after the SS buff, it wouldn't really change how you use it or its priority vs F4.

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True enough. Maybe we'll get a TC-like skill for some job in the future where it could be relevant.