Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

While I like the concept of UH, I think that the reason for using them in ST scenario is situational at best atm, in most movement heavy situations it's better off ignoring them altogether.
I find the idea of Umbral hearts to be very close to the backdraft mechanic of Warlocks from wow (incidentally I think that the ley line teleport is similar to demonic circle) however backdraft also increased the speed of your next 3 casts, so I wonder if they shouldn't make so that UH gives you also the extra speed in addition to the current effect (although that might be OP I'm not sure)

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Originally Posted by Remedi

While I like the concept of UH, I think that the reason for using them in ST scenario is situational at best atm, in most movement heavy situations it's better off ignoring them altogether.
I find the idea of Umbral hearts to be very close to the backdraft mechanic of Warlocks from wow (incidentally I think that the ley line teleport is similar to demonic circle) however backdraft also increased the speed of your next 3 casts, so I wonder if they shouldn't make so that UH gives you also the extra speed in addition to the current effect (although that might be OP I'm not sure)

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UH still gives the higher DPS and Triplecast/Swiftcast/Sharpcast will help with movement. It will only improve as we get more SpS.

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this but where should I focus with my materia? Is it still ss?

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Originally Posted by Lilyth

Actually I was simply considering a perfect mana tick scenario for the person using the 3.0 rotation exclusively(...)
B) F4-F4-FOUL-F1-F4-F4-B3-T3-F3

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So, the problem is that I had been experimenting with 4.0 for a long time when I wrote that.

First, I believe this "no filler thing" doesn't work in practice. Half the time you won't get a mana refund, especially with the new cast time.
Second, doing B3>Foul>Foul>T3>B4>F3 is also incredibly tight (like, half a second leeway tight) in 4.0, and in practice this would cause you to drop UI sometimes, until we get more spell speed. This is why I didn't consider Double Foul.
If you Doulbe Foul, you're better off going 3.0 after, because it really is painfully tight to do an UI cycle like this with B4.

This all stems from an issue I (and apparently, more people have) that if you F/F3/B3 at the last second, the game freaks out and you lose Enochian (it's incredibly frustrating).

Also, while what you posted surely works for 3.0, what if your Foul falls onto your AF cycle in 4.0?
Say you're on UI and a mechanic happens. You had to move a step and there's no way in hell you're going to Foul now and risk losing UI.
Do you go AF and Foul there? Do you blizzard to keep UI going? This kind of junk happens a bit in practice.

Now, I've been checking 4.05 numbers, and it seems that the 4.0 rotation will be very close to lasting 30 seconds, so none of this issues will bother us.
That said, thank you very much for taking time to discuss this. It's so important having someone to talk to for a sanity check sometimes.

EDIT: I guess with Triple we can hecaFireIV more easily, but still, 1 pps...? Come on SE... at least make it like... 5% stronger...
DOUBLE EDIT: I'll do a cumulative pps thing with Triple and Sharpcast account for and see how that goes.

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Originally Posted by Saya_Endou

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this but where should I focus with my materia? Is it still ss?

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I think the stat weights point to SpS>DH>CRIT>DET

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

Second, doing B3>Foul>Foul>T3>B4>F3 is also incredibly tight (like, half a second leeway tight) in 4.0, and in practice this would cause you to drop UI sometimes, until we get more spell speed. This is why I didn't consider Double Foul.
If you Doulbe Foul, you're better off going 3.0 after, because it really is painfully tight to do an UI cycle like this with B4.

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Isn't the argument that you double Foul and put a Foul during AF (because total potency doesn't change no matter where you put it in rotation) and that we can do F4x3 + Foul + Fire1 with the new cast times and using either Sharpcast or Triplecast?

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Originally Posted by jamvng

Isn't the argument that you double Foul and put a Foul during AF (because total potency doesn't change no matter where you put it in rotation) and that we can do F4x3 + Foul + Fire1 with the new cast times and using either Sharpcast or Triplecast?

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For the new rotation, that yields 13.4 total cast time, so you can't do that (you drop AF).
But I was talking about 4.0 there, not 4.05 qq
I was asking if people who used this method to calculate the pps of the 3.0 VS 4.0 rotations (not 4.05) had considered the possibility of a misplaced Foul.

On 4.05, this is a non issue because the duration of your rotation is almost 30 seconds- especially if you can penta Fire IV a 3.0 rotation every now and then.

(I should remind everyone that the difference between both is just a tidbit over 1% dps. This is utterly insignificant in practice. How many of your DHs/Crits fall on Fouls/Fire IVs matter much more than this. Where in a region where rng variance of such factors yields a higher influence)

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Originally Posted by jamvng

UH still gives the higher DPS and Triplecast/Swiftcast/Sharpcast will help with movement. It will only improve as we get more SpS.

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my point is that the reason to be for UH in ST is to give us 6 F4, but that is limited by mechanics and movements hence why i feel that they should give something more for us to really like using B4 (Unless they don't expect us to use B4 every rotation but in specific moments which is something I think it's entirely possible)

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Originally Posted by Lilyth

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I think what you're missing here is not that Foul is good, but that Blizzard 4 is bad. Or rather, that Blizzard 4 is the third best thing for a BLM to cast in their umbral cycle, while Thunder 3 is second best and Foul is best. (Arguably T3 is better if you take into account expected total potency from the overall ~57% chance of a thundercloud proc which has its own chance etc etc)

Foul adds the same potency/sec to every rotation, even one that exclusively uses Fire 1, Enochian, and Transpose. But what Galvuu discovered is that Foul has a second, subtler advantage: it allows us to NOT cast Blizzard 4, which we used to have no real alternative to in every umbral cycle. Now, B4 is a sometimes food: we are frequently better off without it, because it bloats our rotation without necessarily strengthening it.

Blizzard 4 is like an 8.4s spell for 1196 total potency. That is worse pps than F4, T3, and Foul. So why cast it unless we have to?

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Originally Posted by Ferrinus

I think what you're missing here is not that Foul is good, but that Blizzard 4 is bad. Or rather, that Blizzard 4 is the third best thing for a BLM to cast in their umbral cycle, while Thunder 3 is second best and Foul is best. (Arguably T3 is better if you take into account expected total potency from the overall ~57% chance of a thundercloud proc which has its own chance etc etc)

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The two extra FireIVs you get make the BlizzIV worth casting.