Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Ewer makes it possible. Practical is another story.

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Also as a lala with an extra 13 piety + hq max ether you can do a 7 x fire in opener

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Originally Posted by itti18

as far as i know its not possible to do 7 f4s

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I have over 310 Piety. More if I have a SCH/AST with me. Very tight but it can be done. Did it on Cuchulainn the other day.

And I don't need a potion either.

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Originally Posted by itti18

as far as i know its not possible to do 7 f4s

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It's possible to do 8 before you refresh Enochian. Basically 2 rotations of F3 > F4x4 > B3.

Not really practical though, you have to front load everything before casting and movement sends the whole thing out the window.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I have over 310 Piety. More if I have a SCH/AST with me. Very tight but it can be done. Did it on Cuchulainn the other day.

And I don't need a potion either.

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Its not practical in a raid scenario. The extra F4 doesn't outweigh the loss in secondary/primary stat as well as the potential thundercloud procs imo. I would be interested to see it in action in Midas Savage though.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

Its not practical in a raid scenario. The extra F4 doesn't outweigh the loss in secondary/primary stat as well as the potential thundercloud procs imo. I would be interested to see it in action in Midas Savage though.

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I figure if you get lucky with TC procs while in UI phase then go ham with those. It's always nice to get a chain of 10 TC procs in a row.

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

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True, but as SS increases, the time shaved off by swiftcasting Fire III decreases. At the same time, the hardcast ogcd time stays the same. At base SS, Fire IV hardcast and (hard)swift + Fire IV are the same potency, but as you get more spellspeed, the hardswift Fire IV becomes less potent. There is a gain from hardcasting swiftcast so you can weave another ogcd, but the same gain could be gotten by weaving swiftcast at another point in your rotation, or better yet saving it for planned movement. The gain in the given example is made even less by Ley Lines and other party speed buffs. I'd go so far as to say that with any Arrow card except expanded, that hardcasting swiftcast is even a loss (I'll math it out later). In any case, it's better to use swiftcast while NOT under the effect of Ley Lines, and even better to use it to get an extra Fire IV in lieu of a Scathe during long periods of movement if you don't have a proc.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I figure if you get lucky with TC procs while in UI phase then go ham with those. It's always nice to get a chain of 10 TC procs in a row.

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Just don't use all of them at once.

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Originally Posted by daman4567

In any case, it's better to use swiftcast while NOT under the effect of Ley Lines, and even better to use it to get an extra Fire IV in lieu of a Scathe during long periods of movement if you don't have a proc.

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Then again, if you know something like that is coming, you should be saving your Swift anyway.

the opener ive been using for a8s is f3 start - > 4x fire4 (fs) 2x fire4 because it lines up seed + megabeam with firestarter very nicely and allows you to save your swift for execution add.
also i have a question about cd alignment for blm. is it worth it to hold 3rd leylines for raging if your second leylines is late due to forced downtime (a7 jail, a6 in between bosses, boost in a5, etc), or should I just use rs and convert as soon as raging and my 60 second cooldowns are back up?

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Originally Posted by Waliel

Just don't use all of them at once.

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I'd use them all at once in large 6-9 nine enemy pulls to have every one dotted all at once and go straight to AoE. Stuff died very very quickly. Otherwise try to save a TC until something Thunder'd goes down to 12 seconds.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I'd use them all at once in large 6-9 nine enemy pulls to have every one dotted all at once and go straight to AoE. Stuff died very very quickly. Otherwise try to save a TC until something Thunder'd goes down to 12 seconds.

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Thundercloud becomes a dps loss vs straight AoE spam when the pack gets around 4-5 mobs.

If you only consider straight potency. Aoe rotation requires a lot of waiting for mp ticks if you are unlucky, or if you have just enough SS that you cast Fire III within one server tick. Once there gets to be around 8 or more enemies, thunder would definitely not be worth it, but if you find yourself waiting for MP ticks during aoe a lot, the breakpoint is probably a bit higher than 4-5 mobs.

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Originally Posted by daman4567

If you only consider straight potency. Aoe rotation requires a lot of waiting for mp ticks if you are unlucky, or if you have just enough SS that you cast Fire III within one server tick. Once there gets to be around 8 or more enemies, thunder would definitely not be worth it, but if you find yourself waiting for MP ticks during aoe a lot, the breakpoint is probably a bit higher than 4-5 mobs.

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If your Spell Speed is around 900, you won't be waiting on that MP tick, and a thundercloud means your 15 second cycle becomes 18 seconds. At 5 mobs, that's ~780 potency per 3 seconds. Using a thundercloud takes 3 seconds due to server MP tick, for only 710 potency. And that's assuming that the mob is alive for the full 24 seconds.

Hey guys, I have a few general questions on the BLM "rotation":

- If we have Ley Lines up, is 4 Fire IVs better than 2 Fire IV 1 Fire I 2 Fire IV?
- If Enochian falls off in the middle of AF3 but we have Enochian off CD, should we immediately go into UI3 to get mana for another Enochian or should we use up the rest of our mana with Fire I first?

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Originally Posted by Mantrus

Hey guys, I have a few general questions on the BLM "rotation":

- If we have Ley Lines up, is 4 Fire IVs better than 2 Fire IV 1 Fire I 2 Fire IV?

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I'm pretty sure that "2 Fire IV > Fire I > 2 Fire IV" is what is implied by 4 Fire IVs.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

I'm pretty sure that "2 Fire IV > Fire I > 2 Fire IV" is what is implied by 4 Fire IVs.

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Actually under the first phase of enochian if you wanted to you could run Fire 1 Fire 4x4 and still have just enough time to go right into B3.

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Originally Posted by Mantrus

If we have Ley Lines up, is 4 Fire IVs better than 2 Fire IV 1 Fire I 2 Fire IV?

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Ignoring the firestarter proc it would be a dps gain to skip Fire. Factoring in the firestarter chance you'll do more dps by casting Fire.

So if you have enough time to cast Fire and the possible firestarter proc, cast Fire. If you don't have time to fit both into your rotation, you probably shouldn't have used ley lines.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Actually under the first phase of enochian if you wanted to you could run Fire 1 Fire 4x4 and still have just enough time to go right into B3.

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At what spell speed? I only have my own perspective, which is an unmelded i220 BLM. My spell speed is atrocious.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If your Spell Speed is around 900, you won't be waiting on that MP tick, and a thundercloud means your 15 second cycle becomes 18 seconds. At 5 mobs, that's ~780 potency per 3 seconds. Using a thundercloud takes 3 seconds due to server MP tick, for only 710 potency. And that's assuming that the mob is alive for the full 24 seconds.

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Flare TC Transpose (swapping TC and Transpose makes the GCD go on for too long in my experience) let's you use TC without any lost AoE time and fit everything inside 15 seconds with 900 SS. The only problem is you can't quarantee it. Clearly we need the ability to store TC procs like Aetherflow and not have them expire until you zone or die.

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Originally Posted by daman4567

If you only consider straight potency. Aoe rotation requires a lot of waiting for mp ticks if you are unlucky, or if you have just enough SS that you cast Fire III within one server tick. Once there gets to be around 8 or more enemies, thunder would definitely not be worth it, but if you find yourself waiting for MP ticks during aoe a lot, the breakpoint is probably a bit higher than 4-5 mobs.

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You need exactly zero SS from gear to hit that. However, what you can't have is enough SS to shorten your AoE rotation from 15 to 12 seconds. If at any point after the first Flare you're waiting for ticks, you're doing something wrong or had to dodge. This has been the case since ARR launch. F3 F2 Flare is slightly shorter than the 12 seconds cooldown of Transpose, but is less PPS than the normal rotation. With 900 SS+, a lot of your waiting time is spent after the first tick to cast F3, so you can get the second one and have mana to do anything. I think around 700-750 SS is when you can't just smash your F3 and have to start paying attention.

Let's look at the average potencies per second. Calcs are done for F3 - F2 - F2 - F2 - Flare into looping F3 - F2 - F2 - Flare rotation. Both instant and three second ticks are presented for the first part. Math inside spoilers.

3 mobs: 160,2-189,3 PPS into 170,6 PPS
4 mobs: 204,7-241,9 PPS into 216,5 PPS
5 mobs: 246,8-291,6 PPS into 259,2 PPS

3 mobs: (240 + 540*3 + 1263,6)/16,5 to 19,5 = 160,2-189,3 PPS into (216 + 540*2 + 1263,6)/15 = 170,6 PPS
4 mobs: (240 + 720*3 + 1591,2)/16,5 to 19,5 = 204,7-241,9 PPS into (216 + 720*2 + 1591,2)/15 = 216,5 PPS
5 mobs: (240 + 900*3 + 1872)/16,5 to 19,5 = 246,8-291,6 PPS into (216 + 900*2 + 1872)/15 = 259,2 PPS

Add Thunder into the mix:

3 mobs: 167,5-190,9 PPS into 181,6 PPS or 189,5 PPS (two procs and 21s) or 218 PPS (15s after Flare)
4 mobs: 202,9-231,2 PPS into 219,8 PPS or 222,2 PPS (two procs and 21s) or 263,8 PPS (15s after Flare)
5 mobs: 236,4-269,4 PPS into 255,4 PPS or 252,8 PPS (two procs and 21s) or 306,5 PPS (15s after Flare)

3 mobs: (240 + 540*3 + 1263,6 + 270 + 710)/21,5 to 24,5 = 167,5-190,9 PPS into (216 + 540*2 + 1263,6 + 710)/18 = 181,6 PPS or 189,5 PPS
4 mobs: (240 + 720*3 + 1591,2 + 270 + 710)/21,5 to 24,5 = 202,9-231,2 PPS into (216 + 720*2 + 1591,2 + 710)/18 = 219,8 PPS or 222,2 PPS
5 mobs: (240 + 900*3 + 1872 + 270 + 710)/21,5 to 24,5 = 236,4-269,4 PPS into (216 + 900*2 + 1872 + 710)/18 = 255,4 PPS or 252,8 PPS

After mathing that out, I don't think Sharp Thunder is worth it at even four mobs. Unless you could quarantee a TC after Flare like I mentioned earlier.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

At what spell speed? I only have my own perspective, which is an unmelded i220 BLM. My spell speed is atrocious.

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I have like 980-990. Will go back up to over 1000 eventually.

Edit: Been thinking of storing FS and TC stacks like Aetherflow myself. And make them oGCD. Will never happen though.

I just want a skill with a moderate cooldown that makes the next single target (because Flare would be hilariously broken) spell cast hit all enemies in a five yalm radius around the target. Seeing 10 F4 over enemies or 10 T3 balls fly out would be pretty sweet.

Hope for Thunder 4 in Expansion I guess.

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Originally Posted by Waliel

I just want a skill with a moderate cooldown that makes the next single target (because Flare would be hilariously broken) spell cast hit all enemies in a five yalm radius around the target. Seeing 10 F4 over enemies or 10 T3 balls fly out would be pretty sweet.

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O-o That reminds me of the ~1s it takes for all the hp bars of mobs to update after flaring more than about 5 targets. I think 10x10 flare hits would be enough to hilariously lag out the server, who knows what would ensue.

Edit: I may be mistaken and have actually been remembering the delay in hp bar updates from Holy, but the point still stands, plus it would look rad to have 10 flares go off at once.

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Originally Posted by daman4567

True, but as SS increases, the time shaved off by swiftcasting Fire III decreases. At the same time, the hardcast ogcd time stays the same. At base SS, Fire IV hardcast and (hard)swift + Fire IV are the same potency, but as you get more spellspeed, the hardswift Fire IV becomes less potent. There is a gain from hardcasting swiftcast so you can weave another ogcd, but the same gain could be gotten by weaving swiftcast at another point in your rotation, or better yet saving it for planned movement. The gain in the given example is made even less by Ley Lines and other party speed buffs. I'd go so far as to say that with any Arrow card except expanded, that hardcasting swiftcast is even a loss (I'll math it out later). In any case, it's better to use swiftcast while NOT under the effect of Ley Lines, and even better to use it to get an extra Fire IV in lieu of a Scathe during long periods of movement if you don't have a proc.

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So taking the end of my rotation as an example, Fire 1 > Swiftcast > Fire IV > Convert > Fire IV x 2. At Base Spell Speed of 354 under Ley Lines, this rotation has a total potency of 1927.80, (Not including Raging Strikes) and has a total time of 9.84s; equaling 195.91 PPS for those 4 attacks.

Omitting the Swiftcast and saving it, doing Fire 1 > Fire IV > Convert > Fire IV x 2 brings the time to 10.27 with the same potency, and a PPS of 187.71. So that is 0.43s longer and 8.20 PPS lower. And remember this is at 354 SS under LL.

Now using the exact same formula with 1005 SS, the rotation with Swiftcast is 8.92s with a PPS of 216.12. Without the Swiftcast it is 9.31s with a PPS of 207.07; making it 0.39s longer and 9.05 PPS lower.

So, while you are correct in that as SS increases, the time shaved off decreases, the PPS does not. And adding almost 700 SS only reduced that 0.04s. Weaving convert under a swiftcasted Fire IV will always be a gain, unless we're maybe looking at upwards of 3000 SS. You are always going to save close to a half second by using swiftcast on a Fire IV as long as you're weaving convert afterwards. Hell, I even Sharpcast > Fire 1 > Fire IV > Firestarter > Swiftcast + Fire IV on a regular basis if I know I won't need SC for 60s.

My only point is, you should be using Swiftcast in your opener. You should be building your opener around each fight anyways, and if you need to adjust to save SC for another purpose, then thats fine. But you shouldn't say its a loss to use SC because thats just not the case.

not sure if anyone has mentioned this or tested it (im lazy and on ps4)

but the other day whilst farming bismarck for birdie we had an afk mch filling the 8th spot who was acting like a mana battery until they died.
this was usually after the two sanawas died.

anyway i was noticing because of it i was quite comfortably fitting in a 7th fire4 in my opener, so started playing with the idea of adding an 8th, this was possible however at my ss 820ish i couldnt cycle through bliz 3 bliz 4 so had to transpose and try swiftcast bliz 4 but i was always just under the time needed and losing enochian which of course made it not worth casting the 8th fire 4.

now i was wondering if it was at all possible that at higher ss if this was doable although admittely without the bliz 3 the next fire 3 cast would be a hardcast and so may make it so we couldnt fit in a 4th fire 4 in the middle chain.

anyone good at math have an answer at all.??

my rotation was t1 ll b3 eno f3 f4 f4 sc f1 f4 f4 f4 f3proc cvt f4 f4 f4 trp swift b4

sry dont have numbers for the run and unfortunately the share button didnt save the vid properly but i believe we will be farming again this weekend under the same conditions so maybe able to supply one after that. we did hve a brd singing foes too.

i should also note this was only doable under not having to dodge or switching colours

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Originally Posted by chidarake

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This seems like such a niche thing for one fight. Sure, as our spell speed increases, we'll be able to do more spells in a shorter period of time, but having a mch give you mana is a huge waste. Depending on melee in your group, the mch should be buffing their physical dmg, or they are losing dps just so you can potentially squeeze in 1 extra fire IV. I just don't see this as a thing.

There are times in certain fight for example, A4S, where I do my full opener after the 4th leg dies and our Brd is playing ballad since our healers were drained after whirble. I could use 7 F4s at that time, but one of those isn't going to be under RS anyways, so it's not a huge deal. I would worry or plan on something like that being a regular thing

What I'd want to know is how many BRD/MCH would it take to regen enough MP to constantly cast Flare if that is even possible? Lowest I'd need is around 999 MP. How much per tick would the regen effects of a BRD/MCH give each?

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

My only point is, you should be using Swiftcast in your opener. You should be building your opener around each fight anyways, and if you need to adjust to save SC for another purpose, then thats fine. But you shouldn't say its a loss to use SC because thats just not the case.

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I think the only fight now that you can safely use swiftcast in your opener is a3s (never been to/seen savage 3 or 4, but I'm assuming they are at least as movement demanding as normal mode). I see your point in the pps though, but pps isn't really the unit that decides your dps over a fight. As it has been mentioned before (unsure if it was in this thread or not) gaining .5 seconds here and there doesn't translate to a dps gain unless you gain another spellcast because of it. That is to say, time gains from swiftcast need to be "locked in" by either giving you an extra cast or pushing another cast's damage under your buffs. On the other hand, using swiftcast to move while using Fire IV instead of Scathe, the gains are immediately "locked in" because you gain around 450 potency from it. Also, using Aetherial Manipulation to move is made more efficient by swiftcasting a spell, but there we're getting into the marginal time gains again.

For example, in A6S against Blaster, you're required to move around 20-25s into the fight, which means you'll need something to help you move. Aetherial Manipulation is out, because it's likely you will either die or have to move again, since all your possible targets will still be positioning themselves during the safe window to move across the platform. Also, the inital total uptime on blaster is only around 40-50 seconds total, so there isn't much of a chance to accumulate gains and make the swiftcast in the opener worth anything. In this case, the best dps increase for swiftcast would be to use it to move for mirage baiting or, if you were able to use a proc for that, use it to pop an extra fire IV on Blaster right before he flies up.

In A5S it might be more useful to have swiftcast in your opener, if you are saving cooldowns. If you don't push first prey, and if you don't get targeted for it, then using swiftcast while the boss is big could possibly be a dps loss, as you push all your subsequent casts up by .5s. This has the potential to make a cast hit for less damage, by hitting earlier and falling under the boss's vuln down. Aside from that, there's also the first bomb's away, which might require a lot of movement, and if it does that also falls under the same problem as positioning mirages in a6s, where you might not be able to rely on Aetherial Manipulation to get you there since the possible targets are still en route there as well.

Swiftcast does increase the pps of the opener by a significant amount, and I was surprised at the numbers you came up with so I rethought my headmath. The numbers are close enough that rounding error on the cast vs recast times might be affecting it, but as SS increases, the pps gained increases because of SS's scaling is more than linear, but the percentage of pps gained should go down because of the constant time it takes to hardcast an ogcd. From your numbers, the percent gains are 4.368% at base SS and 4.370% at 1005 SS, but this could be skewed by the fact that cast and recast times are rounded. I don't know how SS interacts with longer cast times, but assuming that the longer times decrease by .01s at a time, just more often than the gcd, then 1005 SS might be above a point where the gcd decreased but the cast time of Fire IV didn't decrease, which would increase the value of using swiftcast on it. Of course, I might be wrong about how SS works, but the theory should hold. That being said, as SS increases the potential % gains from using swiftcast will decrease in general, because as you fit more casts in normally, an extra one cast will become less and less of a percentage of your total dps.

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Originally Posted by daman4567

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I don't necessarily disagree with you. I design my opener around what that first 30s of the fight requires. In A6S for example, I'm using my Swiftcast while moving when mines drop to position for mirage.

Your point in A5S is fine, but we skip the first prey and by the time bombs away comes, Sharpcast is up so I can prep a proc for movement.

I agree that it's not always the best option to use SC during your opener, but it is a big gain. And I could be wrong on this, and I'll need to double check this when I get home, but in the optimal opener, using SC actually gives you enough time to hit all 6 Fire IVs plus Firestarter if you get it under Raging Strikes. Without SC that's not possible. At least not yet

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

This seems like such a niche thing for one fight. Sure, as our spell speed increases, we'll be able to do more spells in a shorter period of time, but having a mch give you mana is a huge waste. Depending on melee in your group, the mch should be buffing their physical dmg, or they are losing dps just so you can potentially squeeze in 1 extra fire IV. I just don't see this as a thing.

There are times in certain fight for example, A4S, where I do my full opener after the 4th leg dies and our Brd is playing ballad since our healers were drained after whirble. I could use 7 F4s at that time, but one of those isn't going to be under RS anyways, so it's not a huge deal. I would worry or plan on something like that being a regular thing

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dont get me wrong not advocating this aa a thing to do. just noticed it was possible under these certain circumstances and was wondering if anyone was able to pull it off while keeping enochian up as i was not able to with my ss.

theres no way an extra fire4 even if it crits warrents the screwing over of the rest of the party. just a piece of information i thought id share given that we happened to have a afk mch mana battery going for that particular farm session.

How much DET is too little? I've tweaked my gear to give me 1000+ Crit and SS but my DET is below 300. Should I balance that back out? ACC is at 600 so that's not a problem.

I cannot say for certain but bellow 300 does seem rather low. Myself as i add/change gear i tend to loose some determination but would like to be around the 320+ mark, currently @ 313.
Are you way bellow 300? Could always add some if you have crafted gear (because overmelds :) )

Crit is so hard to balance with Det because of its RNG. Det is a small increase in damage, but it's definitive. If you're getting a lot of crits, then it doesn't really matter how much Det you have. But if RNG screws you with a low crit %, then having so little Det can really hurt. Crit is so much different for Black Mage because we land so few attacks compared to melee, plus no Auto Attacks and only one DoT.

Personally I'd aim for a little more Det and a little less crit, but you'd probably be ok with a setup like that

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

What I'd want to know is how many BRD/MCH would it take to regen enough MP to constantly cast Flare if that is even possible? Lowest I'd need is around 999 MP. How much per tick would the regen effects of a BRD/MCH give each?

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Pretty sure Flare is just below 900 MP or does the base cost increase with PIE? Never even thought about that. Ballad is like 200 per tick or something. I'd guess you're gonna need a couple ticks with both BRD and MCH around.

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Originally Posted by Waliel

Pretty sure Flare is just below 900 MP or does the base cost increase with PIE? Never even thought about that. Ballad is like 200 per tick or something. I'd guess you're gonna need a couple ticks with both BRD and MCH around.

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Minimum cost for Flare is 1/4 the cost of Fire 3. In AF, that makes it 884 at level 60.

Just wanted to share that updates to the guide have been made for 3.2

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ck_mage_guide/

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Minimum cost for Flare is 1/4 the cost of Fire 3. In AF, that makes it 884 at level 60.

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Which also just so happens to be the mp cost of sleep and Blizzard 4.

Also @Garotte14 I've been using your opener and I've found that, with my latency/internet, my swiftcasted Fire IV clips into the next gcd about 70% of the time because of a delay in the updating of my mp, which prevents me from starting the cast if I use convert in the gcd right before it. I've been moving both swiftcast and convert up by 1 gcd, but this ends up with having used swiftcast on a Fire I, which is pretty useless. I'll be trying to move it around more to see, I think that after the first Fire I and 2 Fire IV's I should be able to get full use out of convert, but I'll be testing it later. My latency isn't usually bad, so just wanted to share my experience using your opener so that others that try it know alternatives and workarounds for latency/lag issues.

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Originally Posted by daman4567

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With some lag, you might get some benefit of going with the Flare opener.

You'd do Fire IV x 2 > Fire > Fire IV x2 > Swift + Flare > Convert > Fire IV.

If you get the Firestarter proc, you can alter it slightly and do, Fire IV X 2 > Fire > Fire IV > Firestarter + Swiftcast > Fire IV + Convert > Fire IV x 2.

The Firestarter allows you to put both Swift and convert completely oGCD.

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Originally Posted by Garotte14

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The flare opener has been my go to for a while, but I haven't really lost potency from using yours, I just feel like I can optimize it around my latency a bit better, and It's nice to have an opener that doesn't require swiftcast to execute. I've never had problems with ambient latency before though, so it was kinda wierd to have my gcd clipping there so often.

Quick question... are the Mirage drops in A6S magic or physical damage? Just asking because very rarely a drop/tether combo even executed perfectly will off me.