The Black Mage Rotations

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Originally Posted by Umero

I thought Fire spells deal 100% Damage under UI3 or no AF/UI. And 130% Damage under AF3.
Can someone confirm that they only deal 70% Damage under UI3?

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I assume that since PessimiStick is looking at parsing logs that it's true.

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Originally Posted by KyteStones

Since we're posting rotations here's mine..

Single Target:
Thunder III (ticks longer for more damage) ---> Fire III ---> Fire (recast until 300mp) ---> Swiftcast ---> Flare ---> Convert ---> Fire ---> Blizzard III ---> Thunder III ---> Fire III ---> Fire (until 100mp) ---> Blizzard III and then repeat from beginning.

I see no point in casting Blizzard III before Fire III because by the time this rotation ends, 90% of the time I have the Fire III proc and cast it for nothing after going from Blizzard III ---> Thunder III ---> Fire III (free immediate cast). Not to mention Fire III is a 1.5 second cast coming from Blizzard III so its more efficient IMO.

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Good post, KyteStones! A couple things I would point out:

1) Thunder III, while doing more damage because it ticks longer, also takes 0.5s longer to cast, costs more mana, and what I've found is that it's clunky in the rotation for this reason. The 2.5s cast of Thunder II fits nicely so that when you are casting your Fire III before starting Fire I spam, you just got your last tick of mana so you're back to full. What you'll notice about using Thunder III instead is that, assuming you're fluidly going through your rotation, when you cast your Fire III, you will get your last tick of mana at the very start of this cast and, because of this, when Fire III actually casts, it will actually charge you roughly 100 mana instead of being free. This is very problematic because when you get down to the bottom of the rotation, after your Fire I spam, your last Fire I will likely have to be cast when you are BELOW 1000 mana meaning that you will not be able to get your Thunder cast off on-time after Blizzard III (you'll have to wait a half to full second for a tick of mana.

2) The reason I open with Blizzard III ==> Thunder II is two-fold: one, it gives the tank a bit more time to get sufficient aggro but still allows me to do some damage and, two, if you cast Blizzard III first then your Thunder II and Fire III are both free since you'll get a tick of mana as you cast Fire III putting you back to full.

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Originally Posted by EasymodeX

So I guess I have a basic BLM mechanics question: in terms of mana recovery, is the 2x B2 necessary to guarantee a reliable MP tick sufficient to begin casting the F3? Because it seems to be that if Flare blows all your mana, it doesn't matter how much you re-enter Astral with, and could get by with 1 B2 cast as long as you are able to cast F3.

Or is that really to wait for the Transpose cooldown?

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Thanks for the question, Easymodex.

It's actually not about the mana tick. If that were the case then we would only need to cast one Blizzard II to have enough mana to cast a Fire III and then into a Flare. The purpose of 2x Blizzard II is because that will get us to Umbral Ice III (since Transpose will give us one stack to start with) which means that you can cast BOTH Fire III and Flare at 1/2 cast time.

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Originally Posted by Arale

Question, why do people cast blizzard III then thunder II then fire III? Does it really result in more DPS then T2 > F3 or F1 spam to start?

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As mentioned a couple posts above, I open with Blizzard III ==> Thunder II to give the tank more threat-building time while still allowing me to do damage. More importantly, however, if I open with Blizzard III that means the subsequent Thunder II and Fire III both cast for free since you'll get a huge tick of mana during your Fire III cast from Umbral Ice III.

The practical AOE rotation is fire3>fire222>flare>transpose>bliz22>repeat. However, if you got a BRD popping manasong for whatever reason, try something a little simpler - fire3>flare>ice3 repeat. Timed correctly (including syncing up with eorzea clock on your bliz3 to get instant umbral tick), you can pop a flare every 7th second. I should point out that, regardless of whos tanking, doing this without quelling up will net all the agro in AK/WP. Rotation is especially useful doing BRD/BLM/PLD WP run for phils, since the PLD is gonna be needing manasong for flash spamming anyways.

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Originally Posted by Youmu

The practical AOE rotation is fire3>fire222>flare>transpose>bliz22>repeat. However, if you got a BRD popping manasong for whatever reason, try something a little simpler - fire3>flare>ice3 repeat. Timed correctly (including syncing up with eorzea clock on your bliz3 to get instant umbral tick), you can pop a flare every 7th second. I should point out that, regardless of whos tanking, doing this without quelling up will net all the agro in AK/WP. Rotation is especially useful doing BRD/BLM/PLD WP run for phils, since the PLD is gonna be needing manasong for flash spamming anyways.

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If you give the AoE rotation I've outlined a shot and get the timing of it down, I think you'll find that it's both practical and a net DPS gain over the one you've mentioned.

Yours is better DPS. The other is more practical for threat management (steady and consistent damage, versus heavy spikes of burst damage). They both do very nearly the same damage, but ask your tank how much he enjoys dealing with your 2k crits over and over anytime quellings not up.

Maximize your Damage with FIRE III FIRE III FIRE III FLARE TRANSPOSE wait 10sec FIRE III FIRE III FIRE III FLARE TRANSPOSE repeat

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Originally Posted by Youmu

Yours is better DPS. The other is more practical for threat management (steady and consistent damage, versus heavy spikes of burst damage). They both do very nearly the same damage, but ask your tank how much he enjoys dealing with your 2k crits over and over anytime quellings not up.

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It's really only the first Flare that would be problematic. After that, the damage is more or less the same. The difference is like 10 potency per GCD at max, so unless you're completely riding your tank's ass with the "worse" rotation, you won't pull with either one.

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Originally Posted by PessimiStick

It's really only the first Flare that would be problematic. After that, the damage is more or less the same. The difference is like 10 potency per GCD at max, so unless you're completely riding your tank's ass with the "worse" rotation, you won't pull with either one.

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Its usually a combination of the first two flares that can make it a pain to tank, since you get RNG crits on the same 3 mobs and pull huge hate. You'd have to hold off longer to let the tank build threat, or risk making mobs impossible to tank, which is a net DPS loss in practical situations. You should also consider your chances of successfully completing a flare cast while getting poked by mobs, in comparison to fire2.

I think you're underestimating the threat we can generate a bit.