Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

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Originally Posted by Sephorai

Hey I'm a returning player for Stormblood, trying to get into playing BLM just wanted to ask this since there are 200+ pages to this thread and Id rather not have to read through everything. How accurate is the guide at the very beginning of the post?

Been trying to find good details on Opener/rotation

I've been able to figure out rotation myself and it seems to match up with with what's on the guide on the first page but I'm still rather confused about ideal openers.

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It is accurate as for live atm, obviously not for Stormblood yet. As for Stormblood, some ppl have made guesses as to the best openers but once it releases will be easier to test and figure out the optimal opener. One thing should be for certain though, you will want to start in Umbral Ice for Stormblood, the reason for this is to gain the Umbral Hearts stacks for your opening Astral Fire sequence.

Thank you very much Thela! I just needed to make sure that info was still relevant.

Edit: another quick question, in the sharp cast F1 opener you're supposed to go F4, F4, F1, F4, F3proc, Swiftcast F4, convert, F4, F4. What do I do if I don't get a fire 3 proc?

Oh funny seems like blm will have 8-9 fire 4 openers.

I was mauling over why sharp cast seemed to have been left in the dust sans aoe force proccing thunder 4.

Bit then i realised our opener could end up being long as hell.

B3-enochian-T3-B4-sharp-leylines - f3- f4-f4-f4-f1 (procs FS)-f4-f4-f4-f3p-convert (+7667)/triple cast-f4-f4-f4-b3

Grats everyone we gave 9 f4 openers


The time itll take though depends on proper CD usage but if you sharp/ leylines right before using a fast fire 3 the rotation at 0 ss assuming will take 29.8 seconds (accounting in late sever updates) in fact due to this opener youll achieve Foul before your last 2 fire f4s so you can switch at your leisure or use it during UI phase.

If at any time you get i interrupted (remember where next time) and use triple cast + swift cast to alleviate 10 seconds of movement then BtLs back to leylines.

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Originally Posted by waifugenerator

Our ice phase seems like it'll be a bit longer. Foul + thunder 3/proc (720 potency iirc so it beats foul) + blizzard iv. Would that bring our dps down over time or will 6x Fire IV every AF phase make up for it?

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Thunder 3 (I think) is having it's cast time reduced to be in line with Thunder 1, and already our ice rotation factors in blizz 4. Foul is a huge hit, so even though it will be extending the time we are in Umbral phase it won't be a negative impact on our dps. Then factor in extended astral phases every time and our (potential) dps is going to be in a pretty nice place.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

The speed increases with 0 ss

Thunder 3 in 3.0 with 1037ss has a cast time of 3.13

Thunder 1 upgrades to thunder 3 keeps 3s dot timer and potency but 1s cast timer.


New thunder 3 beats our old need to mash t1 by 180 potency and new thunder 3 takes .71 less to cast for 180 more potency and a longer DoT.

Foul is fast with a 2.42 cast time and 685potency ever 30s to 1 minute.

Transpose has a shorter Cool down

Ley lines warp is on a 3 second recast.

Triple cast is every 90 seconds in an average raid fight of 7- 9 minutes youll gain 3 high speed casts 4 to 6 times in a fight thats massive.

Swift cast is no longer a mandatory rescue button unless you really REALLY mess up and can be used to push another GCD every 60s.

Time spent casting is reduced by another 7-9 in conjunction with triple cast and between the lines blm down time has decreased and speed has increased.

Umbral heart guarantees we will always be able to do 5-6 fire 4 rotations without convert.

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Thunder 3 is being reduced to a GCD cast time so that is wrong. New thunder 3's only disadvantage compared to thunder 1 is its mana cost.

Foul is a GCD cast time. Yes, its a potency increase, but not a speed increase.

Do you have a source on the transpose cooldown reduction? Either way, doesn't increase our speed and actually makes 0 difference whatsoever

Ley Lines warp doesn't increase our speed, is only available when Ley Lines is up and we're animation locked when using it. Its some nice utility though in the right situation.

Swiftcast wasn't ever mandatory as a rescue button. It was used for specific mechanics OR as a dps cooldown (paired with Fire 4 after a proc).

Triple cast, is nice, its literally just 3 times the advantage of swiftcast - which wasn't a big advantage. It will be planned out movement/mechanics and dps - or AOE. Gives us a minor rotational speed increase if used on F4's (anything above the GCD).

I don't know where you get the time spent casting is reduced by 7-9 seconds. That is completely incorrect. At best triplecast gives 1.5 seconds.

Umbral heart does increase the amount of fire 4's - but remember, F4's potency is nerfed by 7%.

There has been nothing announced so far that gives a speed increase.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

Non opener comparisons leylines, convert and swift are down

240- 518 (f4) - 518 (f4) - 333 (f1)- 518 - 518 = 2645 potency over 15.62 seconds 0 delay nor interruption.

New non opener

240 (f3)- 481 (f4 1 UH used)- 481 (f4 1UH used) - 481 (f4 last UH used) - 333 (f1)- 481 - 481 - 481 = a potency of 3459 Over the course of 21.38s. Now if you look at that you\\\\'re correct we are slower to do our full rotation and if we opt for old

But add in triple cast once lines vert and swift are down and the cast time drops to 19 seconds not counting any spell speed and i gave old 3.0 blm 1037 spell speed times giving it an advantage and our second 6x f4 is only 3s behind and but 814 potency ahead every 90s.
Add in ss and that 19s drops quickly.

We are faster, not light speed but we are faster, even if we lose 1 fire 4 we are still 333 better with relatively the same time of 16s

also forgot to mention ice phase we will generally gain 685 potency over 3.0s ice phase as well.

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We are not faster. Where are you getting the idea that we are faster from? And you are completely missing the fact that we are losing raging strikes, which stacks ridiculously well with our other damage buffs - more than any other class.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

Thunder 3 is being reduced to a GCD cast time so that is wrong. New thunder 3\\\\\\\\\\'s only disadvantage compared to thunder 1 is its mana cost.

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You literally repeated what i said about thunder 3.13-.71 is 2.42 on global.

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Foul is a GCD cast time. Yes, its a potency increase, but not a speed increase.

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Foul replaced raging strikes and can be used at any time even UI.

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Do you have a source on the transpose cooldown reduction? Either way, doesn\\\\\\\\\\'t increase our speed and actually makes 0 difference whatsoever

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Live letter 36 1h 28 minute mark transpose was reduced from 12 s recast to 10.

[/QUOTE]Triple cast, is nice, its literally just 3 times the advantage of swiftcast - which wasn\\\\\\\\\\\\'t a big advantage. It will be planned out movement/mechanics and dps - or AOE. Gives us a minor rotational speed increase if used on F4\\\\\\\\\\\\'s (anything above the GCD).[/QUOTE]

Youre heavily under estimating saving .40s per GCD as itll lapse and further increase the average number of cool downs youll fit in a raid environment. Every 90s you save 1.2s + .41 every swift cast, every 3 minutes its 2.4s and 1.2 for every swift cast in 3 minutes totalling 3.6 seconds which is 1 extra fire 4/foul/Thunder pushed 1GCD ahead. The longer the raid like say A8S the more GCDs you fit in per 3 minutes.

Thats a speed increase.

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I don\\\\\\\\\\\\'t know where you get the time spent casting is reduced by 7-9 seconds. That is completely incorrect. At best triplecast gives 1.5 seconds.

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Up.

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Umbral heart does increase the amount of fire 4\\\\\\\\\\\\'s - but remember, F4\\\\\\\\\\\\'s potency is nerfed by 7%.

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But we beat old fire 4 potency rotation by casting 5 f4s out of 6 we will have at all times.

Also keep in mind a lot of other jobs got potency nerfs, heavy ones. We are still the heaviest to second heaviest (samurai is up in the air) hitter in the game.

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There has been nothing announced so far that gives a speed increase.

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Every thing points to the fact we gain GCDs over old blm how is that not a speed increase? Our rotations are also longer and anything from fire 4 number 5 (which beats old f4x3 f1 f4) is a huge gain since our dos phases are longer.

Our opener theoretically has +3 fire f4s over old hws 6 and + 2 over old hws 4.

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We are not faster

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Crunch the numbers and show me otherwise.

.

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Where are you getting the idea that we are faster from?

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Math.

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And you are completely missing the fact that we are losing raging strikes, which stacks ridiculously well with our other damage buffs - more than any other class.

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Raging strikes only increased our fire 4s by 56 potency for 6 fire 4s, fire 1 by 36 and f3p by 48 totaling to 420 bonus potency per 3 minutes.

Foul alone is 128 potency stronger than a fully buffed fire 4 by raging strikes.

440 potency every 3 minutes vs 685 per minute or 204 (foul taking a fire 4s spot difference) per minute is 612 vs RS 440.

Foul is raging strikes.

With SB blm vs HW blm SB blm gains 1 GCD over hw blm, longer dps uptime, better leylines uptime, swift and tri is all dps GCD pushing.

We got nerfed by 7% but total rotation % went up by 18% of hws rotations. 5 f4s undoes the 7% nerf and then some 6 blows old blm out the water.

I

had a whole time line comparison set up but it logged me out when i hit post so ill have to post it all tomorrow morning.

But a snippet rs rotation took 29.8 seconds from start to finsh, in the same time span sb blm will outright destroy old hws total potency is RS within 32 seconds.

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Ley Lines warp doesn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t increase our speed, is only available when Ley Lines is up and we\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re animation locked when using it. Its some nice utility though in the right situation.

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It directly increases our uptime in situations where movement is out of our control, stage shifting, push back, tethers,aoes, stacking.

The time it takes to get back to lines is almost 0d out.

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Swiftcast wasn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t ever mandatory as a rescue button. It was used for specific mechanics OR as a dps cooldown (paired with Fire 4 after a proc).

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It was still used in emergencies vs a reducing timer vs advanced mechanics that either forced you to cut fire early or swift cast it to safety.
Dont mean to sp but my phone lacks the edit option my pc wouldve had.

another quick question, in the sharp cast F1 opener you're supposed to go F4, F4, F1, F4, F3proc, Swiftcast F4, convert, F4, F4. What do I do if I don't get a fire 3 proc?

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Originally Posted by Sephorai

another quick question, in the sharp cast F1 opener you're supposed to go F4, F4, F1, F4, F3proc, Swiftcast F4, convert, F4, F4. What do I do if I don't get a fire 3 proc?

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Sharp cast guarantees youll get the proc from fire 1. It 100% guarantees you the f3p.

Only time you have a chance at not getting the proc is if you dont use sharp cast.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

Sharp cast guarantees youll get the proc from fire 1. It 100% guarantees you the f3p.

Only time you have a chance at not getting the proc is if you dont use sharp cast.

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yeah but im talking about the second Fire 3 proc in the opener listed on the guide. Sharp cast is used on the first fire 1 not on the second one. I appreciate the help btw

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Originally Posted by Sephorai

yeah but im talking about the second Fire 3 proc in the opener listed on the guide. Sharp cast is used on the first fire 1 not on the second one. I appreciate the help btw

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You just cast it if you get it, if you don't get the proc you don't. Can also substitute those spots for thundercloud proc.

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Originally Posted by Sephorai

yeah but im talking about the second Fire 3 proc in the opener listed on the guide. Sharp cast is used on the first fire 1 not on the second one. I appreciate the help btw

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I usually go Sharp Ley Fire1 Eno Raging Fire3proc (INT Potion)F4 F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F4 (F3proc if available) B3
With enough spellspeed you can get all these Fire IVs out within the effect of Raging Strikes including the optional Proc ...I think.

I'm going to start this off by saying this isn't me saying I won't play the class and i'm not looking forward to playing the class. This is me saying that the class will not be as effective in a raid environment, and SE are not fixing the issues it had in HW.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

You literally repeated what i said about thunder 3.13-.71 is 2.42 on global.

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No. You said "new thunder 3 takes .71 less to cast". You never hard casted Thunder III in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

Foul replaced raging strikes and can be used at any time even UI.

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Not even close.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

Live letter 36 1h 28 minute mark transpose was reduced from 12 s recast to 10.

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It doesn't make a difference to our speed.


Triple cast, is nice, its literally just 3 times the advantage of swiftcast - which wasn\\\\\\\\\\\\'t a big advantage. It will be planned out movement/mechanics and dps - or AOE. Gives us a minor rotational speed increase if used on F4\\\\\\\\\\\\'s (anything above the GCD).[/QUOTE]

Youre heavily under estimating saving .40s per GCD as itll lapse and further increase the average number of cool downs youll fit in a raid environment. Every 90s you save 1.2s + .41 every swift cast, every 3 minutes its 2.4s and 1.2 for every swift cast in 3 minutes totalling 3.6 seconds which is 1 extra fire 4/foul/Thunder pushed 1GCD ahead. The longer the raid like say A8S the more GCDs you fit in per 3 minutes.

Thats a speed increase.

Up.[/QUOTE]

I am not heavily under estimating saving .5s per GCD. It literally makes 3 spells instant cast. If you use them on F4's, you will save that amount of time.

Furthermore, fights have breaks you know. Saving 1GCD every 150 seconds is not a meaningful speed increase when you take into account the possibility of the time we will have to wait for a mana tick in Umbral Ice phase.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

But we beat old fire 4 potency rotation by casting 5 f4s out of 6 we will have at all times.

Also keep in mind a lot of other jobs got potency nerfs, heavy ones. We are still the heaviest to second heaviest (samurai is up in the air) hitter in the game.




Every thing points to the fact we gain GCDs over old blm how is that not a speed increase? Our rotations are also longer and anything from fire 4 number 5 (which beats old f4x3 f1 f4) is a huge gain since our dos phases are longer.

Our opener theoretically has +3 fire f4s over old hws 6 and + 2 over old hws 4.




Crunch the numbers and show me otherwise.

.
Math.

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You can't compare 6 casts vs 4 casts lol. A potency nerf is still a potency nerf - and considering BLM hasn't been in the meta for a long time, it isn't needed. BLM hasn't been the heaviest hitter in the game for a long time.

Everything doesn't point to "the fact". Its fiction. Our fire phase is longer, but they are less potent, and we also miss out on our heavy opener burst from Raging Strikes. If you are including mana transfer skills from other party members, then really that extra DPS is more accurately attributed to them. And there may even be a better class to give mana to.

The math is already out there.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

Raging strikes only increased our fire 4s by 56 potency for 6 fire 4s, fire 1 by 36 and f3p by 48 totaling to 420 bonus potency per 3 minutes.

Foul alone is 128 potency stronger than a fully buffed fire 4 by raging strikes.

440 potency every 3 minutes vs 685 per minute or 204 (foul taking a fire 4s spot difference) per minute is 612 vs RS 440.

Foul is raging strikes.

With SB blm vs HW blm SB blm gains 1 GCD over hw blm, longer dps uptime, better leylines uptime, swift and tri is all dps GCD pushing.

We got nerfed by 7% but total rotation % went up by 18% of hws rotations. 5 f4s undoes the 7% nerf and then some 6 blows old blm out the water.

I

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You are incorrect. Raging Strikes stacks multiplicatively along with our other buffs (Enochian, Astral Fire and Magic + Mend).

Foul also takes up an extra GCD - raging strikes didn't.

And again, BLM doesn't gain 1 GCD over HW BLM. Longer dps uptime =/= more damage if the damage is nerfed. Good players already had near 100% leylines uptime. Good players had swiftcast used anyway. Triplecast is 1GCD every 150 seconds

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

had a whole time line comparison set up but it logged me out when i hit post so ill have to post it all tomorrow morning.

But a snippet rs rotation took 29.8 seconds from start to finsh, in the same time span sb blm will outright destroy old hws total potency is RS within 32 seconds.



It directly increases our uptime in situations where movement is out of our control, stage shifting, push back, tethers,aoes, stacking.

The time it takes to get back to lines is almost 0d out.

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What I said above. Potency per second is more important to compare than total potency over two different timelines.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

It was still used in emergencies vs a reducing timer vs advanced mechanics that either forced you to cut fire early or swift cast it to safety.
Dont mean to sp but my phone lacks the edit option my pc wouldve had.

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Good players did not use it in an emergency. Its usage was planned.

for the level 70 opener, need to start with ice 3 (than maybe swiftcast t3) and use ice 4 for the u-hearts, right? than start spamming fires.. , with tripple cast and Leylines somewhere in there.., and first proc used on fire1

is it just me or dose blm kinda suck now? :(

it feels clunkier than before:
SS weight has been reduced (casts feel slow), ... and they changed the cast timer, you cant "cast/step" like during 3.5 (need to almost finish a cast completely before moving); .. it almost feels like 3.0 -.-

and you still lose enochian (meaning astrals) easy, and than can't do fire4s till eno cd is up again

anyone experiencing random enochian drops without any reasons to drop?
some example:
transpose 2-4 times from trashpull to trashpull to begin with blizzard4, and because of muscle memory from heavensward i use eno at the start before casting blizzard4 again, but eno drops then without any reason, sometimes direct, somtimes later
this is just an example, it happens in other situations too, astral and umbral still more than 5 seconds left so it should not drop

I'll observ more, ... had a feeling of losing eno sometimes unexpectedly, when I shouldnt have, ... might just be me tired of nonstop gaming since SB release

I had noticed it Linari, then again i just wonder because of the state of the server it may be the cause of some crazy things

and the "timer drop off" of enochian is tighter than before, in the past when it hit last "1 sec" of enochian (or astral), you still had like a full second to finish a cast or transpose; ... now when you reach the the last 1 sec on the timer, it's actually like hitting zero sec, it falls of almost instantly at 1 sec..

but still can't fully explain some of the wierd enochian loses..

besides that, wondering if it's not better to transpose at the last second, and therefore get one more fire 4 off, .... instead of the usual ice 3 (than ice 4), since you'd be casting ice 3 at ca. 3-4 sec on the timer, when you could actually do one more fire 4 than transpose instead of a ice 3.., and than gointo ice 4 afterwards have time for mp to tick up (if not even do a thunder as filler)

SE says, they extended astral fire/ice by one second, ... but in fact they didn't, when you reach the last second on the astral timer it's over, when you should in fact still have one second left..., SE should fix that, also to compensate some server lags

Confirmed again tonight on multiple occasions enochian dropping prematurely, it is to the point to be very very annoying.

I'm not really a fan of how quietly astral/umbral fall off now. The visuals I could care less about, we've always had the orbs to check if nothing else. But now that it's not a tracked buff, we don't get that sound effect when it drops. So now during long pulls or movement phases or whatever, I don't always notice that I need to transpose to keep something running.

Other thing I've noticed. Now that Thunder upgrades to III, I feel like it doesn't fit as well as an astral filler for me here at 50. After the Fires and Blizzard III, I used to have enough MP (usually) to cast Thunder if I never got any Thundercloud procs (if I had a proc, it was still ticking so I would opt for different filler). But doing the same thing, after Blizzard III now, I never seem to have the MP for Thunder III hard cast. And if I have to wait for a server tick for MP, is the DoT really worth it rather than swapping right back to Fire at that point?

I'm sure the rest of you are all up learning all the new things at the top, but, anyone else noticing/feeling this effect?

blm needs some fixes, hope SE addresses it..., it's become harder to use for multiple reasons.., of which some simple tweaks could fix..

it's almost blm 3.0 all over again..

When i get home im going to start timing it because either im completely insane or i swear the last few seconds of enochian speed up.

wonder if they made blm so bad arm, to get more players on rdm?.. Sam is also overused atm, cause it promises biggest dps..

it's like SE is over promoting the new classes, while trying to get players off the most used.. (blm 2.x was waaay overused as a 2nd class for fast dungeon farming with its double flares.., so in 3.0 it got nerfed and way more difficult to play, many left blm for that reason)

I only ever experience enochian issues if i go to less then a second remaining on Astral Fire/Umbral ice. I think its either server lag or enochian is somehow referencing the old 12 second AF/UI duration.

besides losing enough at wierd Moments, .. the "12 sec" astral is a annoying to work with .. and gives very little room to weave in procs or other moves..

hope we can get SE to at least adresse this issue, even if it might be server lags, all the more reason to like extend it

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Originally Posted by Maero

Confirmed again tonight on multiple occasions enochian dropping prematurely, it is to the point to be very very annoying.

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Yeah I can confirm that too,

In the Enochian cycle, full stacks never dropped... get to the Bliz 3... Bliz 4... then try to go back to F3 + F4 and poof... no F4 popping.

Luckily Enochian was off CD anyway but... still it definitely dropped it without cause or reason.

Well this is explaining my wtf moments... This is a pretty big problem especially when enochian is on CD.

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Originally Posted by Shiroe

besides losing enough at wierd Moments, .. the "12 sec" astral is a annoying to work with .. and gives very little room to weave in procs or other moves..

hope we can get SE to at least adresse this issue, even if it might be server lags, all the more reason to like extend it

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agreed. most of the dam time i have to waste one of the heart needle things on a fire 1 to restart the timer for astral fire.

i was hoping 4.0 blm would get some really cool damage building machenic or super swiftcast thing. instead we got a silly mp conserving thing and a new flare machenic >_>

I don't have any issues with 1 second remaining on stacks. I have a wired bit where I'll be casting fire 1 to refresh my stacks and I actually get my refresh about 0.5 seconds before the cast is finished and the attack is launched with damage registered.

we should do some bug reports in the bug forum for the eno problems

So I am not the only one noticing eno-chan messing up on me.

anyone able to pin point the exact reason for enochian dropping randomly? or get any acknowledgement from SE about enochian?