Is this a good Black Mage rotation?

I've finally maxed out my BLM sometime last week, and fell into a comfortable single target and mob target rotation, but I feel like my dps is still lacking.

For Single: Thunder2...Fire3...Fire1 until my mana runs out then I blizzard3 and blizzard until my mana is refilled. Then go back into my fire rotation while casting thunder when the Dot falls under 4 secs.

For my mob rotation I go: fire3...Fire2 3 times...flare...transpose...blizzard then repeat. What do you guys think does it need improvement or is it fine as is?

Read the info in this thread...
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...age-Calculator

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

Read the info in this thread...
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...age-Calculator

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To summarize the info on that thread, and add in my own personal experiences:

Single Target Rotations (from the thread):

• F5T2: Fire 3, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Blizzard 3, Thunder 2, <repeat>
• F5T1: Fire 3, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Blizzard 3, Thunder 1, <repeat>
• F5T1-B: Fire 3, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Fire 1, Blizzard 3, Thunder 1, Blizzard 1/Scathe, <repeat>

According to the people who mathed all this out, Thunder 1 is more DPS than Thunder 2, especially when you consider the Thundercloud procs which can completely negate the benefit of casting the slower Thunder 2 over the faster Thunder 1. However, at high spell speeds, after casting Thunder 1, if you immediately cast Fire 3, your Fire 3 will go off before the second mana tick and you will not be able to do a full 5x Fire 1s. So, if you think that's going to happen, throw in a Blizzard 1 or Scathe (Blizzard 1 is much more damage, Scathe is faster and allows movement during that period with minimal loss of DPS) after the Thunder 1 before the Fire 3.

If you ever accidentally cast an extra Fire 1 that puts you at too little mana to cast Blizzard 3, recover by using Convert (if it's on CD) followed by Fire 1, and then Blizzard 3. If Convert is on CD, instead transpose, wait a tic, and Blizzard 3, then Fire 3 and go back into the rotation.

Normally, if casting full speed, by the time the game gives you the Firestarter proc from a given Fire 1, your next Fire 1 is already halfway through the cast. Interrupting a Fire 1 to cast a Firestarter is a bad idea, as it will decrease your overall DPS (I believe?), and if you get a Firestarter proc on the Fire 1, you get nothing for it. So, to maximize Firestarter procs, only use Thundercloud, Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, and other similar skills after a cast of Fire 1. This way, if Firestarter procs on the Fire 1 cast, you can then use it immediately, and thus using the buff decreased your DPS by a trivial amount.

Also, if you ever need to move around to handle non-urgent mechanics, the best time to move is 0.5 seconds before a Fire 1 finishes casting. The cast will still go off, and if you proc Firestarter, you can use it while still moving, causing the movement to only trivially decrease your DPS. If you don't proc Firestarter, you lose more DPS, but it's still the best time to move because of Firestarter. The other best time to move is after Blizzard 3, if a Thundercloud proc happened causing Thunder 1 to be unnecessary. Another good time is after Thunder 1, as you can Scathe as you move, causing almost no DPS loss. The worst time is, of course, after a non-Firestarter Fire 3 cast.



AoE rotation (from the thread), use for 2+ enemies:

• Fire 3, then: Flare, Transpose, (wait 1 mana tick), Fire 3, Fire 2, Fire 2, <repeat from Flare>

At very high spell speeds, if you cast the Fire 3 immediately after getting that first mana tick, the Fire 3 will go off before the second mana tick and you will be in bad shape. If this happens to you, Flare, wait for transpose to recharge (about 2 seconds), and go back into the rotation from there. Don't cast Fire 2, as it won't leave you enough mana for a Flare, though if you do by accident, recover by casting Blizzard 3 (or just Transpose) and go back into the rotation. If you know you have enough Spell Speed to have this occur, wait a beat after the mana tick before you cast Fire 3. If there are only a small number of enemies in the group, you could throw in a scathe or blizzard 1 immediately after the first mana tick as padding, but I don't know if this actually increases DPS or decreases it.

And, obviously, when Convert is cooled down, after a Flare, you can Swiftcast+Convert+Flare to double-flare (then Transpose and continue the rotation). If you do this as the fight opener, please use Quelling Strikes first or you make your tanks sad and will likely die even with Manawall up (depending on what you're dealing with). If you want to really destroy things in AoE, carry around Mega Ethers and use them in place of Convert when Convert is on CD (and potions are off CD). I prefer to use them after Swiftcast cools down for a second swift double-flare, though there is something to be said about triple flaring even if there's a delay in the flareage since one of the followup casts has to be slow-cast.


As an aside, for stats, BLM benefits the most from Spell Speed due to the ice/fire mana mechanic. Point for point, Det is better than Crit, but only barely. As a result, since you get more Crit than Det on gear, Crit gear is better than Det gear. So, provided you have enough accuracy, you want to prioritize Spell Speed gear followed by Crit gear, with as little Det as possible. That said, if you ever get the BLM relic, since all points are weighted equally, max Spell Speed + max Det is mathematically the best you can put on it (unless you want some PIE for one of the F6 rotations listed in the linked thread/spreadsheet, but I haven't messed with those and they require pentamelded gear, which I don't feel like paying for just to try out a new rotation that I might or might not like).

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

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AoE rotation (from the thread), use for 2+ enemies:

• Flare, Transpose, (wait 1 mana tick), Fire 3, Fire 2, Fire 2, <repeat>

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Fire III before the Flare to make sure you get the damage boost from Astral Fire III, but yeah.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

Fire III before the Flare to make sure you get the damage boost from Astral Fire III, but yeah.

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Derp, I meant to say that! Editing to fix. Thanks!

Thanks for the help Nyalia and Shaolinmike. Now I'm happily stealing aggro from the tank. >:]

Oh, and one other thing while we're on the topic of BLM rotations. There's this thing called "Fire-Weaving" that I'm really bad at, but other people really like. The gist is, having a firestarter proc during the Umbral Ice phase of the rotation is pretty bad. You don't gain any benefit from it, and you have to sit around or cast extra scathe/blizzard 1s to avoid switching off Umbral Ice before you fully refill your mana. So, to avoid this and increase your overall DPS, you can wait after the final Fire 1 before casting Blizzard 3 to see if Firestarter procs or not. You get a significant DPS increase if you get a Firestarter, but you get a noticeable DPS loss if you do not. Overall, it balances out (unless you get really lucky/unlucky), but you can improve it from there.

The way you improve your numbers is by saving instant abilities and non-urgent movement for the final Fire 1 when and where possible. This means, find something useful to do after the last Fire 1 whenever you can - Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, Thundercloud procs (if they happen close enough to the last Fire 1 - there's nothing more annoying than having a Thundercloud proc hit while you have an unused Thundercloud proc up =\), etc. But, if those are all on CD, then you either wait or find something else, like non-urgent movement. Examples of non-urgent movement: first boss of World of Darkness, where you have to switch from being in front of the boss to the back of the boss (or vice versa) between each of the boss's room-wide AoEs. Or, swapping between being inside/outside for dodging Ifrit HMs's plumes, or whatnot.

And, if it wasn't clear, never wait for a cast to finish when presented with situations where movement is urgent unless you are very familiar with the fight and know that you have enough time. For instance, waiting for a Fire 1 to finish casting while standing in a Landslide on Titan? Bad idea. Your DPS suffers much more from the unrevivable death than it would from one interrupted Fire 1. When you get used to most fights, you'll find that you will almost never need to interrupt yourself, because you'll know when mechanics will require a move and be moving already. Almost all endgame fights are choreographed sufficiently that this is possible. Until then though, don't sweat a few interrupted casts. Just be smart about it - if you have to interrupt your Blizzard 3 to move move than a step or two, Transpose as you move so you don't get stuck with <200 mp and no Astral Fire or Umbral Ice up (a pretty terrible place to be). If you're moving for 5+ seconds with Astral Fire up, you have enough mana for it, and Swiftcast is off CD, Swiftcast a Fire 3 as you move to both maintain DPS and Astral Fire so you can keep from starting your rotation over.

And, last piece of advice: Don't be afraid to use Scathe when needed. If something's low on health, Scathe will deal DPS while a Fire 1/3 will finish after it dies and do nothing. World of Darkness's final boss is a great example of a Scathe-heavy fight. During clouds, Scathe the small clouds as they will die before a fire will finish casting, and scathe the big ones while running around to stay in front of clouds to slow them down (using fire on the big ones is better if you're not moving as they live much longer). When the Shadowlurkers appear (1 HP creatures), spam the Scathe key and the "target closest enemy" key while running around. Scathe is far from being a worthless skill. It's incredibly low DPS to spam it on a single target over and over, but that's not the point of it. The point of it is that it's DPS that you can dish out while moving, and DPS that hits weak things that die faster than a fire can be cast.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

This means, find something useful to do after the last Fire 1 whenever you can - Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, Thundercloud procs (if they happen close enough to the last Fire 1 - there's nothing more annoying than having a Thundercloud proc hit while you have an unused Thundercloud proc up =\), etc.

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Please do not use Raging Strikes after your last Fire I. That's twice in this topic you've advocated it. Fireweaving is great, and the rest of the info you've posted is very useful and helpful and I agree with it all, but Raging Strikes is not something you should be using to weave, unless you just love wasting 6-8 seconds of it on Blizzard 3 and Thunder 1.

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Originally Posted by SunDriedRainbow

Please do not use Raging Strikes after your last Fire I. That's twice in this topic you've advocated it. Fireweaving is great, and the rest of the info you've posted is very useful and helpful and I agree with it all, but Raging Strikes is not something you should be using to weave, unless you just love wasting 6-8 seconds of it on Blizzard 3 and Thunder 1.

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Oh, sorry! I never claimed to be the best BLM, I've never parsed my DPS, and as I said, I'm terrible at weaving. I thought that having it up for two Thunder 1s was good, but I guess it's not as good as having it up for extra Fire 1s.

When's the best time to use it? After the Fire 3, or after the first Fire 1?

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

This means, find something useful to do after the last Fire 1 whenever you can - Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, Thundercloud procs (if they happen close enough to the last Fire 1 - there's nothing more annoying than having a Thundercloud proc hit while you have an unused Thundercloud proc up =\), etc..

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Technically you don't need an OGCD to weave the last Fire 1 - after your last Fire 1 your MP will be too low to cast a Fire 3, so spam click Fire 3 instead - if it procs it will fire off immediately, if not quick press Blizzard 3. But your clicking must be fast though, don't be a slow poke to cast Blizzard 3 like 0.5s later after realizing your Fire 1 doesn't proc.

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Originally Posted by Nyalia

When's the best time to use it? After the Fire 3, or after the first Fire 1?

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If single target, after first Fire 1, so that you have time to notice and react if your first Fire 1 procs.