Rotation explanation for a noob range DPS

Hi all,

I am currently Black mage level 51. This is my first MMO and know nothing about rotation.

Since the beggining, I used a very simple rotation : fire until no more MP....transpose to ice to gain MP...transpose again to fire...I dont know if this was the right way to play, but it did make sense to me. Sure, I use other spells too, but this is what I did 75% of the time.

However, since I hit 50, I think I need to change my playstyle if I dont want to be a millstone to my teamates. So, I have read on rotation and have a few questions.

1- What are the consequences if a range DPS dont do a rotation? I understand that a good rotation do more damage (I think), but after that, what is the goal? To do the dungeon faster? Can you fail a dungeon if you dont do a good rotation?

2- Looking at the different rotation, I dont understand the choices. exemple: why would someone cast fire 2, when you can cast fire 3? Why not always cast your most powerfull spells?

I can't answer very specifically, since my Black Mage character is only level 30, but I can give some general thoughts as a fellow damage dealer.

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Originally Posted by Zilon

1- What are the consequences if a range DPS dont do a rotation? I understand that a good rotation do more damage (I think), but after that, what is the goal? To do the dungeon faster? Can you fail a dungeon if you dont do a good rotation?

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I think some people get too fixated on the word "rotation" and get into the mindset that it's all about a single sequence of skills to use for all situations. While there are certainly skills that support each other and using them together in a certain order is important, a great deal of of your effectiveness comes more from your ability to recognize which sorts of situations call for which skills (or for which sequences of skills).

Anyway, as to why your effectiveness as a damage dealer is important to clearing dungeons, while speed is certainly one effect, there are indeed fights where failing to deal damage fast enough will cause a wipe.

You've actually come across this before quite a few times. Starting way back at level 20, when the nail appeared in the Ifrit fight, if you didn't kill that nail quickly enough, Ifrit would launch an attack that could wipe the whole party. Later, much the same thing happened with Titan's Heart. These low level DPS checks can sometimes be overlooked now, though, since most players are so overleveled and overgeared that a great deal of the original challenge is lost, and most players never see what would have happened if they hadn't done enough damage fast enough.

Post level 50 (and even more so once you reach endgame) you'll start finding DPS checks that are a lot more challenging than the ones seen while leveling that far, ones where you might not get by purely by overgearing everything, and will need some skill in using the most effective skills at the most effective time in order to destroy the metaphorical ticking time bomb before it blows up in your face.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zilon

2- Looking at the different rotation, I dont understand the choices. exemple: why would someone cast fire 2, when you can cast fire 3? Why not always cast your most powerfull spells?

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They do different things.

Fire II is an AoE attack to all enemies near the one you targeted. Fire III is a single-target attack. If you're only facing one or two enemies, then Fire III is more powerful, but if you're facing a whole crowd of them (any more than two actually), Fire II is.

As an initial Fire-type skill, though, Fire III has the advantage that it immediately gives you the maximum 3 stacks of the Astral Fire buff, rather than having to build them up one by one and needing a transpose. Both Fire and Fire II, on the other hand, would start off just removing the Umbral Ice if Transpose isn't available, then next time adding a single Astral Fire, then a couple more times before you get up to 3 stacks of Astral Fire.

So if you're facing a group of mobs and need to switch from Ice mode back into Fire mode, you'd use a single Fire III to give you your maximum Astral Fire, then you'd switch to Fire II for AoE damage.

For future use, most rotation guides are either linked or posted in the DPS section of these forums.

In this guide (which is no longer updated) you can find the Heavensward (level 60) BLM rotation: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...A-Guide-to-DPS. The level 60 AoE rotation uses same abilities than level 50 one.

In this thread there are discussions about BLM rotations at level 50.

You have fundamentals of BLM down just fine.
Important things to note:
Ice III - grants full Umbral Ice three stacks without needing to Transpose
Fire III - grants full Astral Fire three stacks without needing to Transpose
It takes two clock ticks under UI3 to regenerate full MP. This usually gives you enough time to cast 1 Thunder spell (use the highest you have MP for).
The clock ticks every 3 seconds but you could enter the UI3 state very short before a tick, thus, your two clock ticks could be as short as 3.5 seconds or the full 6 seconds.
It takes about 2 seconds to cast Fire III, thus, you can learn the timing such that you start the cast and it finishes like 1/2 second after the UI3 clock tick at full MP.

Now, do not get rid of transpose, you still need it, when using Flare or you slightly mess up the MP management and cannot afford to case Ice III.

To Flare or not to Flare. I generally follow the rule, 4 or more enemies, go full AoE attacks.
F3 > F2 > F2 > F2 > Flare > Convert > Flare > X-Ether > Swiftcast + Flare > Transpose > Thuder > F3 (start over)
There might be room for another F2 but I cannot remember for sure.
Note: above level 52, the third Flare is no longer possible without using lv60 potion.

Single target:
T2 > Swiftcast + F3 > F1 > F1 > F1 > F1 > I3 > T? > (dending on clock tick/fire starter proc possible Scath) > F3

Hit all Fire starter procs, except ones the proc on the last F1, save that for transition back to AF3.
Hit the first Thunder Cloud (TC) proc under AF3. If you get more than 1, just save the second until UI3. Hit all TC procs under UI?.

While Fire 3 is technically your most powerful spell, it also has a very slow cast and a high mp cost, so you'll only be able to use it very few times before running out of mp, which will limit your dps in the long run. What you want to do (for now - things will change a little again at level 60 when all of the new skills come into effect) is spend as much time in Astral Fire phase as you can, as that's where you'll do most of your damage. So, start with Fire 3 to instantly build up 3 stacks of AF, then switch to the slightly cheaper Fire 1 spell. Then, when this activates Firestarter, giving you a free, instant cast of Fire 3, cast that Fire 3, then go back to Fire 1. Continue until low on mp. Then cast Blizzard 3, which will instantly take you to a full Umbral Ice 3 (as well as having its cast time halved from being under AF3). There's no need to use Transpose as much at this level. You have time for about one or two spells before your mp is full again, you can cast Thunder at this point to keep up the DoT. Then cast Fire3 again (which will also have its cast time halved, from being under UI3), and start over.

I mentioned Thunder - don't forget about this spell. You'll want to open your fights with Thunder or Thunder 2, then when the Thundercloud activates, much like Firestarter for Fire, this will grant you a free, instant cast Thunder 3 that will do all its damage extra up front as well as leaving the usual DoT. Well, technically it will make any of your Thunder spells have that effect, but as Thunder 3 will do the most damage that's the one you'll want to use.

A good thing to keep in mind is that no abilities really become obsolete in this game. They all serve their purpose, though they may become more situational.

1.
-4 man dungeons are very lenient, so even if you stand there and do nothing you won't fail. Not doing a rotation is somewhere between not doing anything and doing a rotation, so although you won't fail, people will get annoyed. It also expends extra resources for tank/healer as the mobs aren't dying as fast.
-When you get to harder content, not doing enough damage within a certain amount of time means the boss will instantly kill the party so you must have a good rotation at this point.

2.
The naming of spells is more confusing then they claim*. Fire 3 isn't more powerful than fire 2 or fire 1, they each have different uses (same for blizzard). For example (comparing to Fire 3):
-Fire 3 is better than the other skills when you want to switch from Umbral Ice to Astral Fire, because it gives you 3 stacks regardless of what you have. If you casted fire 1 from Umbral Ice, it would just nullify that instead of giving you Astral Fire. Transpose would only give you 1 stack of fire.
-Fire 2 is better than Fire 3 or Fire 1 when you have 3 or more enemies together and you want to hit them all (99% of the time you do). Fire 2 would do 100 potency to each enemy while Fire 3 does 240 potency to one enemy.
-Fire 1 is better than Fire 3 if you have 3 stacks of Astral Fire, because it has a lower cast time (so similar damage over time vs Fire 3) but also MP cost and gives you a chance to proc a free Fire 3.

There are several rotations because each rotation performs differently under different situations. The rotations you see assume certain things like you not needing to move, the target won't move, there is only 1 target etc etc. They are generalised rotations. You can stretch it a bit for different situations when the general rotation doesn't fit as well.


*(They said they put numbers like fire, fire 2, fire 3, fire 4 instead of the traditional suffixes fire, fira, firaga, firaja to make it less confusing for people new to the series, but it makes it more confusing because the spells aren't related like the numbers - 4 isn't better than 3/2/1. Treat them as all different spells)

Thanks all, i appreciate.

I say, instead of getting fixated to a rotation as a sort of mantra, learn how it works, and more so, why the things are in that order. That way you can adapt when things are not going so splendidly.

As a general rule for dps... all dps jobs has a starting move that gives players a buff to subsequent moves. Blm is fire(fires are your dps move, while ice is to recover mp), monk is the side moves or back moves, lancers is flank move, archer is the pink arrow move etc. You know it's right cause an icon pop on your player status bar. If you don't pop an icon your not reading your skill correctly. So rotation is basically using moves without letting that icon drop. don't worry most of the icon moves last 20-30secs ... so you should be able to do 2-3 combs of moves before you return to icon move.