[6.0] Newbie Black Mage needs some guidance

Hali-ho! I briefly stopped playing BLM around level 30, and just pick it up again now.
I was looking at Arhmorning for a level 60/70/80 rotation guide but I guess there's massive update going on, all of the stuff are gone for the moment so I am here to learn from any experienced BLM.

I only understand the very basics of BLM and I've only tried all the spells up to level 60 (as far as POTD goes), so pray correct me if I'm wrong:
1. Open with Fire 3/ Flare for single/ aoe respectively to gain 3 astral fire stacks and cast Fire 4/ 2 for single/ aoe respectively and throw fire 3 on procs till OOM.
2. Bliz 3 to gain 3 umbral ice stacks followed by Bliz 4, Bliz 2 and spam Freeze for aoe while regenerating mp.
3. Sharpcast on CD

I don't know when exactly should I cast Lightning 3 or 4 without disrupting the abovementioned rotation. And Transpose seems to lose purpose since Fire 3, Flare and Bliz 3 exist?

You usually cast your thunderstorm proc after you reset the AF timer with fire 1 or when you go into UI. Transpose gets a lot of use at lvl 90 to go into UI from AF with a paradox to start, Pre 72 it's used to keep your poly timer going during downtime when you hit 60. You want your last AF cast to be despair in ST when you get it, flare for AOE. But upto 60, if i remember, it's the fire 1/3/4 until drained then blizz 3 to go into UI. I think you get enhanced flare on your way to 60, then the aoe is blizz 2-freeze-fire 2 × 3-flare × 2.

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Originally Posted by Phaty

You usually cast your thunderstorm proc after you reset the AF timer with fire 1 or when you go into UI. Transpose gets a lot of use at lvl 90 to go into UI from AF with a paradox to start, Pre 72 it's used to keep your poly timer going during downtime when you hit 60. You want your last AF cast to be despair in ST when you get it, flare for AOE. But upto 60, if i remember, it's the fire 1/3/4 until drained then blizz 3 to go into UI. I think you get enhanced flare on your way to 60, then the aoe is blizz 2-freeze-fire 2 × 3-flare × 2.

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Would it harm my rotation if I use fire 4 instead and remove fire 1 from action bar? It's 0.3s longer cast and same mp cost, and fire 4 can't gain any AF.

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Originally Posted by LitheSuxman

Would it harm my rotation if I use fire 3 instead and remove fire 1 from action bar? It's 0.3s longer cast and same mp cost, and fire 3 can't gain any AF.

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I could only see the benefit being the chance to proc a free insta Fire 3 from Fire casts. Plus since sharpcast has 2 charges you can spare one for Fire and guarantee that proc as well.

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Originally Posted by LitheSuxman

remove fire 1 from action bar

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Don't do this, since at 90 you'll be using Fire 1's Paradox form for the transition if I understand the Black Mage rotation correctly.

One full single target cycle looks like this:

B3: This gets you Umbral Ice III and starts Enochian ticking (which gives you an up to 20% damage bonus)
T3: This inflicts your dot.
B4: This gets you three umbral hearts.
(If you're level 90 and were in astral fire before you swapped over, you can cast Paradox here)
F3: This swaps you to fire mode.
In fire mode with three hearts, you'll have enough MP to cast seven damaging spells. Ideally, these will be three Fire 4s, one Fire, and then three more Fire 4s. If you're level 90, replace that Fire with Paradox instead. If you have to, you can hardcast one Thunder spell.
Despair: Casting seven attack spells should leave you with between 1200 and 800 mp, which is just enough to zero out your MP with Despair, your hardest-hitting fire spell.
B3: Back to umbral ice; start from the top.

You want to spend polyglot procs to cast Xenoglossy as you need to move and/or prevent them from overwriting themselves, and iirc throw out new thunder spells as old ones are about to expire. Sharpcast, triplecast, etc. all allow you to smooth out and optimize this in other ways.

AoE looks like this:

B2 (High or otherwise): Gets you into umbral ice.
T4: Your dot.
Freeze: Gets you hearts.
F2 (High or otherwise): Gets you into fire mode.
F2, F2: Cast two more F2s in fire mode to deal damage, eat your first two hearts, and give you the "Enhanced Flare" buff.
Flare, Flare: Eat your last heart and the last of your MP to cast your hardest-hitting AoE fire spell.
B2: Swaps back to ice mode; start from the top.

Obviously, you'll be using Foul rather than Xenoglossy as convenient.

If you absolutely have to remove spells from your bars, you can probably afford to remove Blizzard 1 and Scathe, but both those spells have their uses so you might rather want to just put them somewhere out of the way (but Scathe, particularly, somewhere that isn't too hard to hit while you're moving for an extended period).

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Originally Posted by Ferrinus

One full single target cycle looks like this:

B3: This gets you Umbral Ice III and starts Enochian ticking (which gives you an up to 20% damage bonus)
T3: This inflicts your dot.
B4: This gets you three umbral hearts.
(If you're level 90 and were in astral fire before you swapped over, you can cast Paradox here)
F3: This swaps you to fire mode.
In fire mode with three hearts, you'll have enough MP to cast seven damaging spells. Ideally, these will be three Fire 4s, one Fire, and then three more Fire 4s. If you're level 90, replace that Fire with Paradox instead. If you have to, you can hardcast one Thunder spell.
Despair: Casting seven attack spells should leave you with between 1200 and 800 mp, which is just enough to zero out your MP with Despair, your hardest-hitting fire spell.
B3: Back to umbral ice; start from the top.

You want to spend polyglot procs to cast Xenoglossy as you need to move and/or prevent them from overwriting themselves, and iirc throw out new thunder spells as old ones are about to expire. Sharpcast, triplecast, etc. all allow you to smooth out and optimize this in other ways.

AoE looks like this:

B2 (High or otherwise): Gets you into umbral ice.
T4: Your dot.
Freeze: Gets you hearts.
F2 (High or otherwise): Gets you into fire mode.
F2, F2: Cast two more F2s in fire mode to deal damage, eat your first two hearts, and give you the "Enhanced Flare" buff.
Flare, Flare: Eat your last heart and the last of your MP to cast your hardest-hitting AoE fire spell.
B2: Swaps back to ice mode; start from the top.

Obviously, you'll be using Foul rather than Xenoglossy as convenient.

If you absolutely have to remove spells from your bars, you can probably afford to remove Blizzard 1 and Scathe, but both those spells have their uses so you might rather want to just put them somewhere out of the way (but Scathe, particularly, somewhere that isn't too hard to hit while you're moving for an extended period).

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Thank you for this! This is the best description of the rotations I've seen in any forums or videos for understanding what to do and why. Thanks!