Couple BLM questions!

So I recently just 50 on my BLM and got my first set of gear (artifact set) and just did my first CM so I'm working on completing the story first! Now I had a couple questions about BLM in general.

-Are there any good macro's a BLM would want to use?
-Would it be dumb to macro Virus into like thunder II or maybe Fire or any ability I use, if I remember right Virus is off the GCD so it shouldn't cause an issue?

-Gearing up wise, should I be focusing on the full Darklight set? (including the chest that has a cowl so I can't use a helm?)

This is also the half-assed rotation I have been using and am wondering if it is making any sense or just plain awful: Swiftcast + Thunder III -> Fire I (till about 1200 MP) -> Blizzard I (3 times) -> Fire I (till about 1200 MP) -> repeat (I also use Firestarter on procs and the instant Thunder)

I am really sorry if these are silly questions but I am having trouble finding not-outdated information on BLM (at least within in the past week).

For your rotation, I think it's better using Swiftcast + Thunder III, then Fire III to get full stacks of Astral Fire. Then Fire 1 spam, using Fire III on firestarter procs. Then Blizzard III when you're low on mana to get full stacks of Umbral Ice. Recast Thunder III, by that time your mana will be filled back up, then Fire III to start over again.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to add that this is just a very basic rotation.

For virus, you don't need it on most bosses. I would not recommend macroing it as it's on a long cd, and it's really situational. If your tank needs virus, then you're going to have a bad time.

Hard mode titan is the one that seems to need some mitigation. Use it on his stomps or table flips to make it easier on the healers. But you can't macro it as you would need to know the pattern.

Gearing up, Darklight is good. Crafted gear seems to be on par or better but costs like 100x more. If you have the bank, you can go with crafted gear without that annoying cowl.

My non-aoe rotation is: Thunder 2 -> Swiftcast fire 3 -> fire till < 800 mana -> Blizzard 3 -> Thunder 2/Blizzard or scathe once (depending how much HP is remaining and lucky you feel) -> Fire 3 go to fire.

From your rotation, I see that you're not using any of the 3 spells. You should use them as they will allow you to get into fire cycle/get mana faster. You also can cast Fire3/Blizzard3 faster when you have 3 stacks of Umbral/Astral.

Thank you for the tips! I am noticing not much use of Blizzard I by you guys, I am wondering if I should move Blizzard III where Blizzard I is on my hotbar to get used to using it hmm. How exactly does the mana regen work with Blizzard? Is it the umbral ice effect?

Yes - the sweet thing about Fire/Blizzard 3 is that it puts you to Astral Fire 3 / Umbral Ice 3 right away. So you don't have to build up charges. The more charges of Umbral Ice you have, the faster you regen mana. After Blizzard 3, you will regen to full after 1 more cast.

I have a video of BM early level 50 gameplay. Take a look to see how my rotations go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVxohARFi6Q

This is when I was just starting out at level 50

I now work flare into it depending on CDs but it's good to practice the Umbral Ice/Astral Fire without it first.

oh dear my eyes...

Well no one seem to mention double casting Flare which disappoints me if you consider to want top damage of all time.

Don't care much but as long as you have enough mp to cast Flare (low mp as possible) with Astral Fire III, you should cast Flare > Convert > Swiftcast > Flare. With darklight set and relic you should be able to do 2000 crit dmg with Flare. Consider it's AoE and you can do it twice with the combo above makes you a true nuker.

But that's just me playing my BLM.

Well actually, I believe the proper sequence with flare should be (Swiftcast) Flare -> Convert -> Fire > Flare as you can actually squeeze in a fire in there with the chance for a fire 3 proc.

The reason I Swiftcast the first flare is because you can sometimes get a fire 3 proc before flare and casting fire 3 does not consume Swiftcast.

Then I have the opportunity to gauge if the critter I'm casting on is dead after flare and cast fire 3 on the new critter. Or I can cast fire3 after swiftcast and cast flare on a separate group if needed. More options = more DPS.

The fire in between the flare cast sometimes procs and if the happens, sometimes the group is dead without even needing to switch to an ice cycle.

Also, I've found that I can use Ethers instead of convert for this chain of cast. However, I've not leveled alchemist yet and it's prohibitively expensive for me to do this as of now.

Also in the eyes comment are you referring to my video? I've recorded it in 720p. I've done some rather draconian filtering (as I have cable and not fiber upload), but it should not be too horrible if you watch it at that resolution I believe.

2k crit? You must be using raging strikes

My flare crits for only 1.8k and i have full crafted + relic+1 which is 2times better than darklight.

I dont recommend using thunder 3 because its cast time and mp cost is tremendous. Try using thunder 2 or 1 and only use 3 as procs. You will see a big improvement in speed of completing each boss.

For aoe, blizz3 first then fire3 (so you get 3 astral fire stack with the least mana cost) then spam fire2 until rnough mana for flare then convert swift cast flare. If you dont have convert use transpose run near mobs and use bliz2 until 3 stacks then repeat this is only effective in cm though

I have crit for 2k if not a bit more on the dual flare with ranging strikes and if the bard has foe reqium up I just recently got my relic +1 but 2k is possible I have had my fire 1 crit for 1.3 k just be careful not to crit in a row T.T

Yes with raging strikes it is possible i crit for 2.3k with raging strikes and 1.4 with fire 1 and 1.6 with fire 3 but without it

My crit for flare is 1.8-1.9k

While were on the topic of flare crits...

http://i.imgur.com/JMmTGJy.png

Have you broken 2100 fire3 crits yet? This class scales so amazingly well.

Mana cost on TIII doesn't even matter if you're putting it after BIII in your mana phase. It'll all regen by the time you get your next FIII off.

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Originally Posted by Rbstr

Mana cost on TIII doesn't even matter if you're putting it after BIII in your mana phase. It'll all regen by the time you get your next FIII off.

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Has nothing to do with the mana cost, it has everything to do with the time you spend casting Thunder III and how many Fire cast it cost you in a boss fight. Thunder I > II and III. Period. Thunder III at the start as the tank is pulling, and during TStorm, that's it.

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Originally Posted by Foullacy

Has nothing to do with the mana cost, it has everything to do with the time you spend casting Thunder III and how many Fire cast it cost you in a boss fight. Thunder I > II and III. Period. Thunder III at the start as the tank is pulling, and during TStorm, that's it.

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I'm in agreement with Foullacy, it all comes down to time management while keeping your dps up. If you spend all your time in a casting animation you'll realize the same thing my fellow FC mate did when we had this debate at day 1 of this game. He didn't change his mind till we partied up and he realized while he was in a casting animation I was continually casting. Thunder III has it's time, mainly when you proc...as long as you always think about an effective use of your time you'll be ok.

Very awesome info I'm seeing here! I'm thinking I may hold on the flare x2 thing until I get more comfortable with the basic rotation. But when would you do the flare x2? When the perfect amount of buffs are up?

/macroicon "Sleep"
/ac "Sleep" <mo>

I also use:

/macroicon "Thunder II"
/ac "Swiftcast" <me>
/ac "Thunder III" <t>
/ac "Thunder II" <t>
/ac "Thunder" <t>

because I'm lazy. I use Thunder right after Blizz III in my rotation in order to maximize DoT up-time, and so I'm often casting it before the mana pulse hits. This makes sure I'm always up on the DoT, and after getting used to it I can break the macro to cast a FS/TC proc before the Thunder cast. If TC procs it doesn't consume the Swiftcast, meaning my first Fire I/III is insta'd.

Wait, Thunder 1? I thought that one did less damage AND less up time? I thought the only real debate was between Thunder 2 and 3. For my proc rate, I tend to prefer Thunder 2 anyway since it is normally just barely wearing off as I am casting it, making it perfect (or near perfect) for timing. The only way Thunder 1 might be good is is you get 0 firestarter/thunder procs... so you burn through all your mana and still have your DoT on the target... but that is very rare.

The other issue I would have with T1 over T2 is that since the cast time is shorter, I might not get all my mana back up in time. I already have this happen on rare occasion using T2. It happens something like this: B3 - T2 - F3 (end up with ~2800 mana on tick shy of a full bar). This happens when the timing of the regen ticks just *happen* to fall out of line with my cast timer and thus I "miss" a tick. I would imagine this problem being even more of an issue with the shorter cast time on T1... so if T1 is somehow better what are you doing with that time gap to ensure a full mana bar? Not casting anything for half a second? Throwing in a scathe (thus being well over the proc regen timer?)

Maybe It is just an issue for me, because of the amount of spell speed I have, vs other people? Unless the spell speed would also speed up the mana regen ticks. But on a 5 minute fight using my normal rotation I have this "issue" happen to me at least 1 time.

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Originally Posted by Foullacy

Has nothing to do with the mana cost, it has everything to do with the time you spend casting Thunder III and how many Fire cast it cost you in a boss fight. Thunder I > II and III. Period. Thunder III at the start as the tank is pulling, and during TStorm, that's it.

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Not sure I'm understanding this. How does Thunder I save time? I'm honestly curious that I could be doing something wrong here.

My typical standard rotation is this ->
Thunder III at start
Fire III for Astral Fire III
Fire x4
By this time, I'm low on mana and cannot squeeze in another Fire
Blizzard III
Thunder III to refresh if it's about to fall off or Scathe if Thunder DoT is still on target (while mana is recharging)
Fire III (Full mana bar at the end of this cast)
Fire x5

Not sure where I'd be saving Fire casts by casting Thunder I instead.

OK just for kicks here are the stats on each one (fixed):

Thunder:
Cast Time 2.5
Potency 30
DoT Potency 35
Duration 18s
Proc Potency 240

Thunder 2:
Cast Time 3
Potency 50
DoT Potency 35
Duration 21s
Proc Potency 295

Thunder 3:
Cast Time 3.5
Potency 60
DoT Potency 35
Duration 24s
Proc Potency 340

(Removed the rest of the information because I had wrong calculations... Will need to recalculate the numbers when I can actually get into the game... unless someone else has already done this and can show how it affects things.)

Each thunder lasts longer than what you have posted.

Double Flare crits make mobs angry. got the pic as i held back till tank got aggro XD.
http://i.imgur.com/mJicLke.png

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Originally Posted by Shadowzanon

Each thunder lasts longer than what you have posted.

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Hrmmm so it does... why do all the online resources have the wrong duration timers then? gah! Well that messes everything up...

I think I found a more accurate resource will rewrite my other post...

Edit again: I actually managed to find a nice breakdown of MP costs which should help in determining how much mana you eat up thus how much fire you can actually cast

http://static2.finalfantasyxiv.com/a...aB-_uorXMk.png

Based on this, when you hit Astral Fire 3 (which you should always be at before casting Fire) it will cost you 638 mana. This means based on just my own personal mana pool (and I do not have anywhere near the best gear... but it is getting there) I can cast at the most 5 Fire spells 3670 total Mana - 638 * 5 = 480 -> blizzard 3 @ 79 MP = 401 -> Thunder 2 @ 319 (if you are using thunder 1 it costs even less mana so I have more than enough overhead).

So, lets try this again... Thunder @ 18s
Fire 3 (1.75) - Fire (1.5 - I still don't know how I get a short cast fire here... but I don't complain) - Fire (2.5) - Fire (2.5) - Fire (2.5) - Fire (2.5) - Blizzard 3 (1.75) - Thunder (2.5) = 17.5
So IF you get absolutely 0 procs you would be refreshing thunder a little early, clipping one dot tick. At 1 Proc you would have your DoT dropped off for 1 second, at 2 Procs the DoT would have been off for 2.5 seconds. At that point you have reached argumentatively a point where it is no longer profitable to hit Thunder 1. If you have a larger mana pool (Keeping in mind I am not full darklight yet, nor do I have my relic) and you get 1 extra Fire spell in there, then you are already hitting that breaking point of Thunder 1 with 0 procs.

Keeping in mind a chance of 40% to proc firestarter, after 5 fires your chances of not getting at least 1 proc is very small. I am just not seeing the benefit here, when all you are "sacrificing" for thunder 2 is .5 seconds... You get a higher initial hit (an increase of 20 potency), and you get just enough duration to make up for it. I think this is where I can buy the argument against using Thunder 3 at the moment, since we just don't have a large enough mana pool... yet. When we get enough mana, it will likely be better to use Thunder 3.

Edit 2: And if we start trying to sort out working in a Flare (I might try to napkin math this out to sort out if you should do this single target or not... although double flare would be worth it, I am not totally sold on single flare for single target) you are looking at a 4 second cast time. So at the end of my chain, you would be doing 5 fires, then a Flare, then a transpose (this is feels like around 1 second loss, anyone got a better number here?), then a Blizzard 3 (or maybe blizzard 1?) at full cast time (3.5), and then a thunder (2.5)... you have lost Thunder a LONG time ago (0 procs you are looking at a minimum of 23.75 seconds by this point you are risking a loss even on Thunder 2)

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Originally Posted by ChickensEvil

The only way Thunder 1 might be good is is you get 0 firestarter/thunder procs... so you burn through all your mana and still have your DoT on the target... but that is very rare.

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^This situation is why it's there, yeah. I prefer a bit of DoT downtime at the end of Thunder to having wasted time in between GCD's in my rotation. It normally never happens, but I include it on the off-chance. Ymmv, of course. Thunder II syncs up perfectly so that I finish casting it in my UI cycle right as it's falling off.

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Originally Posted by Shisou

^This situation is why it's there, yeah. I prefer a bit of DoT downtime at the end of Thunder to having wasted time in between GCD's in my rotation. It normally never happens, but I include it on the off-chance. Ymmv, of course. Thunder II syncs up perfectly so that I finish casting it in my UI cycle right as it's falling off.

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My personal experience has also placed it where Thunder 2 seems to be wearing off just as I am casting it in a worst case scenario on procs, in a best case I lost the DoT because I get like 2 firestarter procs.

So, double flare is definitely amazing! I don't know why I didn't think to really try this before, but was using all last night and really enjoying myself. Whether you are trying to burn a group of adds or burn the boss, or both... it really does the job well. But be warned it really does make things very angry with you, so you need to make sure the tank has a good threat lead before hitting it.

I would still like to see a comparison of doing flare at the end of a fire cycle, verses going straight to blizzard 3.
so Fire until < 1038 - Flare - transpose - blizzard 3 - thunder 2 - etc
vs Fire until < 1038 - Blizzard 3 - thunder 2.

Why I ask, is because at first glance this seems really good, but the problem with it is 2 fold. When you hit Flare you have 0 Mana left, so after hitting transpose you must wait for one tick regeneration which sets you back by about 1 GCD. The second problem being that you are now full length casting Blizzard 3, so eating 3 seconds instead of 1.7. So the question is, does the damage of flare make up for and exceed the added time spent out of AF3.

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Originally Posted by ChickensEvil

(snip)Fire (1.5 - I still don't know how I get a short cast fire here... but I don't complain)(snip)

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Perchance from the short delay between when Fire III finishes casting and when it applies AF3? It occurs because AF3 gets applied by the damage instead of the cast finishing, which happens at the end of the spell animation. By that point you're already casting Fire, so it still registers as being under UI3.

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Originally Posted by Shisou

Perchance from the short delay between when Fire III finishes casting and when it applies AF3? It occurs because AF3 gets applied by the damage instead of the cast finishing, which happens at the end of the spell animation. By that point you're already casting Fire, so it still registers as being under UI3.

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I am willing to bet that is what it is, which I am not complaining about one bit. The only time that bits you in the ass is if for WHATEVER reason, you have to go straight from say Blizzard 3 to Fire 3, you need to make sure to wait until you have actually picked up the UI3 Buff BEFORE casting Fire 3.

But I wasn't 100% on why it was happening, and was at the very least trying to account for it in the timers, although I am not sure 1.5 is correct, that is what it seems like it might be, since I fire off the ability at around 1.25 (or less with some spell speed) and have to wait just a hair for the GCD on the abilities to come back, so it is a guess that the time is 1.5.

Awesome stuff I'm reading here! Back to a more general question. Would it be a bad idea to macro Raging Strikes to Fire I? Just to make sure that I am always using it and its up each cooldown?

There are two situations where that might be bad

Beginning of the fight: depending on your tank and how much better your gear is compared to them (or if they are just a bad tank at generating threat... happens sometimes) hitting your CD on your first Fire cycle might be too much damage too soon.

During very specific burn phases where you need as much DPS you can squeeze out. For example, Titan during the heart phase, Ifrit during the spikes, Garuda is just an all around burn this, burn that... so 2 of 3 primals have distinct burn phases. You pulling out 5 more dps because you always hit it on CD, verses causing a wipe because you didn't have that extra 20% damage during the burn phase... I would take the not wiping part :)

Otherwise, I wouldn't think it would be bad. I just have it easily within reach so I don't have a delay, rather than macro it together.

I never use raging strikes unless tank I'm safely in yellow or tank really knows what he's doing.

It's called "Raging Strikes" for a reason.

I.E. It makes tanks rage when you take aggro from them. Or it makes healers rage because they actually have to heal you. Or it makes other DPS rage because now they're doing < 1/2 the damage your doing...

Eventually, it makes you rage because your PUG is depressed that they're not better then you, and quit the dungeon without saying anything.