Black Mage Rotation Theory

Stat Weights

Int -> Acc(440) -> Crit -> Determination -> Spell Speed -> Vit


Basic Single Target Rotation

• Pre Cast Thunder III before the tank pulls (If you miss this chance go with Thunder II)
• Raging Strikes + Swiftcast + Fire III (Use Fire III before raging strikes for maximum uptime)
• Fire (Untill you are around 20% MP)
• Blizzard III (This will take you to Umbral Ice III for MP regeneration)
• Thunder II (Reapply only if needed otherwise I'll use Blizzard I untill MP is full)
• Fire III
• Fire (Untill 20% MP)
• Repeat Rotation

Single Target Rotation w/ Flare (Situation Dependent if Swiftcast + Transpose are off CD)

• Pre Cast Thunder III (Use before the tank pulls otherwise use Thunder II)
• Raging Strikes + Fire III (Use Fire III before raging strikes for maximum uptime)
• Fire (Untill 20% MP)
• Flare
• Convert
• Swiftcast + Flare
• Transpose
• Blizzard III (This will take you to Umbral Ice III for MP regenration)
• Thunder II (Reapply only if needed otherwise I'll use Blizzard I untill MP is full)
• Fire III
• Fire (Untill 20%)
• Repeat Basic Single Target Rotation

Basic AOE Rotation

• Quelling Strikes + Fire III (Use Fire III before Quelling Strikes for maximum uptime)
• Fire II (Untill 20%)
• Blizzard III (This will take you to Umbral Ice III for MP regeneration)
• Blizzard II
• Fire III
• Fire II (Untill 20%)
• Repeat AOE Rotation

AOE Rotation w/ Flare (Situation Dependent if Swiftcast + Transpose is off CD)

• Quelling Strikes + Fire III (Use Fire III before quelling strikes before Fire III for maximum uptime)
• Fire II (Untill 20%)
• Flare
• Convert
• Swiftcast + Flare
• Transpose
• Blizzard III ( This will take you to Umbral Ice III for MP regeneration)
• Blizzard II
• Fire III
• Fire II (Untill 20%)
• Repeat Basic AOE Rotation

Tricks of the Trade

• Only cast Fire III at the start of a rotation or coming from Blizzard III. Fire is your primary spell to be casting for maximum damage.
• Flare is a great tool to be used for burst phases. Make sure swiftcast + transpose are both up when you know a burst phase is coming!
• If you have a FireStarter proc up when you are casting Blizzard III + Thunder II instead of using that proc in Umbral Ice III take the time to cast Transpose so you will go into Umbral Fire I. This will allow your free instant cast Fire III to do about 300+ more damage.
• Casting Thunder is great to use after going into Umbral Ice III. The cast time allows for all of your mana to come back before heading back into your fire rotation.
• Always weave in your firestarter and thundercloud procs!

Useful Keybindings

/macroicon "Sleep"
/ac Sleep <Focus>

This macro is used to keep your primary tab target on the main boss while being able to sleep any adds.

/macroicon "Apocatastasis"
/ac Apocatastasis <mo>

This macro is used to cast this buff on any raid member that needs it at a particular moment without you having to tab to them. (A must for T5!)

/macroicon "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <focus>
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <mo>

This macro has two parts. The first being a focus so you can focus an ally party member and always jump to them. The second part is for if you don't have focus set and need to jump to any random member at a certain time.

/macroicon "Quelling Strikes"
/ac "Quelling Strikes" <me>
/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>

This macro allows for a single button for two buffs. I do have both on my keybinds, but sometimes it nice to have to only hit one button.

/macroicon "Eye for an Eye"
/ac "Eye for an Eye" <tt>

This macro allows for you to not have to tab target the eye for an eye spell. Since it primary used on your main tank you will not have to tab to him.

/macroicon "Virus"
/ac "Virus" <focus>
/ac "Virus" <t>

This macro lets you set a focus and always use virus on that target. I find this macro most useful for T5

Cool post. Personally I dont start off with T3. I go B3 > Swiftcast > T3 > RS >F3> dat F1 spam, mainly so F3 costs less and my MP bar is full when I start the fire. If it's a boss that may be difficult I'll RS before T3. I never use t2 either. i know it's a shorter initial cast time, but I'm okay with a second for initial cast for the amount of more chances at thundercloud (man i love me some thundercloud) at 340 pot. To each his own.

I'm already doing exactly what the OP posted. Thanks for the confirmation :)

My single target and single target with Flare is fairly similar, except I use Swiftcast with Thunder 3 to start on the non-Flare rotation. I also don't think it's worth casting Thunder 2 at any point because the DoT damage of Thunder 2 is lower than Thunder 3. (at least when I observed it without any buffs it was) This might require some more testing on my part just to confirm though.

I also did an AK with another BLM last night where we just practically only did Flare spam on groups of 3 or more mobs. Stuff dies pretty quick. :)

Swiftcast + Fire 3 > Flare > Convert > Flare > Transpose > Fire 3 > Flare > Repeat at Transpose

For pure single target with raging strikes, you can (and should) use convert while still in astral mode. This will prolong the fire phase to last just as long as raging strikes so you're not wasting half of raging strikes casting the mediocre B3/T2or3/F3 filler while MP is regening. Raging and convert happen to have the same cooldown timer as well. Also, you shouldn't apply raging strikes until after F3 as F3 with no astral buff is quite weak. This is especially true if you use your ST rotation that includes Flare. In that rotation that you posted, you waste 3.5 seconds of Raging Strikes while you are casting an unbuffed (no astral stacks) Fire III.... thats a baddie habbit.

I know you'd like this to be the 'end all arguements' BLM rotation thread but that simply cannot exist without accurate parsers.

Cheers.

I thought it was proven to just use Thunder III over thunder II. Has this been proven to be better to use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orophin

My single target and single target with Flare is fairly similar, except I use Swiftcast with Thunder 3 to start on the non-Flare rotation. I also don't think it's worth casting Thunder 2 at any point because the DoT damage of Thunder 2 is lower than Thunder 3. (at least when I observed it without any buffs it was) This might require some more testing on my part just to confirm though.

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T2 and T3 do same dot damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orophin

I also did an AK with another BLM last night where we just practically only did Flare spam on groups of 3 or more mobs. Stuff dies pretty quick. :)

Swiftcast + Fire 3 > Flare > Convert > Flare > Transpose > Fire 3 > Flare > Repeat at Transpose

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So what do you do when you get to "Repeat at Transpose"? You just stand around doing nothing for 10 seconds while transpose comes off of cooldown? Or you wait 10 seconds for Astral to fall off then normal MP regen ticks? Because you're certainly not getting MP back any other way

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jinrya-Geki

I thought it was proven to just use Thunder III over thunder II. Has this been proven to be better to use?

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Thunder II and Thunder III have the same dot damage, but Thunder III is a slightly longer cast time. In the long run you are going to be wasting time when you could just be doing Thunder II and getting back into your fire rotation. As to why I choose Thunder I over Thunder II is the fact that it does more damage and when going from Umbral Fire III to Umbral Ice III to allows me to get all of my MP back instead of Thunder where it could possibly only give 70%.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dragonflyseksparade

For pure single target with raging strikes, you can (and should) use convert while still in astral mode. This will prolong the fire phase to last just as long as raging strikes so you're not wasting half of raging strikes casting the mediocre B3/T2or3/F3 filler while MP is regening. Raging and convert happen to have the same cooldown timer as well. Also, you shouldn't apply raging strikes until after F3 as F3 with no astral buff is quite weak. This is especially true if you use your ST rotation that includes Flare. In that rotation that you posted, you waste 3.5 seconds of Raging Strikes while you are casting an unbuffed (no astral stacks) Fire III.... thats a baddie habbit.

I know you'd like this to be the 'end all arguements' BLM rotation thread but that simply cannot exist without accurate parsers.

Cheers.

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I do use convert to stay into fire longer, but a lot of the end game content in this game require phases of burst. In that regard I hang onto the flare combo. Also raging strikes is also questionable when to use if you know a burst phase is coming up. The rotations listed were meant to simply be very basic everything is subject to change in a fight. None of these rotations are "end all" they are just meant to help players get a general rotation down pat.

what is precast?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Allesasi

what is precast?

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He just means start your cast before the enemy is engaged. It's basically telling you to get a headstart on your cast time.

Concerns:

If you raging strikes on your first fire cycle, you WILL pull aggro if you get any procs at all.

Why no double flare with a fire 1 and a potential fire-starter proc?

Why no ether flares?

Why not blizz 1 instead of scathe?

Still unconvinced that transpose into firestarter is better than breaking/holding blizz 3. You lose a quick fire 1 cast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HoroBoro

Concerns:

Why not blizz 1 instead of scathe?

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we can easily calculate whether scathe or blizz one is better

B1 = 150 Potency
Scathe = 120 Potency + 120*1/5 = 144

if you don't have to move, never ever use scathe DPS wise

Quote:

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Still unconvinced that transpose into firestarter is better than breaking/holding blizz 3. You lose a quick fire 1 cast.

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I made the effort to test that, not 100 accurate but it should give away the correct answer

Transpose + Fire3(firestarter)= 690 -748 dmg range with my equipment = 719 avg.
Fire1 + Fire3 (firestarter) = 237-252 + 489-550 = 245 + 519 = 764

you lose 79 mana due to fire 1 though, but it didn't matter I was able to cast thunder 2 , in fact transpose would've ruined my second UI3 tick and the casting time of fire1 (even though its really fast) was enough to fill up my mana to 100%
though having said that, it's "luck" whether I end up with ~400 mana after my AF3->UI3 switch or with ~235, I don't know how I can force it to always happen, except for going like 15 piety or something

for the double/tripple flare part, I wonder if its worth it or not, hardcasting flare always feels like a pain in the ass and I hate to rely on the first transpose tick.


btw, is it possible to always cast 5 fire1 during your AF phase? because my rotation seems kinda off from time to time even though I'm not doing anything out of order
sometimes I have around ~1100 Mana after my 4th Fire1 and sometimes only 952, 952 will force me to cast Thunder1 if I cast another fire, ~1100 will allow me to do Thunder 2
is passive regeneration doing this?

I updated some of my rotation, and added in the macros that I personally use. Enjoy!

How about t2>sleep for a rotation?
Just kidding, but some dungeons i usually do so as i heard it allows tank time to get agro
Just switching from a PLD to thm/bm i know very well how easy it is for bm to get more agro then tanks if not careful
More info for me to obsorb so thanks for making this thread

"Single Target Rotation w/ Flare (Situation Dependent if Swiftcast + Transpose are off CD)

Transpose
Fire (Attempting to get FS Proc)
Blizzard III (This will take you to Umbral Ice III for MP regenration)
Thunder II (Reapply only if needed otherwise I'll use Blizzard I untill MP is full)


Just curious about this, when you transpose after your Swiftcast>Flare, you Transpose and start in Umbral I don't understand why you would spend the time building up AF when if you transpose and just use B3 you can be at full mana to restart your rotation where you want to use Blizzard 1 to fill up your mana?

I think it should be:
Blizzard 3
Thunder 3 or 2 (by the time this cast is done and your next cast you will be at full mana)
RS + Fire 3
Fire (20% ish MP)
Flare (this part you can choose if you want to double dip with Convert and Swiftcast Flare, its a personal choice)
Transpose
Blizzard 3
Thunder (if needed, if no procs happened)
Rinse and repeat.

Yeah you're right I had the fire thing in there before I had switched to the double flare using transpose thing and forgot to take it out. It most certainly is better to use blizzard III or just go ahead and use Thunder II and go back into your fire rotation. I updated the rotation page!

I do:

Thunder III > Fire > Fire > Fire > Raging Strikes > Fire until 400mp > Swiftcast > Flare > Convert > Fire > blizzard III > Thunder II > Fire III > and start all over again

Fire III and Thunder III went proc happen and dont use flare unless i have Swiftcast and convert up

In very burst-efficient situations, such as large WP or AK pulls, I find using Flare as main damage to be faster. It outputs more dmg in less time when there are > 3 targets on the field.

If swift/convert/RS are up, meet PIE floor for 1116 MP after convert
Fire III
Raging Strikes
Swiftcast+Flare
Convert
Fire II (if PIE >= 253)
Flare
Transpose
Blizzard II (continue as below)
(basic rotation if none of the above exist)
Fire III
Flare
Transpose
Blizzard II
Repeat from green

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

I do:

Thunder III > Fire > Fire > Fire > Raging Strikes > Fire until 400mp > Swiftcast > Flare > Convert > Fire > blizzard III > Thunder II > Fire III > and start all over again

Fire III and Thunder III went proc happen and dont use flare unless i have Swiftcast and convert up

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Not sure why you are hard casting Thunder III you are using more time to do the same potency as a thunder II. Also if you are going to use your convert it would seem better to go ahead and flare twice and then transpose.