BLM and swiftcast

I was just curious, but is there ever a reason to use swiftcast on a BLM other than for mobility? Seems pointless to swiftcast and damage spells but I maybe wrong.

If you're not including Swiftcast in your rotation, you're doing it wrong. http://i.imgur.com/UL9rGCx.gif

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Originally Posted by Devaking55

I was just curious, but is there ever a reason to use swiftcast on a BLM other than for mobility? Seems pointless to swiftcast and damage spells but I maybe wrong.

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Are you kidding? Have you even looked at your spells? Look up flare. Imaging nuking your largest damn nuke instantly, with no cast time. How about that? How about instantly healing yourself when you're in danger? How about instantly starting your fire rotation when you're not on Umbral Ice III? DUDE!!!! Damn it. Google. Learn your rotations. Don't start a totally useless thread like this with NO research done what so ever.

Wow...there's no reason to totally antagonize him >.>

I guess curiosity killed the cat.

Anyway what they're saying is basically true, Swiftcast is more useful the longer the spell you're casting.

Its great for flare, and like they said, opening with swift Fire III for 3 stacks of Astral to open your rotation.

Interestingly enough, it is actually more useful for SMN/SCH/WHM, as they can swiftcast Res which is AMAZING, as well as swiftcast pet and swiftcast shadowflare.

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Originally Posted by diamondfish

Are you kidding? Have you even looked at your spells? Look up flare. Imaging nuking your largest damn nuke instantly, with no cast time. How about that? How about instantly healing yourself when you're in danger? How about instantly starting your fire rotation when you're not on Umbral Ice III? DUDE!!!! Damn it. Google. Learn your rotations. Don't start a totally useless thread like this with NO research done what so ever.

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wow ok, first off, i forgot about flare, secondly, healing made sense but if i have to use swiftcast to heal myself im prolly dead anyways, i dont see why swiftcasting fire3 is useful it still invokes a cooldown, so mainly i was wondering if that was actually worth spending a swiftcast on. its not a totally pointless thread but your post was mostly pointless.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Wow...there's no reason to totally antagonize him >.>

I guess curiosity killed the cat.

Anyway what they're saying is basically true, Swiftcast is more useful the longer the spell you're casting.

Its great for flare, and like they said, opening with swift Fire III for 3 stacks of Astral to open your rotation.

Interestingly enough, it is actually more useful for SMN/SCH/WHM, as they can swiftcast Res which is AMAZING, as well as swiftcast pet and swiftcast shadowflare.

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i play a summoner and a scholar so yea i found swiftcast very useful for those classes, rather save swiftcast as a panic button on a blm for something >.>

Invokes CD and casting time is a totally different thing. For a spell to cast, you will go through casting time. Swiftcast simply eliminates that.

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Originally Posted by Marcusow86

Invokes CD and casting time is a totally different thing. For a spell to cast, you will go through casting time. Swiftcast simply eliminates that.

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yes but then you do nothing after you swiftcast, waiting for the gcd, so what im saying is rather than wait for a gcd, wouldnt it be better to cast the spell, and save swiftcast for something else?

The GCD is faster than Fire 3 casting time if you're not in Umbral Ice 3. So yes, it's useful to include Swiftcast-->Fire III at the opening of your damage rotation.

Swiftcast does has more utility with AoE, so if you expect to AoE during a fight, save it for that. Even then, however, its only really useful in conjunction with Flare-->Convert, so you have potentially 4 Swiftcasts to make use of before your next Convert is up. Might as well use them on Fire III's.

LOL

People, people...relax. Grab a drink, hook yourself up with a "J". Talk about blackmage around the campfire you made (using "Fire"). I'm also learning to be a Blackmage on both Exodus and Excalibur(see what i did there? ... bah, w/e)

Learning the best way to be a nuker too, it would be very educational for me so don't spoil the thread! We all know what "Surecast" is used for- situational stuff. Same thing as "Instant-cast". ;D

I'm still level 20 on Exodus but on Excalibur I'm lv.36. I haven't made a macro for it yet but it would be a very good Idea and mix it in your emergency slot. Not sure what the GCD for "Swiftcast" but I'm sure it's for emergencies. Situational. I wouldn't say it's mainly for rotations, unless you're struggling to make those chains- so you swiftcast a nuke!

Strictly situational.

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Originally Posted by Devaking55

I was just curious, but is there ever a reason to use swiftcast on a BLM other than for mobility? Seems pointless to swiftcast and damage spells but I maybe wrong.

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Swiftcast should be included in your rotation in order to maximize your dps. One good way to utilize it efficiently is to use it when you have just enough mana to cast flare. The instant flare will trigger a cooldown, but it won't matter because immediately after casting flare, you'll want to use transpose to start getting your mana back asap.

In some fights, swiftcast should be saved for situational use. An example is during Garuda, in which during phase 1, you'll want to swiftcast+flare the feathers as soon as they all spawn on top of her.

Swiftcast should mainly be used for 2 things as a BLM, movement casts and casts that are longer than the GCD.

Generally when you use fire3 you already have umbral stacks, and if you are in such a situation swiftcast will work better with fire1 (you can get the firestarter proc before the gcd is up on an insta-fire. Save yourself a cast). Beside that specific situation, though, people are right so far. It's main uses are flare/mobility/opener.