Should Thunder be left out of rotation for BLM?

Should Thunder still be left out of rotation for BLM? For the longest time I remember this was meta.

No /10char

No, why would you ignore it :O
Your thunder dot uptime should be as high as possible. Since astral fire lasts longer now, you are even safe to hardcast thunder in your fire phase (if the dot ran out) without loosing astral fire. And the thunder proc is nice for movement too.

No way! Sure its a mediocre DoT but the thunderstorm proc does a nice chunk of damage and it lets you spread it to other mobs if they group up. Honestly a great and useful game mechanic over all. Now Freeze on the other hand >.>

No.jobs are getting too simplified as it is and blm is an easy job to play.

We should keep thunder. Black mage, more or less, has been an elemental caster for final fantasy. Taking away elements is just no in my opinion.

I don't think it was ever left out the rotation.

Rule of thumb: Yes, Thunder is worth using.

Details for single target:
- A rotation with 100% Thunder DoT uptime + 1 appropriately timed Thundercloud proc is better than a rotation without Thunder.
- A rotation with 100% Thunder DoT uptime + 2 appropriately timed Thundercloud procs is much better than a rotation without Thunder.
However:
- Spamming Thundercloud and thus overriding a significant duration of the DoT is generally not worth it as the direct potency per second of Thundercloud is less than that of the overall rotation (i.e. a DPS loss)
- A rotation where you are always hard casting Thunder is not worth it, you want at least 1 appropriately timed Thundercloud proc in there (which can be forced with Sharpcast) to avoid cast time / MP issues / potency loss.

For AoE:
- AoE Thundercloud is always good, so keep the DoT up and force procs with Sharpcast... Instant cast AF3 Flare and Foul are better though, so just spamming Thundercloud isn't necessarily a good idea, especially since good timing will help you keep the DoT up and (hopefully) avoid having to hard cast Thunder.

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Originally Posted by supaiku

No, why would you ignore it :O
Your thunder dot uptime should be as high as possible. Since astral fire lasts longer now, you are even safe to hardcast thunder in your fire phase (if the dot ran out) without loosing astral fire. And the thunder proc is nice for movement too.

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No, No and NO! If Thunder falls off during your AF phase, and you don't have Thundercloud, just let it go and get though the rest of your rotation faster. Hard casting Thunder isn’t worth it, especially if you end up screwing yourself on MP and losing a F4 / Despair.
Note: Hard casting Thunder in UI is different as you are generally waiting on MP anyway and will (hopefully) get or force and Thundercloud proc for use in AF.

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Originally Posted by odym82

No way! Sure its a mediocre DoT but the thunderstorm proc does a nice chunk of damage and it lets you spread it to other mobs if they group up. Honestly a great and useful game mechanic over all. Now Freeze on the other hand >.>

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What about Freeze? Seems like a very valuable aoe tool.

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

No, No and NO! If Thunder falls off during your AF phase, and you don't have Thundercloud, just let it go and get though the rest of your rotation faster. Hard casting Thunder isn’t worth it, especially if you end up screwing yourself on MP and losing a F4 / Despair.
Note: Hard casting Thunder in UI is different as you are generally waiting on MP anyway and will (hopefully) get or force and Thundercloud proc for use in AF.

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If you start your Astral Fire phase with the full 10.000 mp the thunder cast won't make you loose a F4 or Despair. That being said, you are right, normally one should have the Thunder proc for AF anyway, at least I think I have the proc during my fire phase like 95% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

What about Freeze? Seems like a very valuable aoe tool.

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Indeed, Freeze is great now :D

Freeze is only great in the later levels when it gives you an Umbral Heart. Otherwise it’s just a potency 100 AOE which is what it often gets reduced to when hitting the dungeon roulettes and other level syncs

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Originally Posted by odym82

Freeze is only great in the later levels when it gives you an Umbral Heart. Otherwise it’s just a potency 100 AOE which is what it often gets reduced to when hitting the dungeon roulettes and other level syncs

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Spamming* Freeze is actually better AoE DPS than trying to do the Fire II rotation (due to potency losses in switching between IU and AF)... so yeah, right from level 35 Freeze is pretty great.

* Though don't forget to do Thunder II / Thundercloud.

Weird I only use Freeze when level synced to do a quick replenish of MP

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Originally Posted by odym82

Weird I only use Freeze when level synced to do a quick replenish of MP

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Fire II has a long cast time, and so you are clipping your GCD pretty significantly on just hardcasting fire II and it only has a potency of 80, which means even at AF3 it is somewhere around 145 potency. for a 3 second cast time! Freeze is a potency 100 with no falloff OR Mp cost (in Umbral Ice 3) and also auto generates UI 3. Before the ability to triple cast flare, the faster cast time and higher uptime of Freeze will win out on fire II's gcd clipping, especially with AoE thunder/thundercloud procs.

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Originally Posted by Chiraisu

Fire II has a long cast time, and so you are clipping your GCD pretty significantly on just hardcasting fire II and it only has a potency of 80, which means even at AF3 it is somewhere around 145 potency. for a 3 second cast time! Freeze is a potency 100 with no falloff OR Mp cost (in Umbral Ice 3) and also auto generates UI 3. Before the ability to triple cast flare, the faster cast time and higher uptime of Freeze will win out on fire II's gcd clipping, especially with AoE thunder/thundercloud procs.

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I had to run the numbers, but you made an error. The issue isn't that Fire 2 clips the GCD. If you normalize Fire 2 to a 2.5s GCD, it comes in swinging for 120 potency per target on a 2.5s GCD (with an actual cast time of 3s, it's normalized to 2.5 to make it easier to directly compare with freeze).

There are 3 things that sink fire 2 though.

The first is that casting fire 3 costs you a ton of damage, because it is a single target spell compared to a minimum of 3 targets, the break point for BLMs starting to AoE. And at that point, the mere act of casting fire 3 is already sinking the benefits of casting Fire 2 twice, with a little bit of change on top. This gets vastly worse the more targets there are.

The second is that the act of swapping from UI to AF and back costs potency as well. Every spell only does 70% listed damage if you are using an opposite attunement spell. So a 100 potency spell only does 70. The swap cost of going from AF back into UI costs about 1.5 fire 2s in potency per target lost due to opportunity cost. There's an argument that you can just transpose and then freeze, but that has cost associated with it as well in lost GCD time!

The third is that you only get 3 total fire 2s per AF cycle, 4 once you hit 58 if you have 2 umbral hearts. Which means you will always be at a loss no matter how many targets are up below 58, just period.

Flare starts to throw a spanner in the works, but it's probably not worth casting outside of convert windows because the transpose back into UI can cost you most of the gains from Flare, and fire 2 is just slowing down doing more flares the second you get flare. And once you hit 68, Flare flat out out-competes fire 2 once you can double cast it, so throwing more flares out is better than casting any fire 2s, especially since you can only cast fire 2s as long as you don't consume the last heart.

Honorable mention for levels 35-39, where you have freeze but have to hardcast fire 3, completely destroying any benefit fire 2 would bring no matter the situation.

So yeah, the second you get Freeze, you may as well delete Fire 2 from your bar.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

The second is that the act of swapping from UI to AF and back costs potency as well. Every spell only does 70% listed damage if you are using an opposite attunement spell. So a 100 potency spell only does 70. The swap cost of going from AF back into UI costs about 1.5 fire 2s in potency per target lost due to opportunity cost. There's an argument that you can just transpose and then freeze, but that has cost associated with it as well in lost GCD time!

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What? This is the first time I eaver heared that. Source? The Job guide only says Astral Fire increases fire damage and mp cost and Umbral Ice offers mp regeneration. And Magick and Mend 2 trait says the cast times are half for the opposite element, but nowhere does it say damage is reduced for the opposite element.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

Flare starts to throw a spanner in the works, but it's probably not worth casting outside of convert windows because the transpose back into UI can cost you most of the gains from Flare, and fire 2 is just slowing down doing more flares the second you get flare. And once you hit 68, Flare flat out out-competes fire 2 once you can double cast it, so throwing more flares out is better than casting any fire 2s, especially since you can only cast fire 2s as long as you don't consume the last heart.

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So I should just spam Freeze until I hit 68 and only ever switch to AF when Manafont is up for double Flare?

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Originally Posted by Tint

What? This is the first time I eaver heared that. Source? The Job guide only says Astral Fire increases fire damage and mp cost and Umbral Ice offers mp regeneration. And Magick and Mend 2 trait says the cast times are half for the opposite element, but nowhere does it say damage is reduced for the opposite element.

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Hmm, I'm sure it used to say it... but anyway it's a thing, try it on a striking dummy.

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Originally Posted by Tint

So I should just spam Freeze until I hit 68 and only ever switch to AF when Manafont is up for double Flare?

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Instant cast Flare in AF3 is also worth it (especially if you can cover any Transpose lag with a Thundercloud), but otherwise, basically, yes.

Edit: Actually, I'll correct myself: You can do better damage with a Fire III > Fire II * (1 to 3) > Flare > Transpose rotation from level 50 to level 68. Fire II becomes (technically) worth it at this point due to the extra potency of Flare, which offsets the losses due to AF / UI switching (even with a few seconds of Transpose lag). One caveat though is that you always want to be ending the rotation with Flare and taking full advantage of its damage (i.e. be sure the mobs will live long enough) otherwise you would have been better off just spamming Freeze.

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

Hmm, I'm sure it used to say it... but anyway it's a thing, try it on a striking dummy

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I swear, there's a lot about the whole UI/AF mechanic that doesn't get clearly covered very well. I think part of it is now that they're not listed as status buffs, we don't have a means to just mouse-over and see what the buffs do. You have to go into the job gauge description now just to learn some of what the buffs do. The absolute worst offender, tho, is B3/F3. Might be wrong, but, I think that nowhere in the game will tell the new player "Hey! At full ice/fire stacks, you can use these level 3 spells with reduced cast time to quickly swap to full stacks of the opposite element!" Sure, it feels nice educating the budding BLM in Stone Vigil just hitting 40. But some clarity on the full effects of the mechanics would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

Instant cast Flare in AF3 is also worth it (especially if you can cover any Transpose lag with a Thundercloud), but otherwise, basically, yes.

Edit: Actually, I'll correct myself: You can do better damage with a Fire III > Fire II * (1 to 3) > Flare > Transpose rotation from level 50 to level 68. Fire II becomes (technically) worth it at this point due to the extra potency of Flare, which offsets the losses due to AF / UI switching (even with a few seconds of Transpose lag). One caveat though is that you always want to be ending the rotation with Flare and taking full advantage of its damage (i.e. be sure the mobs will live long enough) otherwise you would have been better off just spamming Freeze.

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Kinda thought this was a bit of a contested subject? Fire 2, as I understand it, is just taking up time you could be using on Flare, even at 50. Unless I haven't kept up with new info, I was under the impression that 50s AoE amounts to Fire 3, Flare, Transpose, repeat (with appropriate Thunders, naturally). Why wait for more MP regeneration than needed, and instead just roll right back over to Flare soon as you can (MP ticks allowing).
But I'm hardly a meta-gamer, and I know that, if nothing else, this does feel somehow less satisfying. Transpose? And hard-casting F3? It just feels wrong.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Kinda thought this was a bit of a contested subject? Fire 2, as I understand it, is just taking up time you could be using on Flare, even at 50. Unless I haven't kept up with new info, I was under the impression that 50s AoE amounts to Fire 3, Flare, Transpose, repeat (with appropriate Thunders, naturally). Why wait for more MP regeneration than needed, and instead just roll right back over to Flare soon as you can (MP ticks allowing).
But I'm hardly a meta-gamer, and I know that, if nothing else, this does feel somehow less satisfying. Transpose? And hard-casting F3? It just feels wrong.

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You're correct. Fire 2 is always a DPS loss once you have either Freeze or Flare.
You want to spam Freeze up to level 50, then squeeze in as many Flares as possible after that. Fire III > Flare (Manafont>Flare) > Transpose > Freeze > repeat is the best up to 68, and even then, it's just about getting more Flares in.


EDIT: yes Acidblood, but ran out of posts to respond.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Kinda thought this was a bit of a contested subject? Fire 2, as I understand it, is just taking up time you could be using on Flare, even at 50. Unless I haven't kept up with new info, I was under the impression that 50s AoE amounts to Fire 3, Flare, Transpose, repeat (with appropriate Thunders, naturally). Why wait for more MP regeneration than needed, and instead just roll right back over to Flare soon as you can (MP ticks allowing).
But I'm hardly a meta-gamer, and I know that, if nothing else, this does feel somehow less satisfying. Transpose? And hard-casting F3? It just feels wrong.

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I'm not aware that anything has changed, and AFAIK it is contested because while the Fire III > Flare > Transpose rotation is theoretically better (just) it is also more sensitive to the timing of MP ticks (due to the relatively frequent use of Transpose), edit: and it loses out on large groups due to poorer scaling... there is also the practical issue of Flares long cast time (i.e. if the target mob dies, or you are forced to move, it can be a relatively large DPS loss).

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

You're correct. Fire 2 is always a DPS loss once you have either Freeze or Flare.
You want to spam Freeze up to level 50, then squeeze in as many Flares as possible after that. Fire III > Flare (Manafont>Flare) > Transpose > Blizzard III > repeat is the best up to 68, and even then, it's just about getting more Flares in.

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Blizzard III? Did you mean Freeze?

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

Blizzard III? Did you mean Freeze?

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(they've edited it to be Freeze by this point, but) This is the one point of the rotation I was never quite certain/clear on. I couldn't quite tell if the consensus was to skip B3 (Freeze now, after it's been made useful). On the one hand, it's one more spell getting in the way of Flare. And back when it was B3, it was a long one. I suppose now with Freeze, it may probably math out better. But, prior to Eno, I sometimes thought, after Transpose, you'd maybe just do Thunder 2, Fire 3, Flare, and Transpose again. Between casting T2 and hardcasting F3, it should mostly probably maybe be enough MP recovery for that Flare? Idk. But I guess it is a null point now with Freeze. Quick (quicker than B3 anyway) cast for full UI, bigger MP regen per tick, for quick cast to full AF. Hardly a contest now.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

(they've edited it to be Freeze by this point, but) This is the one point of the rotation I was never quite certain/clear on. I couldn't quite tell if the consensus was to skip B3 (Freeze now, after it's been made useful). On the one hand, it's one more spell getting in the way of Flare. And back when it was B3, it was a long one. I suppose now with Freeze, it may probably math out better. But, prior to Eno, I sometimes thought, after Transpose, you'd maybe just do Thunder 2, Fire 3, Flare, and Transpose again. Between casting T2 and hardcasting F3, it should mostly probably maybe be enough MP recovery for that Flare? Idk. But I guess it is a null point now with Freeze. Quick (quicker than B3 anyway) cast for full UI, bigger MP regen per tick, for quick cast to full AF. Hardly a contest now.

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MP isn't an issue, 1 tick under UI is 3200 which is more than enough for T2 + F3 + Flare (min 800) ... from the math I did Freeze after Transpose was a small gain due to its damage + reduced cast time of F3 thanks to UI3. (I haven't done the math using B3 but I don't imagine it would have ever been worth using as it would effectively extend the rotation by a full GCD for only 240 potency on a single target).

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

Spamming* Freeze is actually better AoE DPS than trying to do the Fire II rotation (due to potency losses in switching between IU and AF)... so yeah, right from level 35 Freeze is pretty great.

* Though don't forget to do Thunder II / Thundercloud.

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It is? Wow! I'm going to check this out.

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Originally Posted by Acidblood

I'm not aware that anything has changed, and AFAIK it is contested because while the Fire III > Flare > Transpose rotation is theoretically better (just) it is also more sensitive to the timing of MP ticks (due to the relatively frequent use of Transpose), edit: and it loses out on large groups due to poorer scaling... there is also the practical issue of Flares long cast time (i.e. if the target mob dies, or you are forced to move, it can be a relatively large DPS loss).

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AFAIK, as of ShB, Flare scales vastly better than Fire 2 no matter the group size, because Flare is 100% for the first target, and 60% for every other target (tooltip reads 40% less). At 60%, Flare is a solid 50% better than fire 2 at blowing up enemies per unit time spent on it. It still has all of the other problems, the biggest by far being server tics on MP regen, but in a perfect world Flare just craps all over fire 2.

At some point, the devs just flat out need to sit down and design the BLM aoe rotation at all levels and make it so that that is how the rotation plays best. Fire 3 is dumb in the aoe rotation, and fire 2 being a dead skill is also dumb.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

AFAIK, as of ShB, Flare scales vastly better than Fire 2 no matter the group size, because Flare is 100% for the first target, and 60% for every other target (tooltip reads 40% less). At 60%, Flare is a solid 50% better than fire 2 at blowing up enemies per unit time spent on it. It still has all of the other problems, the biggest by far being server tics on MP regen, but in a perfect world Flare just craps all over fire 2.

At some point, the devs just flat out need to sit down and design the BLM aoe rotation at all levels and make it so that that is how the rotation plays best. Fire 3 is dumb in the aoe rotation, and fire 2 being a dead skill is also dumb.

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Fire II desperately needs a cast time and MP cost reduction; 2.5s and 1100MP (2200 in AF = 4 casts per rotation) would put it above Freeze spam (at least at AF3) and single slow cast Flare. I don't really care if it becomes useless at level 68 (but an upgraded version could be nice).

As for the Fire III issue, I'm not sure it's that much of an issue... It would be nice if Aspect Mastery affected Flare, but BLM already does very high AoE damage post level 68 / 72, so... What I do think we need though is for Magick and Mend II to be lowered to level 34 to match up with Fire III, and for Blizzard III (currently 40) and Freeze (currently 35) to swap places, as hard casting Fire III and using Freeze to transistion on single target should not be encouraged.

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Originally Posted by Tint

What? This is the first time I eaver heared that. Source? The Job guide only says Astral Fire increases fire damage and mp cost and Umbral Ice offers mp regeneration. And Magick and Mend 2 trait says the cast times are half for the opposite element, but nowhere does it say damage is reduced for the opposite element.

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AF1: 0% mana regen, +40% fire damage, +100% fire mana costs, -10% ice damage, -50% ice mana costs
AF2: 0% mana regen, +60% fire damage, +100% fire mana costs, -20% ice damage, -75% ice mana costs
AF3: 0% mana regen, +80% fire damage, +100% fire mana costs, -30% ice damage, -75% ice mana costs (-100% at lvl 72), +100% ice cast speed

UI1: +30% mana regen, -10% fire damage, -50% fire mana costs
UI2: +45% mana regen, -20% fire damage, -75% fire mana costs
UI3: +60% mana regen, -30% fire damage, -75% fire mana costs (-100% at lvl 72), +100% fire cast speed