The Black Mage Rotations

[Synovius]

Pessimistick beat me to the punch! Mecan, that's a lengthy post but I can't really get behind much of anything you said. You, yourself, said that BLMs are "creatures of situation" (whatever that means). So, with that said, isn't it almost always the case that AoE situations demand burst damage? Take Turn 4, phase 4 for example. You have exactly 1 minute to kill two Rooks and four spiders before a Dreadnaught, Knight and Soldier drop on your face. Further, take any dungeon run as an example. Do you think any AoE pull will last long enough to go through some lengthy AoE rotation? No. Use Convert. Do the burst. Blow 'em up. End the fight.

[Mecan]

You're under the effect of UI3 without casting B3? No. This is clearly the start of the fight since you have RS and QS off cooldown at the same time. (and it's generally not worth casting QS again if it comes off CD later, unless you outgear the tank by a lot)

I hating doing Quote Points for single phrases. Like I said, you're nit-picking for nit-picking sake, and for no good reason. But let's play your game a little longer...

I'm going to use The Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 4 as my main source here, this is where I measure a lot of how a Black Mage balances their abilities. Just because I have Raging Strikes and Quelling strikes off cooldown doesn't mean "it's the start of the battle", actually the first Dreadnaught drops in approximately two minutes into the battle. As a Black Mage, I reserve my cooldowns such as Raging Strikes, Quelling Strikes, and Convert for this moment. This is because the Dreadnaught absolutely must die in under 60 seconds. If it doesn't, it gets fully healed and buffed, resulting in a failure.

At this point I'm exiting combat on schedule with another foe, my Umbral Ice III is up by this time rebuilding my Mana and prepping me for the Dreadnaught phase and my main DPS Rotation -- or my "Big Guns" as it were. This is DPS Check situation, every time I encounter one of these all of my cooldowns are reserved. There are several different forms of DPS Checks in Turn 4, two of which are Dreadnaughts that must die in under 60 seconds: here is the second one. I reserve Raging Strikes & Convert for both of those situations.

[Mecan]

Pessimistick beat me to the punch! Mecan, that's a lengthy post but I can't really get behind much of anything you said. You, yourself, said that BLMs are "creatures of situation" (whatever that means). So, with that said, isn't it almost always the case that AoE situations demand burst damage? Take Turn 4, phase 4 for example. You have exactly 1 minute to kill two Rooks and four spiders before a Dreadnaught, Knight and Soldier drop on your face. Further, take any dungeon run as an example. Do you think any AoE pull will last long enough to go through some lengthy AoE rotation? No. Use Convert. Do the burst. Blow 'em up. End the fight.

The Dreadnaughts are more important to kill than the Rooks so convert is reserved for the Dreadnaughts. My team has no issue DPSing the Rooks down and we use Mage Ballad during this so I often swiftly spam multiple Flares without much problem or Convert. There are many different ways to have effective AoE Rotations and often you can work as a team to execute them.

[KyteStones]

Good post, KyteStones! A couple things I would point out:

1) Thunder III, while doing more damage because it ticks longer, also takes 0.5s longer to cast, costs more mana, and what I've found is that it's clunky in the rotation for this reason. The 2.5s cast of Thunder II fits nicely so that when you are casting your Fire III before starting Fire I spam, you just got your last tick of mana so you're back to full. What you'll notice about using Thunder III instead is that, assuming you're fluidly going through your rotation, when you cast your Fire III, you will get your last tick of mana at the very start of this cast and, because of this, when Fire III actually casts, it will actually charge you roughly 100 mana instead of being free. This is very problematic because when you get down to the bottom of the rotation, after your Fire I spam, your last Fire I will likely have to be cast when you are BELOW 1000 mana meaning that you will not be able to get your Thunder cast off on-time after Blizzard III (you'll have to wait a half to full second for a tick of mana.

2) The reason I open with Blizzard III ==> Thunder II is two-fold: one, it gives the tank a bit more time to get sufficient aggro but still allows me to do some damage and, two, if you cast Blizzard III first then your Thunder II and Fire III are both free since you'll get a tick of mana as you cast Fire III putting you back to full.

i see where you're coming from, but taking advantage to the server delay on the mana recharge, after the first initial rotation, you should be at full mana pretty much 99% of the time at the restart of the rotation. Keep in mind that while under AF III, Blizzard only costs 75MP. If spamming the Fire, then immediately spamming Blizzard III key you have, about .7 seconds before the spell goes off you're at a 80% recharge, which my the end of Thunder III, while you're in your 1.5 sec fire III cast, UI will have topped you off causing your Fire III to cost nothing. In reference to your statement about not being able to cast off on time to get the mana tick, I have never had this issue. After the first rotation, I am always topped off at the beginning of the next rotation set unless I manage to not pay attention and dispell too much mana screwing the rotation.

[PessimiStick]

The Dreadnaughts are more important to kill than the Rooks so convert is reserved for the Dreadnaughts. My team has no issue DPSing the Rooks down and we use Mage Ballad during this so I often swiftly spam multiple Flares without much problem or Convert. There are many different ways to have effective AoE Rotations and often you can work as a team to execute them.

Mage's Ballad should have zero effect on your AE rotation btw. F3 --> Flare --> Transpose --> B2 x2 repeat.

[Mecan]

From what I can gather of this thread KyteStones is that Synovius and PessimiStick just like to talk a lot, yet don't exactly offer any good advice or seem to really understand the finer things of Black Mages. Quite sad to see this thread be more like a pissing contest of 'whose the better Black Mage'. There really hasn't been any constructive discussion, especially when I provide a very clearly presented post and both of them just breeze over it calling it "fluff" just because it goes against their current thinking. You cannot argue with such people because they already think they know it all. You cannot teach someone who thinks they know it all.

[Mecan]

Mage's Ballad should have zero effect on your AE rotation btw.

And this sums up you fail as a Black Mage.

[PessimiStick]

And this sums up you fail as a Black Mage.

Go back to page 4 where I did the math. F3 --> Flare --> B3 repeat is inferior for AE DPS to the rotation I just posted.

[PessimiStick]

From what I can gather of this thread KyteStones is that Synovius and PessimiStick just like to talk a lot, yet don't exactly offer any good advice or seem to really understand the finer things of Black Mages. Quite sad to see this thread be more like a pissing contest of 'whose the better Black Mage'. There really hasn't been any constructive discussion, especially when I provide a very clearly presented post and both of them just breeze over it calling it "fluff" just because it goes against their current thinking. You cannot argue with such people because they already think they know it all. You cannot teach someone who thinks they know it all.

Want to change people's minds? Post math that proves your case. I did, you didn't.

[Mecan]

Go back to page 2 where I did the math. F3 --> Flare --> B3 repeat is inferior for AE DPS to the rotation I just posted.

I've done a lot more math than you my friend. I never stated that I did a F3 - > Flare -> B3 repeat. You're assuming way too much. Again, nitpicking for no good reason. You're basically having arguments with no one, responding to comments that were not written. You just assume I do something one way and respond to it.