The Black Mage Rotations

[PessimiStick]

Please see the calculations at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...TDVkM1E#gid=23 . Average damage is heavily determined by the skills you use and number of mobs you hit. Start using mostly flares, and suddenly your 500 crit is worth an extra 40 int because your average damage is 1k+

Stat weights have no bearing on the actual DPS of the rotations. That's why we're doing the calculations in Potency per second, because it's gear agnostic. Better gear will do more damage, but they both will place the same since the PPS is the same.

If MB does actually tick every second for others, then I agree that in the average case, you'd get a tick after ~0.21 GCDs, which would make F3/Flare/B3 superior at ~145.8 AEP/S.

Edit: Just got out of WP, and Ballad does NOT tick every second, even for others. It's 3, like every other tick. Original math is still valid.

[Youmu]

Stat weights have no bearing on the actual DPS of the rotations. That's why we're doing the calculations in Potency per second, because it's gear agnostic. Better gear will do more damage, but they both will place the same since the PPS is the same.

Its not stat weights, its the effect of your skill choice on your average damage. The higher your average damage, the higher the damage bonus you get from your criticals on average. When you're using nothing but fire3/flare/blizz3, your average damage skyrockets, because you're not spending time hitting mobs for 450-600 blizzard2 or fire2s, you're just flaring. All your calculations don't take this into account.

tl;dr - Crits mean more for flares than they do for blizzard/fire2s. The PPS should reflect that.

[PessimiStick]

Its not stat weights, its the effect of your skill choice on your average damage. The higher your average damage, the higher the damage bonus you get from your criticals on average. When you're using nothing but fire3/flare/blizz3, your average damage skyrockets, because you're not spending time hitting mobs for 450-600 blizzard2 or fire2s, you're just flaring. All your calculations don't take this into account.

tl;dr - Crits mean more for flares than they do for blizzard/fire2s. The PPS should reflect that.

A) Average damage = total damage / casts and/or GCDs, aka the same thing as DPS/PPS
B) No, they do not. Crits are just 1.5x damage for whatever crits. The only thing that matters is how much base damage you're doing, aka PPS.

[Borfin]

Its not stat weights, its the effect of your skill choice on your average damage. The higher your average damage, the higher the damage bonus you get from your criticals on average. When you're using nothing but fire3/flare/blizz3, your average damage skyrockets, because you're not spending time hitting mobs for 450-600 blizzard2 or fire2s, you're just flaring. All your calculations don't take this into account.

tl;dr - Crits mean more for flares than they do for blizzard/fire2s. The PPS should reflect that.

That's not how math and multiplication work. :P

150% damage is 150% damage whether that's for a 100 damage hit or a 1000 damage hit.

It means the same across the board.

[Darkstarz]

Its not stat weights, its the effect of your skill choice on your average damage. The higher your average damage, the higher the damage bonus you get from your criticals on average. When you're using nothing but fire3/flare/blizz3, your average damage skyrockets, because you're not spending time hitting mobs for 450-600 blizzard2 or fire2s, you're just flaring. All your calculations don't take this into account.

tl;dr - Crits mean more for flares than they do for blizzard/fire2s. The PPS should reflect that.

If your looking solely at dmg on flares sure, crit is the way to go, what you dont take into account on the "big picture" is Cast times.

Bigger numbers does not equate to higher dps, Fire 3>Flare>Blizz 3 would be less damage than the "normal" Aoe Rotation due to Cast times and waiting for that mana tick after a flare.

[Allyrion]

That's not how math and multiplication work. :P

150% damage is 150% damage whether that's for a 100 damage hit or a 1000 damage hit.

It means the same across the board.

But one is a damage gain of 50 while another is a damage gain of 500.

Everyones missing my point, and I'm just unsure of how to properly explain it. Ill come back to this tomorrow after I've had some sleep.

I understand what you mean. BLM dps gains from crit are tremendous because they work on a higher scale.
PPS should already reflect a Flare rotation being higher.

That said, I don't like the idea of hoping Mage's Ballad ticks right after Flare nor do I like the idea of having a pocket bard for this rotation at all!
I'm pretty sure it ticks every 3 seconds, which makes the rotation a hit or miss.

If your looking solely at dmg on flares sure, crit is the way to go, what you dont take into account on the "big picture" is Cast times.

Bigger numbers does not equate to higher dps, Fire 3>Flare>Blizz 3 would be less damage than the "normal" Aoe Rotation due to Cast times and waiting for that mana tick after a flare.

Cast times would technically be shorter if Mage's Ballad actually worked the way Youmu says it does.
That's because you will you can get a reduced cast for Flare if you do it right after Fire III (most of the time). It essentially cuts the Blizzard II from the OP rotation and goes straight back to Flare.
Ideally, there's little downtime but in practice this is not true. If Mage's Ballad ticked every second this could be viable.
I'll have to test it myself, but I'm fairly sure it doesn't.
So you're right about the waiting for mana(which is enough to make this rotation less appealing), but cast times are shorter.

[Youmu]

But one is a damage gain of 50 while another is a damage gain of 500.

I understand what you mean. BLM dps gains from crit are tremendous because they work on a higher scale.
PPS should already reflect a Flare rotation being higher.

That said, I don't like the idea of hoping Mage's Ballad ticks right after Flare nor do I like the idea of having a pocket bard for this rotation at all!
I'm pretty sure it ticks every 3 seconds, which makes the rotation a hit or miss.

When I originally brought up the idea, I stated its specifically for use on WP pulls, where your BRD is already going to have mana song up for feeding PLD flash spam. Thank you for not missing what I was trying to say with the crit.

I think you guys are right on ballad being on 3 second tick cycle, so I apologize for that misinformation. However, I still feel that as Flare gets stronger and stronger in comparison to other AOEs as gear and crit rate increases, enough so to make using this rotation (on WP pulls) worth it for any BLM over ilv80.