The Black Mage Rotations

[Synovius]

I'm sure we can all agree that you're the only one pissing here and making no points. Synovius introduced many of us to a new more powerful rotation. PessimiStick just backed his proposal with numbers. You come along and basically call them nubs and say your rotations are better even though we've already proved them inferior. Go back to your group and let them continue carrying you. We care not for your subjective advice. Have a nice day.

...And Mecan was never heard from again. Seriously, he never returned to the thread after PessimiStick repeatedly called him out on his fluff posts and you posted this.

Well done *lights a cigar and kicks back in his chair*.

[Synovius]

Why wouldn't you use Firestarter and Thundercloud prods as soon as they show up?

And why would you use Thunder II instead of III? When you open with B3 it's free...?

Firestarter doesn't proc until your Fire I has finished traveling to the target meaning that, to use Firestarter as soon as it's up, you'd have to wait after casting Fire I to see if you're going to get a proc and then use it. This results in a very clunky rotation and also a net loss overall in DPS.

As for Thundercloud procs, you are basically using them as soon as they come up. You're simply using them as soon as you are done with whatever cast you are in the middle of or immediately if you literally just finished a cast. The only caveat is that Firestarter procs take priority over Thundercloud procs if both happen to be up at the same time.

Using Thunder II over Thunder III comes down to timing. Thunder II has a shorter duration that fits nicely with one loop through the rotation such that when you cast Blizzard III to start off a new loop through the rotation Thunder II should have just or will soon fall off of your target (this is obviously dependent on RNG with Firestarter procs throughout the rotation). More importantly, Thunder II's 0.5s less cast time over Thunder III allows you to follow your Blizzard III with Thunder II and have enough time to cast the subsequent Fire III for free as you'll get a tick of mana exactly at that moment from Umbral Ice III. In fact, I'd call this the primary reason to use Thunder II over III. Do note, however, you should always use Thunder III with Thundercloud procs as it's instant and more damage.

[PessimiStick]

...And Mecan was never heard from again. Seriously, he never returned to the thread after PessimiStick repeatedly called him out on his fluff posts and you posted this.

Well done *lights a cigar and kicks back in his chair*.

I'm pretty sure he got banned, since his posts are gone from the thread. As someone who has been "pruned" from official forums many times in the past, I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

Edit: I disagree with using FS in front of TC. You should always use Thundercloud first, since you can't control the procs. If you FS --> TC, you can lose a second proc of TC because you hadn't used it when Thunder ticked again. It's impossible to lose a FS proc by using TC first, since you're not casting Fire.

[Synovius]

Oh snap! Say it ain't so!

[Psychosamm]

Snip

Hmm i hadn't thought of convert, thanks for the input! And i'll definitely try out T2 as opposed to T3.

Snip

Thanks for the advice! I didn't really think about how that could take hate, i'll do what you suggested from now on. So instead of using swiftcast on F3 i would assume the next best thing to use it on would be Flare?

[dragonflyseksparade]

The only caveat is that Firestarter procs take priority over Thundercloud procs if both happen to be up at the same time.

Why would you do this? If you use thundercloud first you could potentially get another thundercloud immediately. Whereas you will not get another Firestarter proc until you go back to Fire I spam.

[Synovius]

Why would you do this? If you use thundercloud first you could potentially get another thundercloud immediately. Whereas you will not get another Firestarter proc until you go back to Fire I spam.

This does make a lot of sense and, honestly, I hadn't thought about it this way so kudos on bringing up a great point! My concern would be that Firestarter does more damage and if Thunder isn't about to fall off your target, then that means you'll get one more tick of Thunder (and thus the chance for a Thundercloud proc) anyway some time between casting Firestarter and up until you're ready to cast Thundercloud. I'm not 100% certain but I think, mathematically, it may be a wash in that sense. If somebody wants to churn some numbers, I'd love to see where the math leads on this.

Thanks, Dragonfly!

[EasymodeX]

Lol PessimiStick.

[GreyJorildyn]

So instead of using swiftcast on F3 i would assume the next best thing to use it on would be Flare?

Yes. There is a "best rotation" and it is "best practice" to know it as there are several dps checks in the game in later content. That is simply how the game was designed to be and there is no real way around it.

Some interesting questions do come up, such as the one that was just asked about when does the AoE rotation become more potent than single target. The rule of thumb I apply to this is if there are 3+ mobs I go AoE, 1 or 2, single target each with a Fire II if I have Swift+Flare+Convert cycle handy. Timing issues like that are important as well, but move towards standardizing themselves when you run with a set group doing the same instance running it in a similar timeframe (X will always be up when at Y part of the instance, etc.).

[dragonflyseksparade]

My concern would be that Firestarter does more damage and if Thunder isn't about to fall off your target, then that means you'll get one more tick of Thunder (and thus the chance for a Thundercloud proc) anyway some time between casting Firestarter and up until you're ready to cast Thundercloud. I'm not 100% certain but I think, mathematically, it may be a wash in that sense.

It doesn't matter which proc does more damage. The two scenarios are as follows:

Thunder III -> Fire III
or
Fire III -> Thunder III

In both cases you've done the same amount of damage over the course of two GCDs. But the first of those two scenarios give you a chance at another Thundercloud proc immediately. The second of the two could result in a missed thundercloud if it were to proc again as you cast Fire III.

It doesn't really matter how much time is left on your current thunder because thunder will never fall off of a single target in a normal rotation unless you get some amazing luck and had Firestarter proc on every single Fire I during the rotation.