The Ultimate Black Mage Resources with Damage Calculator

[EasymodeX]

*Dropping The Math-Text Bomb*

5 Fire 1 Method
PPS = 107.111960 , STD = 1.851122, Min = 94.878049, Max = 107.647059
DPS = 264.887842 , STD = 4.577825, Min = 234.633384, Max = 266.211142

F3 + 3 Fire 1 Method
PPS = 109.178302 , STD = 3.700309, Min = 98.111111, Max = 113.086957
DPS = 269.997905 , STD = 9.150862, Min = 242.628746, Max = 279.664007

How confident are you in these results and your simulation?

I ask because I did a similar investigation in the other thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1501774

With similar results from lightweight modeling.

Curious before I go harass our BLM who doesn't read the forums .

[Kenji1134]

How confident are you in these results and your simulation?

I ask because I did a similar investigation in the other thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post1501774

With similar results from lightweight modeling.

Curious before I go harass our BLM who doesn't read the forums .

On that thread, your potency/gcd using the first method (no double F3 trick) was 266.6 potency/gcd.
My numbers for the first method are typically around 107 potency/sec, on a 2.5s gcd, so 107*2.5=267.5, pretty much matches your numbers. So, it looks good.

Overall I am pretty sure of the potency calcs/simulation/method. Though the newest addition based on Puro's spreadsheet does not "feel" quite right... yet.

I suppose the next question becomes, IF the double F3 method is more potency... though surprisingly also more unstable (higher STD), then what is now the minimum Piety you need for the 2nd method?
Speaking for myself, as a Highlander, I needed to put 12 points into Piety to get to 251, which obviously lowered my damage per cast by a kinda noticeable amount, ~2.5%. Offhand I believe it is 9 MP per Piety for BLM... lol, or is it 7? =P

I guess I should also test the following situation...
Using the 2nd method, if we wait say... 0.5, or 0.75 sec for the Fire1 to land... adding 0.75s to the cycle time, and catching that last potential Firestarter proc, would it again be a dps gain in the long run, or is it better to just queue up B3 once the last F1 goes off?

[EasymodeX]

I suppose the next question becomes, IF the double F3 method is more potency... though surprisingly also more unstable (higher STD),

My first reaction is that F3 is a larger single cast so gets more variance from crits. I don't know though.

then what is now the minimum Piety you need for the 2nd method?

I don't play a BLM, but IIRC F3 replaces 2 F1s in terms of practical mana cost. However, F3's actual mana cost is less than double an F1, right? That means you will have excess mana left over if your stats are tuned to use 2x F1s, so you would be able to reduce Piety.

Using the 2nd method, if we wait say... 0.5, or 0.75 sec for the Fire1 to land... adding 0.75s to the cycle time, and catching that last potential Firestarter proc, would it again be a dps gain in the long run, or is it better to just queue up B3 once the last F1 goes off?

The PPS is rated at 109.18 per your simulation. Roughly 22.5s per cycle. Does this rating include crit adjustment? Or are crits ignored for the purpose of the simulation?

Regardless, the new scenario requires a hard wait of 0.75s every cycle, reducing the normal cycle to (109.18*22.5) / (22.5+0.75) = 105.66 when no Firestarter procs but you waited anyways.

When a Firestarter does proc, your cycle becomes: (109.18*22.5+396)/(22.5+0.75+2.5) = 110.78.

60% of the time the first event happens, and 40% the latter happens [(109.18*22.5)*0.6 + (109.18*22.5+396)*0.4] / [(22.5+0.75)*0.6 + (22.5+0.75+2.5)*0.4]

= 107.83.

This is lower than the original 109.18, so at first glance it's a bad idea. Other considerations:

1. If your simulation is crit-adjusted, then the 396 I used above needs to be moderately increased.
2. Even if the "wait for the last Firestarter" scenario becomes better in the above assessment, then the alternative benefit of holding the Firestarter for an alternate UI->AF switch needs to be subtracted, assuming it is better than the normal "UI3_F3->" start.

With a crit% assumption of 15%, if your simulation is not crit adjusted, the result becomes:

= 108.32

So it's not looking good for "hard wait 0.75 every time".

Re-doing the numbers for a 0.5s hard wait:

108.96 (no crit adjustment)
109.45 (crit adjusted)

So your simulation has to include crit already and the player has to only wait 0.5s to check for Firestarter every cycle (or less) and successfully capture the Firestarter (e.g. use it) every time it procs to possibly be worth it. The alternative "holding Firestarter" for the UI3->AF3 switch also needs to cost nothing.

All in all, looking bad for the "hardwait the last Firestarter proc".

[Kenji1134]

The potency calcs for each rotations do not have any crit calcs built into them. The "potency" calc that was recently added does include crit, though again, I am not sold on it's accuracy just yet.

Edit:
Did some quick testing on how much mana the F3-3F1 rotation takes, basically blew up the dummies in Whitebrim for a few minutes.
I start with 3728 mana in UI3. Then F3(UI)-F3(AF)-3*F1+T2+B3, B3 and T2 are out of order to make sure I get an accurate number before B3's mana regen hits... This puts me between 219 and 352 mana at the end. I imagine that 352 is from a quick UI regen tick compensating for the 113 mana I spend on F3(UI)...
So 3728-219 = 3509 MINIMUM mana required to do this rotation, with T2. Or 3615 mana if you want to use T3... which will almost always be clipped with this rotation...
Now, on WHM, which I believe also holds true for BLM, 1 piety = ~7.88 mana.
So as a Highlander, I have THE lowest racial piety. My current 3728 is with 12 extra piety to get to 251. If I move those points back into INT, I should be down to 3633 MP... which HEY! is enough for either T2 or T3, without having to drop any INT or slotting for PIE!
*Highlander Happy Dance*

Edit some more: Actually dropping 12 pie put me at 3629 MP... Still more than 3615! *Highlander Happy Dance*

[PuroStrider]

Though the newest addition based on Puro's spreadsheet does not "feel" quite right... yet.

-.-

I'll be happy to answer any questions regarding methodology for every single value and test on my spreadsheet. I get all my data raw from the game for my calculations to get real world result instead of throwing around potency values. You can think of me as an interpreter who translates potency into real damage. ^^

Also, when you guys are doing calculations with anything concerning subsequent casts, you have to consider casting animation delay. For instance, If you cast two Fire III in a row (3.5 sec each), your total cast time for 2 spells will actually a tad bit longer than 7.0 sec total. I have not tested the exact time for casting animation, but it's something worth mentioning.

The Fire III + 3 Fire I method is also something I will investigate in the future after I'm done tinkering with the current Fire I x5 rotation values.

[Kenji1134]

Well if you care to do all of the same calcs for Blizzard 3 under AF3 AND Fire 3 under UI3, then I can tweak the code to output how many of each spell was cast over a single rotation, and the probability of that specific set occurring...
So it'd say something like... [Regen, 3 F1, 1 F2, 20.5s] = 18.5%... something like that.
Think Ill mess with that right now...

Hmm...
Added a small section of code to do some haphazard binning based on the available values in my pot/sec matrix...

%binning based on predetermined numbers
if (96 > Z(s+1) && Z(s+1) > 93)
BinLow = BinLow+1;
elseif (104 > Z(s+1) && Z(s+1) > 101)
BinMid = BinMid+1;
elseif (109 > Z(s+1) && Z(s+1) > 106)
BinHigh = BinHigh+1;
end
%done binning

The results were... interesting... and though I always tend to question my coding skills... not being an actual "proper" coder... these results in particular make me worried.

BinLow, no extra Fire 3's in the rotation, meaning no Firestarter procs happened or none were caught... 0.546%... 5462 times out of 1 million cycles.
BinMid, 1 extra Fire 3 in rotation, 9.52%.
BinHigh, 2 extra Fire 3's in rotation, 89.93%.

That is to say, for this code, the odds of getting no Firestarter procs on the first 4 Fires is half a percent, since the last Fire is immediately followed by B3, so we cant use that last proc... That seems wrong. Its saying that somehow, 0.6^5 (odds of NOT getting Firestarter 5x in a row) =/= 7.78% but is equal to 0.546%...
Well... This is a smidge troubling =P

I added some similar code to the F3+3F1 section, setting the bins for the numbers that appeared there... oddly enough it was again 3 conditions... even the unique(Z) command only returned the same 3 values, which correspond to 0, 1, or 2 used Firestarters...
Anyway, results for 2nd method binning:
BinLow, no extra Fire 3's, = 4.70% ...this looks a lot more realistic.
BinMid, 1 extra Fire 3, = 58.26%
BinHigh, 2 extra Fire 3's, = 37.04%

I guess I should revisit the 5 Fire 1 method code later, to see why its giving such odd numbers. The results for the F3-3F1 method looks a lot more realistic.

PS. @Puro
Note that I am a few drinks into the evening while writing this part... yay editing old-ish posts!
TBH the last time I really parsed my BLM was probably close to a month ago, using FFXIV-APP.
Since then I have gotten LogRep, and played with it a bit, and got some minor gear upgrades on BLM. So I guess I should sit down sometime and parse myself on a lvl 50 dummy to see if I really would be doing around 260 dps, vs my 210 a month ago. Which, with a hopefully more accurate parser, will prove BOTH our work to be valid... and we can get many internet points while I go study for my mathematical methods exam next week q.q

Also to answer my own question from before, it seems that the lvl 1 and lvl 50 dummies take the same damage from the same spells. namely I threw Thunder 3 on both, and it ticked for about 77 on each. Now the tick is 35 potency, so my potency value, if we assume thats the logical computational method to remove excess calculations and why EVERYTHING is in terms of potency and gives NO REAL DATAAAAAAA... Then my potency value is 2.2... while my calculated potency value from the modified F3 calc is 2.47... then again, that 2.47 is after spell speed and crit modifications... so hell if I know right now... *swig*
Anyway... Im gonna stick to the potency method for now, and Puro, if you have time, and/or are bored, see if you can find a pattern in just generic potency values across a number of spells for BLM... maybe my theory is true... It'd really simplify things.
Um... so I'll parse sometime tomorrow or Friday, when I am more sober and not watching Gundam.

*later*

[Kenji1134]

Ah, morning...

Did some parsing on the lvl 50 dummies in Whitebrim with LogRep2. Still getting used to it, but I do have some interim results.

I parsed 2 times, over a 3-5 minute period... not quite sure, but it was a while, using the F3-3F1 rotation both times.
My peak dps was 283. Interestingly it peaked about 1 minute into to parse both times, then subsided.
Overall I typically had 240 dps at the end of a Regen phase, and about 260 dps at the end of a Fire phase.
My program gives me a dps of about 264, and always ends on a Fire phase... though after 1 mil cycles it doesnt really matter where it ends.
So... I'd say that atm, we're accurate to within 6%. Pretty good factoring in human error, Thundercloud procs, and the occasional full-cast-time F3.

[Maero]

Thanks for all this info, i was going to switch from PLD to dragoon but seen a BM wipe out several enemies in no time the other day so thinking of BM now

[PuroStrider]

Updated BiS 'Gear' page (Allagan Ring vs Astral Ring)

Enjoy!

[NeoAmon]

Updated BiS 'Gear' page (Allagan Ring vs Astral Ring)

Enjoy!

You made your decision/test based upon the fact that you want to use Thunder II at the end of Fire rotation then cast Bliz III, correct?