The Black Mage Rotations

[Allyrion]

Any anecdotal evidence, however common, means nothing if probability provides a sufficient answer.

It means something when it's common for mechanics like this to be throttled by internal cooldowns.
Everytime I got a proc right after the other because I used it immediately, I made the right choice, right? I'm 360+ potency ahead of the mage who didn't.
Plus you're really not losing much damage from clipping compared to that loss.

If we were still blindly believing the tool tips then we wouldn't even be using Thunder II and using Thunder III only for procs.
It's important for players to try to understand the underlying mechanics when it's so ambiguous and tool tips can be either misleading or outright wrong (despite being the only official information we have on the abilities).

Doesn't matter. As I mentioned, Thunder is always on the target in a normal ST rotation. You're not adding any 'ticks' of the dot, you're using Thundercloud to get the proc hit. It has nothing to do with the Thunder dot and everything to do with using a proc that does more damage than your Fire I spam.

They meant that if you don't use it right away, you give the thunder dot that's already on the target more ticks. Which is more potency on top of the thundercloud proc you use at the end.

They would be right that it's more damage UNLESS you could have gotten a proc while waiting for the buff.
The assumption here is if you get a proc, you probably won't get another for a while. So it's a dps loss to clip the current dot until you have to (a second before the thundercloud buff expires or so).

I don't agree with the assumption but the argument is sound.