The Black Mage Rotations

[Sleigh]

What does everyone use Swiftcast for mid-combat? Not on a Fire III after your Thunder at the start of combat, but once it's back up.

(When you can't do any more Fire I but still enough for Flare) Swiftcast Flare -> Convert -> Fire I -> Blizzard III > Thunder II regardless of Piety -> regular rotation seems to be the biggest ST boost you can do, but you can only do it once every 3 minutes whereas you can Swiftcast once per minute. Also, the dilemma with this is I usually use Swiftcast to put on my non-GCDs for free, thus, the best time to use this rotation would be a time when I wouldn't have Swiftcast to begin with.

I've used it on Thunder III often in the past, both for a DPS buff and the perfect time to fit in my non-GCDs if I want, but it seems to be a marginal gain of DPS over Thunder II, and often procs or MP issues (depending on Piety) make it unviable. Fire III is the other big hitter we could use it on, but I'm unsure if it's truly even worth it compared to just a Fire I due to losing a Fire I from your rotation. The weirdest thing I can think to use it on is Fire I, to gamble on a free proc, but that's all you gain, a proc chance where you probably need two Fire Is anyway.

I'm unsure where it best gets use.

[Allyrion]

Snip

If you Swiftcast Fire III after Thunder, you will not get a reduced cast on the Fire I following it. I've used it sometimes on a Fire I but I'm not even sure if that's much of a gain.
I think it's usage is largely situation and mainly for including Flare (with Convert).

I've tried it on Thunder III, but I've found that the GCD lock is clunky and seems to take longer than 3 seconds in practice (due to swiftcast animation). Since you probably will clip Thunder III anyway, it might be a dps loss anyway.

[Waliel]

If you Swiftcast Fire III after Thunder, you will not get a reduced cast on the Fire I following it. I've used it sometimes on a Fire I but I'm not even sure if that's much of a gain.
I think it's usage is largely situation and mainly for including Flare (with Convert).

I've tried it on Thunder III, but I've found that the GCD lock is clunky and seems to take longer than 3 seconds in practice (due to swiftcast animation). Since you probably will clip Thunder III anyway, it might be a dps loss anyway.

I'm pretty sure using Swiftcast on Fire is a dps loss unless you're moving. What you're basically doing is adding an extra second of animation waiting in the beginning and then triggering GCD, which is exactly the same as normal Fire cast anyway. In the end, all you did was that you delayed the rest of your spells by one second. Do correct me if my thought process is wrong.

You can use Swiftcast with Flare if you have your potion or Convert cooldowns up. With Convert, you can even get one extra Fire after the Flare before using B3. Other than that, Titan after jumps. Switch to UI3 with B3 with your last few seconds of AF3 after the guy lands, and when you're moving into position, fire off an instant T3 and continue normally from there. Don't have any real Coil experience with my BLM yet, so can't say anything on that.

[Panteleon]

It may not work for everyone, but personally, I use a monosyllabic word as a counter for the timing. As soon as I see the tick, think/say "one", Flare -> Flare. Once I started doing that, I haven't had any issues getting the quick casts on both every time.

I'm sorry for the confusion, but, to clarify... you're casting B2 > B2 then waiting for a tick of regen... then a monosyllabic word? Then cast Flare > Flare and there will be a MP tick between?

Is there any other series of actions in between mana ticks that we know to be somewhat timed to the MP regeneration tick?

[PessimiStick]

I'm sorry for the confusion, but, to clarify... you're casting B2 > B2 then waiting for a tick of regen... then a monosyllabic word? Then cast Flare > Flare and there will be a MP tick between?

Is there any other series of actions in between mana ticks that we know to be somewhat timed to the MP regeneration tick?

The word is to make sure you get haste on both Flares. Even if you cast as soon as you see the tick, you'll still get both Flares off. but the second one will be a hardcast. You need the slight delay to make sure you get the mana tick later, so that you have mana to cast the second Flare before you are put into AF3.

[Wowa]

The word is to make sure you get haste on both Flares. Even if you cast as soon as you see the tick, you'll still get both Flares off. but the second one will be a hardcast. You need the slight delay to make sure you get the mana tick later, so that you have mana to cast the second Flare before you are put into AF3.

hmm I see what you mean about getting the two flares off with the UI3 buff, but any tips on ensuring that you get the tick of mana to cast the second flare to begin with ? When I attempt its spotty at best, not the mention it seems sometimes I get that cast time lag with flare like some do when casting f3.

[PessimiStick]

The cast time bug (and missing mana ticks) are probably latency related, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it. I almost never have either happen unless I'm lagging.

[Synovius]

The cast time bug (and missing mana ticks) are probably latency related, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it. I almost never have either happen unless I'm lagging.

I have zero lag in this game and I pull it off with consistency. In fact, I can't remember the last time I hadn't gotten two 50% cast time Fire spells back to back.

[Devils]

I just went to Whitebrim and tested your rotation and it's better than I thought, but the highest dps I was getting in 2min period came from Fire3-> fire2 spam -> flare -> transpose -> Blizzard2 and then repeat. At least I learned that 1 blizzard 2 is sufficient and a second is not needed.

Just a quick question as I tend to run on BRD but my BLM is now almost 48. I am leveling it to 50 to have another ranged DPS and more options for SR's in the future.

Why are you using 2 min parses? On any boss fight I have done the adds don't last that long? And on a WP SR the groups don't last that long either? Or it sure doesn't seem like they last that long anyways.

Would it be better to test a rotation for less time? More of a burst AOE rotation based on average up time?

[Synovius]

Just wanted to drop in to say a couple things:

1) I'm still using the rotations I outlined in my OP and I'm consistently well over 300 DPS ST. I have not been able to obtain these numbers with any other rotation.

2) You may have heard that a "fix" is coming with 2.1 for Black Mages. There's a lot of misinformation about what this fix entails. The fix does NOT do anything about being able to cast two fire spells for 50% of the cost as some have speculated. The fix is simply removing the ability to cast back-to-back Flares when under the effects of Umbral Ice III. This is something I've never bothered using anyway because I don't feel it's useful to have a Flare hit for 500.