The Black Mage Rotations

[MartaDemireux]

For the AoE rotation: If there is a BRD in the party you get the best damage per GCD if you have them maintain Ballad while you cast Fire III > Flare > Blizzard III > (repeat). In doing this you are basically just using Fire III to activate AFIII, get many Flare casts and MP back with Blizzard III after a tick of Ballad. It's great for WP SR's, shaved about 30s off each pull for our group when the BLM switched to that rotation from the "standard".

Haven't tested how it would play out just with Fire III > Flare spam as I'm not sure if Ballad would give enough MP to maintain that.

[NeoAmon]

^ Bliz III only cost 79 mana under Astral III, while Flare needs 250+ mana under Astral III.

[MartaDemireux]

^ Bliz III only cost 79 mana under Astral III, while Flare needs 250+ mana under Astral III.

Thanks So definitely FireIII > Flare > Blizzard III for top AoE DPS (requiring Ballad).

[Rainsford]

Thanks So definitely FireIII > Flare > Blizzard III for top AoE DPS (requiring Ballad).

I don't agree with this. With Req up, the standard Tranpose>Blizx2>FIII>Flare rotation will pull off of tanks real, real quick already. I find myself waiting on the MP tick from Ballad more often then off UI when doing what you suggest.

Plus, Ballad = lower Bard damage. When running WP/T4, Req+Standard AOE rotation will kill stuff much quicker then Ballad+F3>F>B3.

[MartaDemireux]

I don't agree with this. With Req up, the standard Tranpose>Blizx2>FIII>Flare rotation will pull off of tanks real, real quick already. I find myself waiting on the MP tick from Ballad more often then off UI when doing what you suggest.

Plus, Ballad = lower Bard damage. When running WP/T4, Req+Standard AOE rotation will kill stuff much quicker then Ballad+F3>F>B3.

I did the math in another thread but I'll put it here so you can see Ballad does indeed pull ahead. If your tank is losing hate, however, I'd assume they weren't using Flash enough. It takes a little getting used to but you can sync your spells up with the Ballad tics so you never end up waiting (they come at set intervals).

Ballad still allows the BLM to DPS harder than with Requiem due to allowing Flare to be used more frequently. For Wanderer's Palace Speed Runs (for ease of numbers I'm not counting AF/UI, spell speed gear or abilities that can only be used once per pull that both rotations would see equal gains from (swiftcast Flares basically)):

Over 2 BLM rotations:

With Ballad up: Fire3>Flare>Bliz3>Fire3>Flare>Bliz3 will produce 1400 potency of damage in 22 seconds. In that time 9 Wide Volleys will produce 792 potency of damage. That's 2192 potency over 9 GCD's (243 potency per GCD). 2192 potency in 22 seconds is roughly 100 potency per second. The BLM needed to cast 6 times.

With Requiem up: Fire3>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2>Fire3>Fire2>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2 will produce 1679 potency of damage in 28 seconds. In that time you could get about 10 Wide Volleys and 1 Rain of Death off for 1200 potency of damage. That's 2879 potency over 11 GCD's (261 potency per GCD). 2889 potency in 28 seconds is roughly 102 potency per second. The BLM needed to cast 11 times.

What we see here is that Ballad allows for the BLM to deal about the same damage in less casts leading to faster kill speed overall. If both rotations were to go for similar lengths Ballad would pull ahead. Once we factor in Skill Speed and Umbral Ice/Astral Fire Ballad will pull ahead even more due to needing to cast more Fire II's under Requiem and Astral Fire greatly favoring higher potency spells. Under Astral Fire we see Fire II getting 180 potency (80 increase) versus 468 potency for Flare (208 increase). (I'm going to go over the math again now that I have more time to include AF and UI bonuses/restrictions)

Additional benefits to this are that it allows a tank to spam Flash to maintain hate without question and allows a WHM to cast Holy in between Cure's without the need to look at their MP. It should be noted that with more Flares being cast you will be generating more enmity which does indeed require the tank to be using Flash on cooldown. With Ballad already applied you save an additional 3 seconds between pulls as well.

tl;dr: In WPSR with BRD & BLM, BRD should full time Ballad (outside of boss fights, Requiem for boss fights), BLM should cast Fire3>Flare>Bliz3 (repeat) for the best DPS. Ballad also allows Flash and Holy spam.

[Waliel]

What's with the random Fire 2 between Fire 3 and Flare?

[PenutButter]

why is that? my Fire2 with 3AF does ~450, my blizzard 2 does ~280
its still better even if the recast time is 0,5 seconds longer

you can at least burn your mana with that before using flare.

Some people ignore fire 2 not because Bliz 2 is superior, they do it cuz Flare is superior. A bug (yes I do think it is a bug, one that needs to be fixed) allows you to benefit from the cast time reduction reduction twice. This means you can got from Umbral Ice 3 > Fire 3 > Flare very quickly.

Personally I think Flare on every Swiftcast on single target is superior to just just spamming fire 1. Also, you guys do know that Thundercloud's damage depends on the Thunder DoT that is currently on the mob right? This means that you will not get Thunder 3's damage just cuz you use Thunder 3 during a Thunder 2's DoT proc, if you know what I mean. If you don't then whatever.

In the end though, you are free to do whatever the hell you want, I don't really care.

[Allyrion]

Some people ignore fire 2 not because Bliz 2 is superior, they do it cuz Flare is superior. A bug (yes I do think it is a bug, one that needs to be fixed) allows you to benefit from the cast time reduction reduction twice.
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Also, you guys do know that Thundercloud's damage depends on the Thunder DoT that is currently on the mob right?

Yes, you will Thunder 3 damage on Thunder 2's proc. The tooltip has been proven wrong.

Also, if they ever fix the double quick cast then we should also get instant Firestarter procs as well (as I said in another thread).
Both delays are based on the design of effects triggering 'on impact' which includes the travel time of the spell. I believe this is intentional.
However, I would give up double quick casting for instant Firestarter procs any day.

[Synovius]

Some people...

I can't bring myself to to use Flare in a ST rotation because the complete dump of mana causes you to have to sit there and do nothing for up to 3 full seconds. Because of this, I don't feel the few hundred extra damage from Flare gains you anything in terms of DPS. In fact, I think it's a DPS loss.

As for Thundercloud procs doing damage based on the DoT that is currently up, are you sure about that? I'll test it out when I get home and confirm/refute.

[Allyrion]

As for Thundercloud procs doing damage based on the DoT that is currently up, are you sure about that? I'll test it out when I get home and confirm/refute.

I even just retested this. It definitely gets Thunder III extra damage and duration.
I remember saying what Peanut did after launch, because the tooltip is misleading. I also wanted an excuse to use Thunder III because I liked the visual. Someone said to test it myself and I swallowed my words.
You shouldn't take my word for it, but it has been proven for a while now that Thundercloud proc's damage isn't based on the dot it applied off of.