The Black Mage Rotations

[NeoAmon]

Why does my BLM feel funny? I could not put my hand on it since I was ded tired yesterday. Something was different just could not tell what -_-/.

[NeruMew]

Why does my BLM feel funny? I could not put my hand on it since I was ded tired yesterday. Something was different just could not tell what -_-/.

In my opinion, it's mainly mana ticks being funky and completely unreliable. Since they are tied to the clock and no longer our own character (trying to save processing maybe???) soemtimes they go off fast sometimes you wait a lot. Before it was stone solid. Other than that, we can't double cast with 2x speed anymore... that changed the feel of blm greatly for me. but more than anything, Mana ticks.

[SirGazuntai]

In my opinion, it's mainly mana ticks being funky and completely unreliable. Since they are tied to the clock and no longer our own character (trying to save processing maybe???) sometimes they go off fast sometimes you wait a lot. Before it was stone solid. Other than that, we can't double cast with 2x speed anymore... that changed the feel of blm greatly for me. but more than anything, Mana ticks.

I don't think it goes by the clock anymore. I can consistently get insta-ticks after using Transpose in my rotations every single time except the first one (if I start the rotation with a Fire III > Swiftcast > Flare > Transpose > and go back into my rotation the first Transpose tick works fine, however that's something for another time...). People (including myself) jumped to conclusion about it and didn't do enough testing to figure it out. I can still do about 400 DPS in a 3-target AoE, which is still pretty good.

Well they fixed the double cast by having UI/AF drop when the spell is ~85% through its cast... So why not just undo the change to ticks, and maybe... just maybe... put a 5-10s recast on Flare?
The issue was that Flare could be double-cast by timing the tick correctly. The solution was to sync UI ticks differently... But this obviously has made BLM feel more clunky and just less fun, dps loss aside.
If we just make it so Flare cannot be double-cast by putting a decent recast timer on it, like 10s, then it doesnt matter how the ticks sync up.

This doesn't work, either, because we got a pretty decent boost from a fast-cast Fire III > fast cast Fire I. In fact, my rotation as a BLM before was Blizz III > fast-cast Fire III > fast-cast Flare > Transpose > Repeat. This was so quick due to how ticks worked and how fast Flare was. When they fixed the bug, they made this rotation do a reasonable amount of damage opposed to an insane amount. Double Flares weren't the only issue.

[NeruMew]

In my opinion, it's mainly mana ticks being funky and completely unreliable. Since they are tied to the clock and no longer our own character (trying to save processing maybe???) soemtimes they go off fast sometimes you wait a lot. Before it was stone solid. Other than that, we can't double cast with 2x speed anymore... that changed the feel of blm greatly for me. but more than anything, Mana ticks.

I don't think it goes by the clock anymore. I can consistently get insta-ticks after using Transpose in my rotations every single time except the first one (if I start the rotation with a Fire III > Swiftcast > Flare > Transpose > and go back into my rotation the first Transpose tick works fine, however that's something for another time...). People (including myself) jumped to conclusion about it and didn't do enough testing to figure it out. I can still do about 400 DPS in a 3-target AoE, which is still pretty good.

Well, possibly it doesn't go by the clock, but something is still off, consistancy is not the same, I am not saying I can't do it, because I've been doing it for most of the time, but it's just off. Sometimes it just won't go through, and sometimes goes through too fast.

So the thing would be finding what actually changed and how it's working now.

[Synovius]

As an update, the ST rotation has not changed for me aside from one small change: Thunder III instead of Thunder II inside the rotation. This is because the extra cast time on Thunder III makes the rotation more fluid now that we can't "cheat" on Umbral Ice to get a tick of mana at or shortly after our Fire III casts.

As for the AoE rotation, it hasn't changed either but it's just a bit less now than it used to be as we can no longer fast-cast Flare and Blizzard II's damage was reduced.

[Allyrion]

As for the AoE rotation, it hasn't changed either but it's just a bit less now than it used to be as we can no longer fast-cast Flare and Blizzard II's damage was reduced.

Are you sure that Blizzard II's 0.5s shorter lockout isn't worth the 50 potency from Freeze?
I feel like
Fire III > Flare > Transpose > Freeze > Freeze > Repeat
is stronger than the old one which is just Blizzard II instead of Freeze.

Have you tried
Fire III > Fire II x3 > Flare > Transpose > Blizzard II/Freeze > Blizzard II/Freeze > Repeat?

I will do some testing myself as well.


EDIT:
Testing heavily favors
Fire III > Fire II x3 > Flare > Transpose > Blizzard II/Freeze > Blizzard II/Freeze > Repeat
over either
Fire III > Flare > Transpose > Freeze > Freeze > Repeat OR Fire III > Flare > Transpose > Blizzard II > Blizzard II > Repeat

Between those, I got a ~10 dps increase using Freeze over Blizzard II.
Same with the Fire II rotation. I got around ~10 dps increase using Freeze.
With Fire II though, I got an amazing ~30-40 dps increase over just using Flare.

[Sleigh]

AoE testing

I get similar results in testing against 3 enemies. Flare as the central point of AoE just doesn't seem viable anymore, sadly.

I also tried Fire III > Fire II spam until dry > Blizzard III > Freeze > repeat, that tested lower than Fire III > Fire II spam > Flare > Transpose > Freeze > Freeze > repeat.

[Sleigh]

I've been sticking with (run out of MP) > Thunder I > (Blizzard I if not close to a tick or wait a split second if I am) > Fire III > Fire I spam > repeat. Even though Thunder II has a tiny, almost insignificant bit more potency per second than Thunder, it's more time away from our AH3 phase. This also helps with the weird amounts of MP we sometimes end up with due Thunder's MP cost often counting now after your MP tick, so at those times we can just do Blizzard I first and be okay.

I used to parse about 320+ without obscene procs with my gear, now it's closer to 310 on an average test in full i90 gear and i95 weapon. It's a shame but whatever, nothing I can do about it but make the best of it.

In the long run, fast-casting Fire 1 isnt/wasnt a gain. You cast it in 1.25s, and then wait out the rest of the 2.5s gcd... for example.
Fast-casting anything that was equal to the gcd didnt make the gcd any shorter... but fast-casting something longer than the gcd (Fire 3 and Flare) was always a gain.

It hurts because we don't get a free Firestarter check off of double dip Fire I, and while that's often not an issue in the rotation too much, it hurts our burst a lot.

I used to love burst damage situations, going into UI3 and double dipping our stuff, with how easy the MP regen was and going into either Fire III > Fire III or Fire III > Fire I with free Firestarter check before the next GCD. Now I feel so much less effective when a burst mechanic comes out, like Titan EM rocks, Ifrit EM spikes, Conflags, etc.

As an update, the ST rotation has not changed for me aside from one small change: Thunder III instead of Thunder II inside the rotation. This is because the extra cast time on Thunder III makes the rotation more fluid now that we can't "cheat" on Umbral Ice to get a tick of mana at or shortly after our Fire III casts.

As for the AoE rotation, it hasn't changed either but it's just a bit less now than it used to be as we can no longer fast-cast Flare and Blizzard II's damage was reduced.

The problem with Thunder III is that you have to sacrifice a Fire I to have enough MP unless you have crazy amounts of Piety. I haven't tested it yet but it sounds like a DPS loss for sure.