The Ultimate Black Mage Resources with Damage Calculator

[Karilyn]

EDIT: I'm a little scared to post this cause I'm afraid people will say I'm an idiot for suggesting against the common rotation. I just did the math on it and it seemed solid. I'd love to see math countering it or anybody pointing out a mistake I made.
EDIT2: I already found a mistake in my own math, lemme fix that. (currently editing post)
EDIT3: Fixed my mistake

Basically, I saw someone suggest this, and I did some looking at it. The thing I hear all the time is that you should prioritize Thundercloud Procs over Firestarter Procs because Thundercloud Procs have a chance of immediately overwriting themselves. Someone claimed that the standard practice of prioritizing Thunder III over Firestarter procs is not necessarily a good idea because Thunder III does less and can eat it's own proc every 3.0 seconds, there's only a 5% chance of it eating itself. But Firestarter has a 40% chance of eating itself and you can use Thundercloud procs to buffer after a Fire to improve your chance to not miss a Firestarter proc.

This is the evil bane of the standard rotation:
Fire (Firestarter Procs) -> Fire (Firestarter Procs) -> Use Fire III

Under the standard wait until the next Fire to cast Fire III, you have a 16% chance for Firestarter (40% * 40%) to overwrite itself and lose it's proc. The worst part, is hypothetically it can happen twice in a single Astral Phase. It's not common, but it has a 2.56% chance of occuring, that you get Firestarter on 4 of the Fire Casts who's Firestarter can be used during Astral Phase.

What about Thundercloud? Well, it's almost never going to overwrite itself in the standard rotation. And of course it has a very high visibility of those 0.25% chances to proc Thundercloud twice in a row (Which happens on average at least once per 10 minuter fight). If you waited on the Thundercloud one GCD, it has a 0.25% chance to overwrite itself. If you wait two GCDs, it has a 0.4875% chance of overwriting itself. But it should reduce the number of eaten Firestarter procs by 5%, which means you would only have 14.4% of Firestarters Eaten, or 1.56% more Firestarters landed.

-IN A NUTSHELL-

Standard Thundercloud > Firestarter Priority
16% Firestarters Eaten
0% Thunderclouds Eaten

Hypothetical New Rotation: Firestarter > Thundercloud only used after a Fire I when you don't have a Firestarter
14.4% Firestarters Eaten
0.4875% Thunderclouds Eaten
1.56% more Fire starters landed

To make this even more solid, look at the damage from Firestarter and Thundercloud:
Firestarter Astral III = 396
Thundercloud Proc = 340

Ultimately it's not a huge difference, it's only about 1.08% more successful procs landed, though every little bit helps, and it has the added bonus of being /slightly/ less RNG reliant. I may have made a math mistake somewhere, but lemme know. This was only some rough napkin math I did, and I would need to do more extensive math to actually present this with certain accuracy.

[Sleigh]

You should basically always use Thundercloud to check for Firestarter, or if you get it after your final Fire, after your B3. It has the benefit of less clipping of your DoTs, and any Firestarter checks you get for free are quite welcome. Some people will say let rip with Thundercloud ASAP because of double dips, though from my hundreds of hours as BLM I'd say it's only as likely as the percentage says, 5% of Thunderclouds.

[Fethend]

I agree with your point Karilyn. It may not be a guaranteed dps increase, but its odds of being an increase are higher than your odds of a double Thundercloud. In the event both proc, then I would simply Firestarter > Fire > Thunder 3. Yes, it's two full globals that can potentially overwrite, but at 5%, it's not the biggest chance. A 40% chance to eat a Firestarter is much more likely, though.

However, I personally disagree with Sleigh's point. If I have Thundercloud, and no more room for Fire, I will still use my Thundercloud proc. Then, Blizz 3 > Blizzard > (Possibly another Blizzard or a Scathe). It's more likely for my Thundercloud to fade if I get lucky procs/unlucky MP ticks, yes. But, it also maximizes that 5% chance, which we're already penalizing.

[SongJoohee]

T9, Acc 469, Hits 876, Miss 3 T_T, 1x Fire, 1x Fire III, 1x Thunder II

[Umero]

idk if i'm doing less dps or not but recently I've been practicing doing this when both thundercloud and firestarter are up... I would do

Flare
Transpose
Thundercloud
Firestarter

Can someone check and see if it's a dps loss or gain? It looks awesome doing like this but I don't know if it's worth it.

[scarebearz]

idk if i'm doing less dps or not but recently I've been practicing doing this when both thundercloud and firestarter are up... I would do

Flare
Transpose
Thundercloud
Firestarter

Can someone check and see if it's a dps loss or gain? It looks awesome doing like this but I don't know if it's worth it.

If your going to flare then, I'd do

Flare
Firestarter
Transpose
Thundercloud
Bliz III
Bliz I (if needed to wait on a tick)
FIre III
Fire I's

[ks3v3n]

If your going to flare then, I'd do

Flare
Firestarter
Transpose
Thundercloud
Bliz III
Bliz I (if needed to wait on a tick)
FIre III
Fire I's

^this, using a firestarter on any ice stack is a shame :S @umero
depending on the encounter, i even use that mechanic to have 3 stacks ready for next full cast rotation. like getting a firestarter with last fire 1, save it up and transpose ... move anywhere or dodge something, and firestarter --> cast rotation. its just 250 or somth more dmg but its still more dmg ^^

[Umero]

hmmm interesting. Do you guys know how much dps loss would be if I do Flare > Transpose > Thundercloud > Firestarter compared with the suggested rotation? Just wondering because the suggested rotation is longer and for the one I use, after firestarter I can easily throw a fire and cast flare again and then the transpose should be up again for use.

[scarebearz]

I don't understand why this would be a "rotation" anyway?

You cant guarantee proc's, this vaguely looks like it may be a aoe rotation? but I don't know why you would even have those thundercloud and firestarter proc's during an aoe rotation?

[Umero]

yeah, i know. that's exactly why it's hard for me to tell how much dps loss is from that. Anyone cares to find the answer? lol