The Black Mage Rotations

[wicked-one]

Bit irrelevant now anyway, the double flare bug appears to have been fixed. (i.e. BLM AoE nerf)

"An issue wherein thaumaturges and black mages were able to cast multiple fire-based spells under the effect of Umbral Ice I or II."

You talking about the "infinite flare"?

I guessed this would be fixed, this was quite to powerful and clearly unintended...

But as i am at work, im curious, could someone test and post it?

[LetBloodline]

You talking about the "infinite flare"?

I guessed this would be fixed, this was quite to powerful and clearly unintended...

But as i am at work, im curious, could someone test and post it?

While it was real fun it was not that much more powerful that regolar aoe rotation. No big deal

[wicked-one]

While it was real fun it was not that much more powerful that regolar aoe rotation. No big deal

Jeah but it was so nice flashy lights and you could smoke a cigarette while blowing up stuff ^^

[Maero]

Myself i have been doing 3x flares for Brayflox Hm for example, sometimes quad flares.
what does this "fix" entail actually?
Kind of curious as well

[yukipo]

The fix is the mana tick after your Flare in Umbral Ice only gives you something like 75 MP, making it a dead end.

[Maero]

ok thanks, maybe new rotations are inbound now

[Sleigh]

Old rotation of Flare glitching did 220-230 per target sustained before RS/Convert/Pot

Tested F3 > F2 spam > Flare > Transpose > Freeze > repeat, got a general sustain of 170-180 per enemy before counting in that some of that is from F3 on a single target. Definitely a noticeable nerf when you're doing multiple pulls in a dungeon and/or the group's DPS is low regardless so you can't rely on one or two rotations to be enough.

Edit: getting about 200 sustained per enemy with F3 > F2 spam > Flare > (Transpose > F3 > F2 > Flare) X N

New ST DPS tested a little less than 10% more than what I was getting before, something along the lines of 450 now in a standstill which AFAIK is a little stronger than SMN normally can get in 4 minutes.

[Malevicton]

Tested F3 > F2 spam > Flare > Transpose > Freeze > repeat, got a general sustain of 170-180 per enemy before counting in that some of that is from F3 on a single target. Definitely a noticeable nerf when you're doing multiple pulls in a dungeon and/or the group's DPS is low regardless so you can't rely on one or two rotations to be enough..

Not home now so I can't test, but isn't transpose a short enough cd to allow f3>fire2 spam> flare> transpose> f3> f2 > flare> transpose? Works whether you get 1 or 2 mana tics (should get 2? 1st after transpose, 2nd while casting f3) so I don't see any need for freeze. Just add an extra f2 if you need to wait on transpose.
Or am I still missing something?

Edit: Discounting SS the combined cast time for f3>f2>flare is 10.5 seconds. so everything works ideally if your first mana tic takes 1.5 seconds. If you got an instant mana tic after transpose, that'd be when you'd want to put an extra f2 into the rotation, otherwise it'd be safe to rush to flare.

[Sleigh]

Not home now so I can't test, but isn't transpose a short enough cd to allow f3>fire2 spam> flare> transpose> f3> f2 > flare> transpose? Works whether you get 1 or 2 mana tics (should get 2? 1st after transpose, 2nd while casting f3) so I don't see any need for freeze. Just add an extra f2 if you need to wait on transpose.
Or am I still missing something?

Edit: Discounting SS the combined cast time for f3>f2>flare is 10.5 seconds. so everything works ideally if your first mana tic takes 1.5 seconds. If you got an instant mana tic after transpose, that'd be when you'd want to put an extra f2 into the rotation, otherwise it'd be safe to rush to flare.

Your rotation works a lot better, closer to 200 per target plus F3. So about a 10% AoE nerf for 10% ST buff, definitely a trade worth having.

[Kenji1134]

Well...
The old rotation was 260*(.9+1.8) every 12s, or 58.5 pot/sec.
Now you pretty much have to use F3 to get back into AF3, so the rotation looks like... Trans - Tick - F3 (tick during F3) - N*F2 - Flare - and back to Trans.

So lets see, looking at just aoe potency.
N = 0, 260*1.8 every 12s = 39 pps
N = 1, (260+100)*1.8, and this will take 15s due to F3 and ticks = 43.2 pps
N = 2, (260+100+100)*1.8 over 18s = 46 pps
N = 3, (260+100+100)*1.8 over 21s = 48 pps
N = 4... Realistically not enough mana...

N = 2 is probably the best version. If we wait too long to use Flare, we'll probably end up wasting a good chunk of its damage potential as overkill damage. And going to N = 3 is a rather small increase.

So from a purely analytical, potency per second standpoint, we went from 58.5 down to 46, thats 78.6% of what we had. If we use N = 3 and things live that long and die perfectly on Flare, then we get 82% of our old aoe dps potential.

So yeah, to anyone who says that "BLM AoE was not nerfed"... You... Are... Wrong.
And to those who say "well you were just abusing a bug", I say, well YOU were not playing the class to its potential.

PS. The way they implemented Hunts is bullshit.