The Black Mage Rotations

[Cynfael]

Pretty much this. Would just like to add an alternative opener though. I made our tank make a 5-second pull timer, so I open with:

Quelling Strikes -> B3 -> Swiftcast + T3 -> Raging Strikes - F3 -> Int Pot -> Continue as normal.

I figure the fact that I can get both Raging Strikes and an Int pot running on my opening rotation makes up for not saving Swiftcast for Flare. I may be wrong, though.

Either way, I don't think I'd open with QS. I wouldn't want to "waste" the first several seconds of it on the openers since you shouldn't be building dangerous amounts of threat until you are in AF and starting to rack up FS and possibly TC procs.

[Adamantium]

Either way, I don't think I'd open with QS. I wouldn't want to "waste" the first several seconds of it on the openers since you shouldn't be building dangerous amounts of threat until you are in AF and starting to rack up FS and possibly TC procs.

As my tank's macro is counting down from "5", I use Quelling Strikes on "5", and start pre-casting Blizzard 3 on "3", so that it hits almost immediately (about 0.3 seconds) after he pulls. My Monk and Dragoon have (playfully) yelled at me before for pulling aggro on the pull with a 1105 Blizzard 3 crit, so I always Quelling ahead of time. Usually by the time I've gotten into my Astral Fire phase, my tank has sufficient aggro and I never get too close.

Edit: Although, I'm speaking from the viewpoint of an overgeared raid group, so I understand why this might not be applicable to everyone.

[Cynfael]

Pretty much everyone is "overgeared" even for SCOB by this point :P. The bigger issue with most groups is people being "underskilled."

Your QS makes more sense in context since it sounds like your tank literally doesn't have time to secure aggro before you lay in. For the more conventional group, though, I'd still save the QS for the big hits since not every tank is able to keep aggro without it even if they were allowed to finish a rotation first.