Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Waliel]

I am using Creme Brulee HQ. 40 SSPD 13 det.

I wish I wasn't so cheap. Am using leve funded NQ Sohm Al Tarts. Good enough.

[Kiara]

Been doing some Alex NM farm before we can raid later ... BLM feels exactly the same... I kind of wonder why they did it in the first place when the complaints were about Enochian timers.

It feels Spell Speed will get a stronger impact. That said, they definitely missed the train on making Thundercloud part of the rotation.

Thanks for the feedback on this.

I wonder if it's worth it to create a new thread about the latest BLM Changes to get it more visibility to the Dev Team?

Buried in this BLM thread, I'm not sure if they'll see our thoughts on this?

[Kenji1134]

That may be worthwhile.
BLM is... okay... The dps can be high IF nothing goes wrong. But that's the thing, IF ANYTHING goes wrong, your dps drops like a rock.
Personally, here's a short list of some of the things that happen on BLM (and how to easily address them) that make me want to curbstomp a puppy.

1. Old-Old issue, sometimes if you Transpose "too quickly" after Flare, Transpose goes off BEFORE Flare applies AF3 to you, resulting in you being stuck with 0 mp for at least 10 seconds, unless you have pot or Convert.
Solution: Make Flare not instantly apply AF3, but have it apply a stack of AF like F1/F2. This way the worst case scenario is you end up Transposing into UI1, but then lose the UI1 but still have normal mp regen. So you'd down for 3s not 10+.

2. New-Old issue, when you are casting B4 and either UI3 (due to Thundercloud use) or Enochian drop, and your cast just fizzles with 0.5s left.
Solution: Like with almost any other spell, if you started casting B4, then unless YOU move or are interrupted, the spell SHOULD finish regardless of buff conditions. The odd exception is B3 which can break if AF3 falls off and you do not have enough MP to cast the full cost B3. But B4 is not affected by this.

3. New-Old issue, similar to B4, if AF3 falls off during a F4 cast, JUST LET IT FINISH! I know I just royally f*cked my rotation for whatever reason, dont punish me more by wasting a full GCD worth of casting time! There was 0.5s left! Just let it go off!!!
Solution: Same as B4, if you start casting it, as long as you dont move and are not interrupted, LET IT LAND.

4. New-New issue, as others have stated, applying Thunder and trying to fit in Thundercloud procs into this already tight rotation only makes it worse... Cmon, we dont need to make it worse now do we?
Solution: Bear with me here, since the code is already in the game for DRG... Make it so every time any Thunder spell successfully lands on a target, the current duration of Enochian is INCREASED by 5 seconds. Suddenly Thundercloud is quite useful! You still have to be aware of your AF/UI timer while using it, but with this affect you actually BENEFIT from using Thunder during Enochian, if only slightly.

And a general QoL request which will hopefully not continue to fall on deaf ears...
Make it so F4 at least somehow affects the Astral Fire stack. Again, the code is there, make it so every time you using F4 the AF stack timer is increase by 1-2 seconds. Even 1 second would be a blessing! Every 2 successful F4's adds enough leeway in the timer to fail to refresh the AF stack by 1 GCD, and STILL be able to refresh it in time. In retrospect 2 seconds may be pushing it, since you could (in theory) cast 4+ F4's in a row, losing 1s on AF3 each time... though that would be a rotation onto itself.
Of course there is the simplest solution... make F4 instantly apply AF3 like F3 and Flare. Yes this means that the Fire cycle will produce more net potency, well in exchange for that, reduce the potency of B4 to 180.

There are many little things that would help make BLM feel a lot more fluid and polished... kind of like it felt in the early 2.0 cycle.

Edit cause I dont feel like making another post: @Ferth giving F4 a "high" chance to proc F3 would be helpful, at least a 50% chance. Again in a "ideal" world F4 would do something to perpetuate its own use... 50% chance to proc FS would be a start.
Hmm, here's a possibility, give F4 its own sub-effect which makes the next F1 instant. This will not significantly increase dps since you'll still be limited by your total MP, BUT if you have access to an instant F1 after every F4 then you can quite readily maintain the AF3 stack after being interrupted, or while dodging some large aoe, and having an instant F1 would remove the issue of just barely missing the AF3 refresh. Um, this may very well be a viable solution...

[Ferth]

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All very good suggestions, though rather than having fire 4 affect AF stacks I think it should be able to proc firestarter. Since f3 is no longer our strongest spell outside of flare and since we have to worry about enochian falling off it would turn firestarter procs into a utility cast. Need to move? Fire 3. Accidentally lost all your AF stacks? Fire 3. This solution would give is slightly more dps in ideal situations without an unnecessary flat potency increase and would give us more tools for mobility and utility than we have now.

As well as bringing what used to be a key blm mechanic back into play.

[Aikaal]

So far the Thundercloud change was extremely beneficial in A1 Savage. You can definitely exploit 2 targets to get multiple procs. I'm also extremely satisfied with my first kill parse on BLM. I did 1009 DPS and this is considering I got hit by a missile and lost damage near the end. It wasn't the best but regardless I am content with it. I like the hard DPS checks, it's really challenging.

My group was Paladin, Dark Knight, Scholar (Fey Glow pull, rest Eos), White Mage, Monk, Ninja, Bard, Black Mage.

I'm curious about my how fellow BLMs performed in that turn. Unfortunately, I am a SMN for A2. Black Mage is definitely viable in A1 Savage.

[Lavitz_]

I'm curious about my how fellow BLMs performed in that turn. Unfortunately, I am a SMN for A2. Black Mage is definitely viable in A1 Savage.

I didn't manage to break 1k, did about 50 less than you. There were some enrage wipes with me above 1k though, so I'm confident I can reach it. Group comp is PLD, WAR, SCH, WHM, MNK, BRD, SMN, BLM. It looks really bad now that I'm watching the video because I dropped Enochian early a couple of times trying to position adds and didn't bother reapplying it before the jump because I'd just lose it again, so I just used 2.0 rotation until the jump and the thunder change really helped my DPS here I think. I made a lot of stupid decisions during adds where I could have done much better, but it was our best pull yet so I was just focused on not wiping the group. Also used a Pot when it was off CD instead of saving it for after the final jump, something I'll remember next week.

I'm also going with SMN on A2 for progression, there's no denying the difference in DPS. Double SMN is gonna be nice on that fight.

[OneWingedSora]

Might actually try BLM for A1S next week. Doesn't seem too bad movement wise.

[Vateri]

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Please share tips/pointers! Or stuff you've learned from re watching a kill and figuring out better ways to do things.

[Lavitz_]

Please share tips/pointers! Or stuff you've learned from re watching a kill and figuring out better ways to do things.

Your DPS before the split is most important, so of course you want to squeeze out anything you can. As Aikaal said, spreading Thundercloud procs to both bosses is a nice DPS boost and it just starts raining procs which also help with movement, so you want to be doing that as much as you can. When the first two adds spawn, don't cast more than one Fire IV on them as you'll be wasting DPS if your other party members are also attacking them, I'm seeing 9k-10k crits on those sometimes.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to handle adds, it can be frustrating at times. The rest of the fight is pretty straightforward.

[Vateri]

Your DPS before the split is most important, so of course you want to squeeze out anything you can. As Aikaal said, spreading Thundercloud procs to both bosses is a nice DPS boost and it just starts raining procs which also help with movement, so you want to be doing that as much as you can. When the first two adds spawn, don't cast more than one Fire IV on them as you'll be wasting DPS if your other party members are also attacking them, I'm seeing 9k-10k crits on those sometimes.

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to handle adds, it can be frustrating at times. The rest of the fight is pretty straightforward.

How often are you throwing procs out when the multi-dot fest begins? Do you find yourself using fire IV a lot less just because of the sheer number of Thunderclouds you can possibly throw out?