Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[StouterTaru]

Firestarter proc under AF3 and Eno is 181,44 PPS and F4 is 176,4. In the few situations when you have FS up but not the time to use it before Eno refresh, would it be worth it to use FS instead of F4?

PPS can be misleading when you compare spells with different cast times, especially when the difference is that small.

The PPS of that AF/UI cycle would be higher casting the F4 (by about 1/5 of a percent). But in almost any fight except Faust, I'll take that tiny loss to avoid the chance of having to interrupt a F4.

[Happosai]

I do between 1250 and 1350 depending on procs/crits without Foe's, and you seem to be better geared than me. I still think i've got a lot more headroom for DPS, mainly because i've not been able to put as much time into the game as I would usually.

Also, in the parse for that fight, you need to cut out AOE. Select Faust on the parse, all incoming, then sort by combatant.

Yes as I stated I suspect my numbers are low. Thanks for the tip on the parser, ill just go ahead and adju... oh yea I cant. At the very least thanks for giving me your range numbers. Since I'm better geared ill shoot for 1350 minimum. Now I just have to find someone with a parser willing to watch be beat my face against a dummy. /shrug personal parser please se

[Happosai]

True or false: thundercloud (3) proc is always higher potency than fire 4 so long as it ticks once.

[Hontaro]

False. You should need at least 3 ticks to reach the potency of F4 so you should hold onto the proc until later. That said, it's on GCD and instant-cast, so there are times where you'd want to prefer using the proc even if it's lesser potency.

Also:
Parse from A2 savage on BLM with iLvl192.


BLM AoE might be weaker then SMN's, but it is by no means "weak".

[Xenitan]

True or false: thundercloud (3) proc is always higher potency than fire 4 so long as it ticks once.

True. Kinda. You worded it wrong: Thundercloud (3) proc is always higher potency than Fire IV if you can ADD an extra tick of thunder (current duration of Thunder <= 21)

The math isn't too tough. I'm going to assume (correctly) that as the duration of thunder decreases, the expected potency per second increases.

With no ticks of thunder added by thundercloud, we get a potency of 390 plus zero ticks of 40 potency and no procs 100% of the time.

With 1 extra tick of thunder we have up to one proc.
For simplicity, I will ignore subsequent thunder ticks for thundercloud for reasons I'll elaborate on later. I will also assume no enochian, as it applies to all spells similarly, and no spell speed for the same reason.

90% of the time we will have zero procs added from that extra tick: 390 + 40 * 1 = 430 for a GCD of 2.5
10% of the time we will have one proc added from that extra tick: 390 + 40 * 1 + 390 = 820 potency over two GCDs totaling 5 seconds.

Expected potency per second for this sequence is 0.9 (430 / 2.5) + 0.1 (820 / 5) = 0.9 (172) + 0.1 (164) = 171.2

Fire IV's expected potency per second is 1.8 (280) / 3 = 168

You might notice that the potency per second of a proc scenario is less than the potency per second of the one without procs. The issue here is that we do not give *any* credit for subsequent ticks and in the scenario where you cast Thunder 3 instantly with 21 seconds left on the duration of thunder, that extra proc that would otherwise have not happened happened at the very end- right as Thunder was about to expire. So we expect the potency to be higher than we project, but since it already is higher than the number we wished to pass, we can say that if you add one tick, the potency per second is higher.

We also assumed that as the duration of thunder decreases the expected added potency per second for a Thunder proc increases. So Thundercloud with 18 seconds is higher potency per second than the case with 21 seconds which is already higher than Fire's expected potency per second.

[Sleigh]

True or false: thundercloud (3) proc is always higher potency than fire 4 so long as it ticks once.

There's a big difference between what's more potency and what's better to do.

F4 is 508 potency. Thundercloud is 390 initial + 40 per tick (plus some small bonus per tick from SS). At 15s or less duration, yes, Thundercloud will be worth 510 potency (18s = only 2 ticks have happened). However, you are destroying the previous DoT to obtain this, and when you're talking about DoTs you have to consider what the filler is worth. Normally it's as simple as just refreshing when a DoT is about to expire, but in this case we have to actually look at the opportunity cost since you may have to largely clip or lose the cast with BLM.

If you, at 15s, choose TC over F4, you are trading 15s of DoT which is 200 potency + 508 F4 potency for 510 potency, which is a DPS loss even counting F4's longer cast time. At 12s, it's 160 + 508 for 550 potency, at a point where the trade is much more worthwhile if you are forced to take it. 9s, 120 + 508 for 590 potency, a point where if you take into account the quicker cast time of TC and the ability to proc further TCs you should definitely take it. Anything lower and it's a no brainer, TC > F4, but you still want to delay it if you can.

Rule of thumb for TC priority and use: Mobility > multi-DoT > in UI phase as supreme filler > as late as possible in AF phase, after F1 almost always > skip it or delay it if you can't meet any of those conditions.

[Happosai]

Thank you! Thats a lot of math! But I think I'm starting to understand better now. I used to mostly throw away thundercloud procs unless it conveniently came during umbral. But its actually better dps than fire 4 when you dont clip it too early. 9s appears to be golden. Above that is a loss/situational

[Aikaal]

There are windows to use Thundercloud procs. Spell Speed also affects your rotation (and opener)

[raisetheglass1]

I realized recently that where you are in your Enochian cycle (I name each round of fire and ice 'round 1, round 2, round 3' and then you start a new enochian cycle) determines what different rules there are for what procs you can use. In 'round 1' you have two free GCDs, so you can use Firestarter and then cast Thunder 1 / use Thundercloud. In Round 2 you only have one GCD, so you might want to ignore that Firestarter in order to get your Thunder 1 back up or to use your Thundercloud. In Round 3, you only have 1 GCD but your Enochian will fall off right when you're done with your last Fire 4, so you have plenty of time to use Firestarter or refresh Thunder before you get back into Enochian. I noticed that Ley Lines tends to add about 2 GCDs. I also generally count dodging as 'one GCD' although sometimes you might need to dodge for longer than a full global cooldown.

[Lavitz_]

Parse from A2 savage on BLM with iLvl192.

BLM AoE might be weaker then SMN's, but it is by no means "weak".

Indeed. I did 1751 this week, there's no reason to play SMN just for A2 if you enjoy BLM more.