Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Waliel]

Not had chance to check your spreadsheet, but have you taken into account the differing gains for spellspeed for Fire 4/B4? (I.e. you get more gain out of it on a 3 second cast than a 2.5 second cast)

I'm not sure if it matters, but isn't it percentually the same reduction for both? 200 SS reduces cast time by the same X% for F1, F4, Flare, and so on.

[Xenitan]

I'm not sure if it matters, but isn't it percentually the same reduction for both? 200 SS reduces cast time by the same X% for F1, F4, Flare, and so on.

It is. There is no difference in impact between spells.

The biggest difference is in DPS structure, where with a longer rotation more spell speed gives you some more flexibility. But that's entirely discrete and nobody's really done anything to consider it.

Or in other words:

(Warning, math)

DPS can be calculated as follows:

Let R = potency per second from your rotation
Let P = Damage per potency
Let C = Crit multiplier

And the DPS is basically R*P*C. Really simple.

R is a little weird. It has two components- the length of the GCD and the spells you can get away with using (because of the shortented GCD). Lets just further divide these into two components S and G

G = 2.5/GCD. Pretty simple.
S = The spells you cast in your rotation's potency per second assuming a 2.5 GCD (a little counter intuitive, but think about it like this: you can cast 3 Fire IV's under a 10 second Astral Fire with a 3.0 timer. With a 2.5 timer, you can fit 4 in. In this case, S would be 4*280/3. Even if that implies you have a 12 second astral fire, we separate this because it's much harder to calculate than the GCD which is known to us).

Crit is easy to describe, but I want our multiplier to include the rate and the bonus because both are modified by crit. You have a 1-Crit chance% chance to not crit and a Crit chance % to crit. A crit does D extra damage per noncrit damage. So you have a 1-crit chance% chance to do 1 damage and a crit chance% chance to do 1 plus D damage. This simplifies to 1+(Crit Rate%)(Bonus Damage)

P is regressed and in the spread sheet.

This refines the formula to S(SS)*G(SS)*C(Crit)*P(WD,Int,Det).

We don't know much about S, and we know enough about G,C and P to regress formula for them. One thing to note about S is that it has the property S(X) <= S(X+1). So for short term, we assume S is constant and just calculate G*C*P. A higher value here suggests your spells do more damage per second. So for simplicity I set S to be the value it would be for blizzard spam (easy to understand) and say it's analogous to your DPS if we assume S(X)=S(X+1). This is why my model absolutely undervalues Spell Speed, though it may not be by a significant amount. One thing to note is that S needs to also consider that you will always be spending a static amount of time regenerating mana. You can list out the rotation and say "oh here it is" but for accuracy you need to include probability, mana ticks and a host of other nonsense.

So yes. Technically you can say that with longer spells, spell speed gives more benefit. However this is only in terms of S so unless you're giving me accurate potency per second per rotation values depending on spell speed in a way that includes procs and the fact that the time you spend in umbral ice is NOT dependent on spell speed, then for all intents and purposes the DPS calculator doesn't care about it and for any practical application SS doesn't care about the cast time.

And that's the theory behind why I decided to use Blizzard spam short term. I could have waited, given myself time to figure out how best to calculate your rotation's potency per second with respect to spell speed. But I didn't because you're spending your esoterics, your gordian pages on gear *right now* and I wanted to give the community something useful so that we can make educated decisions on what to purchase.

[Darkwand]

My biggest concern is that Piety or Max Mp is a huge factor. The opener I am currently using on single target only leaves enough mp for a Blizz3 after my F4's. Getting to that quicker with SS will not affect your damage output. My point is Max MP and Refresh Rate of Umbral Ice are fixed and not affected by SS. My current theory is that for us BLM, we will have a "SS Cap" much like an Acc Cap, a floor that is necessary to maintain our current rotation. Other then that it seems SS will only give us some flexibility to catch up if we need to move, etc. Now I don't discount the importance of this flexibility, but in reality will not improve our dps as much as a stat that makes the fixed number of casts hit harder (det/crit) I think SS is going to drop in value.

[Niryco]

My biggest concern is that Piety or Max Mp is a huge factor. The opener I am currently using on single target only leaves enough mp for a Blizz3 after my F4's. Getting to that quicker with SS will not affect your damage output. My point is Max MP and Refresh Rate of Umbral Ice are fixed and not affected by SS. My current theory is that for us BLM, we will have a "SS Cap" much like an Acc Cap, a floor that is necessary to maintain our current rotation. Other then that it seems SS will only give us some flexibility to catch up if we need to move, etc. Now I don't discount the importance of this flexibility, but in reality will not improve our dps as much as a stat that makes the fixed number of casts hit harder (det/crit) I think SS is going to drop in value.

It is true that max mp is a huge factor (makes me wonder would people invest into peity melds in the future)but I feel that increased spell speed can warrant a different approach to our rotation. I won't claim that other methods of refreshing AF are currently optimal, but if the spell speed were available to try them out maybe we could make a more flexible/mobile rotation that trades a bit of burst dps for a better sustained dps.

Call me idealistic, but in the long run i would expect spell speed to become a BiS for a different type of sustained rotation due to the piety restrictions, though the rotation itself maybe really long and drawn. Just my two cents.

[HaroldSaxon]

My biggest concern is that Piety or Max Mp is a huge factor. The opener I am currently using on single target only leaves enough mp for a Blizz3 after my F4's. Getting to that quicker with SS will not affect your damage output. My point is Max MP and Refresh Rate of Umbral Ice are fixed and not affected by SS. My current theory is that for us BLM, we will have a "SS Cap" much like an Acc Cap, a floor that is necessary to maintain our current rotation. Other then that it seems SS will only give us some flexibility to catch up if we need to move, etc. Now I don't discount the importance of this flexibility, but in reality will not improve our dps as much as a stat that makes the fixed number of casts hit harder (det/crit) I think SS is going to drop in value.

Piety is not worth it.

[HaroldSaxon]

I'm not sure if it matters, but isn't it percentually the same reduction for both? 200 SS reduces cast time by the same X% for F1, F4, Flare, and so on.

I don't know the formula for it which was why I was asking. I just don't have the time to theorycraft as much as I once did without dropping raidtime. There are other things like fitting extra spells in a rotation (Under Ley Lines, F4, TC*+Swiftcast, F4, F4, F3* is fun during a cooldown rotation).