Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Aikaal]

Edit: This all works under the assumption that you get a fast MP tick and don't need to fill, which is its own probabilistic mess. In general though, I find myself casting T1 less and less as I seem to get fast ticks quite often, and with 310 Piety I'm pretty much always smashing B4 right after B3.

You'd be correct to assume the maths of Thunder is a mess considering it's a DoT spell so it gets a bit more from Spell Speed and we stack it like no one ever was

I also have a question. You are betting on the quick MP tick which is based on luck because you can't control the server ticks while you say Thunder is luck based. That's pretty much the same thing. The only problem if you wait for 2 seconds for example for that MP tick is that your B3 is 176.4 Potency. 1.86 GCD (for me) + 2 seconds delay = a PPS of 45,70. B3 + T1 is a PPS of 115,16 with an extra bonus of a proc chance of 46.8559% exactly. So anything that involves casting B3 and being OOM and wait for a tick is a really bad idea. I did just check if you do the double 4xF4 with initially full MP that you'll be fine At least, you'll never be able to convince me the risk is worth it especially you need to be on the Leylines the entire time.

I'll also point an example that happened to me in the past back in 2.4 crafting. Back then you needed 1 Piece by Piece + 4 Careful Synth II to complete a craft so it was 5 steps. You could also use a "riskier" rotation and have 1 Piece By Piece + 2 Rapid Synth + 1 Careful Synth II to complete the craft. Rapid Synth is 80% chance so you had a chance to fail and if it happened you'd have to finish the item in 5 steps. Most the time however it required 4 steps and it made it easier to HQ. Adding RNG was beneficial and it kinda feels the same on Thunder right now.

You can be defeatist and say you'll never get procs on Thunder I or Thunder 3 Procs. Thunder 3 Proc willl always be a superior spell than Fire IV regardless the situation. Fire IV is 529.2 on a 3 Second GCD. Thunder 3 Proc is 745.5 Potency on a 2.5 GCD. No matter how you see it, it is 216.3 Potency higher. 0.5 second shorter to cast. Even if you clip 5 DoTs, it would be 535.5 Potency, it would still be 6.3 Potency higher but still 0.5 second faster. Spamming a Thunder 3 Proc right after you got one is pretty silly so you do need to keep track of that buff and that DoT you have but the BLM rotation is pretty silly and easy to begin with. Even if you can't math it out at 100%, Thunder will always come on top. Thunder III Proc is 56.96% chance of at least getting a new proc. The odds are good enough that it is worth to use the spell and not ignore it.

You also forgot that our Enochian is better with 3 cycles. Doing double FireIVx4 results of needing a 4th cycle. It would worth to constantly have it if we could do it while keeping Thunder and it won't happen lol. You might also think when you'll have enough Spell Speed to do F3 > F4x4 > B3 all the time is better and by lasting 15 seconds per cycle that 4 cycle will be the way to go. Unfortunately in reality it will never. You'll have to deal with mechanics, you'll lose 1 second and it will screw you completely.
http://imgur.com/S0JARSk There is a reason why this picture is out. It will be bound to happen that one day that one AoE will be centered on your Leylines and it's quite frustrating to deal with it but its the reality. That's like asking a monk to hit 100% of his positional on a fight like T11 for example. It can be possible but the odds are that you'll eventually miss a few because you're gonna get hit by a mechanic and you won't be able to move much.

You can also say that you can do it because you farm the raid tier at the moment but that kind of mentality would make the player a weak raider. Your goal is to get to farm the raid tier and before that you'll need to clear the content and in raid content there's no DPS wall or check until you hit the enrage. The moment you hit an enrage wall is the time you need to have few strats that implies a bigger risk for the raid for a DPS gain. Until then, it is always better to play safer and practice the mechanics. There are players that exists that deal insane DPS but they don't have that raider mentality and those players aren't in top tier raid groups. Most the time they'll be in situation where the BLM will dislike the idea of using Apocastasis or Eye for an Eye because it is an offGCD so you lose time for DPS. I can tell you in progression it was well worth all the Apocastasis on the Main Tank on A4S

I do plan on making a compilation of openers Monday. I do think its time to update that because Spell Speed does open new openers and I'll show my concerns on it but anyone is free to use double F4 on LL if they desire like any BLM is free to stack Determination over Spell Speed. I do have to leave for the day so I'll bid you farewell for now

[Judge_Xero]

You'd be correct to assume the maths of Thunder is a mess considering it's a DoT spell so it gets a bit more from Spell Speed and we stack it like no one ever was

Not to mention that there are a few things that I have not seen tested.

1: SS Increases DOT "Potency" Direct Modifier to it.
2: The Next Thunder X will add it's full damage over time amount to it's initial damage - Is this value altered by the change to Thunder Dot Potency.

Example
T3 - with 1150 SS. Say this value changes the DoT Potency to 44.4 from 40/tick.

Would the T3 Proc be worth:
425.2 + 355.2 = 780 Potency

compared to at 354 SS:
390 + 320 = 710

Or

390 + 355.2 = 745.2
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All of which are fairly significant.

[StouterTaru]

1: SS Increases DOT "Potency" Direct Modifier to it.
2: The Next Thunder X will add it's full damage over time amount to it's initial damage - Is this value altered by the change to Thunder Dot Potency.

1: 1% reduction in your base GCD = 1% increase in DoT potency
2: The initial damage of spells are not affected, even thunderclouds

Also, haste abilities (ley lines, arrow, fey wind, etc) don't do anything for DoT tick potency.

[Aikaal]

1: 1% reduction in your base GCD = 1% increase in DoT potency
2: The initial damage of spells are not affected, even thunderclouds

Also, haste abilities (ley lines, arrow, fey wind, etc) don't do anything for DoT tick potency.

Are you sure about that? Because I'm pretty sure I tested Aero and Shadowflare who are both 25 Potency DoT and Shadowflare seems to have a higher gain on Spell Speed for DoTs. To be exact, just the naked base DoT is stronger for Shadow Flare than Aero and this makes no absolute sense.

Not to mention that there are a few things that I have not seen tested.

1: SS Increases DOT "Potency" Direct Modifier to it.
2: The Next Thunder X will add it's full damage over time amount to it's initial damage - Is this value altered by the change to Thunder Dot Potency.

Example
T3 - with 1150 SS. Say this value changes the DoT Potency to 44.4 from 40/tick.

Would the T3 Proc be worth:
425.2 + 355.2 = 780 Potency

compared to at 354 SS:
390 + 320 = 710

Or

390 + 355.2 = 745.2
-------------------------------------------------------

All of which are fairly significant.

We really need more data for the gain on DoTs for spell speed lol.

But yes, and I will be adamant about it. A Thunder III Proc is a 710 Potency spell of a 2.5 Second cast. 745.5 With Enochian buff. Far more superior than any Fire III proc or that 529.2 Potency 3 Second cast Fire III. There's no way anyone should forsake Thunder and I don't think of any reason to used Sharpcast on Fire over Thunder or Thunder III. You can Sharpcast a proced Thunder III for an extra Thunder III. With 4 DoT clip, your Thunder III is 577.5 Potency. Still much higher than Fire 1 or even Fire IV. Even at 5 ticks clip Thunder III is better than Fire IV and this does not include the gain from Spell Speed on DoT damage.

If the DoT DPS gain is really 1% per 1% reduction then a full Thunder III proc would probably be around 800 Potency lol that's the damage of 2 Deathflare xD

Edit: The only reason I would drop Thunder is when I know the boss is about to go invulnerable (in about 10-15 seconds) or you need to burn an add in 10 seconds. Then yes, it is kinda silly to refresh a DoT

[StouterTaru]

Are you sure about that? Because I'm pretty sure I tested Aero and Shadowflare who are both 25 Potency DoT and Shadowflare seems to have a higher gain on Spell Speed for DoTs. To be exact, just the naked base DoT is stronger for Shadow Flare than Aero and this makes no absolute sense.

How big of a sample size did you have, and were you comparing average vs average or high vs high and low vs low?

A 2.2 base GCD is a 12% reduction from 2.5, which would give your DoT ticks 12% more damage. That makes a Thundercloud T3 give: 70 + 8*40 + 8*40*1.12 = 748.4 total potency.

[Aikaal]

How big of a sample size did you have, and were you comparing average vs average or high vs high and low vs low?

A 2.2 base GCD is a 12% reduction from 2.5, which would give your DoT ticks 12% more damage. That makes a Thundercloud T3 give: 70 + 8*40 + 8*40*1.12 = 748.4 total potency.

I don't have a big sample but you you go completely naked the DoT of shadowflare is 1 damage higher than Aero lol that's something I've noticed and that everyone that made the test notice and it makes absolute no sense test because the tooltip specify both of them are spells with potency of 25. at 500 Spell Speed it became two damage higher but my samples are not developed mainly because I don't have the time lol.

Also, Attack Speed devalues Spell Speed because you need 66 Spell Speed for 1% GCD Reduction and I definitely noticed and probably everybody can confirm me that your Spell Speed doesn't have as big of an impact when under Leylines because your base GCDs are 2.125 and 2.55 If what you're saying is true (which I hope you are not) Attack Speed would have a negative impact when casting DoTs but it is unlikely if Judge_Xero made the test

[StouterTaru]

snip

I tested Aero vs Shadow Flare on SCH, and it does appear there is about a 1% damage difference. That's 25.0 potency vs 25.3 potency, so it looks like they have different potency values but are both rounded to 25.

Ley Lines doesn't change Dot tick damage, it's calculated separately.

Thundercloud testing numbers:

	Freeze	DoT	TC III
low	3831	439	982
high	4230	486	1085
adj	4032.6	462.1	1033.7
adj	4028.6	462.9	1033.3
pot	100.00	44.70	390.12
pot	100.00	44.79	389.86

What numbers mean:

• Columns are for Freeze cast, DoT tick, and Thundercloud III cast
• high and low are high and low non-crit values
• adj are those values adjusted for the +/-5%, high/1.05, low/0.95. The closer these number are to each other, the more accurate the result
• pot is the potency of those adjusted numbers, based off Freeze potency of 100

Number analysis:

• GCD was 2.19, 12.4% reduction, DoT tick increase is about 11.9% increase in damage based off Freeze potency
• Thundercloud III potency is 390 based off Freeze, which is exactly what you would expect if the DoT damage increase from SS wasn't added in

[Lavitz_]

Dervy is making some good progress on his BLM stuff: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...05_blm_parses/

Can't wait to see the finished result.

[Judge_Xero]

1: 1% reduction in your base GCD = 1% increase in DoT potency
2: The initial damage of spells are not affected, even thunderclouds

Also, haste abilities (ley lines, arrow, fey wind, etc) don't do anything for DoT tick potency.

Where did you get those #'s from? I would really like to see the testing.

I'm still not certain that the whole DOT value isn't added to a Thundercloud proc including the modified potencies. It's hard to get good samples but from analyzing values on Logs:

If a F4 with just Enochian hits for ~6100 @ 529 Potency
T3 Proc hits for 4800 what is the Potency?

6100/529 = 11.5312

4800/11.5312 = ~416 Potency.

Without knowing the exact SS values of the test subjects. I would guess for this example somewhere around 1050, or +696 SS. From what I've seen 1% Cast Reduction = 0.9% Increased DOT Potency.
This would give a T3 Proc a value of
43.8 * 8 + 70 = 420 Potency.

Not saying for certain that it is effected because there is that darn +/- 5% variance on damage on top of examples where Enochian is active for a T3 Proc. But from looking at averages that seems to be the trend.

T3 Proc @ 390 Potency in that example should only cap out at - 4500 Damage but continues to average higher.

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That's right that Haste abilities do not effect Dot Damage. Only abilities that effect the SS value do. Enhanced Pet Procs etc. That's why so many skills were changed in Heavensward to control the balance of SS with classes that really excel using it.

[Krindor]

Not to mention that there are a few things that I have not seen tested.

1: SS Increases DOT "Potency" Direct Modifier to it.

This might be me understanding your question wrong, but wouldn't this be easily done by adding Dervy's formula for DoT damage increase and mulitplying it with the potency?

Taking your example of T3, multiplying the formula to the potency we get 1.1031*40 = 44.1233 potency. As for the 2nd thing I have no idea but would be interesting to test.