Some interesting numbers on 4.0 BLM

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I would just wait and see what the Patch Notes look like. Maybe SE changes a few things like Astral Fire duration which could change things.

Oh shush up with the wait and see tactic. We waited and saw since before preliminary patch notes. Let us talk now!

[EllieShadeflare]

All I can hope is that SE sees all the complaints about the "intended" 4.x rotation and fix it like they did Wanderer's Minuet/Gauss Barrel back in 3.0. Otherwise... Well, they broke the job.

Though, I think that if they at least made it so that when players cast Thundercloud'd Thunder/Thunder III, it removes the recast time, making it a pseudo oGCD.

[Galvuu]

All I can hope is that SE sees all the complaints about the "intended" 4.x rotation and fix it like they did Wanderer's Minuet/Gauss Barrel back in 3.0. Otherwise... Well, they broke the job.

Though, I think that if they at least made it so that when players cast Thundercloud'd Thunder/Thunder III, it removes the recast time, making it a pseudo oGCD.

This scares me a lot.
I'd rather if BLM was balanced around the overall rotation/AF cycles (adjust Fire IV/Blizzrd IV/Foul potencies, and review Umbral Hearts).
Thundercloud being ogcd would be insanely broken. Having access to a 700 potency ogcd seems insane to me. Not sure I'd approve of that change :/

[soslinky]

Has anyone experimented on B4 being feasible at all after reading this thread? Mind sharing your experiences so far?

I've been experimenting on it a lot on Susano trying to look for gaps in mechanics where I could squeeze 6 F4s but it usually blows up in my face. My best run so far had me cast a measly total of 5 B4s. I managed to perfectly time my B4 just as each purple marker phase was about to end and pulling off 6 F4s all throughout the succeeding Unheki phase. IIRC one of those B4s was a mistake and I ended up missing a cast of F4.

I gotta tell you guys though, while I 100% agree that SE should do something about our 4.0 rotation, the whole effort of trying to optimize this fight to include as much 4.0 AF rotations as I can was the most fun I've had so far. I just hope this isn't me subconsciously conceding to this mess of a kit. :X

[Inuakurei]

Hello friends. I leveled BLM back in 2.0 but left it at lv50 for 3.0. Now in 4.0 I'm leveling it again and just got lv60 a few days ago.

So I have a question because I'm terrible and getting used to all this again.

I've been following (as close as I can) what I guess is the standard rotation of:
3xF4>F>3xF4>B3

and I see the logic there, but the timing is tight to maintain like the op mentions. So I wanted to ask you all who are much better at figuring this stuff out than I am, how much worse is this rotation:
3xF4>B3>F3>3xF4>B3

Pretty much just replacing the single F1 for a B3>F3 combo. It is about 1s slower, but I think the damage of B3+F3 is about the same as F1 and it makes keeping enochain up much easier because of the faster cast time on B3 vs F1.

I know it IS a dps loss, but by how much? Is it minimal enough to consider? Or is it a huge loss and not worth doing?

Although I'd still use 3xF4>F>3xF4>B3 with sharpcast though as that gives a free F3.

[Galvuu]

snip

It's a dps loss, for many reasons.

First, something most people don't understand about how AF III and UI III interact with spells of the opposing element.
When you're in AF III and cast B3 (or UI III and cast F3), the channelling of the spell (the cast) is shortened by 50%. That means it takes 1.75 seconds.
But, on your tooltip, there's something called "recast time". That time- which is one gcd for us- is the time you must wait until you can cast another spell. That's 2.5 seconds for F3 and B3.
So even though the cast only lasts 1.75 seconds, you have to sit there for the whole gcd duration before you can cast anything again. That means that B3>F3 transition lasts 5 seconds.

You then have two other issues to deal with:
First, you forego T3. That's less procs (free pps) and also less movement options.
Second, if you get a slow mana tick on UI, you have to wait around doing nothing for 1.5 seconds on average. Or you cast a filler spell, which would be T3, this rectifying the previous issue.
Since it's extremely hard to guess a mana tick in a vacuum (aka: without seeing the previous tick, if you see one you can guestimate the next relatively accurately), you pretty much always have to cast T3/Foul to get around the mana tick issue.

The pps for your proposed rotation, btw, would be 132 (without a filler spell), which is ~13pps lower than the 3.X rotation.
With a filler spell (to get around the mana tick thing), you'd get around 136pps.
This is a 10% dps loss VS the HW rotation without a Firestarter proc.
On average, you're doing 12% less damage than a player using the 3.X rotation with a 4.0 opener would do (although it's not as bad as I thought it would be).
Whether that's acceptable or not is up to you x)

[Inuakurei]

snip

Ahh you're completely right, I didn't think about the gcd at all. I guess it would be alright during a movement mechanic or something but other than that I'll try to avoid it. Thanks

[Waliel]

B3(prepull)>Enochian>T3>B4>F3>Triple(weaved into quick F3)>F4>Sharpcast>F4>F4>LL(weaved)>F>F4x3>Firestarter>Convert(weaved)>F4x2.

That whole shebang is 10 PPS lower than Sharp opener when you get an extra FS, Foul and all included with my sheets. Even one TC proc without any clipping (impossible) is not enough to pull ahead. Is there also any reason to use Ley that late when you can fit it with the Sharp and not clip anything? All that changes is getting faster F4 during normal rotation instead of getting them faster during the opener.

[Kiriken]

I never was a BLM before SB, but on a whim I decided to give it a go and leveled it to 70 via dungeons and stuff. It's actually my 5th 70 now, the 3rd DPS (NIN and SAM being the other two), so immediately I began to notice my 5 or 6 Fire IVs, as pretty as they looked, seemed to be tickling bosses rather than hurting them...

Well, I continued on and went entirely blind into the BLM rotation anyway. Firstly, I ended up falling into a "B4 > F3 > 2x F4 > F1 > 3x F4 > B3" based rotation because the few times I'd tried 6x F4s, I was left with 0 mana and never realized it was thanks to bad mana ticks. Secondly, I had little room for mechanics. Unlike the 6x F4 rotation I apparently should've discovered, I DID have more room to maneuver than most, but it would still cost me one F4 a lot of the time, and in fights involving stack mechanics I'd have to sacrifice 2 or 3 F4s even.

Last night I discovered this thread after hitting level 70, finding myself still frustrated even with Foul to back up my rotation, and trying to look online for anything wrong I've done and whether or not BLM truly is fudged. This morning, I went to SSS and tried a true 6x F4 4.X rotation as shown here, the pseudo-3.X rotation, then the SAM SSS to compare all 3 (SAM has the same ilvl and by some strange luck the same gear, currently, neither have materia melded yet) and got to 20% for 4.X rotation, 10% for 3.X rotation, and a sliver of 1% for SAM rotation (would've beaten if if not for 2 misses on the hotbar).

I'm still sloppy as a BLM, especially since its mechanics are so complex, so I DID make mistakes whereas with SAM's relatively simple mechanics I only made 2 or 3 mistakes. However I'm certain that though I can beat the SSS dummy as a SAM at the same ilvl, I won't be beating it as BLM as the same ilvl while using the 4.0 rotation, and only while using the 3.X rotation if I get more than average T3 procs.

BLM is so high maintenance that it feels really bad to have all your hard work amounts to so little damage. I'm not a BLM main, I might not ever become a BLM main, but now that I've tried it and understand the pains they go through to max out their DPS, I REALLY think they should easily (well, when they're doing the 4.X rotation right, so not so easily) max out the DPS standings. And funnily enough, I'd end up enjoying RDM more since it would feel less like a cheap upgrade to BLM too (since you can't upgrade from DPS-kings/queens).

[corey1]

Make Umbral Hearts have a cast-time reduction effect in addition to mana reduction.
or
Make Umbral Hearts give an extra couple seconds to your AF timer.
or
Make AF/UI a few seconds longer.

Option 1 is the most fun; option 3 is probably the route they go because the answer is usually: what is the easiest / most boring way to fix this?