Some interesting numbers on 4.0 BLM

[EllieShadeflare]

The aoe rotation is basically B3 > B4 > T4 > F3 > Flare > Foul > Flare > Transpose > Repeat. If it's supposed to be an aoe-related trait, it provides us 2 more Umbral hearts than we need for the aoe rotation.

That's why everyone believes it's supposed to be key to the single target 4.X rotation, that and since the aoe-related trait unlocks at level 68 while Umbral Hearts unlock at level 58 alongside Blizzard IV.

You forgot two Fire IIs before that Flare. Since, like the Flare MP cost, you can actually use the Enhanced Umbral Heart effect with just one Umbral Heart.

Make Blizzard IV reduce magic resistance by 5%. Forces you to use the "proper" rotation, slightly improves BLM dps and also provides raid utility.
or
Make Blizzard IV reduce fire resistance by 10%. Brings BLM closer to SAM dps but no raid utility (except I guess Katon and a couple of RDM spells)

I love this idea. It makes Umbral Hearts a second Enochian, though I could see it as simply buffing the player's magic potency and Fire potency respectively, as a proper selfish buff.

[qivis]

You forgot two Fire IIs before that Flare. Since, like the Flare MP cost, you can actually use the Enhanced Umbral Heart effect with just one Umbral Heart.

Isn't F2 waste of time (= loss of DPS)?

edit:
that "=" was a "0" before, sorry

[Kabooa]

Isn't F2 waste of time (0 loss of DPS)?

The only reason we used F2 beforehand was because of the transpose cooldown.

Given that you can double Flare now (8 seconds), you need an absurd pack size to justify getting off more Fire2s, given that Flare is over 3x stronger on the primary target, and still stayds stronger on maximum falloff. There's no point in bothering with Fire2 as it prevents you from doing more Flares.

[qivis]

The only reason we used F2 beforehand was because of the transpose cooldown.

Given that you can double Flare now (8 seconds), you need an absurd pack size to justify getting off more Fire2s, given that Flare is over 3x stronger on the primary target, and still stayds stronger on maximum falloff. There's no point in bothering with Fire2 as it prevents you from doing more Flares.

Yeah, that's what I thought. That 0 was a misleading typo, meant to be an =

[SublimeIbanez]

The only reason we used F2 beforehand was because of the transpose cooldown.

Given that you can double Flare now (8 seconds), you need an absurd pack size to justify getting off more Fire2s, given that Flare is over 3x stronger on the primary target, and still stayds stronger on maximum falloff. There's no point in bothering with Fire2 as it prevents you from doing more Flares.

I thought at 12 (11.6 exact) mobs fire 2 actually starts out-pacing flare in overall damage.

[Shurrikhan]

— Crazy thoughts / Wishlist —

• Enochian has been moved to level 60 and is now a trait that causes Fire, Ice, or Lightning direct critical strikes to generate Melt, Shatter, or Burst, respectively, lasting 10 seconds. Each causes Scourge to be replaced with the oldest of any of the three effects, changing the skill into Melt, Shatter, or Burst. These effects can be clicked off to make use of a newer effect directly.

• Melt causes your Fire damage to additionally reduce the target's defense by 5% of damage dealt (dropping it into negative Defense) for 12 seconds atop 200 instant Fire damage.
• Shatter consumes your Umbral Hearts to deal 170 potency each to the target atop 200 instant Ice damage.
• Burst immediately deals the full damage of the remaining periodic effect of Thunder I or III and spreads it enemies within 6 yalms. If the target is not affected by Thunder I or III, the target will receive 1 tick of damage from each enemy within 6 yalms affected by Thunder II or IV.

• UI now generates mana from the swap itself (enough for most casts even when swapping from nearly no mana) and then continuously filling the rest completely over 4 seconds (in UI3), affected by Attack Speed.
• Astral Fire and Umbral Ice now generate 20% reduced mana cost and cast time per stack (rather than only rank 3 carrying the latter benefit).
• Astral Fire and Umbral Ice now additionally affect the cast after transitioning between if cast or queued within 1 second. Resultantly, you have an extra 60% of a spell's mana available to play with upon returning to AF.

Umbral Heart's mana reduction works additively with above, reducing said spell's cost to almost nothing.

• Astral Fire has been reduced to 20% damage increase to Fire spells per stack. The potencies of all Fire and Ice have been increased to compensate.

(Now 200/100/270/300 potency for ranks I/II/III/IV, 300 for Flare, and 270 for Freeze. This does not affect resultant Fire damage, but makes time spent in UI less punishing.)

This should should slightly increase Astral Fire uptime through the second reduced-cost Fire spell of each rotation, offer additional instants in the form of tactical skills, massively improve mobility and consistency (except where reliant on direct crit procs for Enochian - Scourge), and make Blizzard IV a bit more viable.

[Kabooa]

I thought at 12 (11.6 exact) mobs fire 2 actually starts out-pacing flare in overall damage.

Oof. Let me math.

Assumption: Consume all Umbral Hearts and still double Flare. Baseline Spell Speed. (Minimum GCD of 2.5) 12 targets. Will also not calculate T4 other than GCD time.
This means

B3 -> B4 -> T4 -> F3 -> F2 -> F2 -> Flare -> Flare (We will exclude Foul for now)
Total time: 2.5 + 3.0 + 3.0 + 2.5 + 3.0 + 3.0 + 4.0 + 4.0 = 25.0 seconds
Potency - Primary Target: 120 + 260 + 120 + 144 + 144 + 468 + 468 = 1724
Potency - Second: 144 + 144 + 398 + 398 = 1084
Potency - Third: 144 + 144 + 327 + 327 = 942
Potency - Fourth: 144 + 144 + 257 + 257 = 802
Potency - Fifth: 144 + 144 + 187 + 187 = 662
Potency - Sixth+: (144 + 144 + 140 + 140) * 7 (6th target + 6 more) = 3976

Potency / seconds = 9190 / 25 = 367.6 potency/second

Ugh.

Flare only: Using previous work we can simply this down to 19 seconds, minus 288 potency in every scenario to
Potency / second = 5734 / 19 = 301.7 potency / second

Which means Fire 2 breaks even at... *math math math*

X / 25 = 301.7 = 7542 potency which is... approximately 1680 under the '12 target' scenario, meaning you need a pack of approximately 9 for Fire2 to be equal PPS, and everything else is gravy.

For F2 only spam... you can likely do 5 F2's (would have to test to be certain) which puts you at...
26 seconds with 9740 potency
374 potency / second

Again, this math doesn't account for T4 or Foul potency that would change the dynamics of it, because I'm lazy, and is strictly from a Fire / Flare standpoint.

So in most 3-6 pack cases, I will say F2 is a waste. Based on this math I did that is highly subject to being wrong, I will say on the designated AOE packs that exceed 9, you can probably just F2 spam, but Flare would still be better included for dealing merssive damage to a big target in the group.

[Ali5553]

Make Blizzard IV reduce magic resistance by 5%. Forces you to use the "proper" rotation, slightly improves BLM dps and also provides raid utility.
or
Make Blizzard IV reduce fire resistance by 10%. Brings BLM closer to SAM dps but no raid utility (except I guess Katon and a couple of RDM spells)

tbh i dont realy like this idea. simply from a logical point of view (i know its called final fantasy but even fantasy follows some kind of logic . Umbral hearts are like a gameplay mechanic belonging to a BLM so i dont see how it can be equated to a debuff.

i suggest that they should increase the potency of the spell cast within umbral hearts. each umbral heart increases the spell potency cast in AF by 30 so for example:
if you have 3 umbral hearts up and you cast 1 fire spell in AF than the first spell will get a 90 potency boost, the second spell will get a 60 potency boost because one of the UH's have been used and the third spell will increase its potency by 30.
I did some quick calculations with this using only the opener rotation and it showed an increase of about ~ 5%.

They did a pretty good job on BLM, they only need to tweak it a bit in terms of damage and its fine. by giving umbral hearts more reason to be used outside the opener, within ley and aoe.

[Waliel]

math

B3 and F3 is a 3.5 cast and why would you cast B3 anyway? Their damage also can't get halved.

10 mobs with Thunder:

T4 B4 F3 F2 F2 Flare Flare - 443,6 PPS
(2300+260+216+1440*2+2340*2)/23,3

T4 B4 F3 Flare Flare - 397,4 PPS
(2000+260+216+2340*2)/17,3

T4 B4 F3 F2 F2 F2 F2 Flare - 435,1 PPS
(2300+260+216+1440*5+2340)/28,3

Bonus:
T4 F3 F2 F2 Flare - 450,6 PPS
(2000+216+1440*2+2340)/16,5

You need 3 ticks for normal T4 to be roughly equal to F2 (140 and 144) and use TC pretty much at will. Foul would be extra 4225p every 30 seconds.

Did a quick test and you have to wait a tiny bit to get enough mana for 5xF2, and even longer come next patch because of shorter B4 (already included above).

[Nezia]

btw, the new letter does not seem to bring much hope to BLM, it seems like it is just some band-aid QoL changes. A buff? Yes! Enough? Nope!