Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Galvuu]

Actually I was simply considering a perfect mana tick scenario for the person using the 3.0 rotation exclusively(...)
B) F4-F4-FOUL-F1-F4-F4-B3-T3-F3

So, the problem is that I had been experimenting with 4.0 for a long time when I wrote that.

First, I believe this "no filler thing" doesn't work in practice. Half the time you won't get a mana refund, especially with the new cast time.
Second, doing B3>Foul>Foul>T3>B4>F3 is also incredibly tight (like, half a second leeway tight) in 4.0, and in practice this would cause you to drop UI sometimes, until we get more spell speed. This is why I didn't consider Double Foul.
If you Doulbe Foul, you're better off going 3.0 after, because it really is painfully tight to do an UI cycle like this with B4.

This all stems from an issue I (and apparently, more people have) that if you F/F3/B3 at the last second, the game freaks out and you lose Enochian (it's incredibly frustrating).

Also, while what you posted surely works for 3.0, what if your Foul falls onto your AF cycle in 4.0?
Say you're on UI and a mechanic happens. You had to move a step and there's no way in hell you're going to Foul now and risk losing UI.
Do you go AF and Foul there? Do you blizzard to keep UI going? This kind of junk happens a bit in practice.

Now, I've been checking 4.05 numbers, and it seems that the 4.0 rotation will be very close to lasting 30 seconds, so none of this issues will bother us.
That said, thank you very much for taking time to discuss this. It's so important having someone to talk to for a sanity check sometimes.

EDIT: I guess with Triple we can hecaFireIV more easily, but still, 1 pps...? Come on SE... at least make it like... 5% stronger...
DOUBLE EDIT: I'll do a cumulative pps thing with Triple and Sharpcast account for and see how that goes.

[jamvng]

Second, doing B3>Foul>Foul>T3>B4>F3 is also incredibly tight (like, half a second leeway tight) in 4.0, and in practice this would cause you to drop UI sometimes, until we get more spell speed. This is why I didn't consider Double Foul.
If you Doulbe Foul, you're better off going 3.0 after, because it really is painfully tight to do an UI cycle like this with B4.

Isn't the argument that you double Foul and put a Foul during AF (because total potency doesn't change no matter where you put it in rotation) and that we can do F4x3 + Foul + Fire1 with the new cast times and using either Sharpcast or Triplecast?

[Galvuu]

Isn't the argument that you double Foul and put a Foul during AF (because total potency doesn't change no matter where you put it in rotation) and that we can do F4x3 + Foul + Fire1 with the new cast times and using either Sharpcast or Triplecast?

For the new rotation, that yields 13.4 total cast time, so you can't do that (you drop AF).
But I was talking about 4.0 there, not 4.05 qq
I was asking if people who used this method to calculate the pps of the 3.0 VS 4.0 rotations (not 4.05) had considered the possibility of a misplaced Foul.

On 4.05, this is a non issue because the duration of your rotation is almost 30 seconds- especially if you can penta Fire IV a 3.0 rotation every now and then.

(I should remind everyone that the difference between both is just a tidbit over 1% dps. This is utterly insignificant in practice. How many of your DHs/Crits fall on Fouls/Fire IVs matter much more than this. Where in a region where rng variance of such factors yields a higher influence)

[Lilyth]

Snip

Yeah, fitting two fouls is gonna be tight even with the 4.05 rotation. But I believe the best way to do it is placing the first Foul on AF and the second on UI like normal. Thanks to the new Triplecast Cooldown, you'll always have either Sharpcast or Triple up for every AF cycle. Really, this is such a QoL change! Handling AF with be so much easier now. And really, the difference in both rotations is so small like you said that... ugh. Even flat out spamming fire is really close to the optimal way of playing. SE, ploxx! ;-;

And no problem! It's a pleasure to discuss a job I like so much with another enthusiastic.

I think what you're missing here is not that Foul is good, but that Blizzard 4 is bad.

I agree. Blizzard IV is terrible for what little it does. It makes your rotation a hell of a lot tighter and for what? A measly 1 PPS difference? It's still worth using it every time with the new 2.8 cast time but it hardly feels worth the trouble. If you have numbers suggesting the contrary, please do share them.

[Ferrinus]

If you have numbers suggesting the contrary, please do share them.

The 2.8 cast time is a buff to BLM dps overall, but I don't think it changes the relative merits of the short rotation and the long rotation. Let me dig my numbers up:

F4, F4, F1, F4, F4, B3, T3, Foul, F3
Math: 2196 fire + 168 + 390 + 650 + 168 = 3572 potency, 23.7 seconds ---> 150.7 potency per second

F4, F4, F4, F1, F4, F4, F4, B3, T3, B4, Foul, F3
Math: 3132 fire + 168 + 390 + 650 + 260 + 168 = 4718 potency, 32.1 seconds ---> 146.98 potency per second

The short cycle is still more convenient and more damaging than the long cycle, so we only want to use the long cycle in order to guarantee more short cycles down the line.

[Lilyth]

F4, F4, F1, F4, F4, B3, T3, Foul, F3
Math: 2196 fire + 168 + 390 + 650 + 168 = 3572 potency, 23.7 seconds ---> 150.7 potency per second

Thank you for the quick reply!

Over Topic: You can't place Foul in there. Like me and Galvuu have been discussing, by including Foul in the equation you're are automatically favoring the shorter rotation. In the sample you posted you are pretty much assuming you'll be casting Foul every rotation like it's part of it, and it is not. Foul is a bonus given every 30 seconds to any rotation you use as long as you keep enochian up and it won't favor the PPS of any rotation since you'll cast the same amount of Fouls in the end, no matter what. To sum it up, the 3.0 rotation (F4, F4, F1, F4, F4, B3, T3, Foul, F3) is shorter than 30 seconds, so Foul won't be there in every cycle meaning it's not part of it.

The real comparison does not account Foul and it shows why 4.0 is superior by ~ 1 PPS. 139,3057081 PPS (3.0) vs 140,1707923 PPS (4.0). I can post the whole math later if you wish (going to bed now).

On other news, Fire I cost has been reduced! Hopefully it'll be enough to end this torture of being at the mercy of the server mana tics.

[Ferrinus]

Over Topic: You can't place Foul in there.

Ah, but I can given the assumption that you'll just execute as many short rotations as possible rather than the short rotation exclusively. Like I told you, this isn't about casting more Fouls, but about casting fewer Blizzard 4s. The way I see it, the new challenge of playing a black mage is figuring out how to cast the fewest B4s possible, or in other words figuring out how to do as many short rotations and as few long rotations possible.

My experience in 4.0 suggests that a B4 in your opener and a B4 every 90 seconds is sufficient, but I think we'll need a little more than that once the servers come back up because of the cast time decreases and more frequent triplecasts. I'll be surprised if it turns out that you have to B4 on every cycle, though; maybe every other, or one out of three.

I do WANT to B4 every cycle, because that makes the problem of where to place Foul more interesting to solve, but I think that'll take a substantial buff to umbral hearts specifically.