Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Ferrasper]

I do want to clarify something though. So you only use B4 with opener, when triplecast is off CD, and no foul up correct? If foul is up, you use the 3.0 with 5 F4s?

[Sylvain]

I do want to clarify something though. So you only use B4 with opener, when triplecast is off CD, and no foul up correct? If foul is up, you use the 3.0 with 5 F4s?

That's what I understand.
Basically, if there's nothing else to do, use it.
It's the ultimate filler.

[Ferrasper]

That's what I understand.
Basically, if there's nothing else to do, use it.
It's the ultimate filler.

Basically only opener and triple cast then because foul is almost always up at the end of your AF cycle. lolz

[Ferrinus]

Sorry to pick this up late

However, in all the calculations done to get the result 4.0 is better than 3.0, we assumed a perfect server tic

This is wrong. Prior to patch 4.05, assuming T3 is literally the only spell we ever have to cast out of astral for any reason, using B4 does worse PPS than not using B4. Before procs of any kind, it's 137 on 4xF4 and 136 on 6xF4. Plus, 6xF4 is way more fragile.

Furthermore, assuming that you always get perfect mana ticks is obviously fraught, because you do not get perfect mana ticks and usually need two pieces of filler, not one. Even if Fire 1 hadn't gotten any cheaper and B4 gave you two bonus F4s rather than one, B4 would still be a bad spell to use on single targets.

It's true that it is impossible to increase Foul's dps, such that the damage output OF FOUL ITSELF is constant... but the point is that A) Blizzard 4 decreases our dps and B) Foul can be used to increase the rest of our dps by replacing crappy spells, totally irrespective of the 650 potency Foul itself delivers.

[Lelila38]

What do you mean, "threshold"?
If you're asking how much spellspeed shortens the gcd by a centisecond, it's around 66 atm.
This value was either 22 or 26 in HW, I think. Or do you mean something else?

In Hw the number you had to increase Ss to get an effect used to alternate between 16 and 17. You needed to increase it by 16 to gain something, next time you needed to add 17 then 16 again...
It makes no sense to just stack Ss if you don't get anything from it, so you could rather be adding something else if your added Ss doesn't give you an increase.

[Shiroe]

On don't even use B4 in my opener, I go full precast F3, tripple cast 3xF4 etc.., just need diversion and sometimes Ld early too

don't like using tripple'cast under LL, even if it seems good there too

[Ferrinus]

I haven't experimented with non-B4 openers but I really should.

I think triplecast is best used up immediately before leylines, so like I'll do triplecast, F4 F4 F4 leylines F4 F4 etc etc rest of rotation. That way triplecast buys you the most possible time and you can even use the space between each instant cast to use the ogcd.

[Waliel]

I haven't experimented with non-B4 openers but I really should.

I think triplecast is best used up immediately before leylines, so like I'll do triplecast, F4 F4 F4 leylines F4 F4 etc etc rest of rotation. That way triplecast buys you the most possible time and you can even use the space between each instant cast to use the ogcd.

This is what I've been using after 4.05: Precast Sharp Ley F1 - FS - Eno Triple F4 - pot - F4 - F4 - Swift F4 - Convert F1 - F4 - F4 (FS) - B3 - B4 - T3. It lets you use all oGCD without clipping and at worst gets 185 PPS compared to 176.86 PPS of B3 opener. Unless there's some secret B3 opener I don't know about.

[Gwaeron89]

The thing about umbral opener is that you conserve sharp cast for going into astral phase. So it goes like 3xf4 - sharpcasted f1 - 3xf4 - f3 proc - convert mana - 2xf4 - b3 and at this point you immediately gain foul to easily avoid server manatic problem. It may be not optimal but i like this opener more.

[Lilyth]

Sorry to pick this up late

This is wrong. Prior to patch 4.05, assuming T3 is literally the only spell we ever have to cast out of astral for any reason, using B4 does worse PPS than not using B4. Before procs of any kind, it's 137 on 4xF4 and 136 on 6xF4. Plus, 6xF4 is way more fragile.

No problem. And I was referring to 4.05 cast times, not 4.0. With a 3 seconds cast, 4x FIV's beat 6x FIV's by less than 1 PPS. You can check this chart that has been circling around for some time: http://i.imgur.com/3oUflnR.png

Furthermore, assuming that you always get perfect mana ticks is obviously fraught, because you do not get perfect mana ticks and usually need two pieces of filler, not one. Even if Fire 1 hadn't gotten any cheaper and B4 gave you two bonus F4s rather than one, B4 would still be a bad spell to use on single targets.

It's not a fraught because we might have removed Foul's pontecy from the calculations since it's a constant to every rotation, but its benefit of always giving the rotation a server tic if used on ice must remain to make the calculations accurate, and it did. We are not merely assuming there was a perfect mana tic, we were assuming people will use Foul on UI and, therefore, always have full mana upon going to AF by only casting Thunder.

Also, after the cast time buff to FIV/BIV, 6x FIV's now beat 4x FIV's: http://i.imgur.com/I1tfrL1.png

point is that A) Blizzard 4 decreases our dps and B) Foul can be used to increase the rest of our dps by replacing crappy spells, totally irrespective of the 650 potency Foul itself delivers.

That's why when you look at the chart, you can see that Foul's "ability" to replace crappy spells has been accounted for when calculating the 3.0 rotation output, because the only spell you see on every UI cycle for 3.0 rotation is Thunder III. And it still loses to 4.0 after the cast time buff. Therefore the conclusion is Blizzard IV is not bad in 4.05 if you can get 2 FIV's from it.