Should Thunder be left out of rotation for BLM?

[Izyla]

What about Freeze? Seems like a very valuable aoe tool.

Indeed, Freeze is great now

[odym82]

Freeze is only great in the later levels when it gives you an Umbral Heart. Otherwise it’s just a potency 100 AOE which is what it often gets reduced to when hitting the dungeon roulettes and other level syncs

[Acidblood]

Freeze is only great in the later levels when it gives you an Umbral Heart. Otherwise it’s just a potency 100 AOE which is what it often gets reduced to when hitting the dungeon roulettes and other level syncs

Spamming* Freeze is actually better AoE DPS than trying to do the Fire II rotation (due to potency losses in switching between IU and AF)... so yeah, right from level 35 Freeze is pretty great.

* Though don't forget to do Thunder II / Thundercloud.

[odym82]

Weird I only use Freeze when level synced to do a quick replenish of MP

[Chiraisu]

Weird I only use Freeze when level synced to do a quick replenish of MP

Fire II has a long cast time, and so you are clipping your GCD pretty significantly on just hardcasting fire II and it only has a potency of 80, which means even at AF3 it is somewhere around 145 potency. for a 3 second cast time! Freeze is a potency 100 with no falloff OR Mp cost (in Umbral Ice 3) and also auto generates UI 3. Before the ability to triple cast flare, the faster cast time and higher uptime of Freeze will win out on fire II's gcd clipping, especially with AoE thunder/thundercloud procs.

[Taranok]

Fire II has a long cast time, and so you are clipping your GCD pretty significantly on just hardcasting fire II and it only has a potency of 80, which means even at AF3 it is somewhere around 145 potency. for a 3 second cast time! Freeze is a potency 100 with no falloff OR Mp cost (in Umbral Ice 3) and also auto generates UI 3. Before the ability to triple cast flare, the faster cast time and higher uptime of Freeze will win out on fire II's gcd clipping, especially with AoE thunder/thundercloud procs.

I had to run the numbers, but you made an error. The issue isn't that Fire 2 clips the GCD. If you normalize Fire 2 to a 2.5s GCD, it comes in swinging for 120 potency per target on a 2.5s GCD (with an actual cast time of 3s, it's normalized to 2.5 to make it easier to directly compare with freeze).

There are 3 things that sink fire 2 though.

The first is that casting fire 3 costs you a ton of damage, because it is a single target spell compared to a minimum of 3 targets, the break point for BLMs starting to AoE. And at that point, the mere act of casting fire 3 is already sinking the benefits of casting Fire 2 twice, with a little bit of change on top. This gets vastly worse the more targets there are.

The second is that the act of swapping from UI to AF and back costs potency as well. Every spell only does 70% listed damage if you are using an opposite attunement spell. So a 100 potency spell only does 70. The swap cost of going from AF back into UI costs about 1.5 fire 2s in potency per target lost due to opportunity cost. There's an argument that you can just transpose and then freeze, but that has cost associated with it as well in lost GCD time!

The third is that you only get 3 total fire 2s per AF cycle, 4 once you hit 58 if you have 2 umbral hearts. Which means you will always be at a loss no matter how many targets are up below 58, just period.

Flare starts to throw a spanner in the works, but it's probably not worth casting outside of convert windows because the transpose back into UI can cost you most of the gains from Flare, and fire 2 is just slowing down doing more flares the second you get flare. And once you hit 68, Flare flat out out-competes fire 2 once you can double cast it, so throwing more flares out is better than casting any fire 2s, especially since you can only cast fire 2s as long as you don't consume the last heart.

Honorable mention for levels 35-39, where you have freeze but have to hardcast fire 3, completely destroying any benefit fire 2 would bring no matter the situation.

So yeah, the second you get Freeze, you may as well delete Fire 2 from your bar.

[Tint]

The second is that the act of swapping from UI to AF and back costs potency as well. Every spell only does 70% listed damage if you are using an opposite attunement spell. So a 100 potency spell only does 70. The swap cost of going from AF back into UI costs about 1.5 fire 2s in potency per target lost due to opportunity cost. There's an argument that you can just transpose and then freeze, but that has cost associated with it as well in lost GCD time!

What? This is the first time I eaver heared that. Source? The Job guide only says Astral Fire increases fire damage and mp cost and Umbral Ice offers mp regeneration. And Magick and Mend 2 trait says the cast times are half for the opposite element, but nowhere does it say damage is reduced for the opposite element.

Flare starts to throw a spanner in the works, but it's probably not worth casting outside of convert windows because the transpose back into UI can cost you most of the gains from Flare, and fire 2 is just slowing down doing more flares the second you get flare. And once you hit 68, Flare flat out out-competes fire 2 once you can double cast it, so throwing more flares out is better than casting any fire 2s, especially since you can only cast fire 2s as long as you don't consume the last heart.

So I should just spam Freeze until I hit 68 and only ever switch to AF when Manafont is up for double Flare?

[Acidblood]

What? This is the first time I eaver heared that. Source? The Job guide only says Astral Fire increases fire damage and mp cost and Umbral Ice offers mp regeneration. And Magick and Mend 2 trait says the cast times are half for the opposite element, but nowhere does it say damage is reduced for the opposite element.

Hmm, I'm sure it used to say it... but anyway it's a thing, try it on a striking dummy.

So I should just spam Freeze until I hit 68 and only ever switch to AF when Manafont is up for double Flare?

Instant cast Flare in AF3 is also worth it (especially if you can cover any Transpose lag with a Thundercloud), but otherwise, basically, yes.

Edit: Actually, I'll correct myself: You can do better damage with a Fire III > Fire II * (1 to 3) > Flare > Transpose rotation from level 50 to level 68. Fire II becomes (technically) worth it at this point due to the extra potency of Flare, which offsets the losses due to AF / UI switching (even with a few seconds of Transpose lag). One caveat though is that you always want to be ending the rotation with Flare and taking full advantage of its damage (i.e. be sure the mobs will live long enough) otherwise you would have been better off just spamming Freeze.

[Hasrat]

Hmm, I'm sure it used to say it... but anyway it's a thing, try it on a striking dummy

I swear, there's a lot about the whole UI/AF mechanic that doesn't get clearly covered very well. I think part of it is now that they're not listed as status buffs, we don't have a means to just mouse-over and see what the buffs do. You have to go into the job gauge description now just to learn some of what the buffs do. The absolute worst offender, tho, is B3/F3. Might be wrong, but, I think that nowhere in the game will tell the new player "Hey! At full ice/fire stacks, you can use these level 3 spells with reduced cast time to quickly swap to full stacks of the opposite element!" Sure, it feels nice educating the budding BLM in Stone Vigil just hitting 40. But some clarity on the full effects of the mechanics would be appreciated.

Instant cast Flare in AF3 is also worth it (especially if you can cover any Transpose lag with a Thundercloud), but otherwise, basically, yes.

Edit: Actually, I'll correct myself: You can do better damage with a Fire III > Fire II * (1 to 3) > Flare > Transpose rotation from level 50 to level 68. Fire II becomes (technically) worth it at this point due to the extra potency of Flare, which offsets the losses due to AF / UI switching (even with a few seconds of Transpose lag). One caveat though is that you always want to be ending the rotation with Flare and taking full advantage of its damage (i.e. be sure the mobs will live long enough) otherwise you would have been better off just spamming Freeze.

Kinda thought this was a bit of a contested subject? Fire 2, as I understand it, is just taking up time you could be using on Flare, even at 50. Unless I haven't kept up with new info, I was under the impression that 50s AoE amounts to Fire 3, Flare, Transpose, repeat (with appropriate Thunders, naturally). Why wait for more MP regeneration than needed, and instead just roll right back over to Flare soon as you can (MP ticks allowing).
But I'm hardly a meta-gamer, and I know that, if nothing else, this does feel somehow less satisfying. Transpose? And hard-casting F3? It just feels wrong.

[Seraphor]

Kinda thought this was a bit of a contested subject? Fire 2, as I understand it, is just taking up time you could be using on Flare, even at 50. Unless I haven't kept up with new info, I was under the impression that 50s AoE amounts to Fire 3, Flare, Transpose, repeat (with appropriate Thunders, naturally). Why wait for more MP regeneration than needed, and instead just roll right back over to Flare soon as you can (MP ticks allowing).
But I'm hardly a meta-gamer, and I know that, if nothing else, this does feel somehow less satisfying. Transpose? And hard-casting F3? It just feels wrong.

You're correct. Fire 2 is always a DPS loss once you have either Freeze or Flare.
You want to spam Freeze up to level 50, then squeeze in as many Flares as possible after that. Fire III > Flare (Manafont>Flare) > Transpose > Freeze > repeat is the best up to 68, and even then, it's just about getting more Flares in.


EDIT: yes Acidblood, but ran out of posts to respond.