Black Mage Dps Rotation Guide! in 90 Seconds!

[Imoye]

I'm starting to notice tendencies that a lot of BLMs got no idea about their rotation, resulting in beyond terrible DPS.

[PuroStrider]

lol @ complicated rotation (no nub)

Always spam scathe crew checking in...

brb godlike mobility with +20% Crit chance

Stack spell speed and you're golden

[HoroBoro]

Scathe is 120 potency. With 20% chance for double damage (crit is not double), that makes it 120+.2*120 = 142 potency.

Blizzard 1 has 150 potency making Scathe the lowest potency spell in the THM class that does damage.

Yes - you have mobility with it and you can kite with it, but it's not something you want to cast if it can be helped.

[Umero]

Use Flare only when you have Convert up
OR
Use Flare only when you have transpose, Firestarter and Thundercloud up
OR
Use Flare only when you have transpose, swiftcast, Firestarter/Thundercloud up

And of course, it's still situational. Also, if you have mp potions that would be something else.

[AsheliaDalmasca]

Use Flare only when you have Convert up
OR
Use Flare only when you have transpose, Firestarter and Thundercloud up
OR
Use Flare only when you have transpose, swiftcast, Firestarter/Thundercloud up

And of course, it's still situational. Also, if you have mp potions that would be something else.

All of the above are true

[AsheliaDalmasca]

Scathe is 120 potency. With 20% chance for double damage (crit is not double), that makes it 120+.2*120 = 142 potency.

Blizzard 1 has 150 potency making Scathe the lowest potency spell in the THM class that does damage.

Yes - you have mobility with it and you can kite with it, but it's not something you want to cast if it can be helped.

Sorry but your math is a bit off there, a 20% chance for a double damage proc does not calculate into potency. The 20% chance is a proc rate not a damage increase.

[BlackShroudMercs]

lol @ complicated rotation (no nub)

Always spam scathe crew checking in...

brb godlike mobility with +20% Crit chance

Stack spell speed and you're golden

What? Spell speed doesn't scale for crap, and the only time you spam scathe is when you are in an overcrowded fate and the adds are dropping within 1-2 secs..

How can you dumb down such a nice class into "spam scathe"..smh.

[BlackShroudMercs]

It is humorous in a way, but that kind of misinformation can lead to bad players, I am a lvl 40 BLM and I came to this thread for tips because I want to make sure I am doing things that will optimize my DPS.

Other people probably have come here for the same reason and to leave that alone and NOT correct it means you are risking some player coming in here and believing that that's how they should play..Troll or not you nip that stuff at the bud.

That's just my opinion..

[NeoAmon]

It is humorous in a way, but that kind of misinformation can lead to bad players, I am a lvl 40 BLM and I came to this thread for tips because I want to make sure I am doing things that will optimize my DPS.

Other people probably have come here for the same reason and to leave that alone and NOT correct it means you are risking some player coming in here and believing that that's how they should play..Troll or not you nip that stuff at the bud.

That's just my opinion..

I deleted my post cause you are correct.

[Mishaela]

Sorry but your math is a bit off there, a 20% chance for a double damage proc does not calculate into potency. The 20% chance is a proc rate not a damage increase.

What are you even talking about? The skill reads "20% chance potency will double." A 20% proc for double potency makes the spell have an effective base potency per cast over time of 144. In the same way, Fire's effective base potency per cast over time is 150 + .4*220 = 238 because of Firestarter procs (however, one mustn't forget to consider the extra GCDs consumed by Firestarter procs, which really gives Fire an effective base potency per GCD of 170).

In case anyone is not following the math, consider this:
On an average day, you cast Scathe 10 times. Since it's an average day, 2 of those casts will double their potency. That means you did 12 casts worth of potency (12 * 120) with 10 casts for an average potency per cast of 144.

Assuming your spell speed puts you at 2.4s cast/GCD, with 10 casts you're doing ((12*120) / (2.4s*10)) = 60 potency per second with Scathe.

On an average day, you cast Fire 10 times. Since it's an average day, 4 of those casts will proc Firestarter. Using those procs will give you an additional 880 potency on top of the 1500 from the 10 Fire spells. However, you actually had to use 4 more GCDs to cast the free Fire IIIs. That means you did 2380 potency with 14 GCD casts, which is 2380 / 14 = 170.

Assuming your spell speed puts you at 2.4s cast/GCD, with these 14 casts you're doing ((10*150 + 4*220) / (2.4s*14)) = 70.83 potency per second with Fire+Firestarter however this doesn't even take Astral Fire into account which is a huge boost in damage (AFIII is almost double damage IIRC?) that Scathe doesn't get.

[edit]
Obviously, your MP can't sustain casting 10 Fires in a row, so in reality you'd need to consider the dip in damage you'll get while spending a few seconds in UI3 to get your MP back, but even then, when compared to Scathe, this dip is far, far overshadowed by the damage bonus that AF3 gives to your Fire spells, plus those few "come up for air" seconds in UI3 are also your window to reapply your DoT whose damage we're not considering here, either.
[/edit]

tl;dr Scathe certainly has its uses (like when running around dodging titan's attacks or tagging mobs in FATEs or at the last boss of CM, for example) but spamming it when you don't have to move is bad DPS.