The Black Mage Rotations

[Synovius]

All

I'd like to provide the rotation I use for Black Mage that, to me, is both fluid and my highest yield rotation. I don't claim this to be the absolute maximum obtainable DPS but I do claim it to be very competitive with that which could be considered as such. Let's begin:

Opener
There are two openers in common use. The difference in DPS over the course of a fight is negligible but there are advantages to both:
1) Thunder III ==> Fire III ==> Fire I ==> Raging Strikes ==> Fire I ==> X-Potion of Intelligence ==> Fire I..... ==> Swiftcast + Flare ==> Convert + Fire I
2) Blizzard III ==> Thunder I ==> Blizzard I (if time) ==> Fire III + Raging Strikes ==> Fire I... Fire I ==> Swiftcast + Flare ==> Convert + Fire I

The first opener is going to give you an overall damage done edge for the fight as you can open as the tank is running in. Further, it is theoretically slightly higher DPS. One issue, however, is that the use of Raging Strikes in that opener is very clunky. If you use it prior Thunder III then you're losing out on a lot of time with the buff during the highest DPS portion of your rotation: the Fire I spam. If you use it as mentioned above, after Fire III, then you'll have some "dead air" time between your Fire III and first Fire I due to animation lock.

The second opener is what I use. It means that I have to wait until the pull has actually been done before I can open (since Blizzard III has decent aggro-generation) but it is more fluid. Further, you can fit Raging Strikes into the GCD left over from your half cast Fire III thus allowing you to have RS up for the entirety of the most important part of your rotation.

Single Target Rotation
Blizzard III ==> Thunder I ==> Blizzard I (if time) ==> Fire III ==> Fire I
Repeat Fire I until at or just above 1000 mana and then cast one more Fire I
Use Firestarter procs after your next Fire I
Use Thunder III for all Thundercloud procs and strike a balance between holding Thundercloud as long as you can and weaving in Thundercloud after Fire Is.
In case of having both Firestarter and Thundercloud up, Thundercloud takes priority as it will give you an immediate chance at an additional Thundercloud proc.

AoE Rotation
Fire III ==> Fire II ==> Flare ==> Transpose ==> (wait until mana tick)
For high burst AoE, open instead as follows:
Fire III ==> Flare ==> Convert + Swiftcast ==> Flare ==> Transpose == (wait until mana tick)

Accuracy Caps
Turns 6 and 7: ~451
Turns 8 and 9: ~471
Turns 10-13: ~515 and call it a day. You'll be hard pressed to get less than this while gearing anyway.

[Synovius]

Tricks
A very nice BLM on Behemoth just pointed out that I was missing out on about 500 or so damage in situations where Firestarter would proc on my last Fire I through a rotation. This was because I was casting that last Fire I, going into Blizzard III ==> Thunder II and then using the Firestarter proc as I get my last mana tick. The problem with this is that you're still in Umbral Ice III at this point meaning that this Fire III will hit for (in my current gear) around 400 damage. If you transpose instead as you are getting that last mana tick to put yourself in Astral Fire I, you can hit that Firestarter proc and it lands for around 900 (in my gear) instead gaining you around 500 damage. This can easily come out to a 5 dps gain across the course of a fight.

With appropriate timing, you used to be able to get both Fire III and your first Fire I to have half cast times. The 2.0 AoE rotation played on this as well enabling you to get both a Fire III and Flare at half cast times while still allowing your Flare to take advantage of Astral Fire III. With patch 2.1, however, this is no longer possible. Further, the timing required for in order to run the above ST rotation flawlessly is now much less forgiving as having your Fire III cast go off even a split second too early will result in you not getting your final tick of Umbral Ice III to put you at full mana thus leaving you in the 2000s worth of mana and drastically reducing your overall DPS. To compensate for this, some folks prefer using Thunder III in the rotation over Thunder II now because of the extra cast time thus making it more likely the Fire III can be cast immediately when ready.

Swiftcast is best used while on the GCD after using a Firestarter or Thundercloud proc. I disagree vehemently with those who say you should use Swiftcast with Fire III. If you're opening with Blizzard III, which you should so your subsequent Thunder II and Fire III cast for free, why would you want to use Swiftcast up on a half cast time Fire III?

[Synovius]

More Tricks
Surecast does have it's uses but they are few. One such use is popping it before Limit Breaking which ensures your Limit Break cast isn't interrupted. Another is for your initial, hard-cast Flare.

Thunder II is used in the Single Target Rotation over Thunder III because it casts a half second faster. Because of this fact, the timing works out nicely such that your Fire III after Thunder II will cast as you get your last tick from Umbral Ice III thus making your Thunder II and Fire III completely free every time.

The game only requires a spell to be roughly 80% through casting for it to be consider "completed". You can use this to your advantage in situations where you need to maintain high DPS but you also need to move a bit. I often strafe a couple steps after any spell during times where I have to move instead of just running and spamming Scathe which is very, very low DPS - especially considering its nerf with 2.1.

[Synovius]

Even More Tricks!
If you find that your timing is off with your Fire III cast such that you aren't at full mana when it completes but rather are a bit shy of full mana (this happens if your timing is off and Fire III is cast a bit too late) then you will find that, to cast your "last" Fire I you'll be at under 1000 mana which means that, after casting that Fire I, you won't have enough mana immediately following the subsequent Blizzard III to cast Thunder II. When this occurs, just fill the gap with a Blizzard I and then proceed with the rotation as normal.

I feel that Fire II is a terrible spell and I don't even know why I have it bound, but as of 2.1, with the nerf to Blizzard II, Fire II finds use now in our "glitch" AoE rotation.

Having trouble timing out when to start your Flare cast for the infinite Flare AoE rotation? The orbs traveling around your body during your phases take 1.9s to complete a full revolution so just pick out an orb when you get that first mana tick and start your Flare at that time!

[Synovius]

Even More Tricks! Again!
If you're worried about tearing off the tank but want to get right into putting out high DPS quickly, open with Blizzard III still but cast an extra Thunder II on another mob. This sacrifices a bit of your upfront DPS at the potential gain of DPS down the line in additional Thundercloud procs (RNG ahoy!).

For the Single Target Rotation, make sure to always use Convert during the GCD. Given how animations work in FFXIV, never cast Convert when you could be casting a damaging spell.

[Synovius]

Last Batch of Tricks!
Proc calculations are done for us at the time of spell impact. What this means is that you won't know if you're going to get a Firestarter proc until the Fire I has actaully landed on the target (when you see the damage numbers). Out of this has come two schools of thought regarding Firestarter procs: those who want to wait a quarter to half second after casting Fire I to see if they get Firestarter and those who want the rotation to be fluid and will just use that Firestarter proc after their next Fire I. While the latter potentially means you may be wasting a Firestarter proc, some rough napkin math shows that it's really a negligible DPS difference between the two schools of thought so I choose fluidity!

Statements such as "why would you ever cast Flare while you have plenty of mana?" betray one's lack of understanding for how DPS really works. Remember, DPS is "damage per second". Your mana pool contributes nothing towards the potency of spells and can effectively be ignored so long as one loop through any rotation can fit within one trip through the mana pool in question.

Thanks and if you have any questions, hit me up on Adamantoise on Synovius Vynn!

[KrayZee]

I feel that Fire II is a terrible spell and I don't even know why I have it bound aside from being a bit OCD and wanting everything available and placed properly. I never (seriously, never) cast Fire II.

why is that? my Fire2 with 3AF does ~450, my blizzard 2 does ~280
its still better even if the recast time is 0,5 seconds longer

you can at least burn your mana with that before using flare.

[TKR1991]

Nice little guide of tricks.

Only thing I'd disagree with is your views on fire II, I've found that despite the longer cast time it does quite a bit more damage than blizzard II with the added bonus that you don't need to be near the mobs and risk getting hit by an AoE.

Also like to point out that a good spell to stick in when you can is lethargy. It's an Instant spell, doesn't disturb your fluidity and can be pretty helpful to your team to have a mob slowed/heavy most of the time.

[Synovius]

BTW - just to point out that Mecan is definitely trolling, take a look at this other post he made in an earlier thread:

Just an FYI. Bard as many more AoEs than BLM. BLM is much more single-target focused. I think you have these two backwards.

I... I... I don't even know where to begin with this...

[KrayZee]

Flare > Convert is the way to go if you ask me,

I don't know for what someone would use swiftcast+convert otherwise. even on single targets
fire3 does less damage and needs more mana too.

I'm not sure wether you should go

Flare > Convert > Flare though, unless everything dies after the second flare of course