The Black Mage Rotations

[Jeh11]

Tanks for this Aoe rotation but what about the single target rotation? Any change between 2.0 and 2.1?

[Gardes]

As a sub blm, I always find it odd that people arent aiming to spam flare as much as possible in 2.0. I mean, it's flare. At least until I found out about the double flare tick trick.

I've never really kept track of the numbers though. What were the numbers on the old rotation compared to the 'current' fire 3>2>flare>transpose rotation?

[O-Deka-K]

Also, Louro999 submitted...

Yes, you're right! I didn't notice that the two rotations are almost the same. If you have enough mana for two Fire 2's and Flare, then it will increase PPS:

Fire 3 > Fire 2 > Fire 2 > Flare > Transpose
Potency formula: (828 x N + 198) / 15 = 55.2N + 13.2 PPS
where N is the number of targets

The extra Fire 2 adds 3 seconds because it takes one more mana tick. This is actually 0.16 PPS lower for 2 targets (which is negligible), but is always higher for 3 targets or more.

For comparison:
B2-B2-F3-Flare-Transpose (old): (668 x N + 154) / 12 = 55.7N + 12.8 PPS
B2-B2-F3-Flare-Transpose (2.1): (568 x N + 154) / 15 = 37.9N + 10.3 PPS
F3-F2-Flare-Transpose (2.1): (648 x N + 198) / 12 = 54.0N + 16.5 PPS

[Kalvin1783]

Excellent, we are getting somewhere! Ok, so you have shown that Fire 2 is always an increase to PPS, so then using that reasoning, our first rotation while we are at full mana should contain as many of them as possible before flare, right? I believe the average amount is about 4. Then after our flare > convert we should continue into Fire 3 > Fire 2 x2 > Flare rotation?

[O-Deka-K]

Yes. I would cast as many Fire 2 as possible while leaving enough mana to cast Flare. Just be sure to watch enmity if you haven't used Quelling Strikes.

[SirGazuntai]

Whenever I test them they always seem to amount to the same damage. I don't know if it's just Crit rate that's affecting it as Flare crits are going to add a lot more damage than Fire II crits, but they always seem to both jump between 400-450 for me. I managed to get the double Fire II rotation to around 420-450 just now, while the single Fire II rotation would jump between 440-450 but would often spike to 460/470 with a double crit Flare.

Crits probably affect it greatly. Fire II does around 410 per monster, while doing 620 on a crit. Flare does about 1050 on a single monster, while it crits for 1700-1800. The more monsters there are, the more Flare has a chance to have insane crits, too.

I believe the majority of monsters you have to AoE will die before you notice any real difference either way. You won't get enough crits to make it significantly better, and if you're really unlucky you aren't fighting long enough for non-crits to mean anything. Not to say you're wrong as I honestly haven't invested any time into the math side of it to know what you're talking about (had to go back just to figure out what PPS was xD), just that either way could be right. Worth looking into.

Would be so much easier if we could just switch procs and crits off completely. :x

[O-Deka-K]

I've been posting in a bunch of different Black Mage threads, so I forgot to mention here that PPS = Potency Per Second. Potency is relative and scales with your damage, so it's easy to work with.

The reason you're getting the same damage is that they are virtually the same. If you're testing on 3 targets, then the difference is only 1 PPS 0.3 PPS. To compare, these two rotations beat out the next highest rotations by over 13 PPS (3 targets), and I can't even confirm that those rotations are possible (not enough spell speed). For rotations that I can do, the difference is over 23 PPS (3 targets). The difference becomes more significant as you go to more targets.

Mathematically speaking, crit doesn't affect potency. In a nutshell, the single F2 rotation has more "buffed flares per second", but it also has more "debuffed F3's per second". Crit basically has the effect of making your damage "spikier". Edit: This is only true if the crit rate is the same for all attacks. If you had a single attack that say, had a bonus to crit chance or crit damage, then it would affect the potency.

[Synovius]

Bump for an updated tricks section!

[ShinryuReishiki]

Playing around with the iceless rotation idea, I've found that double Flares are still possible. It's still not anywhere near as good as Flare (UI3) > Flare (AF3) > Transpose > Blizzard II (UI1) > Blizzard II (UI2) was in 2.0, but it's better than I expected it to be without hasted casts. Need to add a Fire II to make it worth using, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82L9IbUPMxU

- Umbral Ice I gives 10% reduction in potency
- Astral Fire III gives a 80% increase in potency
- Cast times are based on my current times at 539 spell speed and 2.31s GCD
- All three rotations rely on an Umbral Ice I MP tick to start, so I've based PPS assuming the longest possible wait of 3s
- Counting Transpose at 0.5s due to having to wait a moment for Flare to hit first
- N = number of enemies in range

1)
Fire III (UI1) > Fire II (AF3) > Fire II (AF3) > Flare (AF3) > Transpose
3.0s + 3.23s + 2.77s + 2.77s + 3.7s + 0.5s = 15.97s
Single: 198
AOE: 180 + 180 + 468 = 828
198/15.97 = 12.39
828/15.97 = 51.84
PPS = 51.84N + 12.39

2)
Wait 2s after MP tick > Flare (UI1) > Flare (AF3) > Transpose
3.0s + 2.0s + 3.7s + 3.7s + 0.5s = 12.9s
AOE: 234 + 468 = 702
702/12.9 = 54.42
PPS = 54.42N

3)
Wait 2s after MP tick > Flare (UI1) > Fire II (AF3) > Flare (AF3) > Transpose
3.0s + 2.0s + 3.7s + 2.77s + 3.7s + 0.5s = 15.67s
AOE: 234 + 180 + 468 = 882
882/15.67 = 56.29
PPS = 56.29N

The MP tick won't always take 3s though, so let's see what the PPS with a 1 second wait.
1) 59.27N + 14.17
2) 58.5N (Transpose limits it to 12s minimum)
3) 64.52N

So under more ideal conditions, the Flare only rotation ends up falling behind the other two, while the other two stay strong. Between 1 and 3, 3 does more AOE damage, but also comes with the added risk of downtime if you mistime the Flare.

[O-Deka-K]

I'm glad someone else is doing calculations using potency! You made me realize that some of my formulas were wrong, because UI1 only gives a 10% reduction in potency and I was assuming 30% as if they were in UI3. I'll have to go correct those.

I'd like to point out that the mana tick times in your rotations are predictable. Mana ticks always occur exactly every 3s and this is not affected by spell speed. Since you know that a tick has to occur after the Transpose before you can do anything, you will know when the tick will occur after you cast all of your spells. Therefore, all of those rotations will be an exact multiple of 3s.

1) Time = 15s: (828N + 198) / 15 = 55.2N + 13.2 PPS
2) Time = 12s: 702N /12 = 58.5N PPS
3) Time = 15s: 882N / 15 = 58.8N PPS

Rotations #2 and #3 beat out #1 at 4 or more targets.

I'll have to try these out too. Thanks!