The Black Mage Rotations

[Pinworms]

What is everyone's thoughts on when to use swift cast in our standard rotation? I have seen some blm cast it to get blizzard 3 out faster to get back into fire. I have seen some use it for fire 1 during fire phase. Lastly, I have seen people use it to flare at the end of fire rotation (transpose seems like it would lower dd dunno).

Thoughts?

[NeoAmon]

Snip

Swiftcast is a short CD, even in a fight where you know you will need double flare you can still use it and have it ready for double flare. At the very beginning of the fight you can use it on Thunder II (III if you are under UI 3), even normal Fire I rotations or for Bliz III to be on UI 3 faster. I guess you can play around with it and learn when to use it best for each fight, after all no two end game fights are the same for BLM.

Convert is the one I would object using to extended Fire I rotation due to the long CD. Everyone have a derp moment no matter who they are, Convert is there to fix that IMHO. There is nothing worse than being stuck at AF 3 with less than 79 mana and Transpose failing hard. Rare occurrence but nevertheless, Convert should be guarded and used wisely.

[Pinworms]

Swiftcast is a short CD, even in a fight where you know you will need double flare you can still use it and have it ready for double flare. At the very beginning of the fight you can use it on Thunder II .....

Convert is the one I would object using to extended Fire I rotation due to the long CD. Everyone have ......

Yeah I save convert for the derp and double flares. So no one has really looked into number crunching or theory crafted when the best opertun time to use swift cast in a rotation is maybe?

[NeoAmon]

Yeah I save convert for the derp and double flares. So no one has really looked into number crunching or theory crafted when the best opertun time to use swift cast in a rotation is maybe?

I don't think that is needed or even possible. I used to have moments in certain fights that I would advice others to use Swiftcast but I was wrong. Each group PF/DF or static is different. The strats are different and even in the same exact fight with the same players won't always be the same. The best way to use it is based on your own judgement & experience. You will improve at it naturally, so long you are trying to time it you should be able to experience the wrong moment and the correct one for each situation. Even when you absolutely believe you got it right, someone else here on the forums will disagree. Does not mean either of you is wrong, but matter of perspective.

So yeah, all depends on what is happening on your screen and what is about to happen.

My 2 cents anyway .

[Youmu]

Its fantastic when used with a thunder proc at the end of your rotation. Swiftcast>flare>transpose>proc>fire3 and back at full or 90% mana with Astral 3 up, almost no GCD losses. You can use it without the proc if you know you won't need for a double flare inside your next raging strikes, but with a thunder proc is when it sees its highest gains. A Fire3 proc works decently as well, but if you see a late tick coming occasionally you have to add a scathe or blizzard after transposing to ensure you regen full mana before fire3 casts, since you transpose about a second later using a fire3 proc after a flare.

Ask for Foe, pop RS + Mega INT and do your normal Fire I rotation followed by double flare, if you do this correctly within 15 seconds, double flares alone can do 3.1k~-5k~ damage on a single snake.

Pop mega int after two fire1 casts after raging strikes goes up, you end up with the 15 second int buff perfectly covering your double flare at the tail end of raging strikes (assuming you fire1 until RS/Int pot drops to 5-6 seconds). Otherwise it falls off moments too early. This is how you should go through all your RS rotations, imo, so long as your Int pot is off CD.

[NeoAmon]

Pop mega int after two fire1 casts after raging strikes goes up, you end up with the 15 second int buff perfectly covering your double flare at the tail end of raging strikes (assuming you fire1 until RS/Int pot drops to 5-6 seconds). Otherwise it falls off moments too early. This is how you should go through all your RS rotations, imo, so long as your Int pot is off CD.

Have a "like".

You are saying RS > 2 Fire I > Mega INT > Fire I until low mana > Double flare OR Fire I x2 > RS > Mega INT > Fire I until low mana > double flare?.

I agree, sounds about right even though I have not tested it (sub ran out -_-, will renew before raid time). Just to confirm, if you start casting the second Flare while Mega INT have 1 second left, does Flare still get affected by Mega INT? I forgot honestly if the affect happens at the start of the cast or at the end of it. Also I think if SS is high enough you can get away with using Mega INT earlier. I don't recall not being able to catch the second flare with mega INT, but again Human memory is unreliable.

[Molic]

If i dont use swiftcast for flare, been trying out:

from Astral fire III > Blizzard III > SC > Thunder II/III > Scathe > Fire III

you get an extra scathe in, and depending what ur mana is might get thunder III.

[Youmu]

Have a "like".

You are saying RS > 2 Fire I > Mega INT > Fire I until low mana > Double flare OR Fire I x2 > RS > Mega INT > Fire I until low mana > double flare?.

The latter, pop your mega int inside RS. Bonus points if you get a proc on your first fire1, since you won't lose any GCD time using your mega int pot after the proc usage. Downside is you also lose the mega int bonus being applied to said proc, its debatable if this is worth losing in order to avoid the .2 second GCD waste from using mega int pot outside of a GCD.

Just to confirm, if you start casting the second Flare while Mega INT have 1 second left, does Flare still get affected by Mega INT? I forgot honestly if the affect happens at the start of the cast or at the end of it. Also I think if SS is high enough you can get away with using Mega INT earlier. I don't recall not being able to catch the second flare with mega INT, but again Human memory is unreliable.

Its at the end of it. The trick to it is starting your first hard cast flare with about 5-6 seconds left on raging strikes/mega int pot. Starting later than that usually means not being able to SC, Convert, and Flare again before buffs run off. So you would squeeze as many fire1s/procs in as you can til your buffs are about to end, and time the double flares to both hit just before the buffs end. It is essentially the highest possible DPS utilizing your burst CDs. Reason you wait until two fire1 casts is you should wind up with mega int being the exact same duration remaining as raging strikes, meaning you can time your final hit to land in the last second of your buffs and still be fully buffed. Assuming you get at least one fire3 proc during your standard 5x fire1 rotation, you won't run out of mana early doing this. If you somehow start rotation at lower mana and wind up with 300 mana at 8-10 seconds on your buffs, you can hardcast your flare, convert, and squeeze a fire1 in before swiftcasting next flare, with an added bonus of another chance at a proc.

[Youmu]

Here, have a video. This is without selene spell speed buff, which in 8 man content you should be waiting on for RS cycles anyways. It makes a big difference, int pot will sync up almost perfectly with RS, while without its about a second longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rPP...ature=youtu.be

I need to figure out what encoding settings I need to use to get youtube to stop downscaling to 720.

[nota]

What is everyone's thoughts on when to use swift cast in our standard rotation? I have seen some blm cast it to get blizzard 3 out faster to get back into fire. I have seen some use it for fire 1 during fire phase. Lastly, I have seen people use it to flare at the end of fire rotation (transpose seems like it would lower dd dunno).

Thoughts?

I personally swiftcast flare on cd at the end of fire i spam. Priority towards lining it up with rs and int pot for single target or aoe segments,
although i use HQ mega-ether potions to flare for aoe instead of int pots