The Black Mage Rotations

[Synovius]

Its usually a combination of the first two flares that can make it a pain to tank, since you get RNG crits on the same 3 mobs and pull huge hate. You'd have to hold off longer to let the tank build threat, or risk making mobs impossible to tank, which is a net DPS loss in practical situations. You should also consider your chances of successfully completing a flare cast while getting poked by mobs, in comparison to fire2.

I think you're underestimating the threat we can generate a bit.

Flare is massive threat! And, by massive, I mean @#^@ing massive. If you run in there and double Flare right off the bat without popping Quelling Strikes or giving the tank a head start, you're going to grab a lot of attention. Believe. I've done it on Turn 4, phase 4

[Mecan]

As a professional Black Mage, which means it's really what I focus on playing the most in this game, I'm going to toss in my coins into the conversation. I'd like to bring up what I said before prior in this topic, mainly that "Flare & Convert should never be used together". I'd like to expand upon this now and express the reasons why this is and when Convert does not better the BLM's DPS when combined with Flare.

Simply put, Black Mage is a creature of situations. You'll normally come upon two major situations that demand two very different Rotations:

The DPS Rotation (Single Target) and the AoE Rotation (Targets of 5+).

Critical Note: Let's look at Wanderer's Palace and The Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 4, these are perhaps the very best examples of a Black Mage which has to juggle these two rotations in under 10 minutes.

At present, these two instances are perhaps hands down the most desired use of a Black Mage currently in Final Fantasy XIV beyond effective farming. Within these Instances, time is very much of the essence and a skilled Black Mage must be able to maximize their damage out-put properly and distribute it evenly over a course of 7 minute blocks.

If you approach the mindset of "I'm going to blow every cool-down I have at the first chance I get" then you're going to let the party down and not perform very effectively throughout the course of the encounter.

Black Mages are turrets with volatile but very potent ammo that takes a long time to reload. Waste it too fast and you're going to lose damage.


Why Flare & Convert Never Mix

Let's get to the real meat of the argument here. Flare & Convert are a very tempting combination, it just looks good but in practice only hurts you in the bigger picture. A Black Mage is a long-term DPSer, measuring what they perform in a course of two minutes is a waste of time -- in order to properly measure a Black Mage's output you need to look at them in a 7 to 10 minute prospective.

Long boss battles and long encounters normally last about 7 to 10 minutes, so a Black Mage should plan their moves carefully -- much like chess. With this in mind, Convert is normally reserved for a Single-Target DPS Rotation, not AoE.

A Black Mage has a lot of options to spring back from Flare: Ethers, Mage Ballad, and Transpose.

Transpose isn't the most ideal, but it still is viable and it works -- yet requires the most wait time and isn't always recommend, yet it still remains effective for one key reason: Enmity.

A properly executed AoE Rotation, which is normally:

Part 1: Fire III - Fire II - Fire II - Fire II - (Swiftcast) Flare

Critical Note: This AoE Rotation has a tendency to generate an extreme amount of Enmity. To the point where a well geared BLM is always on the edge of aggression. By using Raging Strikes without Quelling Strikes, you are most certainly going to rip all hate off of even the best of tanks. Yet a good Black Mage will seldom use Raging Strikes in combination with an AoE Rotation.

Using Transpose after such a powerful Rotation gives the Black Mage time to cool their guns as it were, allowing the team to generate more Enmity before the Black Mage persists with the Second Wave of the AoE Rotation.

Part 2: Blizzard III - Fire II - Fire II - Fire II - Fire II - Flare - Transpose

This part of the rotation has a slowly build up, allowing the Black Mage to remain stable in their Enmity. Of course you can apply tricks before and during this, such as various Ethers & Flare at your own desire. This is based on how much you want to consume them for the purpose of speed, which in Coil is quite handy.


Convert Extends Raging Strikes

Within a Single-Target DPS Rotation, Convert is best reserved to give Raging Strikes a much more meaningful life-span. In Coil Turn 4, as a Black Mage you will have to switch from AoE Rotation into a Single-Target DPS Rotation at the drop of a hat. If you needlessly wasted Raging Strikes and/or Convert on a previous AoE Rotation, you now will not be able to DPS down Dreadnaughts fast enough.

To say "Coil Turn 4 is the one exception to the rule" is a moot argument, as it is the best example to show how a specific class should be played in other places. The only time I would consider using Raging Strikes & Quelling Strikes outside of a DPS Rotation is Wanderer's Palace, but that is more of a farm rather than a challenging encounter which puts a Black Mage to the test with a DPS Check.

The whole purpose of a Single-Target DPS Rotation is to burst down the target as vast as possible. Typically you're juggling a few things in this mode: Buff Durations, Instant procs, and Lightning DoT Ticks.

When opening up your DPS Rotation, popping Raging Strikes followed by Quelling Strikes is the norm. After a few casts you'll often pop Convert to extend your Mana supply to get more direct damage casts while Raging Strikes is active. With luck and instant procs, you can actually stretch out a Single-Target DPS Rotation for up to 60 seconds without ever falling back into Blizzard III & Umbral Ice III to regain your mana pool -- that is the ideal you should always strive for.

Critical Note: In my Black Mage career, I've only once pulled off a 60 Second DPS Rotation with Raging Strikes & Quelling Strikes active for a portion of the Rotation, with several Fire III and Thunder III instant procs to pad out the MP bar with Convert to give it some extra life for good measure.

[PessimiStick]

Its usually a combination of the first two flares that can make it a pain to tank, since you get RNG crits on the same 3 mobs and pull huge hate. You'd have to hold off longer to let the tank build threat, or risk making mobs impossible to tank, which is a net DPS loss in practical situations. You should also consider your chances of successfully completing a flare cast while getting poked by mobs, in comparison to fire2.

I think you're underestimating the threat we can generate a bit.

You have QS up any time you have Convert, and it's very rare that I pull aggro with the first flare. Hardcast F3 into hardcast Flare gives the tank ~4-5 GCDs to spam flash before the first Flare lands. It takes another 4 GCDs minimum to get your second Flare out. 8-9 Flashes should win over 2 Flares in almost all cases.

[PessimiStick]

With luck and instant procs, you can actually stretch out a Single-Target DPS Rotation for up to 60 seconds without ever falling back into Blizzard III & Umbral Ice III to regain your mana pool -- that is the ideal you should always strive for.

You posted a lot, but most of it was useless fluff. We've already shown that the AE rotation you propose is almost surely sub-optimal, and this tidbit above is utter nonsense. Even if we count a hardcast B3 and T2 to start your rotation, you'd need ~22 casts to make it 60 seconds. Given that you have the mana for ~7 fires if you use convert, it's essentially mathematically impossible to last 60 seconds. You would need TCloud to proc on almost every tick of Thunder so that you could Fire --> TCloud --> Firestarter, repeat, for all 7 fire casts, and then get another TC proc at the end to possibly hit 60 seconds. The math on that is astronomically unlikely. As in, if you did it, you should go buy a powerball ticket *right now*, because you're the luckiest person ever.

Edit: It's ~1 in 610 that you'll get 7 Firestarters in a row, and getting 8 TCloud procs out of 19 ticks is ~1 in 600,000, meaning both is somewhere on the order of 1 in 360M. (And that doesn't take into account the fact that you need the TC procs to be *evenly* distributed, which actually makes the true odds much worse.)

[Mecan]

You posted a lot, but most of it was useless fluff.

I'm unsure what you're referring too overall. I even put in red that "With luck..." but it's an idea to strive for. Yet that is a Single-Target DPS Rotation, which has nothing to do with AoE Rotation. Everything I wrote was not useless fluff, I highly recommend you take time to read through it. Basically the order of the DPS Rotation was quite fortunate, but by using Convert during the DPS Rotation it helped to increase the odds of such a rare, but long DPS Rotation. This was not impossible, just really damn lucky.

Don't forget there is some considerable downtime between each Instant Cast, despite it being instant you still have to wait a full cooldown timer. This is pretty much my standard DPS Rotation:

(Swiftcast) Thunder III - Fire III - Raging Strikes - Quelling Strikes - Fire I - Fire I - Convert - Fire I - Fire I - Fire I - Fire I - Blizzard III - Thunder II - Fire III

[PessimiStick]

Don't forget there is some considerable downtime between each Instant Cast, despite it being instant you still have to wait a full cooldown timer.

There's exactly 1 GCD, hence the reason it's called the GCD.

This is pretty much my standard DPS Rotation:

(Swiftcast) Thunder III - Fire III - Raging Strikes - Quelling Strikes - Fire I - Fire I - Convert - Fire I - Fire I - Fire I - Fire I - Blizzard III - Thunder II - Fire III

So you're trying to maximize the time you're casting damaging ST spells under RS, yet you're opening without B3? Should fix that. You're starting at a mana deficit and probably costing yourself at least 1 Fire cast.

[Mecan]

There's exactly 1 GCD, hence the reason it's called the GCD.

So you're trying to maximize the time you're casting damaging ST spells under RS, yet you're opening without B3? Should fix that. You're starting at a mana deficit and probably costing yourself at least 1 Fire cast.

Typically I'm under the effect of Umbral Ice III when opening my DPS Rotation so I always begin with maximum mana. The Swiftcast Thunder 3 is to add 3 seconds to the Thunder Tick (1 whole tick) because my DPS Rotations are long and drawn out and I don't always have the luck of proccing an Instant Thunder III. Sad to say I prioritize Raging Strikes while under DPS Rotation instead of the Thunder Tick -- normally it would be the other way around. You're nitpicking extensively without knowing where I actually place my main DPS Rotation during a battle and for no good reason for that matter.

Edit: If you didn't catch what I mean, by the time I cast my 1st Fire, the Mana Bar is full. So the Full force of a DPS Rotation is primed and ready for several aggressive casts.

[Arale]

Someone once recommended me to always use Fire III twice rather then Fire III > Fire I from UI3 phase (beginning rotation or onward) this results in less fires, but does get me through each phase a bit faster. I want to know what others think about this or if Fire I is still the way to go.

[PessimiStick]

Someone once recommended me to always use Fire III twice rather then Fire III > Fire I from UI3 phase (beginning rotation or onward) this results in less fires, but does get me through each phase a bit faster. I want to know what others think about this or if Fire I is still the way to go.

F3 has no proc, and the mana cost increase is higher than the potency increase. F3 is 47% more potent, but 67% more expensive, and it can't proc a free version of itself. It's going to be worse in 99.9% of cases (edge cases where mob dies before OOM and your F1 didn't proc, etc.).

[PessimiStick]

Typically I'm under the effect of Umbral Ice III when opening my DPS Rotation so I always begin with maximum mana.

You're under the effect of UI3 without casting B3? No. This is clearly the start of the fight since you have RS and QS off cooldown at the same time. (and it's generally not worth casting QS again if it comes off CD later, unless you outgear the tank by a lot)

The Swiftcast Thunder 3 is to add 3 seconds to the Thunder Tick (1 whole tick) because my DPS Rotations are long and drawn out and I don't always have the luck of proccing an Instant Thunder III.

Or because there's not really anything else to use it on, of course. Your only real options are the opening B3 or the T3, and hardcasting the B3 is a better choice for threat reasons. Without Swiftcast or convert you should be using T2.

Edit: If you didn't catch what I mean, by the time I cast my 1st Fire, the Mana Bar is full. So the Full force of a DPS Rotation is primed and ready for several aggressive casts.

Except that if you didn't start with B3, it's not, which was my point.