BLM: Endgame guide and rotations

[Royze]

Swiftcast + Flare is great for ST only if you can Convert + Blizzard III out of it. If you are saving convert or it is on CD using Flare is way too bad as getting up from 0 mana with transpose will be too painful as both Fire III and Blizzard III are slow cast at that point so you will be losing DPS.

Also Thunder III has no sense cause its DoT will cover like 1.5 cycles forcing you to use scathe on next mana regen and miss out half of cylce in Thunder DoT. I have said about swiftcasting Fire III on pull - that at least has some sense. Use Thunder III only on Thundercloud procs.

Yet again spamming Blizzard II is a major DPS loss. Just try rotation from my post.
And Yes, Blizzard III has poor damage if under Astral Fire and there is no sense in casting it in any othre situation cause its cast time is very long

For AOE You said "
- Fire III
- Fire II
- Flare
- Transpose
... rince and repeat"

You will get off 1-2 x BlizardII's right after transpose before your back up to full MP to start the switch into FireIII>Astral Fire depending on when the transpose is registered.
Or you could just sit there and do nothing while MP refreshes, which as I understand is what you are saying?

On ST, even if you don't have swift cast or convert up, why stop @ 1000 MP? that is still 2x Fire 1's + a Blizard III.

Even though I did actually say Convert/swiftcast/flare - so I guess you're agreeing with me there but want to sound like you knew that but didn't include it in the OP?

Like I said, I don't think your rotations actually represent efficient MP usage.

EDIT: Quelling strikes is useful for when you have novice tanks. But if the tank has any clue what he's doing, you won't need this.

[SirGazuntai]

For AOE You said "
- Fire III
- Fire II
- Flare
- Transpose
... rince and repeat"

You will get off 1-2 x BlizardII's right after transpose before your back up to full MP to start the switch into FireIII>Astral Fire depending on when the transpose is registered.
Or you could just sit there and do nothing while MP refreshes, which as I understand is what you are saying?

Wrong. After you use Transpose you should gain a mana tick instantly the second time you use your rotation. You can repeatedly use Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Transpose with no pauses, no waiting for ticks and no DPS loss. There's no need to use any Ice move on AoE rotations as long as you use Fire III as soon as you get a mana tick as the length of time the rotation takes syncs up with mana ticks.

You aren't trying to reach max MP, you just need 1 tick to be able to complete the rotation. Waiting for more MP ticks is a DPS loss.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-BLM-rotations...

^ There's a thread I created just after 2.1.

[Pacifyer]

Wrong. After you use Transpose you should gain a mana tick instantly the second time you use your rotation. You can repeatedly use Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Transpose with no pauses, no waiting for ticks and no DPS loss. There's no need to use any Ice move on AoE rotations as long as you use Fire III as soon as you get a mana tick as the length of time the rotation takes syncs up with mana ticks.

You aren't trying to reach max MP, you just need 1 tick to be able to complete the rotation. Waiting for more MP ticks is a DPS loss.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-BLM-rotations...

^ There's a thread I created just after 2.1.

Now I recall who lead me to test this rotation So cheers SirGazuntai. Seems way too few people bothered reading your posts.

[Royze]

Wrong. After you use Transpose you should gain a mana tick instantly the second time you use your rotation. You can repeatedly use Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Transpose with no pauses, no waiting for ticks and no DPS loss. There's no need to use any Ice move on AoE rotations as long as you use Fire III as soon as you get a mana tick as the length of time the rotation takes syncs up with mana ticks.

You aren't trying to reach max MP, you just need 1 tick to be able to complete the rotation. Waiting for more MP ticks is a DPS loss.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-BLM-rotations...

^ There's a thread I created just after 2.1.

Thanks, this actually works
http://www.twitch.tv/prime2015

[Orophin]

EDIT: Quelling strikes is useful for when you have novice tanks. But if the tank has any clue what he's doing, you won't need this.

Quelling Strikes is useful period. Good luck surviving Phase 1 or 4 of Turn 4 without it while not holding back.

While this doesn't really cover rotational things, I've found that you have to do some rather unconventional things to maintain decent dps in Titan Ex and Ifrit Ex. I read over some stuff NeoAmon posted, and Thunder is really your friend in these fights due to the low cast time. The uptime isn't as good as Thunder II or Thunder III but keeping the DoT damage up over the course of the fight is key. Scathe is also your friend in these fights while on the move, such as the double plumes or the triple eruptions on Ifrit.

I'm actually pretty amazed by the DPS I'm able to put out on Titan. I'm commonly in the 190-200 dps range in i90 gear going by FFXIVAPPs parse results.

[Royze]

Quelling Strikes is useful period. Good luck surviving Phase 1 or 4 of Turn 4 without it while not holding back.

While this doesn't really cover rotational things, I've found that you have to do some rather unconventional things to maintain decent dps in Titan Ex and Ifrit Ex. I read over some stuff NeoAmon posted, and Thunder is really your friend in these fights due to the low cast time. The uptime isn't as good as Thunder II or Thunder III but keeping the DoT damage up over the course of the fight is key. Scathe is also your friend in these fights while on the move, such as the double plumes or the triple eruptions on Ifrit.

I'm actually pretty amazed by the DPS I'm able to put out on Titan. I'm commonly in the 190-200 dps range in i90 gear going by FFXIVAPPs parse results.

we have no issues keeping hate with DPS going buckwild.
http://www.twitch.tv/lok1_/c/3336717

[bardaboo]

Didn't read all the posts. I don't like using my firestarter during my fire phase because it actually slows down my next fire spell. I save it till the end of my fire phase and hit it before my blizzard 3. Or if my last fire spell qued it up I can use it after all my mp is back. Is the slower casts really worthit?

[Kabooa]

Quelling Strikes is useful period. Good luck surviving Phase 1 or 4 of Turn 4 without it while not holding back.

Done.

I find Quelling is more compelling when argued for Garuda or Titan EX. It's margin for error, really, or a minor gain for DPS time. Hardly an end all / be all.

[Pacifyer]

Didn't read all the posts. I don't like using my firestarter during my fire phase because it actually slows down my next fire spell. I save it till the end of my fire phase and hit it before my blizzard 3. Or if my last fire spell qued it up I can use it after all my mp is back. Is the slower casts really worthit?

This is why I did write guide Perfect example of what you SHOULD NOT do ever.
Firestarter proc does not slow your next spell by any means. What you consider "slow" is the entity called "GCD" or Global Cooldown. It is a cooldown triggered by all spells and it is primarily intended to get your instacast spells under control. Basic value of global cooldown is 2.5 seconds which generally means that you can not cast spells more often than every 2.5 seconds. If you cast a "hardcast" spell like Fire1 you probably won't notice this GCD as it will end up right when you end casting it. But if you use any instacast spell like Scathe, Firestarter Fire III, Thundercloud Thunder, or Swiftcast some spell - you will see this GCD in effect. You can also see GCD if you use some spell which has cast time less than 2.5 seconds (like Esuna on WHM) and you may consider a delay after the cast as a server lag or something alike.
So Firestarter makes your Fire III instacast and cost you no mana. This will effectively make it's cast time equal 2.5 seconds (against 3.5 without proc), cost you no mana (which is the main issue during fire phase) and do a ton of a damage as Fire III is the most hard hitting nuke you have (don't count Flare). So by no means there is a reason to hold your Firestarter procs. They are a direct DPS gain and should be used ASAP.

P.S. However there are exceptions - several spells which do not trigger GCD. They are very specific and are mostly intended to use in conjunction with other ones and have a cooldown of their own. Those are Swiftcast, Transpose, Convert etc.

[Azoryl]

Thunder III is a much better filler due to the change in the UI ticks. In addition, depending on procs my Thunder III is usually at 4 sec or less when i start to cast Bliz III. So it is perfect in my rotation.

Another tip.... ALWAYS use the last firestarter proc you get before going into Bliz III. I heard some people save it to get back into AF3 faster. That is horrible. Why?

For me Fire III in AF3 can hit for upwards of 1900. In addition, the cast time of a hardcast fire III in UI3 is faster then the GCD. If you save the proc for after a bliz III and thunder.. you will lower your dps because the fire III wont hit near as hard and you still have to wait for the GCD