BLM: Endgame guide and rotations

[Mhaeric]

- Mana regen filler: Thunder II or Scathe

The most variations for the rotation is within mostly a single point - the mana regen filler. My personal preference is Thunder II but you can replace it with Thunder or Thunder III or Scathe. The problem is that using low cast time spell (Thunder or Scathe) may have a bad timing and you can miss out a mana regen tick. If you are feeling this will currently happen you may just insert an extra Scathe there to make sure you will regen mana. Also if you see that the target will die soon there is no point casting Thunder at all - just use Scathe.

I actually recommend using Blizzard I instead of Scathe unless you need to move. My priority with their conditions for the one GCD during mana regen phase is:

1. Thunder II - only if your current Thunder DoT on the mob has fallen off or is about to fall off in the next 6 seconds or so. (Effective potency = 250 - 40 for every tick remaining on previous thunder DoT.)
2. Blizzard I - This spell has the same effective casting time as a Scathe b/c of the GCD and does more damage. (Effective potency = 150 + heavy)
3. Scathe - should only be used if you need to move during this GCD. (Effective potency = 120)

As for AoE rotation, I found 'Fire III -->Fire II -->Flare -->Transpose-->repeat' to be the most effective, and as a bonus the simplest to execute. Note that it is not Fire II spam, just a single cast of Fire II to make the cooldown of Transpose line up with the end of your Flare cast. You only need to wait for a single tick of mana after the Transpose, which is usually almost instant and never so long that you can squeeze in a full GCD ability without slowing down the rotation.