BLM Rotations

[Ceveth]

You should be using Thunder II or III, depending on how long it will take to fill your MP. I find that sometimes after doing Thunder II, I have time to sneak in a Scathe before doing my Fire III without creating additional downtime, especially if I have a Firestarter proc ready. That means that I could have just used Thunder III. The post I saw pretty much said that Thunder III is usually worth the small bit of downtime, but I like Thunder II because I like having flexibility to run from mechanics sooner if needed. As far as I know, Thunder I is never optimal.

As much as I welcome your anecdotal evidence, I'm looking for numbers as I've heard exactly the opposite answer from people who have some models & simulations of it but have withheld their findings, or at least not published them in a place I can find them.

I think it's really hard to say at this point. Two targets? Thunder I x2 for sure. 3 targets AoE. But for single targets, it's a wash. It honestly depends on the fight. Maybe you'll need to get ready to move, and getting the Thunder I early is fine. New changes obviously make Thunder I better. I'd need to run more numbers, but it's very situational and probably very small dps-wise.

Also I also have enough spell speed where I can open with;

Fire III > Fire II > Raging Strikes > [Fire II > Fire II > Flare > Convert > Fire II > Flare > Swiftcast > Mega-Ether > Flare]
Raging Strikes actually falls off the split second before the last Flare according to the Battle log, yet the Flare still benefits from it. I think this may be akin to the reason we can still double Flare for AoE.

Is there a more efficient way to be opening for AoE?

[Kimura410]

Im not understanding the thought process behind casting blizzard III first. Is this so you can cast fire III faster?

My single rotation lately has been this: Fire III pre cast before tank pulls. Swiftcast>Raging strikes>Thunder III(so that dots are buffed, and the thunder is instant casted)>then I do my fires, then Blizzard III, thunder II since its quicker, then fire III>Fires etc.

Isn't this better? This allows me to be in astral fire III right off the bat. This then allows my thunder to be instant casted, and the dots are buffed with RS. This also allows me to cast some fires and hopefully procs with RS on. Not to mention, If I get a thundercloud during RS, its buffed dots all over again, along with the buffed thunder spell bonus. The only downfall to this I foresee is not having SC for a flare, but you can just do it on the next rotation. Or would the damage be more from a RS flare than a RS thunder dot ticking? Guess Ill have to do some testing, but Ive been doing great damage with this set up.

[darkstarpoet1]

Im not understanding the thought process behind casting blizzard III first. Is this so you can cast fire III faster?

My single rotation lately has been this: Fire III pre cast before tank pulls. Swiftcast>Raging strikes>Thunder III(so that dots are buffed, and the thunder is instant casted)>then I do my fires, then Blizzard III, thunder II since its quicker, then fire III>Fires etc.

Isn't this better? This allows me to be in astral fire III right off the bat. This then allows my thunder to be instant casted, and the dots are buffed with RS. This also allows me to cast some fires and hopefully procs with RS on. Not to mention, If I get a thundercloud during RS, its buffed dots all over again, along with the buffed thunder spell bonus. The only downfall to this I foresee is not having SC for a flare, but you can just do it on the next rotation. Or would the damage be more from a RS flare than a RS thunder dot ticking? Guess Ill have to do some testing, but Ive been doing great damage with this set up.

not to my experience. with the blizzard then thunder added it gives you extra casts before having to recover mp again. it also gives you the chance for the thundercloud proc which hist as hard as a uf3 hit. this is because of the original blizzard, thunder, and fire wind up being free of any mp cost due to the mp regen from ui3.