BLM Buffs Inc!

[SongJoohee]

Wow. People really will complain about anything. Amazing.

There's currently 0 reason to take a Black Mage to Coil 6-9 instead of Summoner. Zero, you get less damage, less mobility, less utility, less everything, except AOE, which isn't in a single end game fight, they designed a class based around moving as little as possible with a speciality of AOE and then made all the end-game raids movement heavy and completely lacking in AOE. Last time this happened it was with Warrior in Coil 1-5 and they got a major overhaul pretty rapidly. Black Mages are being treated like trash in the game, get's a vague response from the dev who apparently plays Black Mage and gets told the much needed buff is still a good 6+ weeks away, depending on how many times they decide to delay the patch this time.

Sorry, it's too long. The buffs should've been 2.25 or 2.28, when the developer and community acknowledged Black Mage is at a disadvantage in Coil 6-9 not 3-4 months later when everyone has pretty much abandoned Black Mage in favor of Summoner. I am grateful my Coil team let me stay as the Black Mage class I enjoy instead of forcing me down Summoner, but the extremely slow, and quite frankly pathetic reply to the question, along with various other issues I have in 2.2 and the last LL has completely killed my motivation to play this game regardless of their support.

If it wasn't useful for speed runs there would be 0 reasons to even have BLM in the game at the moment.

[Instrumentality]

If it wasn't useful for speed runs there would be 0 reasons to even have BLM in the game at the moment.

So what I got from this is that you A) Don't like turret DPS B) Don't understand what turret DPS is or how to play it properly and C) think the buffs that you are guaranteed to receive (That you don't need for competitive DPS, just like monks did not need their buffs in any way, shape or form) for your turret DPS class that I dearly hope don't make you anything less of a turret DPS class are insufficient and too late.

That's cool. I can respect that opinion. Feel free to quit playing turret DPS whenever you like.

[Aikaal]

There's currently 0 reason to take a Black Mage to Coil 6-9 instead of Summoner.

I disagree.

Turn 6 - You can flare bulbs on tank -> DPS gain.
Turn 8 - You can flare Dreadnaught + boss (Twice if you have convert up) -> DPS gain. Infinite mana!
Turn 9* - You can flare Ghosts + Nael for 1 add burst. Aetherial Manipulation. Manawall/Manaward defensive buff. Multidots spread targets**

*For this turn, only exceptionnal Black Mages can pull their weight. It's not given to anyone.
** Many BLMs don't see the point to multi-thunder more than one add. 3 Thunder debuffs = 3 times 5% chances to get a proc, why wouldn't you do that? Of course it's less damage than Summoner but it's still a DPS gain.

[Cherub]

I disagree.

Turn 6 - You can flare bulbs on tank -> DPS gain.
Turn 8 - You can flare Dreadnaught + boss (Twice if you have convert up) -> DPS gain. Infinite mana!
Turn 9* - You can flare Ghosts + Nael for 1 add burst. Aetherial Manipulation. Manawall/Manaward defensive buff. Multidots spread targets**

*For this turn, only exceptionnal Black Mages can pull their weight. It's not given to anyone.
** Many BLMs don't see the point to multi-thunder more than one add. 3 Thunder debuffs = 3 times 5% chances to get a proc, why wouldn't you do that? Of course it's less damage than Summoner but it's still a DPS gain.

I avoided spoiling myself from the t9 boss up to this point. Thank you very much :/

[Alkimi]

** Many BLMs don't see the point to multi-thunder more than one add. 3 Thunder debuffs = 3 times 5% chances to get a proc, why wouldn't you do that? Of course it's less damage than Summoner but it's still a DPS gain.

I really can't think of a situation where this is a thing.

If the 3 mobs are close together then just use an AoE rotation, if they're spread out then chances are stuff needs to die fast and that won't happen with you taking 7.5-10.5 seconds to cast whatever tier of Thunder on everything.

Thundercloud procs do more damage than Fire, yes, but they still take up a GCD and are far too reliant on randomness. Hence why the only really optimal time to cast Thunder spells is during Umbral Ice phases where you need something to fill the gap while MP recharges.

[Xisin]

I really can't think of a situation where this is a thing.

If the 3 mobs are close together then just use an AoE rotation, if they're spread out then chances are stuff needs to die fast and that won't happen with you taking 7.5-10.5 seconds to cast whatever tier of Thunder on everything.

Thundercloud procs do more damage than Fire, yes, but they still take up a GCD and are far too reliant on randomness. Hence why the only really optimal time to cast Thunder spells is during Umbral Ice phases where you need something to fill the gap while MP recharges.

Thunder II is actually our most efficient spell. the reason you don't spam it under normal circumstances is that it is indeed a dot. On the golems towards the end its best to raging strikes quelling strikes burn the dps golem, then during the ice phase dot the other two. On the second set of golems, you won't have quelling up at all so rather than risking pulling hate off the melee dps (and it will happen if you are close in gear) you can dot each one then start.

Dotting all 3 on the first set isn't a bad thing either.

Thunder 2 potency total = 295 319 mp (this is very important) and a 2.77ish cast time that varies with spell speed.
To give you an idea of that power

Fire = 150 potency * 1.8 Astral fire 3 = 270
flare = 260 potency * 1.8 = 468 - Those golems will never be together for a flare though

thunder on all 3 golems (they will all mostly tick to full duration) = 295*3 = 885 potency

Basically thunder 2 has better damage than a fire 1 in Af3, on top of that each application increases the odds of thunder procs.

3 casts of fire 1 will yield a total of 810 potency in 6.93 seconds. (according to my spell speed) gcd = 2.31
3 casts of thunder 2 = 885 potency in 8.31 seconds

885/8.31 = 106.498 potency per second
810/6.93 = 116.883 potency per second + highly probable thunderclouds.

This is the reasoning behind my personal recommendation of RS + QS on the first set and then dotting the second set to prevent hate draw from the melee + other dps targeted golem.

[blackermage]

Thunder II is actually our most efficient spell. the reason you don't spam it under normal circumstances is that it is indeed a dot. On the golems towards the end its best to raging strikes quelling strikes burn the dps golem, then during the ice phase dot the other two. On the second set of golems, you won't have quelling up at all so rather than risking pulling hate off the melee dps (and it will happen if you are close in gear) you can dot each one then start.

Dotting all 3 on the first set isn't a bad thing either.


Thunder 2 potency total = 295 319 mp (this is very important) and a 2.77ish cast time that varies with spell speed.
To give you an idea of that power

Fire = 150 potency * 1.8 Astral fire 3 = 270
flare = 260 potency * 1.8 = 468 - Those golems will never be together for a flare though

thunder on all 3 golems (they will all mostly tick to full duration) = 295*3 = 885 potency

Basically thunder 2 has better damage than a fire 1 in Af3, on top of that each application increases the odds of thunder procs.

3 casts of fire 1 will yield a total of 810 potency in 6.93 seconds. (according to my spell speed) gcd = 2.31
3 casts of thunder 2 = 885 potency in 8.31 seconds

885/8.31 = 106.498 potency per second
810/6.93 = 116.883 potency per second + highly probable thunderclouds.

This is the reasoning behind my personal recommendation of RS + QS on the first set and then dotting the second set to prevent hate draw from the melee + other dps targeted golem.

Technically, fire1 under astral 3 is closer to 130 potency per second, if you include firestarters.
Based on http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ue_proc_rates/

EPotency = 150 * 1.8 + 0.25 (220 * 1.8) = 369
ECastTime = 2.3 + 0.25 (2.3) = 2.875s,
EPotency/s = 369 / 2.875 ~= 128.34 potency/s

Just clarifying that without any thunderstarter procs (the Expected value of a thunder including thunderclouds is very volatile depending on when you get it), fire1 casts are stronger. Of course, when in UI3, multiple t2 are still optimal.

[Aikaal]

I avoided spoiling myself from the t9 boss up to this point. Thank you very much :/

That's unfortunate There's not a lot of BLM that actually do T9 and I'm happy to be one of them.

I really can't think of a situation where this is a thing.

If mobs are stack together it's better to do AoE rotation but there are cases where multiple adds spawn and you can't stack them. Phase 2 of T9 is the best example. You have to kill 3 golems quickly and if you stack them, they merge and wipe your group so multi-dotting is a DPS gain at this point.