So, I tested some BLM rotations...

[SirGazuntai]

I'M NOT GOING TO DO PVP ROTATIONS OR DPS CHECKS. Not only do I find PvP boring, FF14's implementation is really clunky and bad for me as it is now. Not to mention it's too crazy with all the interruptions to make any consistant rotations, give any sort of DPS numbers except how much I do in random battles.

Information on MP-ticks:

MP ticks occur at set intervals in relation to the Server time. This is how it was before the patch and this is how it remains. There is no change to how ticks work.

However, there is a change to something that affects ticks. Before the patch we could move into UI, wait for a tick and instantly cast Fire III. We would get the last time just before the change from UI to AF was made, giving us full MP. Now, after the patch, they changed AF and UI so that you lose the buff about 1-2 seconds before you gain the other buff (if you were in UI you'd lose UI 1-2 seconds before you gained AF). This was to prevent double fast-cast Fire spells and Flare abuse.

However, that's irrelevant. The majority of BLM know why the update/bug fix was done, they just don't like it because they were used to it.

That aside, I say "however" and use brackets a lot...

THAT aside, MP ticks haven't changed, even if it seems like it has. I was also under the same impression, but I was happily proven wrong.

There'll be more information at the bottom of the rotations in regard to smaller details.

ANYWAY...

Gear:
Relic +1 (still calling it that)
Full DL
Astral Ring (ilvl 70, no materia)

This is pretty average for an end-game BLM in the sense that it's easy to get to this point. The only thing that requires Myth tomes is +1ing your relic, while the rest can be done depending how often you play. Obviously adding ilvl90 gear will increase your DPS.

Onto the rotations...

ST rotations:

Fire III > Fire I spam > Blizz III > Repeat: 180 DPS without Firestarter procs

This is probably your basic rotation that you'll probably use. While 180 might seem a little low, this was done without any Firestarter procs. I gave the lowest amount of damage you could do with the rotation so that you'll know how much damage you do on those unlucky rotations with no Firestarter procs (I get it a lot on first boss of WP). Your DPS will increase the more procs you get, obviously. As someone said in the thread, getting 250-300 DPS from this with procs is easily possible and from my own testing it happens pretty often. Though, the same person also mentioned you do have to wait an extra 2 or so seconds for your last tick of MP, which I forgot to mention. He personally uses Scathe, which is a great filler for ST rotations. Thunder was used most of the time before the patch, and it still works here.

Fire III spam > Blizz III > Scathe as soon as MP Tick happens > Repeat: 190 DPS

This is something you probably won't use, but it's interesting nonetheless. The reason for using Scathe as soon as an MP tick happens is that by the time your GCD is done, you can cast Fire III and get your next MP tick JUST after you start casting. Bare in mind there's no procs here.

Fire III > Fire III > Fire III > Blizz III > Wait split second and repeat: 230 DPS

The trick behind this one is being in Blizz III as short as possible. This means less MP for Fire III, but it also means less downtime. You should get 2 powerful Fire III off before you run out of MP. Again, bare in mind there's no procs here, either.

Fire III > Blizz III > Repeat: 130 DPS

This was clearly never the way to go, I just thought it would be interesting because the swap from AF and UI is much easier without messing up the cast-times/castbar.

Blizz III spam: 160 DPS

I was kind of surprised by this. It's close to the basic rotation, but obviously without procs making it much weaker. However, considering you don't need to do anything but mash 1 button and go to sleep in your chair, it's kind of strong.

These are the only single-target rotations I could think to test that are worthwhile or interesting. If you think of more, let me know and I'll test them.


AoE rotations (3 target AoE's):

Fire III > Fire II spam > Blizz III > Repeat: 270 DPS

That's about 90 DPS per monster, so 5 monsters would be 450 DPS, while 10 would be 900 DPS. Not bad.

Blizz III > Fire III > Flare > Transpose > Repeat: 300 DPS

That's 100 DPS per monster, which is 500 DPS for 5, 1000 DPS for 10... obviously. Getting pretty good.

Blizz II spam: 160 DPS

I tested this just to see how weak the nerf made this skill and was kind of surprised. That's roughly 53 DPS per monster, which is 265 DPS for 5 monsters and 530 for 10. Again, not bad for something you can do while sleeping in your chair.

Freeze spam: 230 DPS

That's roughly 76 DPS for one monster, which is 380 DPS for 5, 760 DPS for 10. Not TOO bad, unless you're on PS3... then I'm sorry. Your DPS will probably be bad with this.



These next 2 are very similar, except for the fact the first one uses 2 Fire II, opposed to the second one which uses 1 Fire II. The DPS difference is negligible at best.

Fire III > Fire II > Fire II > Flare > Transpose > Repeat (Ty, Louro999): 400-450 DPS

This rotation pretty much revolves around never using Blizzard moves. Going by the lowest, that's 400 DPS for 3 monsters, roughly 133 DPS for 1 monster, which means 1333 DPS for 10 monsters. 1 of the best AoE rotations that I use, now. The reason the DPS is a range instead of a single number is because casting this rotation to get a single balanced DPS would take forever, and I'd always mess up by the time I got close due to boredom. 400-450 is as close as I got.

Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Transpose > Repeat (Ty, Kalvin1783): 400-450 DPS

Again, going by the lowest, that's 400 DPS for 3 monsters, roughly 133 DPS for 1 monster, which means 1333 DPS for 10 monsters. This rotation is basically the same as the one above, except it takes 1 less Fire II. The time saved by only using 1 Fire II means less time between Flare, however it also means 1 less Fire II on all the monsters. These 2 things balance it out and make both these rotations almost identical.



That's pretty much the only constant rotations I can think of without shoving Swiftcast/Convert for extra Flares, which can be crammed into any rotation for an increase to DPS (though, not sure what it'll do for your ticks but I honestly don't use these that often as I find burst damage kind of lackluster, even though it isn't)

Also there is no Thunder in these rotations because it can often change the timing of ticks, which CAN result in a loss. I got too many Thundercloud procs to test this properly and on ST Thunder doesn't help you THAT much. It helps, but it isn't necessary. I rarely use Thunder in dungeons except bosses, and even then I only use it at the start.

I'd also like to say that I'm not a huge number cruncher, or math genius. These were my own notes that a friend in my FC wanted to see, so I put them here. After searching the forum for information I realized a lot of BLM are feeling lackluster now, so I tried to create something that could make them realize they can STILL do an insane amount of damage. If you have anything to add, please let me know. Thanks to the people who already have.

Also, if you find errors let me know. I always seem to do this at 4am, which is great for getting the dummies for yourself, but not great on the brain.

[Louro999]

How about F3 > F2 spam > Flare at 270-320 > Transpose > repeat ?

[SirGazuntai]

How about F3 > F2 spam > Flare at 270-320 > Transpose > repeat ?

I'll do that one now, didn't think of that one for some reason...

[Kalvin1783]

I was wondering how a non blizzard/freeze rotation might do, the idea being to get off as many AF3 flares as soon as possible. F3, F2, flare, transpose. The fire 2 is basically filler to do damage and let transpose cool down, and it times it up pretty good. The moment an ui1 ticks, immediately F3 again, not waiting for mana regen. I played with it a bit, but I don't have a parser. Seems like all the long cast times and waiting on mana ticks makes it not worthwhile. Just a suggestion though.

[SirGazuntai]

I was wondering how a non blizzard/freeze rotation might do, the idea being to get off as many AF3 flares as soon as possible. F3, F2, flare, transpose. The fire 2 is basically filler to do damage and let transpose cool down, and it times it up pretty good. The moment an ui1 ticks, immediately F3 again, not waiting for mana regen. I played with it a bit, but I don't have a parser. Seems like all the long cast times and waiting on mana ticks makes it not worthwhile. Just a suggestion though.

I didn't think that was going to be very decent but turned out to be great. Took me awhile to let the DPS balance out as it jumped from around 330-380 constantly, but it finally settled around 360-370. I'll add it to the list, then.

It can vary depending on how long that tick takes, but sometimes the tick happens instantly, so the slightly long waits are made up by the short instant ticks.

[Kalvin1783]

Oh wow, glad I didn't embarrass myself with that. I did notice that sometimes I would get immediate mana ticks several cycles in a row, but other times I would get what feels like the whole wait several cycles in a row. I'm wondering if there is a way to sync it up with the server to hit the ticks better. Thanks for testing!

[SirGazuntai]

There will probably be ways to sync it eventually, but I think that'll just take getting used to the tick itself since we're so used to the old tick. I'd imagine in a week or 2 most BLM who stuck through with it will feel comfortable with it again as long as it isn't completely different in the sense that ticks are essentially random, but I doubt that. It'll be more about feel than it is knowledge since 2.0 was more about feel, too. At least, for me it was...

You might be able to cut a tiny bit of time by changing Fire II to Fire I, but then you lose out on AoE damage, which defeats the purpose of an AoE rotation. As long as you're casting your spells as quickly as humanly possible you should be pretty good.

Edit: I've been testing it awhile now and I've realized that if you got the syncing down properly you could easily reach over 400. I've been getting comfortable with it and using each skill in as quick succession as possible and I've been getting quite a lot of insta-ticks. It seems the tick happens extremely quickly and if you don't click Transpose just as you get into AF from Flare, you just miss the tick. I've seen the parse jumping around 400 and 450 when I get good streaks, however a bad one comes along and it drops significantly. Hmm... going to need to keep testing the ticks. If you could do the ticks perfectly you would probably reach about 450 constantly on 3 monsters, which is 150 per monster, 750 for 5, 1500 for 10. That's pretty significant.

I think this is why I should leave it to the really smart people to do this kind of thing. xD But hey, they'll still do it regardless so whatever... Time to edit the original post.

[Kuroyasha]

Question: did Thundercloud get changed? THe new tooltip says 5% chance after each tick, but doesnt mention critical hit. But I thought at first it was 5% after each tick that critted? I may be just remembering wrong but didnt crit help our thundercloud proc frequency before?

[SirGazuntai]

Question: did Thundercloud get changed? THe new tooltip says 5% chance after each tick, but doesnt mention critical hit. But I thought at first it was 5% after each tick that critted? I may be just remembering wrong but didnt crit help our thundercloud proc frequency before?

I don't think so. From what I can remember it was always 5% chance after each tick. If that was the case I doubt we would ever use thunder in hopes of getting a thundercloud proc because getting a crit tick would be rare-ish, and getting a 5% chance to proc on such a rare occurrence would be so close to impossible that it would be worthless. I remember getting thundercloud procs very often on bosses (I got 3 on my first Thunder 2 against Ifrit the very first time I fought him).

I did try to check some websites, but so many websites instantly changed their information that I wouldn't be able to tell if it was changed or not.

[LetBloodline]

How about F3 > F2 spam > Flare at 270-320 > Transpose > repeat ?

in the repeat when i use this i just cast fire3 when i get my first tick of mana. Pre patch for the time i casted fire3 i had one more tick gained (yet to test post patch) then i could use fire2 1-2 times before cast flare again

About speed of cast, why don't you just press the button 0.5 sec before the end of the cast so that it start instantly from keyboard/mouse/joypad?