BLM Help

[Defenlok]

I am new to FF14 ARR, however I am not new to MMo's I played EQOA for 12 years. Anyway I am building a BLM and currently my THM just hit 30 and still need to level arch to 15. I have done a lot of reading and everyone has their different ways and beliefs how and what rotation to use. SO my question is can someone give me a basic, simple rotation to use/start with. I would like a single target and AOE rotation help.

I don't have many friends so I been reading and learning as I go but this is how I been doing:

Thunder I or II to start
Transpose
Fire I or II until Mana is low
Transpose
THunder I or II
Repeat.....

Ok so I been reading more and more and now really confused about the use of transpose....I see people say use it in their rotation and some only use it here and there....whats the purpose of transpose? I know what it does..maybe I am misreading it?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance.

Tankloc Dinermith (Siren)
Commander/GOE-Gaurd

[Cynfael]

My BLM hit 50 a few days ago, so I'm not the expert, but will contribute what I can.

- Transpose deletes your current stacks of Umbral Ice or Astral Fire and swaps them for 1 stack of the other. Until you have Fire III and Blizzard III, it's your only way of efficiently transitioning between your two stances. Once you have both of those spells, Transpose is rarely needed except if you make a mistake and somehow find yourself in Astral Fire without enough MP to cast Blizzard III. At 50, Transpose is essential for use with Flare and extended Flare rotations since your other options for generating MP are on long cooldowns.

- No need to Transpose if you have no stacks currently built. Thunder won't apply either kind of stack to you, so don't bother Transposing until after your first set of Fire spells brings you low on MP.

- If you don't need to reapply Thunder yet (let's say you got a Thundercloud proc during your Fire phase), throw out a Blizzard+Scathe or something and then Transpose back to Fire.

[Defenlok]

Ok makes sense...so my questions is what is the best load out/rotation at low levels?

[Malevicton]

single target: thunder2 -> fire spam til low mp -> transpose -> reapply thunder -> blizz1 or scathe til full mp -> fire spam til low mp -> repeat

aoe: fire2 til low mp -> transpose -> blizz2 until full mp -> repeat

Transpose loses a lot of usefulness once you get fire3/blizz3. Those will remove the other's stacks and put you into astral3/umbral3 respectively. This means that at the end of your fire rotation you can blizz3 to get full ice stacks, and then fire3 once you're at full mp to get back into the fire rotation.

When in doubt, throw fire at things. Sleep is also handy when you're soloing.

Also keep in mind that this advice is specifically about leveling rotations. The class changes quite a bit, so keep an open mind and read the tooltips as you level.

[Defenlok]

ok to clarify I do not need to use transpose everytime when switching back and forth between ice and fire?

[Malevicton]

When you use transpose to switch from fire to ice your mana will usually regen before the cooldown is back up. If the timing ends up being strange (maybe you had to dodge some aoe or something) then you may as well use it to buff the start of your fire rotation... but the shorter answer is that you only need to use it when switching from fire to ice.
Once you get more practice in on the rotations, and get a feel for the timing, it'll start making sense.
Tbh though, I wouldn't get too invested in these rotations. You get fire3 at 34 and blizz3 at 38 and having both of those will make a pretty big impact on how you play.

Edit: As an unrelated aside, you'll eventually want to get raging strikes as a cross-class ability from archer. One of the best offensive cooldowns in the game.

[Maero]

Good advice was given above and i will just add that AF is 80% damage while Umbral ice be -10%, so just keep that in mind once you hit lvl 50
Same goes for once you get thundercloud and Firestarter, if both come up at the same time it is best to use thundercloud first as you have chances of it to proc again, i have had 3 thunderclouds in a row a few times :P
Raging and Quelling Strikes are both a must for cross class abilities in my opinion for blm as we can easily rip agro of of tanks.
Ice 3 once you get it essentially replaces transpose, and damage wise if Firestarter procs while you be in umbral ice, best to transpose. You don't want to cast fire while in ice state.
Low lvl thm yes basically you are stuck to switch between umbral ice and astral fire using transpose.

[Ferth]

At low levels the best rotation is blizzard*m > (thunder) > transpose > fire*n > transpose repeat. M is the time it takes for transpose to be available. N is until you no longer have enough mp for a fire spell.

If fighting multiple mobs and you don't have fire 2 yet then blizzard and then thunder lowest priority targets then jump into the above rotation.

If you are fighting more than three mobs and you trust the tank to hold aoe hate use fire 2 and blizzard 2 respectively.

At 30 when you get thundercloud thunder becomes more prominent atleast in single target rotations. Use thunder 1 if you ever have to hard cast then use thunder 2 for procs. When you learn fire 3 you no longer need to use transpose to change from umbral to astral stacks. When you learn blizzard 3 the same is true in reverse.

The rotation after you have fire and blizzard 3 is open to a bit more interpretation but essentially it should look like this: blizz3 > thunder > fire3*n > repeat. Use thunder cloud procs as they come up, always using your highest available thunder spell when thundercloud happens. When you learn fire starter use those procs as they happen as well.

There are a couple of very helpful threads about rotations at 50 but these should help you be an efficient damage dealer til you get there.

Some helpful info, the first stack of astral fire increases damage from fire spells by 40%. The next two increase it by 20% each. When you have three stacks of either umbral ice or astral fire the next spell you cast of the opposing element will have half the cast time (but also severely reduced damage.)

Thunder spells have the highest total unmodified potency but that only counts if they are allowed to tick for their full duration OR if they are paired with a thundercloud proc.

[Ferth]

...As an unrelated aside, you'll eventually want to get raging strikes as a cross-class ability from archer. One of the best offensive cooldowns in the game.

Since unlocking blm requires archer at 15 it's a foregone conclusion that you will have raging strikes. The really important ability from archer is at level 34, quelling strikes.

[kit07]

Yea, using transpose after starting with Thunder I/II doesn't do anything. It only works with Astral Fire and Umbral ICe stacks.
My basic single rotation Thunder II > Fire I until mp is low > trasnpose > bliz I repeat at low levels your mp should be back up to full after bliz I. For higher levels it gets a bit trickier, when you add in Fire Proc and thundercloud. And you will have fire III and bliz III
for multiples, basically the same, just replace fire I with fire II. Although watch out as this will eat MP faster.