How is BLM in new expansion?

[HeavensSword]

imo any of the casters aren't that amazing at the moment, any of the melees can keep up or surpass their dmg while not being penalized for movement, in the 3sec is takes for a blm to cast one spell I can do 2 skills + some ogcd skills, which adds up over a fight, if a caster makes one mistake their dps is gone, where as melee we just use another instant skill...

mobility is king in any mmo, nothing will ever change.

You're trivializing movement's detriment for melee; maybe it's because you play NIN. Movement and mechanics can still greatly effect Melee DPS, especially MNK and DRG because of how these classes work. Missing a positional, while not the same as interrupting a cast, is still lost DPS. Losing GL or BotD is a major DPS loss.

The difference is a 1200 DPS parse on a dummy vs. a 800-870 parse on an actual boss. This can get better with experience on a particular fight, but you'll never get those dummy parses in practice due to movement and mechanics.

[Aikaal]

You're trivializing movement's detriment for melee; maybe it's because you play NIN. Movement and mechanics can still greatly effect Melee DPS, especially MNK and DRG because of how these classes work. Missing a positional, while not the same as interrupting a cast, is still lost DPS. Losing GL or BotD is a major DPS loss.

The difference is a 1200 DPS parse on a dummy vs. a 800-870 parse on an actual boss. This can get better with experience on a particular fight, but you'll never get those dummy parses in practice due to movement and mechanics.

I agree, movements means it's nearly impossible to hit 100% positional for melee. Even more true during progression.

[Hontaro]

snip

There are some points that you're missing here.
Depending on the nature of the movement, SMN has a few tools minimize the downtime of his casts. For example: T13 Megaflare. You see the cast coming and your DoT has 3 seconds left. Instead of refreshing the DoT, you can use Ruin2, then move while GCD runs and refresh it afterwards. Alternatively, you can decide to refresh your DoTs early if you know that a movement-heavy mechanic will come.

Though you could argue that BLM can do the same, it's not truly right because your FireIV rotation is limited on the duration of AF3 and Enochian, especially the former restricts you very much because you can only use 2 GCDs (3 when switching to UB3) before you have to use Fire1 again.

Another point is that FireIV has a 3 second cast time (no spellspeed) vs. the 2.5 seconds of SMN DoTs. This can be crucial when slide-casting out of AoEs, so SMN might not lose a GCD where the BLM will definitely do.

[Hontaro]

Also, with a certain PIE threshold and under certain conditions, the basic BLM rotation changes to AF3 -> Fire IV x2 -> Fire1 -> Fire IV x3 -> UB3, which means that you can use a third Fire IV at the end while still having enough mana and time to switch to UB3. With your "movement" rotation, you will lose out on 2 Fire IVs in this case, which is an even more severe DPS loss.
Another thing I want to point out is that yes, it is possible to "F1 > Scathe > F4 twice", but only if Scathe is cast directly after F1, which means that if you have to cancel mid-cast and use Scathe afterwards, the duration of AF3 will not be enough.

[HaroldSaxon]

Also, with a certain PIE threshold and under certain conditions, the basic BLM rotation changes to AF3 -> Fire IV x2 -> Fire1 -> Fire IV x3 -> UB3, which means that you can use a third Fire IV at the end while still having enough mana and time to switch to UB3. With your "movement" rotation, you will lose out on 2 Fire IVs in this case, which is an even more severe DPS loss.
Another thing I want to point out is that yes, it is possible to "F1 > Scathe > F4 twice", but only if Scathe is cast directly after F1, which means that if you have to cancel mid-cast and use Scathe afterwards, the duration of AF3 will not be enough.

I've thought about it and wondered if its worth it, but you end up waiting for mana after your B3 cast, and you're enochian timer is even tighter iirc. I'm not sure if its worth it but i've not put much thought into it.

Do you have some hard numbers on this? (Potency lost/gained, what piety is required?).

[Hontaro]

Just ran some tests again.
You need 276/277 Piety, which amounts to 269 base Piety + party PIE buff.
The specific condition where the rotation is possible is when you have full mana, use F3 to switch from UB3 to AF3 and you get another mana tick after UB3 wears off.
During the first Enochian rotation (30s), it is doable even when waiting for a full mana tick.
During the second Enochian rotation (25s), you will have to Swiftcast B4, else you will lose Enochian. If you're able to use this rotation during both rotations, there is no need to Swiftcast B4, since Enochian CD is only about 5-7s.

Another sweet side effect is: If you have full mana, use B4 and then go into AF3 with F3 without an UB3 mana tick (which means you have [(Full Mana) - (B4 cost) - (F3 cost)] ), 277 Piety will leave you enough mana to use B4 after casting F4 > F4 > F1 > F4 > F4 > B3, which is normally not possible, thus saving a mana tick.

[Hontaro]

Potency gain/loss is a bit edgy, because everything depends on timing.
Normally, it's a flat potency gain of one F4, maybe minus T1/2 because you don't have time to cast it during UB3.
Then, it depends on when the next mana tick comes. There is little potency loss when the next tick is right after you get into UB3, and a higher loss when you need to wait 2s. If you get a mana tick between the AF3 > UB3 transition, you can fill the gap with one B1 though.
Also, the rotation is longer (3-5 seconds), so one rotation may be at a higher potency, but I don't know how it affects the whole fight.

PS: Ugh, can I do something about this 1000 character limit?

[hallena]

PS: Ugh, can I do something about this 1000 character limit?

Edit your post

[Adventica6]

You're trivializing movement's detriment for melee; maybe it's because you play NIN. Movement and mechanics can still greatly effect Melee DPS, especially MNK and DRG because of how these classes work. Missing a positional, while not the same as interrupting a cast, is still lost DPS. Losing GL or BotD is a major DPS loss.
The difference is a 1200 DPS parse on a dummy vs. a 800-870 parse on an actual boss. This can get better with experience on a particular fight, but you'll never get those dummy parses in practice due to movement and mechanics.

I am not a mnk or drg, movement doesn't affect me, I don't have gl or botd, and I have a passive 10% or so movement speed, what I was getting at is a caster is punished way more for a mistake than a melee, and nin being punished the least of all due to mobility and not having stacks to maintain.

[Aikaal]

I see a major problem with a rotation of f4 x2 f1 f4x3. With the time for first f3 and b3 without end its about its 22.5 secs. With spell speed it's fine but youll waste any f3proc and you waste those stats. You'll have to wait many for b4 and lose it. Piety build is dead, making your rotation longer is a dps lost most the time.