Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Aikaal]

I don't know how people get off multiple fire4's without having ley lines up, cause it seems like astral fire runs out right after that.

BLM rotation is extremely dependent on latency. Basically, if your computer is a toaster, you do poorly on BLM. If you connection is a toaster you do poorly. If both are toasters, you do extremely poorly.

[Sleigh]

Well, as of next week it's poop or get off the pot for us casters with the weapon purchase. Anyone in here taking the switch to SMN? I'm 90% likely taking the leap to SMN for now, unfortunately I've caught the SMN bug, nothing personal against level 60 BLM I just feel like SMN's more consistent for the same reward and I gotta admit I think it's flat better for A3S (gonna catch flak for this opinion!), but I'm gonna imagine most of you guys are sticking it out. If so, more power to you guys.

Cleared A2 Savage on BLM. First night I tried SMN, and it was fine but it felt like double SMN was a bit excessive since adds were dying REALLY fast, plus we still beat enrage with around 40 seconds to spare. I have to say it's pretty fun on BLM, and I'll be playing it each week from now on. Not giving up that easily!

If I was the only caster, then I'd probably play SMN just to make it easier on everyone else but I think BLM/SMN might be a better combo than SMN/SMN for the extra burst.

Day 1 my group tried SMN SMN (BRD/MCH went SMN) as we were experimenting and I can see where you're coming from, though I think SMN/SMN would still be unbeatable due to the 5 stack Bane. Not much point to large single target burst in A2S IMO, the most you can say about burst is it's nice on the Hardmind/Hardhats/kamikaze Soldiers but with the existence of stuns it's a semi-moot point since as long as you're killing them in time you're gonna have more success with the classes doing more AoE.

[Aikaal]

I'm not going SMN for A3S. I pull 1050-1100 dps at 10mins+

[OneWingedSora]

I'm not going SMN for A3S. I pull 1050-1100 dps at 10mins+

Yeah, SMN does about the same. Stick with w/e you like though, both are perfectly viable. People didn't believe me when I said it was better/equal for A3S but I guess all it took was for one group to clear it with a SMN to change their minds :C

[Aikaal]

Yeah, SMN does about the same. Stick with w/e you like though, both are perfectly viable. People didn't believe me when I said it was better/equal for A3S but I guess all it took was for one group to clear it with a SMN to change their minds :C

It's all about convenience. Those adds that you bane, painflare and deathflare the new set of adds. This means you do nothing about the old ones and it stress your group further. It is also easier to achieve those numbers on SMN but BLM wins just because Apoc buffs 20% of those 20k+ cleaves. This allows your heals to DPS more. There has to be a reason why a group with BLM cleared A3S 2 days before a group with SMN I jsut simply goes what's the best for the group and BLM is best for this imho.

[Sleigh]

It's all about convenience. Those adds that you bane, painflare and deathflare the new set of adds. This means you do nothing about the old ones and it stress your group further. It is also easier to achieve those numbers on SMN but BLM wins just because Apoc buffs 20% of those 20k+ cleaves. This allows your heals to DPS more. There has to be a reason why a group with BLM cleared A3S 2 days before a group with SMN I jsut simply goes what's the best for the group and BLM is best for this imho.

Which 20k cleaves are you talking about? You mean the tethers? If so, Apoc's definitely nice there, and so is Manaward in final phase, can't argue with that.

I'd argue SMN makes add phase less stressful IMO, Miasma spam basically doubles your time to kill any add you hit, and a SCH cannot hit every single one even if he were to fulltime DPS. I don't notice it being harder with SMN the last few nights even though I know I'm doing less in that particular, timed phase comparatively to when I BLM.

One big thing I like is you can Virus every Cascade with SMN + SCH. With SCH alone it's every other, unfortunately. Also LB3ing the hand is a complete bitch on BLM, SMN barely loses anything from it, something most welcome.

Perhaps this turn really does boil down to preference/convenience, but I'm not sold that SMN won't consistently do more pre and post add phase compared to BLM, which is where the money is once you've got the final phase mechanics down (my group's still practicing final phase's loop so I cannot give you 10m runs to compare yet, soon I hope!). Just curious, what do you consistently get as BLM immediately pre-add phase? Also, comp?

[Xisin]

I'll be sticking to my guns with blm, I find it funner than smn as I'm a sucker for the bigger numbers. What makes it even easier for me to decide this was I never really liked blms identity as an aoe mage anyway, and they changed it over to smn. SMN is still an option after a couple of months obviously, or a lucky drop from A4, whichever comes first. I like both, I just favor blm.

[Aikaal]

Snip

My Scholar uses that 180 crafted chest with 51 accuracy melds. We never had issues on that.

My group saw the enrage rawr.

My best attempts on BLM, I get 1350+ after twin hands and 1150+ after tornado add phase. You can argue that BLM lose more damage then SMN using LB. My timing is perfect, I always have Enochian and Sharpcast ready when I LB. I even Swift B1 to slow the add before the LB. I have War, Pld, Sch, Whm, Brd, Nin, Mnk, Blm. I can also say with ease in a perfect run I should be able to pull 1.1k+

It seems Dragoon is more suitable that Ninja for this, our Ninja is constantly TP starved and I don't get the number of Foes I should get.

One thing for sure I can say is it's harder to get those numbers as BLM than SMN but I don't lose any cast so ;3 My point is simple on this. It's a complete lie to say SMN is superior to BLM in Alexander Savage. It is as easy to proof as to say World first had a BLM in their comp. BLM do perfectly fine and the only turn where SMN actually do better is because how stupid SE was about AoE for A2S.

[OneWingedSora]

snip.

Yes, turns out you were right I just tried going A3S with BLM yesterday and found that with BLM, we never needed to save CDS and LB during hand of pain. And Apoc is extremely helpful for tethers.

I have two things I wanna confirm though..

1- Does Lethargy work on adds ?

2- If you Flare the tornado during add phase, will it hit the adds upon spawn ?

[Sleigh]

Yes, turns out you were right ^^ I just tried going A3S with BLM yesterday and found that with BLM, we never needed to save CDS and LB during hand of pain. And Apoc is extremely helpful for tethers.

I have two things I wanna confirm though..

1- Does Lethargy work on adds ?

2- If you Flare the tornado during add phase, will it hit the adds upon spawn ?

Lethargy works on add yes.

Yes, Flare has the exact same range as Deathflare.

You really shouldn't have to save group CDs or LB with SMN or BLM, they're both capable in our gear level of providing the DPS needed to skip CDs/LB.

You basically get one full rotation on BLM without any CDs which is F4 X 4, F1, Firestarter, Flare. That's about 30k with a crit or two in there, a bit more if you get a TC during the rotation. SMN, if you save Rouse and Spur only from the 2m mark, you will do more than that, and a bigger chunk of it will hit the other hand too. I do DWT > FesterX2 + Painflare + 3D + R3 spam + Deathflare, plus Aerial Slash + Rouse + Spur + Enkindle (saved for here because you hit two targets so unless you really want to use it in add phase on a tornado it doesn't matter if you use it here or at start), it totals about 30-35k before crits and before AoE.