Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[OmegaStrongtan]

Would it be worth it to give my Relict a fie points in Piety?

[Nekotee]

B2 is still good in situations where a bunch of adds have to be knocked out of something. The Moogles in Sohr Khai for example. Other then that it's main use is Ninja checking nodes in PvP if you play Seal Rock.

I didn't say it is not used
It's more... it's not a dps increasing spell unlike the use for healers

It's use in term of mechanics to bind or damage bump

[Maero]

No go all spell speed and crit. You would need too much piety to actually see a difference.

As for Hasrat, swiftcast F3 is not at all the way to go, you would be better off at your level to start off with bliz 3>Fire 3> and so on. You could fit in a thunder as well.
Your F3 cast time will be fast after a Ice 3 and most of us had done so at your level.

Oh and actually for your aoe rotation if you use a thunder on a enemy at the beginning, any thundercloud procs on other targets (up to 3) are a dps gain, not a loss like some seem to think. 4 + mobs however your best bet is to stick with F2.

[randysquirrel]

But what about during UI time? From what I've seen of my current cycle, when Fire drains my MP and I switch, I've typically got time for one or two spells before UI has me filled up again

Do not wait to be full MP again. Flare then transpose, as soon as you get a tick of MP, begin casting fireIII. By the time it has finished casting you will have got another tick of MP. Then fire2, fire2 flare. and repeat

[Garotte14]

But what about during UI time? From what I've seen of my current cycle, when Fire drains my MP and I switch, I've typically got time for one or two spells before UI has me filled up again and I swap back. Wouldn't that be the ideal time to toss out Thunders to anything I haven't got it running on yet? I can see where maybe you're better off sticking with F2 and ignoring any Thundercloud proc.

Or is such a situation when B2 or Freeze may be worth pulling out during UI (instead of Thunder), just for the extra AoE until you're back to AF?

Editing in to kinda just dump some feedback after a run trying out this new rotation. It definitely feels a bit more intensive. A few waves of F2 in big groups seems to pull some big enmity. I want to keep burning things, but gotta be a little careful there. Made the mistake of tossing T1 on Thundercloud procs a few times, but that's more down to fingers getting used to something new. Gotta find a new way to work Convert and the like in. I've got Fire/Blizzard/Thunder mapped to the NUM pad, which works great, but takes a hand away from mouse for grabbing random off skills.

New question I have. So Swiftcast + Fire 3 seems to be the ideal way to start a fight (plus buffs maybe), but what do you do if Swiftcast is still on cooldown? Is Fire 3 still the best, and you just eat the few extra seconds you have to spend to cast it? Or are there alternate ways to get up to speed?

I'm not trying to sound like a broken record or anything, but seriously take a thorough read of the new Black Mage guide I've posted. All of the answers to any questions you have are in there. From level 1-60, how to use cooldowns, different rotations, etc. I'm very glad you have lots of questions because it means you care and I know you won't be one of those scrubs in DF that doesn't give a F&$%.

With that being said. If you are Pre level 50, you can throw out a Thunder spell or two when you are in UI for AoE, but when you get Flare, you will stop doing this. The reason is, Flare is 1200+ Potency on 3 enemies and 2100+ on 6 enemies. You want to hit this spell as often as possible.

As far as Enmity, thats not you're fault. If you are pulling hate during AoE, thats the tanks fault. The only thing you can do is just switch to single target at that point and try again on the next dungeon with a better tank.

You should not be using swiftcast on Fire III. Swiftcast has many uses, but using it on Fire III is extremely situational. I can think of one time that I do this. Swiftcast should be used for movement, or on Flare since its a long cast or in your opener. Convert should always be paired with Raging Strikes. They have the same cooldown, so you should be using raging strikes and then convert when low on MP to get more Fires out under Raging Strikes.

[FunkyBunch]

But what about during UI time? From what I've seen of my current cycle, when Fire drains my MP and I switch, I've typically got time for one or two spells before UI has me filled up again and I swap back. Wouldn't that be the ideal time to toss out Thunders to anything I haven't got it running on yet? I can see where maybe you're better off sticking with F2 and ignoring any Thundercloud proc.

Or is such a situation when B2 or Freeze may be worth pulling out during UI (instead of Thunder), just for the extra AoE until you're back to AF?

Editing in to kinda just dump some feedback after a run trying out this new rotation. It definitely feels a bit more intensive. A few waves of F2 in big groups seems to pull some big enmity. I want to keep burning things, but gotta be a little careful there. Made the mistake of tossing T1 on Thundercloud procs a few times, but that's more down to fingers getting used to something new. Gotta find a new way to work Convert and the like in. I've got Fire/Blizzard/Thunder mapped to the NUM pad, which works great, but takes a hand away from mouse for grabbing random off skills.

New question I have. So Swiftcast + Fire 3 seems to be the ideal way to start a fight (plus buffs maybe), but what do you do if Swiftcast is still on cooldown? Is Fire 3 still the best, and you just eat the few extra seconds you have to spend to cast it? Or are there alternate ways to get up to speed?

If you do Transpose you can immediately start casting F3, don't wait to get full MP for AoE. I wouldn't throw in a Thunder as it's just going to make bad habits and you'll be 50 soon enough and your time is still better trying to max the time you spend casting F2. (Every Thunder is NOT an F2 so DPS loss).

BLM is SUPER bursty. Especially with undergeared tanks, they may have a hard time holding hate. That's why Quelling Strikes from ARC/BRD is suggested.
But with a good and properly geared tank you won't pull hate. I can rip hate away from the best tank I know, if I really want to, BUT I have to pop all my cooldowns (raging strikes, swiftcast, convert AND use an MP potion) to get a third flare going.

Swiftcast has a number of uses, but to start a fight isn't one of them. You can start casting 2.5 seconds before the tank engages and can save your swiftcast for when you lose your AF stacks, or movement or flare or to squeeze an extra F4 in when you min/max Enochian at 60.

[Hasrat]

No worries. Extra questioning was more in response to mixed advice. But I'm kinda seeing where it's all coming from now. Advice seems to be, against large groups, spend as little time as possible in UI, switch back immediately to get back into Fire 2, nevermind not being at full MP. I can kinda see where that's more ideal. It feels a little wrong, but there's a logic to it. (all this until I get to Flare, which will shake things up again a little bit)

As for Swiftcast, it might be a bit before I feel able to juggle enough things to be able to move and pop that for any given spell. The more I see of this, the more I think controller might be super useful here. Or at least a proper mouse with a few extra buttons for these things.

[FunkyBunch]

No worries. Extra questioning was more in response to mixed advice. But I'm kinda seeing where it's all coming from now. Advice seems to be, against large groups, spend as little time as possible in UI, switch back immediately to get back into Fire 2, nevermind not being at full MP. I can kinda see where that's more ideal. It feels a little wrong, but there's a logic to it. (all this until I get to Flare, which will shake things up again a little bit)

It's counter intuitive for sure! But it makes a HUGE difference in DPS output.
If you can master the F3-F2-F2-F2-F2-Transpose-F3-F2-F2-F2-Transpose you'll be better than most mages for dungeons out there by the time you're 50.
Just swap the last F2 for Flare on each section when you are 50 and you'll be golden.

As for Swiftcast, it might be a bit before I feel able to juggle enough things to be able to move and pop that for any given spell. The more I see of this, the more I think controller might be super useful here. Or at least a proper mouse with a few extra buttons for these things.

In the beginning I would use swiftcast when you lose all your AF stacks.
I play on PS4 so a controller is all I know how to play with lol.

My controller has all the skills I want to use on movement mapped to O,X,[], and /\ as well as the skills I use more often. (Just different hotbars, I have a movement hotbar, a single target hotbar and a multi-target hotbar).

[Hasrat]

If you can master the F3-F2-F2-F2-F2-Transpose-F3-F2-F2-F2-Transpose

This is a little confusing, but I think it's maybe because you're used to having Flare draining your MP, requiring that Transpose. Until I get to that point, I think I'm still good using B3 instead, wouldn't I? Your rotation has me switch to one stack of UI, which can't possibly recharge me enough for a good F2 wave, could it? With B3, I at least typically get one good tick (or lament completely missing the tick as I immediately switch with F3, sigh) for a decent chunk of MP to burn with. I can see where you're coming from, your method sounds like it should get back to AoE F2 faster, but I'm doubtful. F3 has its full cast time (plus the tiny delay from Transpose), but while I can run B3-F3, both cast times are halved, so effectively spending the same amount of time getting back to 3 stacks of AF with (I assume) greater MP recovery.

Will have to keep it in mind for Flare, though, when B3 is no longer an option (and slightly irrelevant as the whole point is to Flare as much as possible, sounds like).

[randysquirrel]

Take some of the advice in this thread with a pinch of salt. Some of it is pretty decent, but some of it comes from people I'm not sure have ever even played BLM from what they say lol

Garotte's guide was pretty good last time I looked at it