SHB BLM is the peak of this game's job design

[PyurBlue]

Has anyone figured out if it's worth using a firestarter proc after using despair if you never used it during your rotation, or is it better to just go into umbral ice at that point? Also, does black mage have an AoE rotation between 50 and 72 that doesn't feel terrible?

I use Firestarter to weave Swiftcast before Despair. Despair is like Flare, it gains significant DPS when made into an instant cast since it's longer than the GCD, even longer than F4.

EDIT

Since I didn't actually answer your question, I'm calculating the basic BLM rotation (no SPS, no procs, no cooldowns, no Xeno since it's on its own timer) to be 158.2 PPS. Firestarter is 172.8 DPS on its own. So it's a DPS gain to cast it.

[Dragonpuff]

I use Firestarter to weave Swiftcast before Despair. Despair is like Flare, it gains significant DPS when made into an instant cast since it's longer than the GCD, even longer than F4.

EDIT

Since I didn't actually answer your question, I'm calculating the basic BLM rotation (no SPS, no procs, no cooldowns, no Xeno since it's on its own timer) to be 158.2 PPS. Firestarter is 172.8 DPS on its own. So it's a DPS gain to cast it.

Thanks for that edit; i'm already using firestarter to weave swiftcast for despair when swiftcast is up and using firestarters when I need to move unexpectedly, but I wasn't sure if it was worth using those times where swiftcast is on cooldown and everything worked correctly. Do you happen to know if thunderclouds are always worth using if they don't mess up your rotation, or does thunder's DoT need to be under a certain number of seconds left for it to be a DPS gain?

[Lenarr]

Could someone post a link to the BLM guide that's been mentioned here a couple of times?

[Archwizard]

-snip-

So what I'm getting from this is --

18-34: Fire II spam till empty, Transpose, Blizzard II (or Thunder II after 26) to full, Transpose
35-49: Freeze spam at three or more targets (as the Fire II rotation goes up by 35.9 PPS/target while Freeze is an even 40), Fire III then single-target rotation below (Fire II having arguable use at 2 targets until Firestarter at 42)
50-80: Flare is your new god

... I guess there goes the "Fire II has niche uses" argument for not just upgrading it into Flare, since it's basically mutually exclusive with Freeze.

[Ferrinus]

Here's what I think you could do: make Blizzard II and Fire II both 25y, radius 5y aoe attacks which have 2.5s cast times and deal 80 potency to each target. Somewhere in the 60s or 70s, a trait should upgrade them so that they always give you full stacks of Umbral or Astral, just like Blizzard III and Fire III do. Additionally, increase Freeze's cast time to 4s to match Flare's.

That way, all the baseline Blizzard and Fire spells have symmetrical damage profiles, and all have at least a hypothetical use case - you'd use the new Fire II to swap to AF3 while AoEing, you'd use the new Blizzard II to regain UI3 if you've just been rezzed or otherwise lost Enochian, and you'd continue to use Freeze to swap from AF3 to UI3 after a Flare.

[Shurrikhan]

So what I'm getting from this is --

18-34: Fire II spam till empty, Transpose, Blizzard II (or Thunder II after 26) to full, Transpose
35-49: Freeze spam at three or more targets (as the Fire II rotation goes up by 35.9 PPS/target while Freeze is an even 40), Fire III then single-target rotation below (Fire II having arguable use at 2 targets until Firestarter at 42)
50-80: Flare is your new god

... I guess there goes the "Fire II has niche uses" argument for not just upgrading it into Flare, since it's basically mutually exclusive with Freeze.

I feel like that's more negligence on their part than a design choice, though. Nothing uncommon for the leveling process, since you're not really even designed for unless you're at level cap. You're just... scavenger-status.

[Kabooa]

I feel like that's more negligence on their part than a design choice, though. Nothing uncommon for the leveling process, since you're not really even designed for unless you're at level cap. You're just... scavenger-status.

Lets not pretend ARR classes were foundations of great design either.

In retrospect, they were all almost universally at odds with themselves.

[Shurrikhan]

Lets not pretend ARR classes were foundations of great design either.

In retrospect, they were all almost universally at odds with themselves.

How is saying that former expansions have shared little of the design improvements over further expansions felt at level cap pretending that ARR classes were well designed?

Jobs being designed for level cap includes when level 50 was the level cap.

And ARR jobs were a mess :P

And a handful of ShB jobs are still a mess at level 80. That doesn't change the fact that changes meant to benefit play at level 80--as at 70 in SB prior--had negative effects on the toolkits available to players up until those points, all without note or even the faintest compensation.

[Tint]

Blackmage plays awesome at high level.

But in level synch it's horrible. You have to learn different rotations for every level-area, you have to keep skills on your hotbar you will only use in level synch (Fire 2, Blizzard 2), then we have Foul wich changes from a single target nuke into an AoE-only nuke. And then all the QoL updates like switching from 0 mana into UI and being able to keep UI between pulls - and being able to stack it to UI3 so you don't have to cast the 4 seconds Fire 3 / Blizzard 3 spells all the time.

Espcially the AoE rotation is a hot mess. It seems like it changes every few levels.

BLM needs a rework to streamline the leveling process, thin out the questionable skills and bring the QoL improvements earlier into the job. But on the other hand BLM is so awesome at high level that a rework could possibly destroy the job...

[Kabooa]

How is saying that former expansions have shared little of the design improvements over further expansions felt at level cap pretending that ARR classes were well designed?

Jobs being designed for level cap includes when level 50 was the level cap.

And ARR jobs were a mess :P