I think it was about 4 or 5 months before I entered and cleared a savage on BLM. This was while playing the MSQ and other content so would be less actual time I guess. I also think I could have done it sooner than when I started doing high end content.

Quote Originally Posted by Rychu View Post
If you want to build good habits, use your raid buff after your third gcd. There is wiggle room for it (Reapers and summoners use their raid buff earlier than the 3 gcd typically), but for every other job its pretty much standard. The only reason for this is that it takes on average 3 gcds for all jobs to really get the momentum going with their rotation so you even if you yourself aren't "amazing", your alignment makes the people in the party who are well practiced, better. I recommend the balance's website. They have a little info chart of how your rotation should go and multiple openers depending on your job, try them out and see which one works best for you!
^ This

BLM for example uses 2 low damage ice spells when entering astral fire, and dots somewhere in there too. So for example: Bliz III > Bliz IV > Fire III > then the main Fire IV / Paradox rotation. I tend to save my first Thunder until buffs are up then refresh during phase changes (whether thats optimal I dont know, Im a casual high end player).

If the raid buffs were applied immediately then its wasted on the first 3 GCD's.