BLM

[Tandy]

You do not cast Thunder 2 or Thunder 3 in your rotation, they cost too much mana. The only time that you cast anything other than Thunder 1 is during Thunderstorm, which you cast Thunder 3.

Rotation-

Fire until mana is low enough to cast Blizzard III and Thunder I without being OOM
(Blizzard III with 3 stacks of astral fire is a 1.5 second cast)
After you cast Thunder I, you should have already received one tick of mana regen, putting you at half mana, cast Fire III after Thunder I which will give you 3 stacks of astral fire, and you will be at full mana.

I have a question about this....

On the tooltip, it says on Thunder 1 that it has a potency of 240 on the proc, and on thunder 2 it says 295. Based on what it SAYS, if you only cast thunder 1, even if you hit thunder 3 on the proc you only get the potency of 240. If so, wouldn't it be better DPS to actually use the appropriate level of thunder for initial cast so the proc has the higher potency?

[-Snow]

I have a question about this....

On the tooltip, it says on Thunder 1 that it has a potency of 240 on the proc, and on thunder 2 it says 295. Based on what it SAYS, if you only cast thunder 1, even if you hit thunder 3 on the proc you only get the potency of 240. If so, wouldn't it be better DPS to actually use the appropriate level of thunder for initial cast so the proc has the higher potency?

Yes you are right, the tooltip clearly says, ONLY when you use Thunder 3 your Thundercloud Proc will have 340 potency, even if you use Thunder 1.

So that means :

Thunder 1 - Thundercloud = Instant with 240 potency*
Thunder 2 - Thundercloud = Instant with 295 potency*
Thunder 3 - Thundercloud = Instant with 340 potency*

*regardless of Thunder rank

So Thunder 1-2 are completely useless with Thunder 3 ? Correct me if im wrong here.