BLM

[Elvine]

I really am curious where the idea of Thunder II cast + Thunder III for procs came from. Do people have data on this? The tool-tip explicitly states if you use Thunder II for the dot, your thundercloud procs will have a 295 potency no matter what rank thunder spell you use to trigger it. Whereas using Thunder III gives a 345 potency thundercloud proc, again no matter what rank use you to trigger it.

So if you cast thunder II and a thundercloud procs, you can hit Thunder I, II or III and they will all do the same damage. There's no "bonus". Is using Thunder III for procs, putting up Thunder III's dot(instead of re-applying Thunder II's) and then that turns all future Thundercloud procs into the 345 potency instead of 295, until you hard cast thunder II again?

I'm not seeing the benefit of losing 50 potency per cloud proc for .5 seconds of cast time(outside situations with tons of movement).

"Grants a 5% chance that after each damage over time tick inflicted by any Thunder spell, the next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time, and cost no MP."

I don't see anywhere in the tooltip that it states a set base potency on proc. Due to not stating a base potency, the clear choice here is the highest one.. which would be Thunder III.

Keep in mind when you overlap thunder debuffs they do not merge, you will lose the dps on the remaining ticks from the "refresh."

[HoroBoro]

"Grants a 5% chance that after each damage over time tick inflicted by any Thunder spell, the next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time, and cost no MP."

I don't see anywhere in the tooltip that it states a set base potency on proc. Due to not stating a base potency, the clear choice here is the highest one.. which would be Thunder III.

Keep in mind when you overlap thunder debuffs they do not merge, you will lose the dps on the remaining ticks from the "refresh."

You forgot to bold one extra word. It makes a big difference. See: here

Read Descriptions for Thunder and friends. Specifically states that, if you cast Thunder I, you will do a 240 potency for the Thundercloud even if you use Thunder 3. I haven't done tests but, I see no reason for tooltips to not be telling the truth.

[Hystify]

You forgot to bold one extra word. It makes a big difference. See: here

Read Descriptions for Thunder and friends. Specifically states that, if you cast Thunder I, you will do a 240 potency for the Thundercloud even if you use Thunder 3. I haven't done tests but, I see no reason for tooltips to not be telling the truth.

The tooltips for the individual Thunder spells are inaccurate. Or rather, you would want to focus on the tooltip for thundercloud:

Grants a 5% chance that after each damage over time tick inflicted by any Thunder spell, the next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time, and cost no MP.

If you test it in-game, you would find that it actually holds true.

When you get a thundercloud proc, if you mouseover the tooltips, you would see that the first line of the tooltip changes to Deals lightning damage with a potency of 240/295/340, respectively for T1, T2 and T3.

Further testing on dummies also shows that a Thunder III thundercloud proc does more damage than a Thunder thundercloud proc. In my case, Thunder III does around ~750 dmg, whereas Thunder only does ~500 dmg.

[-Snow]

"Grants a 5% chance that after each damage over time tick inflicted by any Thunder spell, the next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will add its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time, and cost no MP."

I don't see anywhere in the tooltip that it states a set base potency on proc. Due to not stating a base potency, the clear choice here is the highest one.. which would be Thunder III.

Not sure which Tooltip is right, but you should check out the Thunder I,II,II tooltips.

Thunder III
Additional Effect: 5% chance after each tick that potency of next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will be 340, have no cast time, and cost no MP

Thunder II
Additional Effect: 5% chance after each tick that potency of next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will be 295, have no cast time, and cost no MP

Thunder I
Additional Effect: 5% chance after each tick that potency of next Thunder, Thunder II, or Thunder III will be 240, have no cast time, and cost no MP

Keep in mind when you overlap thunder debuffs they do not merge, you will lose the dps on the remaining ticks from the "refresh."

Also that is not exactly true, you should check out how DoTs/HoTs are working in this game. In FFXIV:ARR you could even get a little DPS BOOST with DoT clipping. (random)

Here's a guide which shows pretty clear how DoTs/HoTs are working in this game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQGGTKgL8-g