[Guide] Black Mage - Because, heavy deeps, that's why.

[Yukari]

Think you always hit 251+ PIE if you have a SCH in the party, so it only really matters in 4mans with a WHM I guess?

you hit 251 PIE with SCH if you're a Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te, or Dunesfolk Lalafell, as those two races have enough natural PIE to hit the 244 mark. (SCH bonus is +7 iirc)

[Sylvrdragon]

How is this a new rotation? I've been using that for my AoE rotation since launch.

Though I tried that in Brayflox and decided against it after the first run because the other BLM in the group out parsed me using:

Fire III > Flare > Convert > Swiftcast > Flare > Transpose > Fire III > Flare.

At this point the large pull is dead. I don't know if there's a better one but it certainly improved my DPS.

I think going forward I'll keep the Swiftcast for the third Flare however because I've had cases where my third Flare would interrupt because the mob has died before the spell went off. Then I have to fanny around trying to cast it on another mob that is at 5% HP.

I'm not sure which rotation would be better for a typical 3-4 pull dungeon scenario where you don't have two BLMs to put six Flares out, and where Convert and Raging Strikes aren't available for all pulls like they are in a Brayflox speed run. It's a completely different situation so I'll probably stick with the Fire II rotation.

The parts of the rotation that are "new" (to me at least) are that you stop at only 2 Fire2s, and you start your fire phase on the first mana tick in UI3 rather than waiting for full. The rotation is much tighter than the traditional Fire2 rotation where you just wait till full MP, spam Fire2 until you're out (3 or 4, I think), then do a Bliz3, etc. Even though you're technically cutting your Fire Phase back, you're practically eliminating your Ice phase altogether since, once you settle into the rotation, you're pretty much casting Fire constantly.

[Sephiroth]

The parts of the rotation that are "new" (to me at least) are that you stop at only 2 Fire2s, and you start your fire phase on the first mana tick in UI3 rather than waiting for full. The rotation is much tighter than the traditional Fire2 rotation where you just wait till full MP, spam Fire2 until you're out (3 or 4, I think), then do a Bliz3, etc. Even though you're technically cutting your Fire Phase back, you're practically eliminating your Ice phase altogether since, once you settle into the rotation, you're pretty much casting Fire constantly.

I think it's situational to be honest. I figured out a while back that waiting for full MP isn't always best simply because the mobs tend to die from 2k~ MP on your second rotation. I do the same on single target too if I think the mobs are going to die from it. In cases where I don't think the mobs will die I'll probably hit Scathe so that I can get the full MP for the extra Fire II.

Just ran a Haukke hard with another similarly geared BLM. He was doing the Fire III > Flare strat on every pull. I did it on a few but in general I did the Fire II rotation and I did about 60 more DPS than him overall. So I think I may be right in that too is situational, dependent on whether your RS, Convert and Swiftcast are available. That's why it works so well in Brayflox and other speed run situations (eg WP). Of course a sample size of one is inconclusive but it just feels faster to me.

I don't think I'd do the Flare on UI1 mentioned earlier either as Transpose's 12 second recast means it won't be back up for after your Flare so you're sat doing nothing. Flare tends to do around 1200 with AF3 on a non-crit without RS and can do 2200+ on a crit with RS. If you've got lots of mobs to hit chances are some will crit. My best with a Flare was 5794 on the T5 snake which was crazy.

[Indomitable Will]

How is this a new rotation? I've been using that for my AoE rotation since launch.

Though I tried that in Brayflox and decided against it after the first run because the other BLM in the group out parsed me using:

Fire III > Flare > Convert > Swiftcast > Flare > Transpose > Fire III > Flare.

At this point the large pull is dead. I don't know if there's a better one but it certainly improved my DPS.

I think going forward I'll keep the Swiftcast for the third Flare however because I've had cases where my third Flare would interrupt because the mob has died before the spell went off. Then I have to fanny around trying to cast it on another mob that is at 5% HP.

I'm not sure which rotation would be better for a typical 3-4 pull dungeon scenario where you don't have two BLMs to put six Flares out, and where Convert and Raging Strikes aren't available for all pulls like they are in a Brayflox speed run. It's a completely different situation so I'll probably stick with the Fire II rotation.

just as a note, and I couldn't get parser to count things accurately for some reason on friday (had the day off). but I was in an awesome group running 5min-5:40 2Flox runs for like 5 hours, The other blm was i92~ and I'm i90 with minimal accuracy (396 or something, ALL dps stats on dungeon runs, no misses that I saw), with him doing a double flare rotation, and me doing the fire3>f2>f2>f2>swiftflare>convert>flare (editted this from a fire2, because the mobs were dead on the 2nd flare if I flared, but alive if it was a fire2) with both of use popping quelling and raging strikes after the 1st fire3, I was beating him by threat alone at the end of my rotation, and the mobs would barely be alive and he would then flare a few seconds later, he was friendly so we talked about testing out how fast (using the dungeon timer) we could complete that 1st pull by swapping to either rotation. The fastest by about 10 seconds consistently was the fire2's rotation. The mobs would die either on my last flare, or on his, whoever started casting 1st....didn't even need both.

[Indomitable Will]

you hit 251 PIE with SCH if you're a Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te, or Dunesfolk Lalafell, as those two races have enough natural PIE to hit the 244 mark. (SCH bonus is +7 iirc)

this, I'm a Roe...so yeah, my PIE sucks even with sch in party i have like 246 or something (probably as low as anyone can claim at lvl 50 with sch in party lol), and honestly I just eat that most of the time instead of wearing piece of rose gold jewelry., the only effect this has is that thunder gets cast like .1-1 second later since you have to wait on the 1st tic of MP regen to occur to cast it, rather than having the mp in your pool at the end of bliz3 cast natively. so my rotation without astral looks like this: fire3>fire>fire>fire>fire>fire>bliz3>(wait a split second for 1st mp tic, or potentionally a couple of seconds)>thunder1 (or 2, situational on which fight and what part of the fight)>fire3>repeat

even with that my 2nd fire 3 usually goes off right after the 2nd tic of mp regen, so im at full mp for like a half a second longer than someone with 251 PIE. nothing I'm going to change about that honestly, that half second not casting fire3 might bottleneck me very slightly, but so will wearing astral (item)/rose gold(item) vs an i90 or i100 piece (still working on i100 pieces since I'm PLD main, blm is just for fun), and to be perfectly honest in my opinion the biggest difference in avg dps in any fight is
1. knowing the rotation that works for you the best, in the particular fight you are in (fight timing is HUGE)
2. dodging stuff you don't need to/excess dodging time (example is brayflox 1st and 2nd boss, I just pop ward/wall and eat stuff, yay Roeg HP's)
3. proper usage of thundercloud and firestarter procs (i.e. TC procs, casting fire1 1st then immediately using TC proc so you get a slight time advantage if FS procs from that fire....lots of little stuff like that adds up over time), and
4. Transpose usage: FS procs after bliz3 starts casting, popping transpose after the last tic of mp regen so you get an extra 20% or w/e dmg from the stack of AF1...

edit: I still am top dps, for like everything i do unless i randomly have a slip of the finger, or the server EATS MY GOD DAMNED UMBRAL ICE!!!!

Double edit!!: also a note on the crafted jewelry...I have an item i can wear to fix the PIE issue...I have done it, doesnt really change my timing enough for me to make a difference, I still get fire3 off like right after the 2nd mp tic...so for what it's worth, less than 251 PIE can work out just about the same, if only marginally below on paper.

[nayaminfenrir]

Any chance the BiS can be updated for the new gear? Thank ya kindly! =)

[HitomeOfBismarck]

A BiS list would be possible but would have to make some assumptions like pants coming from T9, ACC cap on T9 being around ~480-490, etc. The problem I see right now is going too far over ACC cap with Laevateinn.

I would make several lists due to how sands work as well.


If there were no limit to sands and T9 was on farm, I'd like something like:

Assumption: ACC required for T9 = ~486

Weapon: HA Staff
Head: HA Mask of Casting
Body: Evenstar Coat
Hands: Evenstar Gloves
Waist: Evenstar Sash
Legs: HA Breeches of Casting
Feet: HA Boots of Casting
Neck: HA Choker of Casting
Ear: HA Earring of Casting
Wrist: HA Bracelets of Casting
Ring1: Evenstar Ring
Ring2: HA Ring of Casting



I would somehow like to work in Evenstar Hat (more crit and SS) and/or Evenstar Bootees (more crit and SS), Evenstar Neck (crit), Evenstar Wrist (crit/det), and a better ring that isn't HA ring (but there are no other options).

The above set w/ HQ buttons looks like:

575 INT
486 ACC
560 CRIT
252 DET
472 SS

Could probably fit in one of those items and use HQ lava toad eggs. Honestly, though, I think 560 crit with 472 spell speed is really nice. DET is low but not much you can do unless you try a DET build.

[Yukari]

Does anyone know what the melee acc cap numbers are approximately? We could probably guess from that how much extra accuracy we need.

[Skai]

The Ultimate BLM Resources with Damage Calculator
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...TDVkM1E#gid=60

[TheDirtyHobo]

I have some VERY strong reservations about using that calculator when so much of the calculation formula is intentionally incredibly obscured. As in, they're so long and full of references to other columns that it breaks the formula character limit and spits out err:508 while using OpenOffice Calc.

Edit: And also, the damage calculator page hasn't been updated since November. I'm pretty sure knowledge of the formulas and the proper way to weight each stat has been changed since then.

[Indomitable Will]

So after about 10 more hours of 2 flox on blm this week/weekend, I am confident that Fire3>fire2>fire2>fire2>swiftflare>convert>flare>t ranspose>double-flare is higher dps that straight double flares (fire3>flare>transpose>double flare>etc, weaving in convert and swiftcast at whichever points), I was highest dps on every big pull all weekend (and on bosses, but that's a diff post altogether), every pull i pop quelling strikes and raging strikes after fire3 (which is when other blm's are popping it these as well), then start fire2's, the only blm that has been close and/or traded hate with me back and forth was doing the exact same thing and was i93, where i'm still i90 (I'm main PLD).

That being said, I did not parse any of it because I'm playing on ps4 now, so take it for what it's worth that the threat meter could be wrong, but this was consistent over the course of the last week or so, and has been since I starting farming myth 7 books ago. I was top threat over other blm's that were doing double-flare only, even when they weren't using quelling strikes and I was (that particularly case was a more poorly geared blm though, i85~ or so, and he was still refining his rotation).

just food for thought, try it out for yourself, flare gives huge numbers, but being consistent and puting out higher dps matters more in the long run. and with regards to actually doing double flares, since some people haven't mastered that yet, if you're on ps3 with a HDD rather than a SSD, you may have a hard time doing it at all, I was not able to on ps3 because of some small system lag or w/e, after I switched to ps4 I had no issues with timing.

[Taim Meich]

I've been parsing Brayflox runs, and 3 Fire II between the first Fire III and the Flare looks like the winning combination, yes. I, however, after convert, do a normal Flare, then Hi-Ether and swiftcast Flare on the first pull. The Ether timer is usually not up on the second pull, but the most important pull to kill fast is the first one, anyway.

[Indomitable Will]

so you do fire3>fire2x3>flare>convert>flare>hi-ether>swiftflare ?

seems like a winner in this particular realm, since you spend 4s less casting and get the same number of flares with AF3 up (with the rotation i mentioned it was 4 flares, but 1 was with UI1 up, so it's much weaker)...I might start doing this, i have a crap ton of random various tier-ethers from leveling ALC (currently lvl 34 woot)

and if you need to double flare again after that (weak co-dps aoe, or w/e reason), you can always transpose after that ether-flare

[OWS_Tonx]

If you can, try to get some parse results on that. I would do it but lolPS3. There's too many possibilities with comparing to other people on trying to get numbers. If they fucked up one of their double flares, if he dropped his controller and got off some late nukes, etc. I also wouldn't trust the hate meter all that much, too many variables. If your tank only flashed 5 times and did 6 last time, if you nuked earlier this time before x amount of hate was established, etc.

Did the BLM with you use quelling as well? Cuz that's pretty disgusting if you beat them on the hate meter with quelling on and they didn't have it.

[Indomitable Will]

If you can, try to get some parse results on that. I would do it but lolPS3. There's too many possibilities with comparing to other people on trying to get numbers. If they fucked up one of their double flares, if he dropped his controller and got off some late nukes, etc. I also wouldn't trust the hate meter all that much, too many variables. If your tank only flashed 5 times and did 6 last time, if you nuked earlier this time before x amount of hate was established, etc.

Did the BLM with you use quelling as well? Cuz that's pretty disgusting if you beat them on the hate meter with quelling on and they didn't have it.

they had protect, stoneskin and raging strikes on, no quelling (it should be said though that i had more than double the threat of this blm when fighting the bosses as well....so he wasn't very good/as well geared as me). and as far as the other stuff is concerned, yeah, i will say there are some variables there, which is where the grain of salt comes in, but that good blm that actually competed for threat with me and i did consistent 5min-5min30 sec runs solidly for like 4 hours one night doing the same thing, and nobody that i've gone with since has come close.

but even with variables in flash, etc. as long as the other blm starts casting at the same time as me (fire3 at least), then the threat meter for the 2 dps at least should be directly indicitive of dps, regardless of how close or far we are from the tank's threat level, if I'm number 2 in threat on most of the mobs (granted a crit here or there could sway that), and we both popped quelling strikes after fire3, then i'm winning the dps race.

[OWS_Tonx]

I'm going to try that fire2x3 rotation tonight either way and see how it feels on me. I generally go with the same couple people so I should be able to get a good feel of if we're going faster or not. One of the guys ran a parse on the first big initial pull last week and said he had me down at about 970 dps with double flares, I'll see if I can't get him to run it again sometime

[Taim Meich]

so you do fire3>fire2x3>flare>convert>flare>hi-ether>swiftflare ?

Exactly. Everything should be dead or almost dead at that moment, but if not, transpose and the normal double flare rotation.

[Alkimi]

I've been parsing Brayflox runs, and 3 Fire II between the first Fire III and the Flare looks like the winning combination, yes. I, however, after convert, do a normal Flare, then Hi-Ether and swiftcast Flare on the first pull. The Ether timer is usually not up on the second pull, but the most important pull to kill fast is the first one, anyway.

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how does Hi-Ether enable you to cast Flare again? Even the HQ ones only restore 160 MP.

[Taim Meich]

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but how does Hi-Ether enable you to cast Flare again? Even the HQ ones only restore 160 MP.

You're not missing anything. I meant Mega Ether (270 MP restored, just enough for a Flare), I always forget the name. To me, it's just "whatever is in Ctrl +5".

[Sign]

So after about 10 more hours of 2 flox on blm this week/weekend, I am confident that Fire3>fire2>fire2>fire2>swiftflare>convert>flare>t ranspose>double-flare is higher dps that straight double flares (fire3>flare>transpose>double flare>etc, weaving in convert and swiftcast at whichever points), I was highest dps on every big pull all weekend (and on bosses, but that's a diff post altogether), every pull i pop quelling strikes and raging strikes after fire3 (which is when other blm's are popping it these as well), then start fire2's, the only blm that has been close and/or traded hate with me back and forth was doing the exact same thing and was i93, where i'm still i90 (I'm main PLD).

That being said, I did not parse any of it because I'm playing on ps4 now, so take it for what it's worth that the threat meter could be wrong, but this was consistent over the course of the last week or so, and has been since I starting farming myth 7 books ago. I was top threat over other blm's that were doing double-flare only, even when they weren't using quelling strikes and I was (that particularly case was a more poorly geared blm though, i85~ or so, and he was still refining his rotation).

just food for thought, try it out for yourself, flare gives huge numbers, but being consistent and puting out higher dps matters more in the long run. and with regards to actually doing double flares, since some people haven't mastered that yet, if you're on ps3 with a HDD rather than a SSD, you may have a hard time doing it at all, I was not able to on ps3 because of some small system lag or w/e, after I switched to ps4 I had no issues with timing.

Perhaps it is my sleep deprived state but how are you getting double-flare at the end? >convert>flare [no mp left]> transpose[wait for tic to cast flare again]>flare [now in AF3 with no mp]>flare?

How are you getting the MP for the final flare? or do you mean that flare>transpose>flare [this flare is the second flare in the chain therefore "double flare"]?