Found an outstandingly detailed Black Mage DPS guide on Beta Forums here. Transcribed it to our forums so we don't lose it.
Hidden Passive Traits
Opener Bonus: When MP is full, otherwise known as the “Opening of a Rotation”, the BLM has a 50% chance of being refunded 50% of the MP used to cast their first spell.
Spell Queue: Like Guild Wars 2, you can ready a spell while you are still in the middle of casting another spell. Note this also translate to Macros, so it is possible to double up two spells without having to divide them a finely tuned “wait” command. This makes creating macros much easier for BLMs.
Increased Critical Rate of Tier 1 Spells: *Disclaimer: Naturally the higher level you are more your stats and equipment will effect your overall crit rate, this is all this is referring too. The higher level a BLM becomes, the more and more their Critical Chance improves for Tier 1 spells. Critical casts of Fire can be equally potent as a normal cast of Fire III because with this trait.
Passive Traits
No MP Instant Cast Spells (Free Cast Spells [FCS]): A BLMs late-game arsenal is pretty much almost completely constructed around “proccing” Instant Cast spells. Amplified by Spell Speed, this mechanic insists that a BLM cast weaker but faster casting spells with the intent of generating free instant cast versions of their most powerful spells. While this sounds like you’re not dealing much damage, the mathematics have proven through data parsing you perform faster DPS, higher damage, and gain increased critical chance.
Firestarter: Only THMs and BLMs who attained level 50 via Version 1.0 would have been able to utilize and take notice of the passive trait Firestater. This provides a 30% chance of gaining a no MP instant cast version of Fire III upon each cast of Fire I.
Thundercloud: Additionally, there is a similar version for Thunder, Thunder II, and Thunder III. Upon each damage tick of any and all thunder spells applied to the target, you get a 5% chance for a no MP instant cast version of any Thunder spell of your choosing. The more Thunder you apply, the higher this procs.
Methodology
Before I begin explaining further, it is important to note that I tried various combinations of spell rotations in order to try and achieve highest DPS in the shortest amount of time. I also experimented with several buffs to see which method produced the most tactical results.
The Opener Thunder III becomes a 50 BLM’s main stay opener. The long cast time can be nullified by using Swiftcast and there is a 50% chance you will be refunded 50% MP for this spell. It is best to macro this spell individually, but combine it with Lethargy + Thunder II as Lethargy will Slow and Heavy the target.
DPS Rotation Fire is better than Fire III as a primary casting spell, even late game; period.
Raging Strike: An Archer Ability best utilized when beginning a DPS Rotation. This provides 20s of 20% Damage increase to all spells. This will amplify the effects of Fire to make it much more potent and you will be able to deliver more Fire spells within a 20s period than Fire III. Not to mention any Instant Casts of Fire III will also benefit from this buff.
If the battle exceeds 3 minutes, then utilize Fire III + Swiftcast as a unique Opener to a later DPS Rotation, but otherwise always open combos with Fire regardless of which Astral Fire is applied. The first cast of fire will apply Astral Fire II but it will upgrade itself to Astral Fire III upon additional casts of Fire.
During a DPS rotation, Fire is used to trigger Firestarter, a level 44 THM Trait. With increased critical chances of Tier 1 spells, there is a chance that each Fire spell will apply a Critical which allows it to do equal damage to a standard Fire III.
DPS Rotation Testing
From this point on I will mention periods of 10 DPS Rotations. Throughout Beta Phase 3 I’ve taken time to parse data. I utilized a popular method of spell casting as base for my study: Pure DPS Rotations that only use Fire III, and nothing else.
Using highly spell resistant level 45+ Monsters as a my test dummies, I executed several DPS Rotations of back-to-back Fire III. Calculated the time it took to cast them all and calculated the overall damage the target sustained within that period of time before MP was exhausted. When MP was expired, the rotation was completed.
These tests did not include secondary Thunder Rotations and only focused on Fire based spells as Thunder is not meant to be cast during a DPS Rotation unless it is an Instant Cast Thunder III. Since this is considered bonus damage in the first place, it is not viable to include data from Thunder spells for this research.
With this data I created a DPS Time Frame, a base period of several seconds in which damage is dealt to the target. For this test I used a window of 20 seconds and added all damage sustained to the target within 20 seconds.
After each DPS Rotation I took note of:
Mana Remaining after 20 seconds.
How many spells were cast.
How many critical spells procced.
How many times the Opener Bonus procced.
Furthermore my testing Equipment was:
Full set of Standard BLM AF Gear
Ifrit Cudgel
Test #1: 10 DPS Rotations of back-to-back Fire III 5 Rotations: Fire III x 4 (No OBP) 1915 Average DMG [0.3crit rate] 5 Rotations: Fire III x 5 (OBP) 2317 Average DMG [0.3crit rate] 10 Rotation Average DMG: 2116 Mana Remaining: 15% (No OBP) Mana Remaining: 0% (OBP) Average Time: 19.3sec to achieve average DMG Explanation:
Fire III is a very expensive and slow casting spell. This did not utilize Swiftcast as it has a long cooldown period and is viable as a continuous Opener. This is a record of a standard rotation, assuming Thunder is already active (without calculating Thunder’s DPS) and the player is coming out of the Thunder Rotation, which means no Astral Fire is active and the Opener spell needs to activate the stance.
Test #2: 10 DPS Rotation of Opener Fire + Fire III Continuously 5 Rotations: Fire x 1 + Fire III x 4 (No FCS) 2357 Average DMG [0.3crit rate] 5 Rotations: Fire x 1 + Fire III x 4 (FCS Fire III x 1) 2624 Average DMG [0.3crit rate] 10 Rotation Average DMG: 2490 Mana Remaining: 0% Average Time: 18.6sec to achieve average DMG Explanation:
Opening up with Fire does have a chance to proc Firestarter at level 44+, allowing for a free cast of Fire III. This method works very much like the previous Fire III only method, however it gains additional bonus damage each time it triggers a FCS. The average success rate is on par with getting the Opener Bonus MP wise, but does substantially more damage.
Test #3: 10 DPS Rotation of Continuous Fire 1 + (FCS Fire III) 1 DPS Rotation Fire x 5 (No FCS) 2300 Average DMG in 20sec [0.5crit rate] 7 DPS Rotation Fire x 4 (FCS Fire III x 1) 2383 Average DMG in 20sec [0.5crit rate] 2 DPS Rotation Fire x 3 (FCS Fire III x 2) 2525 Average DMG in 20sec [0.5crit rate] 10 Rotation Average DMG: 2403 Mana Remaining 10% (No FCS) Mana Remaining 28% (FCSx1) Mana Remaining: 46% (FCSx2) Average Time: 18.1sec to achieve average DMG Explanation:
This method proves to be the most potent. This delivers similar numbers to Test #2, but provides the player with faster casting times, greater amounts of MP, higher critical rates, and allowing the player to remain in a longer DPS rotation delivering much more damage to the target.
Over a period of 10 DPS Rotations, on average 1 cast of Fire within that rotation applied Critical damage. This means that each DPS rotation will have a low MP version of Fire III.
When Firestarter is triggered, the BLM will be provided with an instant cast version of Fire III. This will consume no MP and perform the full damage of normal cast of Fire III with the advantage of using Astral Fire III to amplify the damage, which has been provided from subsequently stacking multiple casts of Fire.
Over a period of 10 DPS Rotations, there was an average of a 1.1 proc rate of the instant cast version of Fire III.
In 10 DPS Rotations and 45 casts of Fire III, an average of 2116 DMG was delivered within 19.3 seconds with little to no MP remaining.
In 10 DPS Rotations and 39 casts of Fire, keeping note that Critical Fire is equal to Fire III and Instant Cast Fire III costs no MP (and can Crit) — roughly 16 Fire IIIs were cast as well with reduced MP or no MP resulting in an average of 2403 DMG delivered within 18.1 seconds with just under half of the MP bar remaining.
This evidence clearly illustrates that Fire should be the staple of all DPS Rotations, and the a high level BLM will be expected to continuously cast Fire with the exception of Fire III and Thunder III when such instant casts are available. This provides a continuous and steady flow of DPS that should only be halted when the BLM switches to Thunder Rotation.
Convert? Convert can be utilized prolong a BLM’s DPS Rotation, but using this is still questionable. I haven’t done extensive testing determining whether disregarding the renewal Thunder III and Thunder II to prolong Fire based casts is viable. At high levels, Thunder III and Thunder II provides a very potent stream of steady DPS that is just as potent, if not more so, than Fire.
Flare? The use of Flare as a DPS Rotation closer is also questionable and very situational. Content that utilizes high end bosses has still yet to be seen and the closest thing at present is Cancer; however Cancer is surrounded by mobs and casting Flare may result in additional, unwanted hate from the Area of Effect. Note that this can also be coupled with the Archer ability Quelling Strike to reduce Enmity and Swiftcast to nullify the long cast time, but this is still undergoing testing.
Thunder Rotation: This is a high level BLM’s secondary stance. At high levels, there is absolutely no need for Blizzard or Blizzard III what-so-ever. Transpose will open up this stance, allowing the BLM to refresh MP as they renew Thunder III and Thunder II.
At level 30, Thundercloud can be used to start using this with Thunder II and Thunder as this will proc instant casts of Thunder during your DPS Rotation.
The duration of Umbral Ice isn’t very long and there is no need to renew it with Blizzard. By the time two Thunder spells have been successfully applied, MP should be completely refreshed and the DPS Rotation can begin again.
For me, personally, it is worth noting that my former Free Company laughed at me when I proposed these spell rotations. They failed to hear me out and favored the word of a vastly inferior Black Mage who had better equipment and many more levels over someone who actually spent the time studying and number crunching game’s new mechanics.
I fail to understand how even when the game has been available for only 4 days, some people still feel that equipment and levels means more than actual skill. When I tried to submit these findings to my FC, they considered it an aggressive act against the other Black Mage and kicked me out. In the end I’m submitting my findings here on the forums for everyone to review and to read, when all of this could have been exclusively kept within the FC.
I also have no problem revealing that the foolish players who considered me an idiot were “The Elite”, formerly the “The Elite of Hyperion” — due to make an appearance on Sargatanas as a wanna-be Hardcore FC who wants to achieve a number of world firsts. Yet due to piss poor leadership and a short-sighted favoring of equipment over skill and mathematics, I highly doubt they’ll achieve anything.
I don’t take kindly of being mocked for my hard work.
@SummonerSupreme We are very interested in having you join us for competitive endgame. Between your post here and your Black Mage DPS thread that has since been deleted because of drama buffoonery you obviously have a firm grasp on game mechanics and the abilities of your class. Please apply at VolatileFC.com or contact Blazze Valkurm in game when the beta reopens on Friday. If you already have FC/Linkshell plans and/or plan to leave Sargatanas, we wish you the best of luck!
Asherah Anu replied
567 weeks ago