I love Black Mage and I hope others may find this guide useful. I'll do my best to explain my rotation and thoughts in a way that is easy to understand.
I will start with what I have found to be the ideal rotation for single target:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– SINGLE TARGET OPENER: Thunder III –> Fire III –> Raging Strikes –> Fire –> INT Potion –> Fire(until you have ~270 MP) –> Swiftcast –> Flare –> Convert –> Fire –> Blizzard III –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
* This opener will maximise your DPS and make the best use of your cooldowns. You should do the above rotation every time you have Raging Strikes, Convert and Swiftcast up.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– SINGLE TARGET STANDARD ROTATION: Thunder II –> Fire III –> Fire(until you have ~398 MP) –> Blizzard III –> REPEAT –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
* Your default DoT is Thunder I or Thunder II. Always use Thunder III on a Thundercloud proc. This is the only time you will ever want to cast Thunder III, except for that opening rotation.
* Do not let your MP get so low that you can't cast Blizzard III and Thunder II. Failure will delay you a few seconds and hurt your long-term DPS. Make sure you will have at least 398 MP left over after casting your last Fire. This means that you can only cast Fire if your MP is 1036+. If you choose to use Thunder I, you will need at least 929MP.
Occasionally, you will cast Blizzard III –> Thunder II and find that if you were to cast Fire III right now, your MP will not be completely full. You will need to throw in another gap-filler while that last tick of refresh happens. This means that you really need to pay attention to when your MP tick happens while casting your slow Thunder II to determine whether a gap-filler is needed or not. We want something short and sweet, that won't affect our Umbral Ice III. So we have 2 options: * Scathe: 100 potency, 20% chance of 200 potency (average 120) * Blizzard: 170 potency, inflicts heavy. Although Scathe is an instant cast, it still takes up a global cooldown. Therefore, these spells take up the same amount of time to cast. If you have a late refresh tick, Blizzard would be preferred.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– IF YOU HAVE A LATE MP TICK: … Blizzard III –> Thunder II –> Blizzard to ensure full MP before casting Fire III. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Another situation you will encounter is getting a Firestarter proc on your last Fire cast, while your Blizzard III cast is well underway. In this situation, you will want to spend this free Firestarter to get back into Astral Fire III quickly. And since the cast is free you may as well Transpose from Umbral Ice III –> Astral Fire I to cast this Firestarter. The below rotation is what I have found to be the ideal way to deal with this situation. This follows the 'always be casting' rule, and allows the Transpose animation to happen during the Scathe GCD, resulting in no lost time.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– IF YOU GET A FIRESTARTER ON YOUR LAST FIRE: … Fire (oh noes I got a Firestarter proc!) –> Blizzard III –> Thunder II –> Scathe –> Transpose –>(Firestarter)Fire III –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
If you get a Thundercloud proc close to when you would naturally cast a slow Thunder II (let's say, you're 2 GCDs away), save it for the time when you would typically cast that slow Thunder II. Instead, use your ThundercloudThunder III.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– IF YOU GET A THUNDERCLOUD CLOSE TO THE END OF YOUR ROTATION: … Fire (oh noes I got a Thundercloud proc!) –> Fire –> Blizzard III –>(Thundercloud)Thunder III –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
… always applying the Blizzard filler if it is necessary.
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HOW TO AOE:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– AOE OPENING ROTATION: Fire III –> Raging Strikes –> Fire II –> Flare –> Convert –> Flare –> Mega-Ether –> Swiftcast –> Flare –> Transpose –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
* This opener will maximise your DPS and make the best use of your cooldowns. You should do the above rotation every time you have Raging Strikes, Convert and Swiftcast up.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– AOE STANDARD ROTATION: Fire III –> Fire II –> Fire II –> Flare –> Transpose –> REPEAT –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
* If Swiftcast is up, use it with Flare.
* Fire II is not great damage. If you feel that your 3 Flares will be enough to kill the group, remove all Fire IIs from your opening rotation. You need to make that judgement for yourself as it is highly dependent on the level of the mobs and the ability of the other DPS. If the mobs all die right as you cast your last Flare in your opening rotation, you have perfected it. Only prolong your opening rotation with Fire IIs if it is necessary. And do it in a way that Raging Strikes will be up for all 3 Flares.
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DEBUFFS, ABILITIES & UTILITIES:
* When possible, try to use your abilities directly after instacasts. This will ensure that each ability's animation does not slow down your rotation.
* The ideal time to use Quelling Strikes is near the beginning of a fight or when adds spawn, especially if you will be AOEing.
* Don't forget about your damage mitigation abilities Manawall and Manaward. There are many situations where these spells can allow you to ignore mechanics.
* Buffing others: Eye for an Eye and Apocatastasis may prove useful for your tank. They have long cooldowns but they help a little with damage mitigation. Macro them with a <tt> so you don't have to retarget. /micon "Eye for an Eye" /ac "Eye for an Eye" <tt> /ac "Eye for an Eye" <t> /wait 1 /p Eye for an Eye –> <tt>
* Debuffing: Virus and Lethargy also help with damage mitigation. Use them as necessary. If there are other mages in the group try to avoid stacking. Since 2.1, a mob is immune to Virus for 1 minute after it wears off. Save this for a moment of high damage (eg Mountain Buster, Wicked Wheel, Death Sentence). /micon "Virus" /ac "Virus <t> /wait 1 /p Virus –> <t>
* Aetherial Manipulation: Oh my gosh yes please use this! All the time! To get out of AoEs, to respond to mechanics, just generally to place yourself in a more favorable position. I have a macro that moves me to my target, or if that isn't available because I am targeting the mob, I will move to the 2nd person on my party list (I adjust the list and put whoever I want in position 2). /micon "Aetherial Manipulation" /ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <t> /ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <2>
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GENERAL TIPS:
* There is 1 thing I really cannot stress enough. It may seem obvious but people often overlook how important this is: Never take 2 steps when 1 will do. There are plenty of movement-heavy fights where you need to be dodging constantly. If there is an AoE circle that you need to step out of, finish your cast if it is safe to do so, then step JUST outside the AoE, no further. Imagine a pin in the center of your character's target box. If that pin is out of the AoE, you are safe. As soon as you step out of that AoE, continue your rotation.
* Instacasting Scathe while on the move because you cannot cast anything else will increase overall DPS in challenging movement fights like Titan. However, Scathe isn't very good damage anyway, and it means you would only fit 4 Fires instead of the usual 5 before needing to refresh MP. Only use Scathe if you need to be moving for a whole GCD (which is not often).
* Using Swiftcast on any cast when having to move for mechanics will help keep your rotation flowing without interruption. But save it if you have Raging Strikes & Convert ready to go.
* I heard that having 251 Piety will allow for that 5th Fire in each rotation, which can increase DPS considerably. I do not recommend placing points into PIE as opposed to INT. Remember that having a SCH in the party will most likely put you over 251 PIE. A Dunesfolk lalafell like me is at an advantage here because of my natural PIE. Food that contains VIT, PIE and Spell Speed (such as Mulled Tea & Pineapple Ponzecake) might help you there. I will update this once I have researched further. You can also just use Thunder I and not worry about 251 PIE.
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Thank you for reading! I'm not perfect and I'm always trying to improve myself. If you have any suggestions or you see areas that can be improved, please let me know! I would be more than happy to discuss it and answer any questions you may have. I'd also be happy to offer advice on specific content.
In my opinion, Spell Speed is underrated, especially since BLM has limitless MP. I think Pineapple Ponzecake is the best thing you could eat (if you are under 251 PIE). If you already have that much piety, try a Black Truffle Risotto.
In conclusion, Black Mage is easy to learn, hard to master. I'm really passionate about maximizing potential and efficiency. I love the challenge of pushing my DPS to the limit, especially in fights where Black Mages are less desired. It is by far my favorite job to play.
If you are interested in stat weights, accuracy and BiS, I recommend Puro Strider's spreadsheet. He's done the math. Remember that it is your knowledge and skill that will make you a great BLM, not your gear.
Thank you so much for making this Black Mage guide! All the rotations alone helped me a lot to understand the class/job better, I wanted to be able to play more classes dd wise other than Bard and I believe now I have a chance to do it properly.
Octavius Admin replied
578 weeks ago