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Best blm rotation for titan HM.Follow

#1 Sep 26 2013 at 1:59 AM Rating: Good
33 posts
Hi there,

My rotation is thunder 2-fire 3- fire 1 -fire 3 proc thunder 3 proc- blizzard 3- repeat. And it's been working petty good so far, but with Titan I feel that this rotation may not be effective considering all jumps he takes off the screen and all spells interruptions we get while avoiding his moves.

My question is; what rotation has worked better for you guys with this guy?


Thanks! :)
#2 Sep 26 2013 at 3:19 AM Rating: Excellent
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1,556 posts
Beginning to think people don't know the job and class forums exist! /cry

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=292

Check that out. The normal firestarter rotation is about as optimal as it gets. During the jumps, you'll most likely lose your stacks so either transpose to regen some mana (if you aren't on regen phase) or spam physick if you're at full mana.

We do need to move quite frequently so planning your casts around this is pretty important. You can actually cast a spell and start moving around 90% completion of the spell, effectively allowing you to dodge and cast at the same time. Save swiftcast for either gaols (if your healer or a critical DPS is hit) and movement. Other than that, you're good to go.

If your team decides to not build a LB (aka: non-3 healer fight), then just do something like:

Thunder 2
Pop an INT pot
Raging strikes
Quelling strikes (if your tank has trouble holding aggro in the beginning)
Fire 3
Fire 1 spam
Firestarter proc = Fire 3
Thundercloud proc = T3
Convert
Fire 1
Firestarter proc = Fire 3
Blizzard 3
Reapply thunder
Rinse and repeat

Edited, Oct 1st 2013 10:28pm by HitomeOfBismarck
#3 Sep 26 2013 at 6:25 AM Rating: Good
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129 posts
The very short answer is: Do nothing out of the ordinary if your ordinary was the generally accepted BLM rotation. It is what it is in terms of movement / spell clipping. Better to clip a few than to take weight of the land to the face.
#4 Sep 26 2013 at 7:47 AM Rating: Excellent
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2,550 posts
Was parsed last night and found out that I was doing way more damage on Garuda with my Ifrit weapon than the dragoon was doing with his relic. After a month of trial and error, I use this rotation. Its fast, crisp, and effective.

-Raging Strikes
-Fire 3 (will give Astral Fire III)
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III (if you over cast and run out of mp, you may then transpose or convert, but dont use those otherwise)
Note: Blizzard 3 casted off of an Astral Fire III bonus will be fast cast and will regen a ton of your mana within a second or two and give you Umbral Ice III
After 1 blizzard III I immediately go Fire III. Same rules apply, it will be cast really fast off of the Umbral Ice III buff and help you with mana and give Astral Fire 3)
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III
-After blizzard III immediately go Fire III.
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III
-After blizzard III immediately go Fire III.

Done correctly, your initial Fire II to start the rotation will be your slowest spell. The next slowest are the regular Fire I casts. The Fire III and Blizzard III casts within the chain will be faster than Fire I, and the instacast Fire III from firestarter will be your fastest attack. You will always be casting, and unless you ***** up and over cast Fire 1 and run out of mp that way, your pool will never diminish. You will also do a crapton of damage.

Oh and as Hitome suggested, be prepared to use Manawall and Manaward. They are lifesavers.

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 8:50am by Valkayree
#5 Sep 26 2013 at 10:50 AM Rating: Good
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197 posts
Valkayree wrote:
Was parsed last night and found out that I was doing way more damage on Garuda with my Ifrit weapon than the dragoon was doing with his relic. After a month of trial and error, I use this rotation. Its fast, crisp, and effective.

-Raging Strikes
-Fire 3 (will give Astral Fire III)
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III (if you over cast and run out of mp, you may then transpose or convert, but dont use those otherwise)
Note: Blizzard 3 casted off of an Astral Fire III bonus will be fast cast and will regen a ton of your mana within a second or two and give you Umbral Ice III
After 1 blizzard III I immediately go Fire III. Same rules apply, it will be cast really fast off of the Umbral Ice III buff and help you with mana and give Astral Fire 3)
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III
-After blizzard III immediately go Fire III.
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III
-After blizzard III immediately go Fire III.

Done correctly, your initial Fire II to start the rotation will be your slowest spell. The next slowest are the regular Fire I casts. The Fire III and Blizzard III casts within the chain will be faster than Fire I, and the instacast Fire III from firestarter will be your fastest attack. You will always be casting, and unless you ***** up and over cast Fire 1 and run out of mp that way, your pool will never diminish. You will also do a crapton of damage.

Oh and as Hitome suggested, be prepared to use Manawall and Manaward. They are lifesavers.

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 8:50am by Valkayree



So you don't use lightning at all then??

I'm just curious, It seems to me that casting another fire 1 and then transposing in place of blizz 3 might give you another firestarter proc.
My current rotation, I'm only 41 atm

thunder 2
fire 3
fire 1 spam using any thundercloud procs in between
transpose when OOM
thunder 2
then fire 3 again, if the timing is right I will usually be at full mana after casting fire 3
back into fire 1 spam


Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:04pm by Jeskradha
#6 Sep 26 2013 at 11:19 AM Rating: Good
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2,550 posts
Jeskradha wrote:


So you don't use lightning at all then??

I'm just curious, It seems to me that casting another fire 1 and then transposing in place of blizz 3 might give you another firestarter proc.
My current rotation, I'm only 41 atm

thunder 2
fire 3
fire 1 spam using any thundercloud procs in between
transpose when OOM
thunder 2
then fire 3 again, if the timing is right I will usually be at full mana after casting fire 3
back into fire 1 spam

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:04pm by Jeskradha


Nope, I don't. I am fearing that the proc from lighning is resetting my astral fire III and umbral ice III and makes my Fire III and Blizzard III followup cast slow. Plus the damage I will do with an Fire I cast with an astral fire III buff (and 40% chance of firestarter) seems to be much higher for the mana compared to what I can get off of a single Thunder 2 with only a 5% proc chance per tick. I'd rather use that mana for my fire I repeats.

And trust me, you dont need to transpose at higher levels. I used to do it. I shifted off the method about a week ago based on some other advice I heard elsewhere and trust me, transpose wastes your time at higher levels. I'll explain. Here is your rotation:

"thunder 2
fire 3
fire 1 spam using any thundercloud procs in between"

Aside from the possibity that the thundercloud procs are resetting your astral fire bonus, lets assume you have astral fire III at this point. Let's continue.

"transpose when OOM"

Boom, you just converted your Astral Fire III into a simple umbral ice I, making that next Fire III you cast ungodly slow, plus you get less mana back than if you would skip the transpose, skip the thunder, and just cast Blizzard III with the last bit of your mana. The cast will be fast and give you Umbral Ice III. The Blizzard III cast off of that last bit of mana will be fast because you cast it off of an Astral Fire III, and you will recover nearly 3/4 of your mana in about a second or two. You can then go right into a Fire III, which will also be fast and recover mana because it is cast off of an Umbral Ice III. Then you have a full mp bar with an active Astral Fire III to start blasting high damage fire I and firestarters.

It seems funny, but it works. Oh trust me it works. And when you get the hang of it you will be unstoppable.

Edit: Realized that you are lvl 41. Do this rotation when you get firestarter ability...
What you have now is fine.

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 12:19pm by Valkayree


Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:24pm by Valkayree
#7 Sep 26 2013 at 11:30 AM Rating: Excellent
Jeskradha wrote:
Valkayree wrote:
Was parsed last night and found out that I was doing way more damage on Garuda with my Ifrit weapon than the dragoon was doing with his relic. After a month of trial and error, I use this rotation. Its fast, crisp, and effective.

-Raging Strikes
-Fire 3 (will give Astral Fire III)
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III (if you over cast and run out of mp, you may then transpose or convert, but dont use those otherwise)
Note: Blizzard 3 casted off of an Astral Fire III bonus will be fast cast and will regen a ton of your mana within a second or two and give you Umbral Ice III
After 1 blizzard III I immediately go Fire III. Same rules apply, it will be cast really fast off of the Umbral Ice III buff and help you with mana and give Astral Fire 3)
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III
-After blizzard III immediately go Fire III.
-Fire 1 (casting firestartered fire 3s in between)
-When down to 200-1000 mp, Blizzard III
-After blizzard III immediately go Fire III.

Done correctly, your initial Fire II to start the rotation will be your slowest spell. The next slowest are the regular Fire I casts. The Fire III and Blizzard III casts within the chain will be faster than Fire I, and the instacast Fire III from firestarter will be your fastest attack. You will always be casting, and unless you ***** up and over cast Fire 1 and run out of mp that way, your pool will never diminish. You will also do a crapton of damage.

Oh and as Hitome suggested, be prepared to use Manawall and Manaward. They are lifesavers.

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 8:50am by Valkayree



So you don't use lightning at all then??

I'm just curious, It seems to me that casting another fire 1 and then transposing in place of blizz 3 might give you another firestarter proc.
My current rotation, I'm only 41 atm

thunder 2
fire 3
fire 1 spam using any thundercloud procs in between
transpose when OOM
thunder 2
then fire 3 again, if the timing is right I will usually be at full mana after casting fire 3
back into fire 1 spam


Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:04pm by Jeskradha


I used the same rotation at 41 but then I found out about the bonus MP reduction and reduced cast time from Opposite elements when in Umbral III and Astral III.

Check this out: http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=292&mid=1379089659281061137

Anakte wrote all the cast times and MP cost down for comparison.

Blizzard III / MP / Cast Time
Astral 1 / 159 / 3.50
Astral 2 / 79 / 3.50
Astral 3 / 79 / 1.75
N/A / 319 / 3.50
Umbral 1 / 319 / 3.50
Umbral 2 / 319 / 3.50
Umbral 3 / 319 / 3.50

Fire III / MP / Cast Time
Astral 1 / 1064 / 3.50
Astral 2 / 1064 / 3.50
Astral 3 / 1064 / 3.50
N/A / 532 / 3.50
Umbral 1 / 266 / 3.50
Umbral 2 / 133 / 3.50
Umbral 3 / 133 / 1.75

So when you are in Astral III and running low an mana, casting Blizzard III = 319 79 MP and takes 3.5s 1.75s to cast.

It also get you straight to Umbral III which then gives a huge bonus to your next Fire III.

With Umbral III casting Fire III = 532 133 MP and take 3.5s 1.75s to cast.

This is far and above better than Transpose which will only give you one stack of Umbral, because with Umbral III that first Fire 3 you are casting gets a huge reduction to MP and Cast time.

Try it out. :)

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:31pm by Gnu

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:40pm by Gnu
#8 Sep 26 2013 at 11:37 AM Rating: Excellent
Jeskradha wrote:
So you don't use lightning at all then?


Valkayree wrote:
Nope, I don't. I am fearing that the proc from lighning is resetting my astral fire III and umbral ice and makes my Fire III and Blizzard II cast slow. Plus the damage I will do with an Fire I cast with an astral fire III buff (and 40% chance of firestarter) seems to be much higher for the mana compared to what I can get off of a single Thunder 2 with only a 5% proc chance per tick. I'd rather use that mana for my fire I repeats.


All last night when I was learning the same thing!

You get 10 seconds of Umbral/Astral before it goes back to 0.

That is enough time for 1, maybe 2, other spells before you have to cast Fire III/Blizzard III to keep the rotation going. You can squeeze Thunder into that, but I was finding that just focusing on the Fire > Blizzrad and leaving out thunder all together was easier and seemed more direct.

It doesn't seem like Thunder would be completely irrelevant. I sure would like to see the parses, in ideal conditions, for the rotation with and without Thunder + Thundercloud Procs.


#9 Sep 26 2013 at 12:15 PM Rating: Excellent
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362 posts
Quote:
Nope, I don't. I am fearing that the proc from lighning is resetting my astral fire III and umbral ice and makes my Fire III and Blizzard II cast slow.

Why would you be afraid of that? It doesn't and while I don't have math or a parser set up yet to check or give you an official answer, a simple Potency/Cast Time will show that Thunder is definitely worth it, even ignoring the proc. From the testing that I started, (and I started on naked BLM assuming but not positive that the effects will be proportional) an Astral 3 Fire I is less than double the damage of a Fire I base. A Thunder III has roughly 3.5 times higher Potency/Cast Time than a base Fire I. So I'm going to do more testing, but I have to imagine keeping Thunder on targets that will live is worth it.

I haven't seen any indication yet that thunder is messing with my Astral/Umbral cycles, I'm really curious, have you or have you heard reports that it is?


Edit: An amendment to this would be if you're on a FATE boss or something where what seems like a DoT cap prevents your DoTs from being applied would probably be a situation along with short living mobs where Thunder would not be worth it.

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 2:21pm by Anakte
#10 Sep 26 2013 at 12:38 PM Rating: Good
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2,550 posts
Anakte wrote:
Quote:
Nope, I don't. I am fearing that the proc from lighning is resetting my astral fire III and umbral ice and makes my Fire III and Blizzard II cast slow.

Why would you be afraid of that? It doesn't and while I don't have math or a parser set up yet to check or give you an official answer, a simple Potency/Cast Time will show that Thunder is definitely worth it, even ignoring the proc.


Anakte wrote:

I haven't seen any indication yet that thunder is messing with my Astral/Umbral cycles, I'm really curious, have you or have you heard reports that it is?


I would be afraid of it because (#1) I haven't tested it, and (#2), I assumed it would because thunder is a different element I'm not sure if it interferes with the rotation. When I used thunder it felt like it did interfere, but thats back when i also used transpose and wasn't as up to speed on the Astral and umbral cycles. I just cut my rotation to fire/ice to keep it simple while I learned to ween myself off of transpose. Then I got used to not having transpose or thunder, but still I do a crapload more damage because I am casting faster and stay longer in the astral / umbral III steps and hardly ever run out of mana. I only cast transpose when I goofed up and cast one too many fire I's and ran out of mana. Personally, I like to keep things simple when I am dodging titan plumes. Looking for one proc in firestarter is hard enough on a PS3...

Anakte wrote:

From the testing that I started, (and I started on naked BLM assuming but not positive that the effects will be proportional) an Astral 3 Fire I is less than double the damage of a Fire I base. A Thunder III has roughly 3.5 times higher Potency/Cast Time than a base Fire I.


Are you factoring the DOT from the Thunder Ticks into that calculation? Those are very interesting numbers.




Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:39pm by Valkayree
#11 Sep 26 2013 at 12:47 PM Rating: Excellent
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362 posts
I am, I factor the initial damage + the dot in terms of potency. Fire I has a potency of 150 while Thunder III has a combined potency of 340 making it outshine Fire I even with the added casting time. Astral 3 adds about 80% damage to Fire I so it still isn't close to Thunder, and that's ignoring the proc. The added benefit on something like Titan or any fight with movement will be you cast it once and get the full potency regardless of later movement, and any procs will also be safe to use with movement.

I use Thunder procs in my Astral cycle all the time, I haven't had any issues, that's why I was curious about what you said. Feel free to Thunder away! Different element, but doesn't interact with the cycle either way.
#12 Sep 26 2013 at 12:58 PM Rating: Excellent
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2,550 posts
Anakte wrote:
I am, I factor the initial damage + the dot in terms of potency. Fire I has a potency of 150 while Thunder III has a combined potency of 340 making it outshine Fire I even with the added casting time. Astral 3 adds about 80% damage to Fire I so it still isn't close to Thunder, and that's ignoring the proc. The added benefit on something like Titan or any fight with movement will be you cast it once and get the full potency regardless of later movement, and any procs will also be safe to use with movement.

I use Thunder procs in my Astral cycle all the time, I haven't had any issues, that's why I was curious about what you said. Feel free to Thunder away! Different element, but doesn't interact with the cycle either way.


Thats definitely good to know. So let me get this straight... At my level with my current gear, I cast a Fire 1 with Astral III active and it hits for 450-550 (on average). My firestarters with astral III hit between 1k and 1.5k. Are you saying that a single thunder 3 will net me 1k+ (2x a fire I with astral 3 bonus)? And the proc will also net me 1k+ and neither will interfere with my astral/umbral rotation? I'm gonna have to try this.

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 1:59pm by Valkayree
#13 Sep 26 2013 at 1:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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362 posts
Well, I have a lot more testing to do about the numbers themselves, but I can tell you that Thunder can be cast in any state without interacting with the Astral/Umbral cycle at all. There may be a benefit I've heard to using Thunder II instead of Thunder III on the cast based on DoT length and cast time, but it's a good chunk of damage either way.


#14 Sep 26 2013 at 2:09 PM Rating: Good
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197 posts
Valkayree wrote:


Boom, you just converted your Astral Fire III into a simple umbral ice I, making that next Fire III you cast ungodly slow, plus you get less mana back than if you would skip the transpose, skip the thunder, and just cast Blizzard III with the last bit of your mana. The cast will be fast and give you Umbral Ice III. The Blizzard III cast off of that last bit of mana will be fast because you cast it off of an Astral Fire III, and you will recover nearly 3/4 of your mana in about a second or two. You can then go right into a Fire III, which will also be fast and recover mana because it is cast off of an Umbral Ice III. Then you have a full mp bar with an active Astral Fire III to start blasting high damage fire I and firestarters.


For some reason I was under the impression that transposing switched you between astral 3 to umbral 3, after reading this and looking at the tool tip I want to bang my head against the wall LOL, That's what I get for not paying enough attention. Makes a lot more sense now thanks for the input.

Anakte wrote:
There may be a benefit I've heard to using Thunder II instead of Thunder III on the cast based on DoT length and cast time, but it's a good chunk of damage either way.


I also saw this somewhere but was unable to find it again, I am interested to find out which is better.
#15 Sep 26 2013 at 2:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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2,550 posts
Jeskradha wrote:


For some reason I was under the impression that transposing switched you between astral 3 to umbral 3, after reading this and looking at the tool tip I want to bang my head against the wall LOL, That's what I get for not paying enough attention. Makes a lot more sense now thanks for the input.



Same thing happened to me, I was asking myself, what the heck am I doing? That simple change in rotation was like getting 2 pieces of darklight gear it made such a difference.

Anakte wrote:
Jeskradha wrote:
There may be a benefit I've heard to using Thunder II instead of Thunder III on the cast based on DoT length and cast time, but it's a good chunk of damage either way.


I also saw this somewhere but was unable to find it again, I am interested to find out which is better.


The post, if I remember, advocated Thunder II because Thunder III had an overall lower damage / casting time + cost ratio.
#16 Sep 26 2013 at 6:15 PM Rating: Excellent
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1,556 posts
First, watch this video as posted in the BLM forums: It's something I've noticed with umbral ice ticks when doing testing here

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?forum=292&mid=1380214822217984938
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aQGGTKgL8-g#t=680

There are 26 parses you can pool over in our thread here. In most of those parses, I'm using T3.

Just to give you the run down of DoT damage in relation to total damage (since there isn't a % of the DoT damage in most of those parses), I'll list the percentages going from top to bottom. I will list the ratio then the percentage because I want to see how much total damage is done (in other words: long fight? short fight?) to give us a better idea. If it's a 10 second fight, for example, you won't get a clear picture about a DoT that runs for 24 seconds.

http://www.2shared.com/file/o6ZLhigb/Copy_of_DOT_Data.html

(thanks to my boyfriend, who doesn't even play 14, for compiling this while I was doing AK >_>)

So we're looking at around 12% of our overall damage attributed to T3 and thunder 1 contributes about 7.5% DoT damage. This doesn't give you the full picture, still, due to our problem: thundercloud proc has the same proc rate on all three thunders but t1 takes less time to cast and thundercloud proc is embedded within 'total damage'.

This is very disturbing news to me. You can see our discussion about firestarter rotatoin here. We started to discuss which was better to use: T3, T2, or T1. Now it should probably be T3, T1, or nothing?

I'll start making a thread compiling all our data for the BLM forum. Speaking of which:

Request for thread to be moved to BLM forum!

Edited, Sep 26th 2013 11:59pm by HitomeOfBismarck
#17 Sep 26 2013 at 9:36 PM Rating: Good
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197 posts
HitomeOfBismarck wrote:

Request for thread to be moved to BLM forum!

#18 Sep 27 2013 at 2:07 PM Rating: Good
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2,550 posts
Jeskradha wrote:

Request for thread to be moved to BLM forum!

#19 Sep 27 2013 at 2:29 PM Rating: Good
Hey Valkayree I'm working on a new Macro, it's not 100% but I think you will like it:

/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Raging Strikes" <t>
/ac "Fire" <t>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>

This is for when you are in your Spam Fire I phase. With this macro you will just automatically cast "Blizzard III" when you get low on mana. Because of the 100% MP cost to fire spells, you will not be able to cast Fire I for 638 MP, but you usually still have to 79 MP you need to cast Blizzard III (while in Astral III).

I tried this out as well:

/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Raging Strikes" <t>
/ac "Fire" <t>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>
/ac "Blizzard" <t>

So even if you don't have 79 MP you probably still have the 26 MP you need to cast "Blizzard". Drawback is this give you 1 stack of umbral which is lame. It's better to just save Convert for the off chance that your Fire 1 spam lands you at < 79 MP.

I used to use this for that reason, but:

/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Raging Strikes" <t>
/ac "Fire" <t>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>
/ac "Convert" <t>

I think because of latency every now and then Convert will go off in between Fire casts, not sure why exactly. It should not be able to go off if the conditions for "Fire" are met. But it does. And not reliably.

I tried something simple with an Instant cast after a Casting Time spell to test this:

/ac "Thunder" <t>
/ac "Lethargy" <t>

So I just spam this a ton and with no rhyme or reason Lethargy goes off sometimes and not others. So you can't add instant to the END of a macro and have it work reliably.

/ac "Lethargy" <t>
/ac "Thunder" <t>

of course works every time.

Anyway, after an hour or so of testing I finally pulled the lone Blizzard III out of my rotation because the macro (first one at the top) worked so well. Auto-cast Blizzard III is awesome.

Now I just need to figure out how to make Convert happen automatically for the rare less than <79 MP situations. Working on it.
#20 Sep 30 2013 at 7:46 AM Rating: Excellent
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2,550 posts
Hey Gnu,

I love macros ordinarily, and I like the way yours are layed out, but when it comes to blm I am manual like a stick shift. I have a tendency to want to get my fingers used to the manual aspect because macros will require me to sit still for too long and if I move in the slightest or get stunned they get interrupted, and since I am on PS3 my bar space is limited and I simply refuse to hit L1 or R1 to rotate over (since my controller spazzes when I do that *needs new controller).

I just have one macro now and it is my swiftcast>Flare>Convert macro I use on groups of mobs in CM and Prae or on feathers in Garuda.

I recently discovered that in order to successfully navigate titan, one must be able to literally move in between every cast. It was then I realized that macros would be less efficient for me and made me happy I drove manual.

Still, I do not knock your macros, I think that they are layed out very effectively. Have you tested to determine if /wait functions will be necessary?
#21 Sep 30 2013 at 8:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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362 posts
Quote:
/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Raging Strikes" <t>
/ac "Fire" <t>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>
/ac "Blizzard" <t>

So even if you don't have 79 MP you probably still have the 26 MP you need to cast "Blizzard". Drawback is this give you 1 stack of umbral which is lame. It's better to just save Convert for the off chance that your Fire 1 spam lands you at < 79 MP.

Just wanted to point out his doesn't actually give you Umbral 1, this just removes Astral if you end up using Blizzard I. If you get that low, I'm not entirely sure what would be better at that point, but I think this is one of the few times Transpose if you can't Convert. I generally save Convert for either Flare as Valk says, or for a Raging Strikes phase. If you accidentally go under 79 mp it might be best to Transpose > Blizzard I > Blizzard I but this shows just how important it is to not hit this scenario. I agree with Valk though, I generally don't like letting macros control my rotation.
#22 Sep 30 2013 at 8:11 AM Rating: Excellent
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2,550 posts
Anakte wrote:
Quote:
/macroicon "Fire"
/ac "Raging Strikes" <t>
/ac "Fire" <t>
/ac "Blizzard III" <t>
/ac "Blizzard" <t>

So even if you don't have 79 MP you probably still have the 26 MP you need to cast "Blizzard". Drawback is this give you 1 stack of umbral which is lame. It's better to just save Convert for the off chance that your Fire 1 spam lands you at < 79 MP.

Just wanted to point out his doesn't actually give you Umbral 1, this just removes Astral if you end up using Blizzard I. If you get that low, I'm not entirely sure what would be better at that point, but I think this is one of the few times Transpose if you can't Convert. I generally save Convert for either Flare as Valk says, or for a Raging Strikes phase. If you accidentally go under 79 mp it might be best to Transpose > Blizzard I > Blizzard I but this shows just how important it is to not hit this scenario. I agree with Valk though, I generally don't like letting macros control my rotation.


Yeah the transpose is my go to when I find myself too low of mana. That convert is sacred and always used with Flare. Also, looking closer, I would replace your regular blizzard on that macro above with a fire III. The fire III would be fast cast, you would end up with a stack of mana, and have astral fire III at the end.
#23 Sep 30 2013 at 8:47 AM Rating: Good
I understand what you are both saying. I came to the same conclusions while further testing all my macros this weekend. There is a lot of moving required! That's why none of the macros had /wait in them. They were not meant to go off in succession, just meant to be spammed and then have the right ability for the situation go off.

As Anakte noted Blizzard I doesn't work in the Fire spam macro as it doesn't give Umbral I. Transpose is better in that situation, but it cannot be put at the end of a Macro because instants go off out of order.

At low mp, I generally use Convert > Blizzard III, but I don't yet have Flare, and I can already see that saving Convert for after Flare is essential.

Avoiding the low Mp situation entirely is the best strategy, and to do that you have to manually (preemptively) cast Blizzard III when you see that next Fire will put you below 79 MP.

All in all I think you guys are correct that you really have to use the right ability at the right time, and each situation is just a tad different. Combined with the fact that latency causes the Macros to go off in random order at times (Like teh Fire spam macro, when I cast a single Fire and then Blizzard III at 2000+ MP for no reason).

Another issue is that you have 10 seconds of Astral/Umbral to get your next Fire/Ice spell off. Even the simple macro:

/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>
/ac "Fire" <t>

can sometime put you over the 10 seconds and let Astral III drop. Like when you have to move or cast Thundercloud proc in between. The "Instants" are NOT instant. They take some time, even if they don't have GCD.

In the end, I'm very sad to say, I have to agree "manual stick shift" is the way to go if you want to be 100% efficient. I'm still working on a few defensive macros, and given all the info on why the ones so far won't work all the time I think I can make a few that are useful. We'll see. Thanks for the tip on the Swiftcast > Flare > Convert. Sounds useful for when I get there. I think Transpose > Blizzard is a viable combo for Low MP still. And beside my normal manual Physick, I have one that is Manaward > Physick for spamming right before something bad.

Thanks for all the feedback. I've come to pretty much all the same conclusions after testing these for enough time. Going to keep working on them and I'lll let you know if I find any that really do work 100% of the time. Please keep sharing if you guys have any more good ones.







Edited, Sep 30th 2013 11:03am by Gnu
#24 Sep 30 2013 at 9:02 AM Rating: Good
Valkayree wrote:
Yeah the transpose is my go to when I find myself too low of mana. That convert is sacred and always used with Flare. Also, looking closer, I would replace your regular blizzard on that macro above with a fire III. The fire III would be fast cast, you would end up with a stack of mana, and have astral fire III at the end.


Hmm, I don't think the macro works like you are thinking it does. What you are thinking of is a macro with /wait 2.6 in between the casts. Those really don't work even a little because of moving.

The kind of macro without wait times just does the first ability where the conditions are met, and then stops. Then you press it again and it checks from the top down again.

How is your Swiftcast > Flare > Convert one written? With wait times?

Without wait times the Convert would sometimes go off before Flare, because of the issue where instants can sometimes go off before casting time spells. With wait times it should be ok, because even if you start moving Convert will still go off.

That may be a good one for shaving off a half second by using /wait 2.5 or /wait 2.6. Although with latency in a big fight the GCD sometimes takes just a tad more than 2.5 seconds causing /wait macros to fail.

Still works for crafting at least:

/ac "Manipulation" <ma>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Careful Synthesis" <me>
/wait 2.5
/ac "Careful Synthesis" <me>

I generally take a Macro similar to this and modify for the specific recipe before cranking out 10+ of whatever. This one was for cotton cloth. They change from level to level and recipe to recipe though. You can't really share them because nto everyone has the same gear/level/support abilities form other classes.

The point is just that /wait 2.5 works for low latency stuff.

I really enjoy playing with macro, just that BLM is too dynamic for the same one to work all the time.

#25 Sep 30 2013 at 9:14 AM Rating: Excellent
***
2,550 posts
Gnu wrote:


How is your Swiftcast > Flare > Convert one written? With wait times?



/action "Swifcast" <me>
/wait 2
/action "Flare: <t>
/wait 2
/action "Convert" <me>


That is all. I use the convert cooldown as a timer. Flare does trigger firestarter, and can keep the astral chain going. I usually cast after Fire III because with Astral Fire III up it deals 1k to all enemies. After using this macro I am left with ~1200mp I can use to throw one Fire and then a blizzard III (fast cast since astral fire III is still up), then Fire III, Fire I and continue the chain.

Edited, Sep 30th 2013 10:40am by Valkayree
#26 Sep 30 2013 at 2:20 PM Rating: Excellent
***
2,550 posts
Still really wanting to get titan over with now that I have probably ran it 30 times and am now dodging plumes and bombs in my sleep. Hit till jump, move to top, plume after jump, landslide, circle bomb, dodge landslide, plume, jump, landslide after jump, plume, landslide, in>out bombs, move for landslide, plumes, jump. Heart phase. One set of plumes and a landslide, kill first gaol fast. Please lord let the drg or mnk know how to lb. Ignore second gaol, go after heart. Minor jump then big blast. Everyone ok. Fast mode, plumes, lots of them, keep on the move. Dodge landslides line bomb pattern. Which line last, go to that. Middle blows up, go to middle, dodge landslide in process. More plumes. Circle bomb pattern. Go to first bomb that blew up, dodge landslide, more plumes. Almost at 33%. Oh crap, random dd and healer died. Now tank died. Am I really the last one up? Story of my life. God, please grant me a competent party so I can finally end these two weeks of "that's ok", "We can do this", and "One more try" madness.

Edited, Sep 30th 2013 3:20pm by Valkayree
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