Moon Flute Opener: Blue Mage Burst Rotation
What is a Moon Flute Opener?
Most jobs have what is called a “burst window,” where most of your high potency
actions will be combined with buffs to maximize damage. Blue Mage is similar but
to a much more extreme degree, and this is all centered around the ability
Moon Flute. Moon Flute gives a 50% buff to all damage for 15
seconds, followed by a 15 second period where you cannot use any spells or
abilities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Before we even get to the openers, it’s worth covering some frequently asked questions first.
Is it actually worth using Moon Flute if it means I can’t attack for 15 seconds?
Yes. With Moon Flute, a full opener does roughly ~15,000 potency worth of damage. That means that you gained about 5,000 potency just from using Moon Flute, which dramatically outweights any amount of potency you could use during the 15 second Waning period.
What if I don’t want to use Moon Flute because 15 seconds of not pressing damage buttons will literally kill me IRL?
That’s rough, buddy.
How do I read these openers?
The openers are read left-to-right. The bigger icons on the bottom are our GCDs, and the smaller icons on the top are our OGCDs. The number at the far left is the starting GCD; -2 means 2 GCDs before the pull counter actually hits 0.
When do I use my potion?
You are safe to use your potion when the countdown timer is at 10 (or 10 seconds before your next Moon Flute opener).
What do I do if I can’t fit everything into Moon Flute?
The DOT opener requires a faster GCD than the Winged Reprobation opener. Players can complete the DOT opener with a GCD as high as 2.20 and the Winged Reprobation opener with a GCD as high as 2.50 (no SpS). That being said, both openers will be highly ping and skill dependent.
If you cannot fit everything due to lack of SpS, high ping, or something else,
there are some adjustments that can be made. The first thing you should do is
adjust your gear to a set that has more SpS. If that is not sufficient, or you
are already running a high SpS set, or you insist on using gear that makes it
harder for you, the next easiest adjustment is to move
J Kick
before
Moon Flute. If you don’t expect to need
J Kick for mobility, you can also replace it with
Quasar which has a significantly shorter animation lock. If that
still fails, you can drop the second
Bristle in the opener
entirely. Dropping one of the Winged Reprobation openers would be a slightly
smaller DPS loss, but then you run the risk of things getting misaligned and it
not being up for your next opener, which would mess up subsequent openers even
further.
Do I use the second hit of Phantom Flurry?
No. When we use
Phantom Flurry at the end of
Moon Flute, the damage buff snapshots and we are able to continue
channeling it even after we go into Waning Nocturne. This means that we actually
deal more damage by letting it run out this way rather than trying to squeeze
in the second activation. You probably wouldn’t be able to use it anyway since
the opener is so tight.
Standard 2-Minute Openers
There are three variations of the Moon Flute Opener but they all are pretty nearly identical. In a group of eight you will want one person doing each of the DOT openers (DOT stands for “damage over time”) and everyone else will do the Winged Reprobation opener.
Winged Reprobation Opener
DOT Openers
Mortal Flame Opener
After the first opener, the player applying
Mortal Flame should
use the Winged Reprobation opener for future openers.
Breath of Magic Opener
The player applying
Breath of Magic should actually try to Moon
Flute every minute when reapplying Breath of Magic.
Even/Odd Opener
We can actually squeeze out even more potency by using two alternating Moon
Flute openers. This is especially nice for players with
Breath of Magic since they want to Moon Flute every minute anyway
to reapply the DOT. The actual order of even/odd windows may change depending
on what each fight’s mobility requirements allow you to do (e.g. using
Phantom Flurry during even windows and
Apokalypsis
during odd windows).
Even (Standard)
Odd (Standard)
Even (Breath of Magic)
Odd (Breath of Magic)