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Hey everyone,
I was checking out BLM guides, and I came across this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvJjJbFrL-Y
My Black Mage is only level 46, so I'm not all that knowledgeable in Flare rotations yet.
Just curious as to whether this video's rotation would actually be useful while speedrunning/AoEing, or if it's just something a little more gimmicky.
Definitely seems to be getting the job done, though....
I usually start off my regular aoe rotation.
FIII-FII spam-Flare- transpose-(buff)-swift cast-Flare-Conver-(buff)-Flare-Transpose.
After the second transpose you can either start off from the top of the rotation but u will have to do
FIII-FII spam-flare- transpose - repeat, since covert and swift cast will be still on CD or you can do the Flare rotation you posted after the first rotation I posted.
You probably have the same question as most BLMs who see this:
"Why would you use Flare from Umbral Ice, and not from Astral Fire (by using Fire III first)?"
Answer: You have to take into consideration that Flare is MT (multi target) and Fire III is ST (single target), and that Flare puts us into AF3 as well.
Now, this is probably a simple way of picturing the idea, but it works for my understand (I always wondered the whole "UI Flare" thing myself). Of course, I could be wrong about the details, but it doesn't change the fact that pushing out many Flares regardless of UI phase is better for your damage than mixing in Fire IIIs everywhere first.
Flare is always more potent than Fire III, no matter what it's cast from (AF or UI), even if you only considered 1 target. But Flare is typically used against many mobs. For simplicity sake, let's assume that Fire III and Flare have the same potency and do the same damage, and say they both deal 400 damage and we have 4 enemies. That's 400 damage vs 1 target, compared to 400 damage vs 4 targets which is a total of 1600. So Flare is already beating out against Fire III because we're depleting the HP of 4 mobs instead of 1.
Then, we follow this Flare with another Flare. Let's assume that it deals an average of 1100 to each target. That would make for a total of 1500 damage per target, or 6000 damage to all 4 targets in total. If you just did Fire III to a single Flare (can't double Flare because you won't have the MP), then you'd only do 1500 to one target, and 1100 to 3, for a total of 4800, or 80% of the damage you could have done.
Even using Fire II to fill in the opening rotation is actually a DPS loss, compared to bursting out Infini-Flare. But the weaker damage (it's 100 potency vs 260) gives the tank time to generate initial hate, as no tank will be able to easily keep the hate from that many Flares unless they are higher geared than you and you use Quelling every time.