BLM - Flare....do you use it?

So Flare seems a pretty underwhelming skill to me. The only time I can see it been useful is if you are AOE'ing mobs and you are nearly out of mana and want that final ooom spell. But even then I'm not sure if it would be ideal.

I have parsed and used this in my rotation in a number of formats, generally using it as I am just out of mana with swiftcast, and then casting transpose. But this does nothing for or against the dps.

So is this a worthless talent? Does anyone else use it for something I havn't thought about or in the rotation somehow?

Edit: I mean transpose instead of convert.

When do you use convert? Normally convert only affords me one extra fire spell in a rotation, so theres not a whole lot of point to it normally, but if you use SC > Flare at the end of an astral phase followed by > Convert it should put you back over 1k mana, let you fire 1 once more, and then bliz3 back into your standard regen cycle, no need to transpose. Thats normally how I use them all anyway. Get into astral phase, blow raging strikes/blows (w/e its called) f1, fs procs, tc procs, and with 3s left on RB regardless of mana burn SC > Flare > Convert > F1 > B3 and start back to normal there. It never breaks my rotation and just adds a little extra surge of damage, so far in meh gear my record is a 2k flare, I'm sure itd be higher if I had my relic weapon

Thats what I do anyway, normally i dont use it outside of that situation unless I'm just messing around on trash or bored

Sounds good except convert is on what is it 3 or 5 min cd?
Flare is super situational just like all other blm skills. Underwhelming and uninspiring i am afraid.

Oh I mean't transpose sorry. Oops. Not convert.

Flare can crit for 100% damage so there is that. It is a situational spell and I only use it if I have Convert available.

the most useful situation i've found is on Garuda hard.
Once she teleports to blow her Mistral- ability, she starts coming back to tank. During this time F3 to get AF stacks, then swiftcast and Flare the plumes just as they spawn. with 2 BLMs, they die VERY quick this way.
But I get what you are sayin, it's highly situational.

Garuda hard
Demon Wall adds
Slime adds on Bavorois
Trolling the PLD tank after you sleep a pack of trash
Any time you have more than one mob that needs killing

BLM has infinite mana and ramp up after Flare is minimal. Flare, transpose, B3 and you are back to your rotation faster than you can say "BLM should have Bio". On Garuda, land one flare the hard way then Convert Swiftcast Flare on the leading feathers and they're basically gone.

Yes, it is situational. The situation is more than one mob that needs bursty death.

No I do not use flare as it does not offer a dps boost (in fact I believe loses it). The current fights Coephoros mentions are bad examples of when to use it except on Garuda's plums. It slows down dps rotation making enemies harder to kill and I have to instruct other BLMs who dare use it in dungeons of how they are killing their own dps output. When my mana gets low I would not think of wasting a swiftcast and convert to supply a minimal increase in dps but instead use the simple rotation of Ice 3>Lighting 3 (during mana build up)>Fire 3 which allows me to use constant dps and to get back to maximum output as fast as possible instead of making the healer worry about healing the life I lost from convert or the slow process of building mp up after flare>transpose.

In the current fights that I have been to the move does not help at all expect for Garuda perhaps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zandervont

the most useful situation i've found is on Garuda hard.
Once she teleports to blow her Mistral- ability, she starts coming back to tank. During this time F3 to get AF stacks, then swiftcast and Flare the plumes just as they spawn. with 2 BLMs, they die VERY quick this way.
But I get what you are sayin, it's highly situational.

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With precise timing, you can land two Flare's on the plumes and clear the entire wave.

So far I've only found it truly useful on Garuda plumes as they spawn, or very rarely when farming castle-watchamacallit and the tank pulls a big pull. Basically it's good for aoe but it's limited too much by always leaving you at 0 mp. What you want to do is cast Fire II at a group until 300ish mp then use Flare, but usually by the time you'll finish casting your Fire II's most of the group is dead which makes casting Flare moot. Also it's only worth it if your hitting more than 3 targets, 3 or less and it's better to just use a Fire II > BlizIII then continue Fire II spam.