About fire 2?

Is it worth using fire 2 for aoe 60+?
I mean it kinda does good damage damage but then there is freeze + flare and also the passive at lvl 68.

Your view on the situation?

I am only a lvl 66 BLM¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Definitely not after 68, since you can infinitely rotate Freeze, Thunder IV and 2 Flares.

I believe the current math is you'll get more potency-per-second out of just spamming Freeze than you would out of using a Fire II/Freeze rotation. So no, it's not even worth it to use Fire II for AoE 35+.

To be clear though, Flare + Freeze does blow either of the above out of the water, even before getting the 68 trait. Just remember to use Fire III to transition into AF phase so each Flare gets its full bonus, and don't be afraid to Transpose into UI at 0 MP until you get Aspect Mastery.

My favorite is to Freeze, Fire III, Triplecast, Flare, Flare, Manafont, Flare.

I call it the Flarega combo. I always get a comment or giggle in Discord when I do that one.

With the changes to MP and Ethers, the stockpile I still have from all the level 50 dungeons now restore enough MP for yet another Flare.

So I rather like Freeze, Fire III, Triplecast, Flare, Swiftcast, Flare, Manafont, Flare, Mega-Ether, Flare.

The Swiftcast in the middle of the Triplecast is just so you don't have to try double weaving it and the ether at the same time.

Does anyone else say "Explosion!" to yourself when casting Flare? It's probably just me but I can't help thinking it now.

Here's how black mages count to 4 :
1, 3, 4.

At 76 you get Umbral Soul, which means you should have 3 umbral hearts built up between packs in dungeons. I use two Fire II's before doing my two flares on the opening.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

At 76 you get Umbral Soul, which means you should have 3 umbral hearts built up between packs in dungeons. I use two Fire II's before doing my two flares on the opening.

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F2 is too weak to make this worth it, you just lose DPS by diluting your Flare damage. F2 also doesn't have the benefit of having a higher minimum damage than Flare like it did in SB. At level 80 I only use F2 when it's time to go into fire and the cooldown on Triple/Swift is as long as a F2 cast.

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

F2 is too weak to make this worth it, you just lose DPS by diluting your Flare damage. F2 also doesn't have the benefit of having a higher minimum damage than Flare like it did in SB. At level 80 I only use F2 when it's time to go into fire and the cooldown on Triple/Swift is as long as a F2 cast.

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If you compare it directly to only Flare, then sure. But compare it to the dps of the entire rotation

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you compare it directly to only Flare, then sure. But compare it to the dps of the entire rotation

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It's been done.
Past level 68, Fire II is a DPS loss.
Before level 50, Freeze Spam is the most effective AoE rotation.

Following figures all based on 3 enemies. (adding more enemies makes the gap in dps bigger)

Freeze > Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2616 potency over approx. 15s or 174.4/s
Freeze > Fire III > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2256 potency over 12s or 188/s
More Flares via Manafont/Ethers just bumps those numbers up but the gap is still in favour of no Fire II.

If you do your 2x Fire II rotation.... it's even worse.
Freeze > Fire III > Fire II > Fire II > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat]
That's 2976 over 18s, or 165.3/s

That's without any instant casts.

If you swift one of the Flares, then it becomes 12s and 9s respectively, for a difference of 218/s with Fire II v 250/s without.
Triplecast three Flares with Manafont, and it becomes a difference of 347/s with Fire II and 444/s over 7s without it.

Only case where it almost evens out is if you Triplecast a single Fire II plus 2x Flare, then it's 373/s with Fire II, and 376/s without. But that's mainly because without the Fire II you're wasting a Triplecast proc.
Your 2x Fire II this way works out to 297.6/s, and if you Swift + Triple cast for all four instants, that's 372/s for your best possible output.

So yeah, Fire II is a flat DPS loss.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Freeze > Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2616 potency over approx. 15s or 174.4/s
Freeze > Fire III > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2256 potency over 12s or 188/s

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You're putting Fire II as 360 potency in AF3, did they change the multiplier this expansion, and are you assuming 3 mobs?

Also, swiftcast takes 3 seconds off Flare cast?

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

You're putting Fire II as 360 potency in AF3, did they change the multiplier this expansion, and are you assuming 3 mobs?

Also, swiftcast takes 3 seconds off Flare cast?

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Wow, well done for reverse engineering my ballpark calculations.

And yes, I incorrectly plugged in x1.5 instead of x1.8 for AF3.
It doesn't change the overall effect though, there's still a similar gap between the rotations with and without Fire II. In fact the gap is bigger, as the difference is amplified by the AF3 increase.

I plugged in an insta-casted spell as 0.5s to account for general delay and rounded the overall rotation up to the whole second.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Wow, well done for reverse engineering my ballpark calculations.

And yes, I incorrectly plugged in x1.5 instead of x1.8 for AF3.
It doesn't change the overall effect though, there's still a similar gap between the rotations with and without Fire II. In fact the gap is bigger, as the difference is amplified by the AF3 increase.

I plugged in an insta-casted spell as 0.5s to account for general delay and rounded the overall rotation up to the whole second.

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You're still on 3 mobs, and swiftcast Flare still has a GCD recast (during which you can Transpose if you use it for the 2nd Flare, and cancel out the time used for Swiftcast) so the time cut off would be 0.6 GCD; less than 3 seconds.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

You're still on 3 mobs, and swiftcast Flare still has a GCD recast (during which you can Transpose if you use it for the 2nd Flare, and cancel out the time used for Swiftcast) so the time cut off would be 0.6 GCD; less than 3 seconds.

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Well that's what I get for rushing it.
But again, makes no difference.

The figures are there to compare without any instacasts.
And for those figures I included 0.5s casts, that applied to both Fire II and Flare.
And seeing as natively theyre 3s and 4s respectively, it's still in favour of no Fire II.

The way I use it (twice first round with umbral hearts already up) any comparison with CDs is moot, as the CDs would be used on the same spells in either rotation. The comparison would be those two casts vs the last 2.4 GCD of your rotation that gets cut off by using them.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

The way I use it (twice first round with umbral hearts already up) any comparison with CDs is moot, as the CDs would be used on the same spells in either rotation. The comparison would be those two casts vs the last 2.4 GCD of your rotation that gets cut off by using them.

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I fail to see how adjusting the cast times or GCDs in the equation would push Fire IIs contribution over the course of the rotation.

It's worse at full cast times.
It's worse at my incorrectly short cast times.
Putting it in the middle will just result in a similar discrepancy between a rotation with Fire II and without.

So what I'm all seeing in the end is basically if you're 35+ just right click fire 2 and delete from hotbar.

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Originally Posted by Sunarine

So what I'm all seeing in the end is basically if you're 35+ just right click fire 2 and delete from hotbar.

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As long as you never step into the leveling roulette, you are correct.

Excellent.