The Black Mage Rotations

[Waliel]

How about Flare - Transpose - B2 - B2 - Flare - Flare - Transpose - B2 - B2 etc., etc. aoe rotation? I was playing around with that and got about 10-15 DPS more against two targets than with F3 - Flare. If you wait 0.5 seconds after the last tick after the last B2, you can time your Flare perfectly to get 2x Flares without doing anything and both of them will have UI3 cast time, and the second one will have AF3 damage. You also get to B2 almost immediately after Transpose every time. The penalty is pretty heavy for missing the mana tick betwixt the Flares, though. I didn't do too heavy testing on this, only a couple of few minute runs, but double Flare seems better after those small tests.

Another thing, would it be worth it to Transpose to AF for the extra damage, if you have Firestarter proc up in UI3 while casting Thunder?

[Youmu]

Another thing, would it be worth it to Transpose to AF for the extra damage, if you have Firestarter proc up in UI3 while casting Thunder?

Not going to comment on your flare rotation til I try it, but as far as the Firestarter procs go, if you're in a ST situation the use of transpose before your proc is usually a gain. Occasionally, youll have to wait after the thunder cast for your last UI3 tick, but generally this only to serves to negate the bonus 300 damage youre gaining (roughly) on your firestarter proc. In essence, there is no real downside, and a decent upside to transposing firestarter procs, since in a ST rotation transpose will be back off cooldown by the time you may need it again. However, I wouldnt advise it for AOE rotations involving flare, since you'll need transpose for your flare recoveries. I guess you could get away with it if youre planning to burst things down with convert/ether/swiftcast prior to needing convert.

[ShinryuReishiki]

How about Flare - Transpose - B2 - B2 - Flare - Flare - Transpose - B2 - B2 etc., etc. aoe rotation?

Once you have the timing down, that does seem better. On a single target (Not that you ever would), using Flare instead of Fire III would be close; slightly extra cast time for slightly more damage, but as soon as it's more than one enemy, Flare takes the lead. The only downside is, as you stated, the increased cost of a mistake. A mistimed first Flare could make the second Flare either a full cast time or nonexistent. It is pretty easy to do consistently, though.

This makes me think of using Mage's Ballad for Blizzard III > Flare > Flare... I've done no testing to see how useful it actually is or isn't, but it certainly is fun to have a near constant stream of Flares to complement Holy spam.