Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[jmdude]

There's something I don't understand about the sharpcast opener. If you get a F3P why do you swift cast flare and not fire 4 . They are both instant cast with swiftcast but fire 4 is stronger than Flare and you can still convert do another fire and switch, I really can't wrap my head around why flare is stronger.

[Sleigh]

There's something I don't understand about the sharpcast opener. If you get a F3P why do you swift cast flare and not fire 4 . They are both instant cast with swiftcast but fire 4 is stronger than Flare and you can still convert do another fire and switch, I really can't wrap my head around why flare is stronger.

It depends. If you don't get a proc you really can't do a Swiftcast F4 ... you'll run out of Astral Fire (F3P > F4 F4 > F1 (10s) > F4 F4 (5s left) Swiftcast F4 F4 (no AF left) B3 will fail terribly).

If you get a proc, it's still somewhat iffy. You have to go by pot/Trick Attack timers too, getting any of those makes Flare stronger than F4. A standard pure potency upgrade with a proc is F3P > F4 F4 F1 F4 F3P Swift F4 Convert F4 F4, which is fine MP wise and AF/Enochian wise, but it may not sync up with your pot/TA in such the way that F3P > F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F3P Swiftcast Flare Convert F4 B3 does. We're talking min/maxing here, it's really not even a big enough deal to care or change your parse in a way that anyone would notice.

Me I just do the Swiftcast Flare usually because of that, even with the proc, because my personal pot and TA timers make that stronger - which may vary BLM to BLM. What I WILL adapt to though, is if I got an MP tick before combat started ... if you get the MP tick and the F3P, you can do F3P > F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F3P Swiftcast F4 Convert F4, which is as lenient as it gets to interacting with TA/pot because you can put your Swiftcast in one of two places if you wish.

[Hontaro]

There's something I don't understand about the sharpcast opener. If you get a F3P why do you swift cast flare and not fire 4 . They are both instant cast with swiftcast but fire 4 is stronger than Flare and you can still convert do another fire and switch, I really can't wrap my head around why flare is stronger.

You don't have enough mana to use F4 unless you get an MP tick after casting the first F1.

[OneWingedSora]

You don't have enough mana to use F4 unless you get an MP tick after casting the first F1.

I have no problems doing that as a Dunesfolk lala : ^ )

[Hontaro]

I have no problems doing that as a Dunesfolk lala : ^ )

Strange, last time I tried I was left at around 1040 MP, nowhere near a Fire IV, it doesn't matter which race I am at that point. I'll try it again tomorrow since Chaos datacenter is currently dead it seems.