Black Mage Level 100 Spell (Flare Star) SUCKS!

[Valence]

Well, if it was stronger, you'd lose even more potency from failing to cast it (either on purpose or by accident), while if it was weaker, you'd feel less rewarded for managing to complete a full astral cycle without having to cut it short, so there's really no way to win.

After all, if Flare Star didn't exist, the reward for casting your sixth Fire IV would be even smaller, so it would feel even more pointless to do all that work, and, yet, it would still represent a small average potency increase, so we feel like we have to do it, so now we're complaining about Fire IV #6, wishing we only had 8400 max MP, etc.

There is a way to win: not force people to cast 6 F4 to cast it, which is the real reason behind its introduction in conjunction with the systematic demolition of non standard or even just early ice swaps for mechanical reasons.

Else the reason such skills as current Flare Star work on other jobs is because they don't necessarily rely on cutting short their rotation half way like BLM can.

Perhaps not losing stacks when swaping to Ice would help it immensely for starters. Could even bring some funky optimization of double flare stars in some astral fire windows, but we wouldn't want people to have some depth to their job right?