The Ultimate Black Mage Resources with Damage Calculator

[Shadowzanon]

I have not yet to miss on twit yet but then we have not done many attempts so a miss may or may not happen. i did have my acc at 430 but decided to put 4 more points as my last meld

[Pinworms]

I have figured out how to do flare twice from 1 mana bar use based on timing, distance from mob, and using transpose. Is this a dps increase over the standard fire II AOE spam or is this a loss? Can you track it on your doohickey?

[Kenji1134]

Hmm, IIRC, to do the double Flare trick, much like the double F3 trick, one is affected by UI3 and one by AF3.
Under UI, Flare has 260*.7 = 182 potency. Under AF3, Fire 2 has 180 potency, but generally has a lower cost.

In effect from a full-ish mana bar, you can do 3 F2s and a Flare, which puts you at 0 mana and you need to transpose. This is a total of 1008 potency for your mana bar, and transpose is always up after Flare.
Going from UI3 into Flare for 182 potency, then a 2nd flare to 468 potency is a total of 650 potency, but even without doing any math, my gut feeling is that transpose wont be up in time.
Transpose takes ~5 gcd's to refresh.
So trans - tick (1) - B3 (1.4) - Flare (1) - Flare (1) = 4.4 gcd's. So transpose would not be up.
Also 468/4.4 = 106 pot/gcd, barely above B2 spam, and below the 3 F2 - Flare rotation.

Hmm, Ill get back to this idea later.

Edit: Returning to the idea.

I got ACT running for FFXIV this week... makes quicker testing a whole lot easier.

Baseline B2 spam: 98 dps on 1 dummy... 98 dps aoe... All tests are done on a lvl 1 dummy in the Bannock, that doesnt clip the other one with 5m range aoes... so its all effectively ST and AoE's that just hit 1 target.
Ranged Double Flare: *0 mana - Transpose - tick - B3 - *wait for tick, hit Flare a bit before the blue bar fills up - Flare - *back at 0 mana = 125 dps on 1 dummy, 91.25 aoe.
Melee Double Flare: *0 mana - Transpose - tick - B2 - B2 - *wait for tick, hit Flare a bit before the blue bar fills up - Flare - *back at 0 mana = 120 dps on 1 dummy, 120 aoe.
Ranged F2-Flare: B3 - F3 - F2x3 - Flare - Transpose - tick - *back to B3 = 151 dps on 1 dummy, 110 aoe.
Melee F2-Flare: B2 - B2 - F3 - F2x3 - Flare - Transpose - tick - *back to B2's = 132 dps on 1 dummy, 115.4 aoe.

Comparisons

If you can be in melee range:
Melee Double Flare is best, if you watch your mana bar like a hawk. If you get the timing wrong, then you lose the AF3 Flare and that just sucks.
2nd best is the ol melee version of the 3F2-Flare rotation, trading B3 for 2 B2's in melee range. ~96% as effective as the "New King" Melee Double Flare... but SOOO much easier to do.
And 3rd place in the melee category goes to the the old standby "mash Blizzard 2 until everything dies"... coming in at 82% of #1's dps... Also mindlessly easy and you never miss cause your target died...

From a distance:
Your best bet is the standard 3F2-Flare rotation using B3.
The ranged Double Flare rotation sadly falls flat in this category, coming in at 83% of the above rotation's dps, and for more work.

Conclusion

If you get the timing down, and can safely stay in melee range, this "new" Double-Flare rotation does seem to be our best option for AoE.
That said, the non-double Flare melee rotation is a close second, and likely easier to use in the long run.

And one last comment. Since I separated the damage into "total" and "aoe", I could do a quick analysis on the break-even point between [AoE * N] vs [ST + AoE * (N-1)]... and simply put, the magic number seems to be 4. On 4 mobs, a purely or predominantly aoe rotation is better than a slightly less aoe rotation...
So... the answer is 4... when you must choose whether to AoE... or AAAAYEEEOOOOHHHWWWWWWHHEEEEEEEE!!!!!

[Pinworms]

Have you figured out Quadric Flare yet all under AF III ?

I actually can do a quad flare. I can do flare all day long until the mobs die. It's basically an umbral flare, transpose, flare, flare, transpose, flare, flare, transpose, flare flare...etc.

It takes almost 2 flares for transpose to be off cool down. The problem is you have to hard cast flare, and if your in melee range you end up waiting a full tick and a half for the timing to be correct so you will have mana for your next flare. It's a lot of work and watching you bar. If the dps change is so minor as stated above then the normal F2 spam is best.

Also the raging strikes, flare, swift cast, convert, flare, transpose seems to be pretty righteous. Quelling strikes first if you want. Usually stuffs dead before I can get the last fire 3 and flare off.

[PessimiStick]

Here is the most optimal AOE rotation for "General" use against 4+ targets:

Bliz III > Fire III > Fire II Spam until low mana > Bliz III > Blizz II twice > Fire III > Fire II Spam.

There's almost zero chance this is true.

[NeoAmon]

There's almost zero chance this is true.

Yeah was my imagination, must have dreamt it somewhere.

[PessimiStick]

Yeah was my imagination, must have dreamt it somewhere.

I never said you didn't believe it, I'm just nearly positive that it isn't true.

[Missionman]

wow that is really a hard work, thanks very much man.

[NeoAmon]

I never said you didn't believe it, I'm just nearly positive that it isn't true.

OK ^^/10characters

[Zenithx]

Why do you say that astral ring is better of than allagan ring? In terms on DPS and theoretical int based on your calculation, set B with allagan ring is better than astral ring.