Black Mage AOE rotation question.

[Sorama1983]

Hello folks. One of my friends is currently playing a lv.46 Black mage, but it seems his AOE damage is not the best. He likes to cast thunder III on all mobs and then start using fire 3 then fire 2. Do you guys think this is ok? or should he just go for Fire 3 then Fire 2 spam, leaving Thunder III out?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[Friske]

Yeah, your friend should definitely leave thunder 3 out. The aoe damage before you get flare at lvl50 is OK to say the least. I usually use my aoe when there's 3 or more mobs, and single target when there's 1 or 2 mobs.
You know when you get a thundercloud proc and then when you use it it does some damage? That damage is the total dot damage done to the mob over 23 seconds with 60 potency added on(when using thunder3 as the thundercloud proc) so you can easily estimate how much total damage thunder 3 will do. You can easily do more damage than thunder 3 does with fire 2. Say, fire 2 hits for around 500 damage and thundercloud proc hits for about 1000 damage. If there's 3 mobs your fire 2s will hit for about 1500 damage, therefore you are doing more damage than thunder 3 will ever do.
Thunder spells aren't that useful if you're bursting down mobs. It's a dot with OK damage, and most black mages only use it because of the thundercloud proc chance you get, allowing you to stretch your astral fire phase or fill in some gaps in your rotation.
Overall when doing damage, It's pretty much 'how much damage can I fit within a certain timeframe?' And, 'what is the best spell I can use that does more potency per global cooldown?'
When your friend gets flare that's when his aoe dps goes through the roof.