When to use Flare?

[NoctisUmbra]

Yes, the first of the 2 Flares will be weaker, as it is in Umbral Ice, however the 2nd Flare is fully powered because the first one puts you into Astral Fire III.

Furthermore, due to the vast difference in potency between Fire II and Flare, and the fact that the double Flare rotation entirely skips the use of Blizzard spells or Fire III (a GCD wasted on a single target), the Double Flare rotation comes out on top - by a hefty margin.

I have tested this. Thoroughly. Being a DPS main who enjoys playing each DPS job at full capacity, I have theorycrafted/tested/researched each one of them. Not to mention that since it is actually pretty widely accepted that a properly executed double Flare rotation is superior to the typical Fire II-involved rotation, I can't help but wonder: what rock have you been casting under?

Since you claim to have tested this, I have to conclude that you tested poorly. My guess is you tested DPS on dummies and compared the double Flare rotation to your standard one, which involves the use of Fire III and a Blizzard spell. That's 2 single-target spells, and thus would register as higher DPS on the target itself, but not on the pack as a whole.

Either that, or you never actually properly tested the double Flare rotation in question yourself, and simply dismissed it assuming that the use of Flare to attain AF3 rather than Fire III was bad/silly/worse/etc.

Also...

The rotation including the 3 Fire IIs last twice as long, so it does more damage overall.

That makes absolutely no sense lol.