About fire 2?

[Seraphor]

If you compare it directly to only Flare, then sure. But compare it to the dps of the entire rotation

It's been done.
Past level 68, Fire II is a DPS loss.
Before level 50, Freeze Spam is the most effective AoE rotation.

Following figures all based on 3 enemies. (adding more enemies makes the gap in dps bigger)

Freeze > Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2616 potency over approx. 15s or 174.4/s
Freeze > Fire III > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2256 potency over 12s or 188/s
More Flares via Manafont/Ethers just bumps those numbers up but the gap is still in favour of no Fire II.

If you do your 2x Fire II rotation.... it's even worse.
Freeze > Fire III > Fire II > Fire II > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat]
That's 2976 over 18s, or 165.3/s

That's without any instant casts.

If you swift one of the Flares, then it becomes 12s and 9s respectively, for a difference of 218/s with Fire II v 250/s without.
Triplecast three Flares with Manafont, and it becomes a difference of 347/s with Fire II and 444/s over 7s without it.

Only case where it almost evens out is if you Triplecast a single Fire II plus 2x Flare, then it's 373/s with Fire II, and 376/s without. But that's mainly because without the Fire II you're wasting a Triplecast proc.
Your 2x Fire II this way works out to 297.6/s, and if you Swift + Triple cast for all four instants, that's 372/s for your best possible output.

So yeah, Fire II is a flat DPS loss.

[StouterTaru]

Freeze > Fire III > Fire II > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2616 potency over approx. 15s or 174.4/s
Freeze > Fire III > Flare > Flare (transpose) [repeat] equals 2256 potency over 12s or 188/s

You're putting Fire II as 360 potency in AF3, did they change the multiplier this expansion, and are you assuming 3 mobs?

Also, swiftcast takes 3 seconds off Flare cast?

[Seraphor]

You're putting Fire II as 360 potency in AF3, did they change the multiplier this expansion, and are you assuming 3 mobs?

Also, swiftcast takes 3 seconds off Flare cast?

Wow, well done for reverse engineering my ballpark calculations.

And yes, I incorrectly plugged in x1.5 instead of x1.8 for AF3.
It doesn't change the overall effect though, there's still a similar gap between the rotations with and without Fire II. In fact the gap is bigger, as the difference is amplified by the AF3 increase.

I plugged in an insta-casted spell as 0.5s to account for general delay and rounded the overall rotation up to the whole second.

[StouterTaru]

Wow, well done for reverse engineering my ballpark calculations.

And yes, I incorrectly plugged in x1.5 instead of x1.8 for AF3.
It doesn't change the overall effect though, there's still a similar gap between the rotations with and without Fire II. In fact the gap is bigger, as the difference is amplified by the AF3 increase.

I plugged in an insta-casted spell as 0.5s to account for general delay and rounded the overall rotation up to the whole second.

You're still on 3 mobs, and swiftcast Flare still has a GCD recast (during which you can Transpose if you use it for the 2nd Flare, and cancel out the time used for Swiftcast) so the time cut off would be 0.6 GCD; less than 3 seconds.

[Seraphor]

You're still on 3 mobs, and swiftcast Flare still has a GCD recast (during which you can Transpose if you use it for the 2nd Flare, and cancel out the time used for Swiftcast) so the time cut off would be 0.6 GCD; less than 3 seconds.

Well that's what I get for rushing it.
But again, makes no difference.

The figures are there to compare without any instacasts.
And for those figures I included 0.5s casts, that applied to both Fire II and Flare.
And seeing as natively theyre 3s and 4s respectively, it's still in favour of no Fire II.

[StouterTaru]

The way I use it (twice first round with umbral hearts already up) any comparison with CDs is moot, as the CDs would be used on the same spells in either rotation. The comparison would be those two casts vs the last 2.4 GCD of your rotation that gets cut off by using them.

[Seraphor]

The way I use it (twice first round with umbral hearts already up) any comparison with CDs is moot, as the CDs would be used on the same spells in either rotation. The comparison would be those two casts vs the last 2.4 GCD of your rotation that gets cut off by using them.

I fail to see how adjusting the cast times or GCDs in the equation would push Fire IIs contribution over the course of the rotation.

It's worse at full cast times.
It's worse at my incorrectly short cast times.
Putting it in the middle will just result in a similar discrepancy between a rotation with Fire II and without.

[Sunarine]

So what I'm all seeing in the end is basically if you're 35+ just right click fire 2 and delete from hotbar.

[Kaethra]

So what I'm all seeing in the end is basically if you're 35+ just right click fire 2 and delete from hotbar.

As long as you never step into the leveling roulette, you are correct.

[Sunarine]

Excellent.