Why does Flare have the incorrect cast aura for its damage type?

[Jonnycbad]

All fire spells have the same fire aura when casting except Flare. Flare for some reason has an Unaspected cast aura, the same as Foul. The rainbow effect at the caster's feet is typical for spells like Ruin, Clemency, Miasma, Foul, Holy, etc. Despair is a single target version of Flare yet even that has a Fire red aura at the caster's feet. Is this just a 8 year unnoticed bug?

[Enla]

Flare generally isn't fire element in the Final Fantasy series though. It's considered non-elemental Black Magic as it's the antithesis to the Holy spell when Meteor isn't available in a game. So no, it's not a bug. It's more or less just an easter egg for people who have played the older games.

[Jonnycbad]

Flare is Fire elemental in FF4, ff7, ff11, ff13, ff14, ff15 and tactics.

[MariaArvana]

Flare is Fire elemental in FF4, ff7, ff11, ff13, ff14, ff15 and tactics.

and its non-elemental in 1, 2, 3, 4:interlude, 4:the after years, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 12, 12:revenant wings and probably more that i can't remember. Its far more non-elemental than fire-aspected throughout the entire series.
As for FF14's version, I assume it's only Fire aspected so that it'd work in-line with the Astral-Fire/Umbral ice mechanics, with its non-elemental casting animation being a nod to its primary damage-type throughout the series.

heck, even Lost flare Star, which is a nod to the even stronger version version of Flare throughout the series (Flare Star) is unaspected instead of fire.

[Enla]

Flare is Fire elemental in FF4, ff7, ff11, ff13, ff14, ff15 and tactics.

Hence the 'generally'. More often than not it's non-elemental and like I stated, it's animation is likely an easter egg nod towards the spell's origins and most common history.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Flare is Fire elemental in FF4, ff7, ff11, ff13, ff14, ff15 and tactics.

Flare/Nuke only became fire elemental in the 3D versions of FF4 (in the 2D versions it is non-elemental) and all 3 of the Tactics games' versions are non-elemental.

FF7 was the first game to make it Fire Elemental and that involved them grouping it with 3 other "super" elemental spells (Freeze, Break and Tornado). FF11 expanded that group with Flood and Burst while replacing Break with Quake.

Flare only appeared in the FF13 series in Lightning Returns which was released after ARR.

Flare was only Fire Elemental in 4 games (FFMQ, FF4DS, FF7 and FF11) before FF14 while appearing in the majority as non-elemental.

[Vyrerus]

All fire spells have the same fire aura when casting except Flare. Flare for some reason has an Unaspected cast aura, the same as Foul. The rainbow effect at the caster's feet is typical for spells like Ruin, Clemency, Miasma, Foul, Holy, etc. Despair is a single target version of Flare yet even that has a Fire red aura at the caster's feet. Is this just a 8 year unnoticed bug?

Since Flare came before Foul, Foul actually has Flare's casting aura. It's to mark its specialness. It's made fire elemental in XIV to profit off of Astral Fire, otherwise they'd have to crank up the potency. It was the ultimate black magic spell at level 50, and BLM could really milk some DPS spikes during add phases making good use of it.

[Soge01]

For a second there I thought you were talking about a different Flare... 030;;;;;;

[ReynTime]

Flare is fire elemental in XIV? I mean, technically speaking no action has any elements in this game, seeing as they got rid of elemental strength/weakness over 7 years ago.

[Rongway]

Flare is fire elemental in XIV? I mean, technically speaking no action has any elements in this game, seeing as they got rid of elemental strength/weakness over 7 years ago.

It's mechanically important for BLM.

Flare being Fire elemental means that it does 1.8x the listed potency while under the effect of Astral Fire III and 0.7x the listed potency while under the effect of Umbral Ice III. This means that even though the listed potency is 260, the two Flares in a post-68 AoE rotation have potencies of 182 (UI3) and 468 (AF3), an average of 325.

If Flare were non-elemental, it would always have potency as listed and may be overpowered for an ice phase or underpowered for a fire phase--worst cases, it would never get used because it's too weak to compete with Freeze spam or it would be so strong that it would be used heavily (Flare-Transpose spam or Flare-Freeze spam). Being Fire elemental allows them to set a potency that self-adjusts to be appropriately low or high to match the BLM's current element. Foul does not need this self-adjusting balance because it's on a 30s charge timer.