Clarification on how Flash works

[Themis]

Answers:

Flash generates enmity whether the Blind lands or not. The blind effect is simply a trait bonus that may boost enmity too, but is not the main generator if enmity.

It's quite typical for debuffs to become less effective the more they are used. There are exceptions to this, however, which currently forms part of the strategy in some high level content.

Extra:

The spell is affected by Weapon Damage, STR and Determination in the same way weapon skill damage is calculated. It can be thought of like a weaponskill that doesn't do damage (so it won't wake sleeping mobs or break bind), is AoE and costs MP instead of TP. It's also very likely that Shield Oath affects the enmity generated, which makes Flash a potent AoE enmity tool that shouldn't be neglected.

At Lv50PLD, I can recover about 130-150MP per Riot Blade combo, so two of these is enough to recover the MP spent on a single Flash. I typically pull with Shield Lob, then Flash the mobs as they arrive. Starting with a couple of RoH combos (if mobs aren't being slept, I tend to alternate targets to spread enmity building as we lack in any other AoE tools), and throwing in Flash whenever the Blind wears off - mobs missing is the best form of damage mitigation; 0 damage vs >1 damage.

Even during dungeons/content which caps you at much lower levels, Flash is still very useful to use, especially as an opener for that initial enmity on all targets involved. MP also recovers quite quickly between pulls, so there is no reason not to be using it when it's worth doing so - I would say 2+ mobs before RoH, and 3+ mobs after RoH because it's easier to split weaponskills when you have 3 of them to use.

Whilst Flash won't generate as much enmity on a single target than a RoH combo (due to Savage Blade having ~3.125x enmity multiplier and RoH having ~5x multiplier which stacks with Shield Oath bonus), when you do have several mobs on you, that enmity is applied to each and every mob you hit with the spell, making it an effective means of AoE tanking. Bolstered with efficient cycling of targets to spread those RoH combo multipliers, and you shouldn't have issues with most tanking scenarios.

Source of data: http://www.daevaofwar.net/index.php?...sjob-analysis/ - there's a lot of info in the thread that contain specifics by, what I would consider, highly reputable sources in themselves (DoW/Dancing Mad LS/Blue Garter LS etc).

[Akaasha]

Thanks for all the input, escepcially to you Themis. I didn't know that the abilities had different enmity multipliers and I'm gonna check out that page for more information.

Cheers!