With the animation change and Defiance 2.0, Flares is very much worth picking up
Icelock - Ice/Storm Controller
Command Bot 1 - Bot/Traps MM
I have a Fire blaster and i wouldn't recomend taking flares the damage isnt great.I seem to be alright just using Fire Ball, Fire Blast and Blaze.
Flares is naff.
Icelock/Gamete, thank for the responses both.
Gamete: yeah, I agree that "on it's own" Flares is pretty mediocre and I can get by without it. I am wondering wondering if it's worth taking to build it into an attack chain so as to get a bonus from the new Defiance. From your post, are you suggesting that I don;t really need EITHER of them and that could free up a slot for something else?
Icelock: From your post it would seem that the answer to the question about Flares in the attack chain is YES, but...I would need to drop another power (Combustion is the hot favourite) in order to take it. Is the improvement to Flares worth making this exchange do you think?
As a further thought, another plus point for Flares is that it is another "ranged" power. Combustion means I have to get uncomfortably close to the bad guys. Fire Sword and Fire Sword Circle I can live with as, most of the time the mobs are not left around once I have used 'em but C ombustion is just a tad too slow for my taste and not powerful enough.
So, what do ya reckon?
Globey,
did not mean to ignore your post dude, it came on when I was typing mine 
Off topic, that Avatar/animation... should that be restricted to after the watershed???? 
Well i don't really think Flares is needed for either the attack chain or to get the most benefit from the new Defiance. Even if it is another ranged attack it still will only be good for finishing off the enemies with very little HP left. I wouldn't recommend taking it.
Definitely not needed for the attack chain in my opinion. Fire Blast, Fire Ball and Blaze make for a good ranged chain - Fire Sword is also not a bad single target attack for all it's mele.
I actually wouldn't take either Flares or Combustion - plenty of other good stuff to go round on Fire/Fire, and also plenty of pool powers that I find very useful - actually I always end up "one power short" on my Fire/Fire whenever I look at a respec for her. All the primary bar flares is good, although I've never really found myself using Blazing Bolt that much - I'm just not a snip fan all round, and from the secondary, Fire Sword, FSC, Build Up and Consume (which will be awesome with set IOs once they fix those sets) are all well worth the pick, and I'm a big fan of fitness, leaping, speed and medicine on blasters, especially the fire one which is of course the one that pulls the most aggro!
ok its not a blaster but i have a /fire dominator, and flares is generally a necesity, the recharge speed combined with build up and hasten makes it a very useful attack and it is really useful when taking out tougher enemies.
basically
low end cost
fast recharge
low but not bad damage
+ fiery embrace for added 100% damage to fire
+ hasten half recharge time (i think)
so it does arround 4x the actual damage is should do with only 2x the end cost which is nowhere near enoguh to depleat your total.
but fire doms do have less in the way of fire attacks like those in the fire blaster set so im guessing that the debate can vary alot and this might not make much of a difference, but i i were you...
GET FLARES!!!! and put some IO's on it
First of all, i have a 50 fire/ice
Second of all, Do, Not, Take, Flares.
The bonus is not worth it. Trust me
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ok its not a blaster but i have a /fire dominator, and flares is generally a necesity
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Flares is mandatory on /Fire Dominators, there is no choice 
.
Given that fire blast has the three single target attacks and enough aoe's to have your way with mobs and their bosses, I like flares for the filler. It makes for a nice, single target attack that's quick on the recharge and remarkably low on endurance cost. But also, me being an efficiency nut, flares makes it useful for picking off single targets at range with fire blast.
However, one thing i've noticed.
Flares damage in total is EQUAL to Fire Blasts direct damage. Fire Blast only gets the edge because of it's extra CHANCE FOR fire dot proc, looky here:
Flares:
39.48 Fire Damage
11.12 Fire Damage (after 0.5 second delay)
Fire Blast:
55.61 Fire Damage
4 * 5.56 Fire Damage over 3.10 seconds (after 0.5 second delay) (80% chance)
fireblast gets the edge 80% of the time over flares which is good, but you ought to get some neato single target damage from the two. Given they both recharge fast enough to get a flares/fire blast/flares/flares combo chain at level 2 it's a cool combo early on 
Also, flares only gives a ~6% damage buff, whereas fireblast gives ~11% but it's really easy to stack flares, 18% off of flares, 12% permad. 11% off of fire blaster perma'd, with a window of 22% although i can imagine this getting double stacked easily with hasten or recharge slotting.
BUT
Flares falls under the new rule of tier 1 & tier 2 off your primary and tier 1 off your secondary of being able to fire off while you're mezzed, so it makes for a good emergency DPS chain too. Personally im not going to drop flares because of it's filler contribution and for the fact it'll be part of my 3 single target chain for soloing.
The rest dear readers, is up to you.
Tune in next thread for another exciting read about nothing in particular.
personally i like combustion on my fire/fire/fire. i tend to pop it just before firesword circle
Flares is great.
It has better range, better damage and faster animation these days... plus not only does it help when stacking defiance damage buffs, it is also one of the 2 ranged attacks you can shoot off when mezzed.
That and its a great attack when someone only has a small amount of health left. I see sooO many people fire off Total Focus or something like that when a mob has, like, 10hp left and its a waste of an attack, endurance and 9 times out of 10 someone shoots them before they land it.
Noone agrees on Flares these days (once upon a time everyone would have said flares suck) but these days its a very handy and valid choice.
Lots of people don't take it because they prefer other powers in the set. Thats more preference and playstyle than because "flares are rubbish".
I love 'em personally
Dark_Oberion
Hi there, a simple question.
I currently have a level 20 Fire/Fire Blaster and am thinking of respeccing him to get rid of Combustion (which just does not seem to be doing enough damage for my liking) and replacing it with Flares.
I know that traditionally Flares has never been rated but I am wondering if that has changed now that we have Defiance V2.0? I am thinking that Flares, Fire Bolt and Fire Ball will be a good triple volley to get the Defiance bonus.
So, from a purely "statistical" standpoint is Flares now worth it or should I stick with Combustion?