Suggestion: Upcoming BLM skills

[Sehkmet]

Honestly don't like these ideas at all. In fact I think some are verging on completely over powered. The idea of a shroud or "cloak" has been done before and I am not against that as it was in XI. For example Flames & Lightning, so if you got struck in combat you would deal damage back to them. I think the Lightning based one was called "Shock Spikes". I think these would be a good idea to add.

I would also remove the current AoE and go back to the old school XI style and have 'Ga spells. Maybe they could use some of the similar effects of the spells we currently have. Eg the Astral stances and the Thundercloud abilities. But not allowing procs for more AoE but for single target spells. Because being able to cast Thundaga III instantly would be OP.

I hope that wasn't to negative, I like that you are thinking ahead and trying to improve the class, but I don't feel this is the right step. But naturally I would feel my ideas are more the right step. Ha-ha.

Just to put some info on the table, in every Final Fantasy game, except FFXI:
Fire 1 = Fire
Fire 2 = Fira
Fire 3 = Firaga
Fire 4 = Firaja
Ice/Blizzard 1 = Blizzard
Ice/Blizzard 2 = Blizzara
Ice/Blizzard 3 = Blizzaga
Ice/Blizzard 4 = Blizzaja
Thunder/Bolt 1 = Thunder
Thunder/Bolt 2 = Thundara
Thunder/Bolt 3 = Thundaga
Thunder/Bolt 4 = Thundaja

And so on. About the Spikes... Not sure if that is a good suggestion, while they might be good for soloing, that is totally not the case when partying. Ifrit-egi has Radiant Shield, that sux, since he almost never gets hit.
Thaumaturges already got a useless spell in Surecast, I don't really think they need another crap spell.
Black Mage should have access to Death, the tier 4 damage spells, and I guess that is it. It was always a pretty straightforward job from FF1 till today, magic damage, and that's it.

[Meta-Flare]

I like these ideas. Especially the float spell. I'd love if arcanist got this so I could use it as a white Mage. It would be cool to float and holy a mob to death lol.

[Marveth]

For those who say it's unbalanced, even though I said it's a balancing factor you must remember that this is not for current game, it's for higher level content. This means all classes should have stronger than current skills to take on the new content for that level.

Personally I find the skills to be rather fair but there might have been overlooks. The point is still to make you feel like a mage with a lot of potent inherited power.
For example changing your crit chance to 50% for 20s is far from overpowered, considering all a crits does is to add 50% extra damage and if you have 50% chance to crit then it's simply a fancier way of saying 25% bonus damage for that duration. It does not even add 25% to your damage because you already have like 5-10% crit rate as BLM so it's more like it adds 20% damage. If you then take into consideration that BLM (Or THM rather) already have gotten passives that flat out increase all damage by 30%! just for gaining a level, then this is quite a small step if you compare.

Float spell is a bit different from the others but that is because I just had this idea that Float would really suit mage play in this game. IMO situational skills should tackle a problematic situation that you frequently meet during normal play. That way it feels so sweet when you get that skill that will help you so much.

[ShadowWolf252]

So, I realize this is sort of a fringe desire, but I really miss how in FFXI black mages were able to use all 6 elements. Now, no one wants the old BLM spam one spell , but it would be nice if they could somehow work all 6 elements into the rotation. I think a cool way would be to have it so that instead of Astral Fire and Umbral Ice, you chose a specific element to be major (Astral) based on the elemental weakness of an enemy, and then the element that is weak to it in the cycle becomes Umbral. The Thunder spell then becomes something akin to Frost/Rasp/etc. from FFXI. You could switch between elements like elementalists in GW2. It might be a sort of cool mechanic that works enemy weaknesses into a rotation in an interesting way. Of course, the weaknesses shouldn't have such a strong effect that they render other classes skills totally useless.

Probably not too many people are as obsessed with pattern completion as I am, but it might be a cool idea.

[point09micron]

I had a thought about this. In FFXI there was Ancient Magic for every element. FFXIV has Freeze (modified) and Flare (modified), but where's the Burst equivalent?

A simple nuke wouldn't be any good, because Fire is the nuke element in this game. So considering Thunder is our DOT my idea is this:

Name: Thunderstorm or Storm
MP: eh dunno. Maybe make it an ability though instead of a spell.
Target: Ground AOE like Freeze.
Duration: 30ish seconds
Effect: On every tick count (i.e. every 3 seconds) lightning stikes a random target in the area, basically casting Thunder-level initial potency on that target, giving the target a 9-12 second Thunder effect.

I figure the DOT duration should be short, but since it will be automatically applying Thunder to potentially many targets, the chances for a Thundercloud proc should be substantially higher. NOTE: can affect both enemies and allies (can't have it too overpowered afterall). Or, if there's few targets in the area, the same one may get hit several times.

Come to think of it, basically a FFXIV equivalent of Rafalak's spells from FFT, with the addition of adding the Thunder DOT on successful hits.

Now, no one wants the old BLM spam one spell , but it would be nice if they could somehow work all 6 elements into the rotation.

Heh, except that's exactly what FFXI BLM was. The only time any element other than Thunder is used, is if the enemy is strong to it.

[Tassidaru]

Heh, except that's exactly what FFXI BLM was. The only time any element other than Thunder is used, is if the enemy is strong to it.

To be exact, The FFXI BLM mantra was, "Check day, check weather, check weakness, cast Thunder (5)"