Some interesting numbers on 4.0 BLM

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Originally Posted by corey1

Make Umbral Hearts have a cast-time reduction effect in addition to mana reduction.
or
Make Umbral Hearts give an extra couple seconds to your AF timer.
or
Make AF/UI a few seconds longer.

Option 1 is the most fun; option 3 is probably the route they go because the answer is usually: what is the easiest / most boring way to fix this?

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AF/UI timers should have a couple extra seconds on them as a matter of course and shouldn't have anything to do with Umbral Hearts. Additionally, we should have a bit more mana so the 2400 situation never happens; we should not be held at the behest of an arbitrary server tick.

What I'd like to see Umbral Hearts in addition to the mana reduction, is simply provide a 5% damage boost to the fire spells cast under it. That way there would be a clear and tangible benefit to casting Blizzard 4 and not just something that is at best a negligible increase over not using it.

Make Blizzard IV reduce magic resistance by 5%. Forces you to use the "proper" rotation, slightly improves BLM dps and also provides raid utility.
or
Make Blizzard IV reduce fire resistance by 10%. Brings BLM closer to SAM dps but no raid utility (except I guess Katon and a couple of RDM spells)

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

Make Blizzard IV reduce magic resistance by 5%. Forces you to use the "proper" rotation, slightly improves BLM dps and also provides raid utility.
or
Make Blizzard IV reduce fire resistance by 10%. Brings BLM closer to SAM dps but no raid utility (except I guess Katon and a couple of RDM spells)

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I actually like that idea. Since Raging Strikes and Foe Requiem are gone, we have nothing left to buff our magic dps. So that would allow us to buff ourselves as well as give us some synergy with other caster (the magic resistance thing) classes, maybe finally making it viable to go with multiple casters.

So I put some insight in this thread into practice yesterday. I ran Delta 1.0 a few times using Blizzard IV during every Umbral rotation, my last run ended at 3.8k.

Conversely, I ran it a few more times, this time only using Blizzard IV when Convert was ready for the 8 Fire IV rotation. I cast it a total of three times in the entire fight. My number ended at 4.3k on the final run.

I almost feel like this is the intended way to play BLM, because after I broke the habit of casting it every time, it just feels so much smoother. I'm not complaining whatsoever. The Umbral Heart trait is aoe-related after all, who says it has to be a part of our single target rotation?

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

Make Blizzard IV reduce magic resistance by 5%. Forces you to use the "proper" rotation, slightly improves BLM dps and also provides raid utility.
or
Make Blizzard IV reduce fire resistance by 10%. Brings BLM closer to SAM dps but no raid utility (except I guess Katon and a couple of RDM spells)

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And it's good utility!
This is a very good idea :)

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Originally Posted by AxiomPITCH

I almost feel like this is the intended way to play BLM, because after I broke the habit of casting it every time, it just feels so much smoother. I'm not complaining whatsoever. The Umbral Heart trait is aoe-related after all, who says it has to be a part of our single target rotation?

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The aoe rotation is basically B3 > B4 > T4 > F3 > Flare > Foul > Flare > Transpose > Repeat. If it's supposed to be an aoe-related trait, it provides us 2 more Umbral hearts than we need for the aoe rotation.

That's why everyone believes it's supposed to be key to the single target 4.X rotation, that and since the aoe-related trait unlocks at level 68 while Umbral Hearts unlock at level 58 alongside Blizzard IV.

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Originally Posted by Kiriken

The aoe rotation is basically B3 > B4 > T4 > F3 > Flare > Foul > Flare > Transpose > Repeat. If it's supposed to be an aoe-related trait, it provides us 2 more Umbral hearts than we need for the aoe rotation.

That's why everyone believes it's supposed to be key to the single target 4.X rotation, that and since the aoe-related trait unlocks at level 68 while Umbral Hearts unlock at level 58 alongside Blizzard IV.

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But it still is the key, it's just on Convert's cooldown. You can't pull that high without using it at least with Convert.

I also find that it's nice to use if the fight and your rotation align enough to where there will be a small delay in the fight itself while you're still in umbral, you could cast it and do a little more damage (and mobility if you have sharpcast ready at the time as well) in the following astral phase. But it's not consistent, there's many variables that make it inefficient to use. If they really want us to use Blizzard IV, then yes, it does need to be reworked, because as of this moment it's use is incredibly niche on single targets with a 180s cooldown.

Also that aoe rotation should only be used on 4 or more targets. It is slightly inefficient on anything less. Instead, on 3 targets, do B3 > T4 > B4 > F3 > F4 > F4 > Flare > Foul > Flare > Transpose > Repeat. You can place those Fire IV's however you like. I keep trying to find a use for Fire II, such as on 4 targets, but it's literally a waste of time now since you do more overall damage from doing the "quick" astral phase with F3 > Flare with umbral hearts. BLM is in a strange place.

B4 only with convert or also when LL and Triple are ready?

If the fight allows your cooldowns to sync up then yes, B4 should be used with all three of those abilities. The 2nd LL and Triple without Convert however, I'm not sure, I haven't really tested that myself yet. It does make sense to use it, because of how quickly the first 3 Fire IV's go out under LL and Triple, but I dunno if it ends up with a dps increase over just omitting Blizzard IV. Also the 2400 MP remaining is hard to look at while under LL if you don't use B4, so at least there's that reason to use it.

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Originally Posted by qivis

B4 only with convert or also when LL and Triple are ready?

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The rotation will line up LL with Triple perfectly, so whenever that's up you can use B4 and basically do a small opener minus the Convert part.