Black Mage

....but to get back to things addressing BLM, I personally believe that no jobs should have ZERO utility. Some should have more than others (RDM, BRD, MCH) but "pure DPS" will never be stronger than utility. Utility is d a m a g e. Battle Litany, Embolden, Devotion, Radiant Shield, they provide damage for the party. Party play is centered around utility and the optimization of such.

There may always be "a meta" but there's no need to make it so that a class has literally nothing to offer and no synergy with other classes, see also: BLM.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

As long as vercure still procced Dualcast so I could use it mid-phase transition...the way that vercure is mainly used as in actual content.

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Vercure should've always been useable in combat, they made bard songs useable mid combat, its bad design to force a pause/break in the rotation for defensive utility. They removed cast time of mp/tp song, and even moved shield swipe to ogcd. Raise is the only defensive utility that should interrupt a rotation significantly since it's such a game changer.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

See this is the paragraph I have the most issue with because you claim Summoner to be a pure-dps type dps...when it's not. It brings more added damage utility in more forms than RDM does, retains a rez, and has more utility than RDM does. At the moment it's one of if not the absolute zeniths of dps jobs, because in personal dps it matches SAM in almost every fight and passes it when it's not riding it's butt, and it brings rDPS alongside healing buffs.

SMN is every bit the support you claim to want to nerf but you act like SMN is meant to be on top because...why? And I know you don't want SMN touched in this way because your divide is quite clearly stated as "rdm/mch/nin/brd" as supports and "smn/blm/sam/drg" as true dds.

SMN would need heavy nerfs to Contagion, Radiant Shield, and Devotion to be considered a pure dps. BLM needs damage buffs to beat SMN anyway, as it should be the job matching or surpassing SAM as it is the "SAM of Casting".

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Yes, I agree smns would need adjustment, I drew the line between support and pure dps more from what people went into the job expecting. I doubt drg/smns went into the job thinking, hey I'm going to be a support job, while a lot of people probably went into brd/mch/rdm knowing it'd be more support oriented. Nins on the other hand, I think they are just too far gone into the support territory to bring them out of it.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

TBH, if they were to do this I'd prefer them to add a new role, "Support", that way people knew what they were getting into; dungeons could be changed to be 5 man (Tank/Heal/DPS/DPS/Support) and re-balanced a bit perhaps.

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This would be ideal, but I think SE and other game companies are still afraid of the population imbalance of the title of support attached to a job. Bard in ff11 was necessary in all groups, but no one wanted to play it, support is possibly less attractive than even tank and healer. The answer to that was they gave damage to everyone, support, tank, healer. And that's what makes them afraid to give pure dps real dps, since it would overshadow tanks/healers/supports.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

[The rest of the stuff]

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I was on mobile, but yeah, I meant bring mch/nin down to rdm/brd, and bring mnk/drg up to smn and gut all 3 of their utilities a bit, then bring blm up to sam, and give both sam and blm a little more. That way there are essentially 3 tiers of dps, 100% being sam/blm, 90%+minor utility being mnk/drg/smn, and 75%+significant utility being rdm/nin/brd/mch. People don't like dps nerfs, so this way the least amount of people are pissed off by straight potency nerfs, and having a clear cut tiering would make balance easier on their end.

*edit* looking at smns, yeah nvm they are a little ridiculous, so maybe bring smn and drg to mnk levels would be better.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

snip

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Not to be snarky but didn't you just make this point like 1 or 2 pages ago?

We've been rehashing the same kinds of points over and over again, I won't deny it, but this thread is supposed to be about BLM fixes at endgame not RDM.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

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Oh I wasn't trying to derail or anything. I just wanted to pop in and give a take on RDM situation at endgame since it came up. Do go back to your discussion and I agree with most of your proposed fixes. Not that I know a ton about BLM endgame other than what friends tell me.

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Originally Posted by TsuKoj

-MASSIVE CLIP-
*edit* looking at smns, yeah nvm they are a little ridiculous, so maybe bring smn and drg to mnk levels would be better.

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First: Someone made a good point about this being a BLM thread not a caster balance thread; I apologize for assisting in the derail.

Second, to the poster I quoted: I apologize if I came off as abrasive in the post you quoted. On re-reading I didn't really like my own tone.

Third: You do make a good point regarding what the player is expecting upon going into the job being the job's stated intent. Llugen makes a good point on why Caster comps are inherently weak, but I stand by if they made Embolden affect all damage, then it would make SMN/BLM/RDM a bit more palatable than it currently is. I don't want SMN to be nerfed into the ground, either; like you said on your edit, it is just a bit ridiculous as is right now. BLM definitely needs some potency buffs; I'm not an expert on the job, so I'm not sure if anything like Llugen's suggested Indulgence buff is necessary though. Reduce its CD and HP cost, maybe increase recovered HP, I would say, but otherwise leave it untouched.

I didn't feel it was too abrasive at all, I was on mobile so I was just spitballing ideas.

Imo straight potency buffs plus return of a raging strikes like cooldown would be fine to fix blm(oh I also like the 20/60 leylines change, although I use swift + between the lines to negate knock backs(o1s) and to bait aoes(blizzard 3/delta attack) too much to want that to change). Unlike pre 4.1 smn, blm and rdm feel fine rotation wise. There doesn't need to be any dramatic changes to their rotations or mobility. Atm blm is very satisfying to play well, and however inadvertent it was, the decision making of whether or not to blizz 4 each rotation adds a little bit of depth and character to the rotation.

The current issues with blm are an issue with casters in general, including rdm.
They are still balancing casters the same way they balanced casters in 2.0.

The main issue with blm and rdm is that they suffer from having a caster tax, which should no longer exist.

In 2.0 blms had gcd cast times and instant procs as part of their rotation. Now cast times are longer and instant procs are unreliable.

In 2.0 the only jobs that benefited from synergistic raid buffs were brd and blm, (piercing and foe req). Now casters benefit the least from raid buffs, theres 1 magic only raid buff, and 2(essentially 3 with dragon sight) physical only raid buffs. In addition to that, blm benefit less from crit buffs(litany, songs, chain strat, spear) due to a mandatory minimum allocation into spell speed.

Fight design also changed dramatically. In 2.0 being ranged was an advantage since fights were mostly single targeted abilities, point blank aoes, and gimmicky adds. Fights are now designed using mostly cone attacks, stack markers, tethers, knock backs and raid wide aoes, that along with the fact that cure 3 and earthly star are such short range, the safest spot is often stacked on the boss with the melee. Beyond that, most bosses that have a boss centered aoe, has a dynamo styled aoe as well. (*edit* And almost forgot the introduction of run around like a headless chicken mechanics, void blizz 3 and ice storm.) Also fights have more forced downtime and phase changes which is free time for self burst buffs to cooldown, and blm lost raging strikes. And gaze attacks and caution type attacks(void fire 3, a10, and gc alpha dice thing) are bigger dps losses for casters.

And then there's the synergy issue, not with other dps, but with tanks. Even if blm/smn/rdm synergize well with each other, the fact that tanks are physical, doesn't have to sacrifice gcds to do their jobs, and do significantly more dps than healers, who do have to sacrifice gcds to heal, or sacrifice heals(mp) to dps. Means physical buffs will give more damage than magic buffs, and also help with enmity generation and control.

The way I see it, the way to make casters viable atm is to raise their potencies significantly, add a magic tank(blu/geo?), or reintroduce gimmicky magic damage required adds(please no).

While this is a BLM balance thread, it's wrong to think that any change applied to a job won't affect other jobs at all, so I'd say other perspective should not be shunned

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Originally Posted by Llugen

[...] but "pure DPS" will never be stronger than utility. Utility is d a m a g e. [...]

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Which means pure DPS can be stronger, weaker or equal to utility, depending on how it's tuned, as it essentially just translates to damage either way. If you say pure DPS will never be stronger, you're essentially just saying you have no faith in SE to tune it right.

Rightfully so, I should add, but I wanted to note that it's not a general necessity.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Which means pure DPS can be stronger, weaker or equal to utility, depending on how it's tuned, as it essentially just translates to damage either way. If you say pure DPS will never be stronger, you're essentially just saying you have no faith in SE to tune it right.

Rightfully so, I should add, but I wanted to note that it's not a general necessity.

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I won't jump into the BLM discussion too much, since mine is still 60, but I did want to point out that part of the danger of having a "pure DPS" job is that the OTHER jobs - ie, the ones with "damage-boosting utility" - basically serve as a prop for that job and nothing more. If you have, say, SAM and BLM as the "pure DPS" jobs and everyone else is designed to boost those two in some way, balance eventually gets distilled down into a few talking points such as "which one is overall stronger in their base damage?" and "which one benefits the most from the other jobs' buffs?". I recall how controversial the World of Warcraft buff removal was in...I think Mists of Pandaria?, but watching XIV struggle with juggling with making jobs have group buffs that fit thematically and aren't busted and don't marginalize jobs that DON'T have those buffs (*cough AST cough*), I'm starting to come around to Blizzard's way of thinking. Not to say they're right on every balance point (jesus god warlocks), but this is actually one that I think I agree with.

They started homogenizing them in Wotlk actually when they made things like blessing of wisdom and mana spring totem beign the same.

Honestly I wouldn't like the game to get to that point, it would make for a dull game, we should ask SE to actually comply with their design philosophy more than anything and actually think more outside of the box. BLM beign in a weird spot in not just for the faults of the class alone, giving them a ress and a raid buff would only mean that.......you'd still take a double ranged meta or a triple melee combo (and maybe make RDM dwell even more on the bottom)

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Originally Posted by TsuKoj

Words of wisdom

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Dang, I was thinking of making a post similiar to this but it seems that you saved me the effort. I didnt think there would be a post this long where I agreed with basically every point made, yet here it is.

In my opinion blm doesnt need any fundamental changes or raid utility or ress or anything like that. Gib Raging Strikes back and get rid of that old, nowadays obsolete ranged tax and all is well in the hood.

If they did decide to give BLM back a magic damage buff, it had better be a 120 second recast, and then that means it doesn't line up with Ley Lines which would be super frustrating. Perhaps they could reduce Ley Lines to 20-25 seconds long and 60 seconds recast, but somehow I doubt that will happen.

Party damage utility gets better and better the more you have, so the idea of feeding one class that does high damage "puts all the eggs in one basket" as Galvuu said a few pages back; it's far more efficient and less risky to simply feed the party for higher damage and if something does go wrong, less is lost. This is a no-brainer: parties WANT party damage, not "selfish damage". If I on BLM could legitimately do about 6100 DPS, then it MIGHT be on par with me doing 5800 on SMN, but even still probably not because devotion and radiant shield buff my group still wants more.

The bottom line is this: party utility can and will always be better optimized than "selfish DPS" unless you completely overpower the class. Add to that its really poor movement, its lack of synergy with 2 minute cooldowns, and its requirement to be "planned around" by the group and you have yourself a class that no one wants in their raid party.


Also side note: minor spoilers, but whoever said GEO for potential tank, there is a pretty strong hint from the AST questline that GEO will be a healer, so yep. BLU is far more likely especially since getting hit is kinda the point of the lore of the job ;)

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Originally Posted by Remedi

While this is a BLM balance thread, it's wrong to think that any change applied to a job won't affect other jobs at all, so I'd say other perspective should not be shunned

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100% agree. That's the thing about balancing one class; you have to understand how these changes will affect everyone else. If we buffed Disembowel to 10% because DRG is underperforming, we can't just forget about BRD and MCH. We have to work on BLM as part of something, not as a sole entity. Giving BLM a 10~% magic vuln up will just buff SMN even higher who is at the top of the dps table now.

In my opinion it is high time for a caster-friendly comp, so this doesn't really bother me. In theory Garuda + BLM should be strong but it's not as strong as Ifrit + everything that is melee, so I don't really see a ton of validity to that point. Furthermore, if it's put on Blizzard IV, then it doesn't overpower BLM's already very strong AOE damage, since it is applied to one target at a time. I can definitively say, as a current SMN "main" (or refugee, if you will), that it absolutely deserves a nerf, probably bringing the DoT IIIs back to 40 potency per tick would be sufficient, and then shortening radiant shield to last 15 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

In my opinion it is high time for a caster-friendly comp, so this doesn't really bother me. In theory Garuda + BLM should be strong but it's not as strong as Ifrit + everything that is melee.

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I'd really love a multiple caster meta for once. Last time I raided with another caster was in T7 :(
I'd even share my loot with them ;P

Well that'd be the beauty of BLM/RDM or BLM/SMN, BLM would want the speed spec pieces and the other two generally would want the ones that are not speed spec. So different tome gear and different raid drops would be allocated appropriately.

On top of this, I would like to see them introduce augmentations to the 24-man gear and a specially designed request-crafted gearset using lockout tomes that makes max item level equipment (HQ unavailable, advanced melding forbidden) that also uses the twine/roborant/glaze. Two permutations of max item level gear makes for too little customization, in my opinion. But I digress.


(****responding to the below comment to conserve forum posts/thread space****) To be quite frank I still don't care if RDM is "underperforming" because it still has its niche as being simple, versatile, movement-efficient, and emergency healer/Rez Dispenser (tm) (see also: EXTREMELY effective for progression and still very usable for post-progression). RDM SHOULD be the weakest of the casters, period. I might buff Embolden to be flat 5% to all damage over 10% diminishing to physical only, if they really want to help it.

RDM is atm too weak for a caster comp to work however (fropm 50th percentile higher) it underperforms on average against BLM even with raid contribution considered.

Movements efficency is overrated on RDM especially on prolonged ones
You seem to forgot on your nagging about BLM movements that we do have 40 potency dot on the target + the very weak scathing and that's is without considering procs, swift, triple and sharpcasts,
It might now seem much but on prolonged movements it matters because outside of that dualcast RDM have virtually nothing not to mention that to maximise their dmg you need to use your movements abilities.

Also if you really think that caster balance matters giving BLM a ress would rob RDM of it's niche and utility because that way you would have 2 very strong personal dps jobs whose ress capabilitites do not interfere with their dps rotation (SMN beign MP infinite as you said and your BLM ress idea beign an OGCD thing, while ion RDM you sacrifice a 300 potency spell +11 black/white mana AND a possibility of a proc for a ress which may or may not be problematic depending on when you used lucid dream)
So tell me do you really think that If BLM gets a ress and a raid dps cd on top of a burst personal CD, do you really think that in an hypothetical double caster comp there's gonna be space for a RDM simply because they can ress 3 times and then be oom?

I could understand the point that Red Mage is rather easy but smn offers just as much support, is more complicated yes but is way above Red has movement and out damages blm yet again.... (The bs notion that blm gets all the love because Yoshi mains it is a joke)
SE really have to get their stuff together to balance jobs more and yes even increase output of Red some. No reason why as it stands blm should be so behind as it offers no group utility, smn should be behind it on damage.
No idea what they are thinking giving jobs with support+ do more damage.. it is rather un-balanced
Sam suffers from this i believe as well now, people were so quick to say it was OP but we now see otherwise.

You're not wrong but the issue isn't because RDM is underbalanced, the issue is because no one at SE apparently has any idea what they're doing as far as SMN is concerned so they do ridiculous stuff like making devotion affect the whole party at 2% while forgetting that it will always be up with radiant shield, effectively making it a solid 4%. In other words, the problem isn't that RDM is underbalanced, it's that they broke SMN (again. again again, even.).

Perhaps the MOST ironic part about it is that the recent changes to SMN didn't even address the real issues with the clunk of the rotation (Ruin II/movement delaying Bahamut's WWs, the "dump" nature of the opener/setup, the wasted time on Rouse, etc). The Tri-Bind buff was warranted and making Devotion more intuitive was nice as well, but I just find it hilarious.

Meanwhile, BLM got nothing, which, after seeing nothing in the preliminary patch notes about it, this thread was begun/many pleading tickets were submitted. Sigh.


"I hate that every time I play the job that I want, I have it in the back of my mind that I'd be contributing more by picking almost anything else" - Blackcat Ofillomen

Sry If I sounded a bit angsty there, But ye I wanted to point out what you said, which is that SMN is idd a problem as things are.

If SMN gets a bit rebalanced I do think that implementing your ideas of earlier would be more manageable

Oh i agree with you Llugen, it really seems they have no clue how to balance things.
Certain aspects are broken of jobs so their solutions is always just to buff meanwhile the after effect is always a caster being behind
Like how many times in ARR and HW was it back and forth between smn and blm getting buffs, nerfs, etc..

The thing about RDM is, a job doesn't need to be meta or the best to be desired. Right now people like RDM for unlimited Raise. So even if Red Mages aren't popular for speedrunning, if you aren't doing it (and most people aren't), you'll be fine in a group ready to fix a death with a quick raise and that is why people like them. This thread is to adress the fact BLM has nothing to be liked by others, therefore why people refuse to play with BLMs and why BLM players feel like they add nothing to the party.

By that reasoning BLM should be valued for his personal dmg like SAM (no slashing doesn't count), what puts him down arguably is the fact that a caster doesn't exist yet.
However Galvuu he did also say that SE was able to make work and because of that they could be able to make it work again, he did say that puting your eggs in1 basket is less valuable yes but you could make it work as a hoigh risk/reward setting and we did say that death is not contemplated in high play.

Personally a DPS that is mostly valued by his instant ress (they ARE limited)is not really ok, as we already had fight were diying would put you in a worse situation (hi, phoenix) or had a strict check, this would make their main attraction moot
Also of note they are in the same archetype of dps as NIN and BRD and they provide much more.

In other news patch notes are out and nothing on class changes make your own conclusions, but it doesn't bode well imho

You could buff BLM to be worth it in the hands of a competent player quite easily through potency changes alone but it doesnt change they fact that there is too much synergy going on between melee and ranged.

IMO all the 100% (or close to it) uptime resistance down debuffs need to die in a fire. They are boring in design and what do they bring to the game apart from restricting job selection in difficult / speed running content? Remove those and lower summoners potency a touch and overall balance starts to look a lot better.

It's simply unacceptable that even two years later (four, if you count bard) that DRG's piercing is "required" for MCH/BRD (required as far as meta is concerned). It boggles my mind that they haven't given piercing to straight shot/hotshot.

What further blows my mind is that there has STILL been no adjustment to Trick Attack. I don't think the devs truly understand the power of burst windows, which is why burst classes will always synergize better than "consistent damage" like BLM allegedly is now.

This needs amended. I don't mind the resistance debuffs but they need to be more readily available for more classes. Piercing down is on ONE class. Blunt down is on ONE class. This is unacceptable. Give Ifrit Blunt Down maybe and the ranged their own piercing down.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

It's simply unacceptable that even two years later (four, if you count bard) that DRG's piercing is "required" for MCH/BRD (required as far as meta is concerned). It boggles my mind that they haven't given piercing to straight shot/hotshot.

What further blows my mind is that there has STILL been no adjustment to Trick Attack. I don't think the devs truly understand the power of burst windows, which is why burst classes will always synergize better than "consistent damage" like BLM allegedly is now.

This needs amended. I don't mind the resistance debuffs but they need to be more readily available for more classes. Piercing down is on ONE class. Blunt down is on ONE class. This is unacceptable. Give Ifrit Blunt Down maybe and the ranged their own piercing down.

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Or just consolidate them into one PDPS boost and give it to tanks.

Yeah I gotta admit seeing BLMs doing same Damage output and sometimes less due to mechanics and weaker mobility than any other classes, makes me question wether to keep playing BLM even when I have kept it my main class since 1.0 in 2011.
It sucks hearing that I should try other classes for raiding as others bring more overall usage and utility.
If BLMs are lacking in utility and mobility, their raw damage should be higher than other classes with raid damage increase utility. Or give BLMs more mobility and give us Spell Speed or something that buffs the entire team as well.

With last patch they pretty much made Dragoons damage equal to samurai. And DRG also have great raid utility while SAM does not.

Class balance needs more work imo. I am starting to loose having fun as a BLM ingame lately since Stormblood :( I am leveling MCH atm and it is sooo amazing to see so high damage numbers and I can walk around freely while doing it and buff my raid.

That's ultimately the whole point of this thread. NO ONE wants to be shunned for their class or have that inkling in the back of their mind that they should play a different class because it's better or theirs sucks. Some classes will be better at some things than others, of course, and that is how it should be, but no one should be feeling BAD for playing a job, and that's exactly how it feels to play BLM in 4.0 at endgame. (This is a big part of the reason that I think all classes should have at least SOME form of utility, this way party members aren't groaning at bringing a class that is "selfish" and having to either feed them or work around them)

I believe class synergy is a good thing that adds depth to the game and expands the strategies that groups can use, but it's too limited right now around what is indisputably best. There will always be "a meta", which is fine, and even preferable (not all groups need to be hardcore speed-killers/world prog, and you don't NEED meta to clear content) but other classes should never feel like a burden to bring. That's just really poor design.

FFXIV 1.0 had some THM/BLM spells that could be brought back and reworked to work as a raid utility.
List of all the old BLM abilities from 1.0: http://www.final-fantasy-14.org/abil...&page=1&ipp=50

Abilities I think would be nice for XIV ARR. I still miss my Burst ancient magic ;)
Blood Rite II
LVL 34
Thaumaturge
Spill your own blood in a sacrificial rite, enhancing magic potency to players near the caster.


Banish II
LVL 24
Thaumaturge
Deals astral damage to and reduces magic defense of enemies within area of effect.


Initiation
LVL 22
Thaumaturge
Bestow your strengths on another, granting up to four enhancing statuses to an ally.


Scourge II
24
Thaumaturge
Deals umbral damage to and reduces magic defense of enemies within area of effect


Stygian Spikes II
42
Thaumaturge
Armors party members within area of effect with umbral spikes, granting the ability to absorb MP from attacking enemies.


Dia II
36
Thaumaturge
Deals astral damage over time and reduces the defense of enemies within area of effect.

Sweet jesus, stealing (and adapting) this suggestion from Eloah in the other thread regarding Blizzard II, Sleep, and Freeze being awful:


Sub Zero Lv. 54: When MP is reduced to zero, the next cast of Freeze will cost no MP and grant a full stack of Umbral Ice
Enhanced Umbral Heart Lv. 68: Successful usage of a Sub Zero proc grants three Umbral Hearts


Also yes, these 1.0 utilities suggested could be neat, particularly if they could apply to a DRK in Grit. Suitable utility for BLM could be as simple as just a 180s recast party-wide speed buff a la Battle Litany, though, and even THAT would be pretty much fine.


Side note: Do the devs even read these forums? The description specifies "discussion with other players." Where do we go to post suggestions that the devs will actually read? I think we've made some real progress with this thread and some of the others (Meltdown, Freeze, etc)

Take convert, call it Astral speed, make it gives 15% speed to every one for 15 secs bam done

I think it should be something that eats your ley lines and gives it party wide (plus then you wouldn't be stuck in it every other time). Convert definitely needs love but it's still nice to have that extra MP single target and that extra flare for aoe.

Why is everyone so bent on Convert being useless? It's a vital part of openers, allowing 8 F4s. With all the other issues we face I don't see a need to change that specific skill.

It's because it has 3 min CD and it essentially gives 1-2 fire IV which is a bit low

@Llugen I'm thinking about removing the haste buff from ley lines and make it permanent, also between the lines moved to the same level you learn ley lines and essentially morphing it into a movement tool where you switch place with your ley lines once you use between the lines

also tbf they read it surely, I mean most of 4.0 SMN skills are essentially their answer to that branch of forum community wanting more interactions with pets, what we can also deduce is that they however keep such changes for expansion idea pitch while also having a lesser approach during patch time.

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Originally Posted by Lelila38

Why is everyone so bent on Convert being useless? It's a vital part of openers, allowing 8 F4s. With all the other issues we face I don't see a need to change that specific skill.

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It's not a bad ability. Just an awkward one. It's a 3 min cooldowns and takes 20% of your hp for 2 fire 4s. Openers are strong because of buff stacking. It's when all the raid buffs and personal buffs go up which makes each buff more effective. Problem with convert is it doesn't really fit the opener meta. Trick attack lasts 10s and is used on the 5th-7th gcd 11-25s, litany is up on the 2nd-3rd gcd 3.5-25s, foe reqs up on the first 1.5s-25s, same with battle voice, chain strat is used to match trick and litany. So the window of power is essentially between 3-11 is good, 11-25 amazing. Blm standard opener(@1917ss) (also rough estimates but I'm erroring in favor of convert) is sharp b3(0) > t3(2.35) > b4(4.9) > t3p(6.25) > ll > f3(8.5) > tc > f4(10.7) > pot > f4(12.95) > swift > f4(15.2) > lucid > f4(17.45) > convert > f1(19.6) > f4(21.85) > f4(24.1) > then 2 more f4s but at this point all the raid buffs are down(looking back at my logs my last two actually started casting at on the 24.5 second mark with arrow, and 29 second mark without). So the two fire 4s you gain off convert aren't really "opener" fire 4s, but just standard ones which while a dps gain, is minimal. Convert used to be awesome when blm had raging strikes since they could with enough ss fit extra fire spells in during the buff window.

The other issue with it is being a 3min cd makes the timing on it awkward. You want to time it under your infusion, but infusion cd is 4.5m. So in a 9+ minute fight you'd either lose a use of convert or not be able to line them up. You can convert at minute 3, 6, 9 where it only lines up with an infusion at minute 9, or you can convert at minute 4.5 and 9 to have it line up both times but lose a use of convert.

In the end, it's not a bad ability, it's a dps gain most definitely, but it's lost a lot of its spark due to the loss of raging strikes, and the fact that extending your rotation isn't the best way to synergize with others. It's also has a hp cost that makes it dangerous to use in certain situations.

I wish Convert would be a 1 minute cooldown with roughly halved effect. You could get in an extra F4 with Triple and more opportunities for Flare Convert shenanigans. It would also help with recovery if you mess up your mana.

To be in agreement with lore about black mages, Convert should either be a THM ability or it should cost no health and be called Channel or something.

Convert just needs to have an effect to justify the cooldown. Its so laughable ineffective right now. How much of a dps difference is there between someone who uses convert correctly and someone who doesn't? Because it surely cant be more than 1%

IMO, i would like to see it changed to something like this;

Convert
Sacrifices 30% of maximum HP to restore 100% of MP. Cannot be executed when current HP is lower than 30%.
Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire III and removes Umbral Ice.

The idea of Convert is fine it's just weak so it needs tuning up.

If it's going to continue to be 180s recast, I'd have it give you an entire MP bar, three Umbral Hearts, and maybe even a set of procs (particularly a Thundercloud as its most likely that your initial Thunder III is about to fall off)

If they want to keep the effect the way it is, I'd say it should be 60s recast (so every other fire phase) or maybe 90 would be acceptable so it works with Ley Lines. Also if they do this, they should either lower the HP required or remove that stipulation completely, as it would drive the healers crazy. (Indulge)