I thought I would hate Blm. I was wrong.

Flare? I rarely use flare? It always seems like it doesnt do much damage. What stat do you prioritize?

Give up your secrets fellow BLM mages!

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

HW Enochian was a lot trickier than it is now. Back then we started with fire and used B4 to refresh Enochian, though everytime you ended the chain the refresh extended it for 5 seconds LESS until it finally reset to the original 30 seconds (or however long it was--pretty sure it was 30). Eventually you got a feel for how many F4s you could squeeze in between B4 casts and you could chain it endlessly but it took a lot more attention to detail than it does now.

It was jarring to start with B4 in Stormblood but BLM requires a lot less looking at timers now. Im glad more people are picking it up.

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I do remember that.

Though I admit I really liked BLM back in HW too. Back when the Void Ark series was the Alliance Raids I used to go in as BLM every now and then when I would get bored of doing SMN and I just felt like nuking the crap out of things. And I found the old Enochian tighter and more restrictive, but surprisingly fun to play.

But then again I also liked the old Transpose and playstyle of the 50th level BLM too, unlike apparently a lot of others here.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Flare? I rarely use flare? It always seems like it doesnt do much damage. What stat do you prioritize?

Give up your secrets fellow BLM mages!

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I'm not a big blm person but flare is honestly your go to aoe spell past a certain level, especially when you get the trait that let's flare benefit from Umbral hearts

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Originally Posted by Nemekh

I wouldn't call past iterations remotely close to how beneficial Shadowbringers release BLM's changes were. Lots of QoL and AF/UI's timer being further increased and nothing new was fundamentally broken in any regard. In fact the only real change BLM has had is the indicator for how many spells left can be made instant with Triplecast in 5.10. The job has had no underlying mechanics changed because it was that good.

Meanwhile, in Stormblood F4/B4 spells were 3s base on release, the AF/UI timers were shorter, the Enochian upgrade tooltip was incorrect (leading people to think its damage% was bugged/did nothing when it was fine) and Foul had a mana cost. These things did get resolved after the fact but it wasn't already in the best state possible on release. Even further down the line were potency adjustments done and the anim lock and speed of AM was made much better.

Heavensward's release state is harder for me to recall, I mostly have memories of not enjoying the old Eno B4 timer mechanic at high ping, the state of SMN and SCH's teapot Broil.

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Perhaps it wasn't to the degree of Shadowbringers, but in general I recall Stormblood Black Mage players were extremely satisfied with how the class played and what the job received even on launch before they'd further refined it with tweaks.

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Originally Posted by DBriggs304

Flare? I rarely use flare? It always seems like it doesnt do much damage. What stat do you prioritize?

Give up your secrets fellow BLM mages!

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I don't have any secrets as I just hit 80 myself. Just simple math for AoE fights.

At 68+ you can cast two flares with one mana bar. That's 520 potency plus 312 potency for all other enemies for 10,000 mp. With Astral Fire III up (which it should always be and why you throw a Fire III in there after Freeze > Enochian > Thunder IV), that increases by 80% so 936 potency on initial target and 562 potency for other targets for one cast bar.

Fire II is only 80 potency per mob and at 3500 mana each cast, so that's only 160 potency total (not enough mana for three casts) for one full bar or 288 total potency for each mob, which is worse than even the lowered damage from Flare.

Note, you don't need a full mana bar to cast Flare. You only need like 1500 mana, which is why rotations before 68 use Fire II twice (bringing you down to 2500-3000 mana) and finish with Flare. Then you use Transpose to start regaining mana back (at 72 you can just cast Freeze thanks to Aspect Mastery).

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Perhaps it wasn't to the degree of Shadowbringers, but in general I recall Stormblood Black Mage players were extremely satisfied with how the class played and what the job received even on launch before they'd further refined it with tweaks.

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Can confirm. I wasn't sure how I felt about Eno being passive'd as I'm all about skirting timers, but Stormblood Black Mage, even before the refinements, was great. The MP adjustments were ace.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

I don't have any secrets as I just hit 80 myself. Just simple math for AoE fights.

At 68+ you can cast two flares with one mana bar. That's 520 potency plus 312 potency for all other enemies for 10,000 mp. With Astral Fire III up (which it should always be and why you throw a Fire III in there after Freeze > Enochian > Thunder IV), that increases by 80% so 936 potency on initial target and 562 potency for other targets for one cast bar.

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Just wanna point out, before someone else/better comes along with all the actual numbers, but, evidently, all the maths worked out, you should just avoid that Fire III during AoE. The increased potency of one Flare doesn't make up for the loss of potency using a single target spell.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Just wanna point out, before someone else/better comes along with all the actual numbers, but, evidently, all the maths worked out, you should just avoid that Fire III during AoE. The increased potency of one Flare doesn't make up for the loss of potency using a single target spell.

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It comes out to something like 5.08 targets is the breakpoint.

Which is basically not enough to worry about. Hot flare v Cold Flare, the bigger swing is going to be based on TCloud.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Perhaps it wasn't to the degree of Shadowbringers, but in general I recall Stormblood Black Mage players were extremely satisfied with how the class played and what the job received even on launch before they'd further refined it with tweaks.

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We recall it differently. Stormblood era balance concerns are still very fresh in my mind especially in the context of how the community at large, and in particular the channels in The Balance, was reacting to them. There were many complaints about Foul having a cost being clunky for the UI phase and people across the regions being dissatisfied with the damage potential and its execution against the timers. That's what the 3s -> 2.8s cast time adjustment helped address in the initial wave of changes. Then once Deltascape hit there were more complaints on other matters even prior to 4.1.

Nice to hear how BLM is, just picked one up myself to try Caster dps for the first time. Looking forward to the higher levels.