BLM Recommendations

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

I don't share the hatred towards being a turret some others do.. I think that's what BLM was always meant to be. A giga damage blasting turret and everything you did was in the goal of being able to just stand and cast. The trouble is encounter design has become increasingly antagonistic towards the style of the black mage. Getting to sit and blast is satisfying, but encounter design forces us to be running around instant casting regularly and it is very much against the core of the job.

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Mao agrees with this. Mao is seeing fights gettings more demandings of mobility not less. Is basically appears that Devs doubling down on EW fight designs. BLMs are startings to be left in dust because of this. If Mao was little bits more into conspiracy theories, Mao mights be tempted to say that what was done to BLMs was almost by design. Wreck BLMs and then wave shiny new mobile version (Picto) in front of thems faces and hope that thems take the baits and switch. That way, Devs not has to worry abouts accommodating BLMs for future fight designs.

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

I'd appreciate an extension to our timers as crit low sps blm feels very rough to play now. Our thunder proc lasting longer would also be nice as it often is falling off right as you want to reapply it on low sps. Making the blizz 4 a shorter cast to allow for transpose f3p is an interesting idea. It would save a polyglot in some cases which would be nice.

I don't share the hatred towards being a turret some others do.. I think that's what BLM was always meant to be. A giga damage blasting turret and everything you did was in the goal of being able to just stand and cast. The trouble is encounter design has become increasingly antagonistic towards the style of the black mage. Getting to sit and blast is satisfying, but encounter design forces us to be running around instant casting regularly and it is very much against the core of the job.

I find BLM very enjoyable currently on higher sps but I generally prefer crit blm for the bigger booms so I'd like it to feel less rough than it does now with some small QoL changes. Also in favour of the devs ensuring that the standard rotation remains optimal and enjoyable to play. I still don't want the mana ticks coming back.

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This would also be great btw, good suggestions!

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Originally Posted by LilyPendragon

Suggestion for Black Mage: Just give us Endwalker Black Mage back lol

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But how do you add to it. They’re not just going to roll it back an expansion and call it a day. All jobs need new spells and abilities from 90-100. What would you add?

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Originally Posted by Sequora

But how do you add to it. They’re not just going to roll it back an expansion and call it a day. All jobs need new spells and abilities from 90-100. What would you add?

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EASY! Mao suggests big spell whats consumes charges Polyglots to gives even bigger booms. If has 2 charges, thems get consumed to make blast equal to 250% Polyglots. If has 3 charges, thems get consumed to make blast equal to 400% Polyglots. This way is makes usings Polyglots more interestings because is decisions whats need be made. Also means nothings get lost if complete rotation nots able to be dones as charges whats accumulateds via EW playstyle will still be there. There! Mao solved problem! (Mao does happy dance) Mao thinkings Devs made mistake creatings spell whats COMPETES for usage with Polyglots. What them should has done is recognize hierarchy and build on its. Maintain phases--->Gets Polyglots--->Gets big boom using Polyglots.

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Originally Posted by Sequora

But how do you add to it. They’re not just going to roll it back an expansion and call it a day. All jobs need new spells and abilities from 90-100. What would you add?

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Easy suggestions for things you could add to Endwalker BLM that wouldn't fuck it up. You wouldn't need to add all of these:

- Flare Star, but it keeps charges when going into Umbral Ice. Potency scales with number of stacks, can only be used at zero MP

- Retrace can stay

- Manafont completely reworked: Restores 4800 MP and grants Astral Fire 4, empowering the next 3 Fire IV/Despair casts to do extra damage

- New Instant spell that spends 2x Polyglot but has a longer than normal recast time

- Casting B4 grants a charge of some Ice buff, limit one charge per ice phase. Reaching 3 charges lets you cast Blizzard 5, a slowcast Ice spell that hits really hard.

- Polyglot timer now scales with spell speed

There you go, some fun new spells that don't make the job harder, add new stuff that looks cool, and preserve the flow of EW BLM.

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Originally Posted by Realfoxy

- Manafont completely reworked: Restores 4800 MP and grants Astral Fire 4, empowering the next 3 Fire IV/Despair casts to do extra damage

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https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...akemymoney.jpg

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Originally Posted by Sequora

But how do you add to it. They’re not just going to roll it back an expansion and call it a day. All jobs need new spells and abilities from 90-100. What would you add?

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Fire 4.5
it's the same as fire 4 but shinier

Edit: Actually better yet. Just get the guy who did Summoner and Paladin's updates to work on it. Those classes actually needed something more to them, but they're still exactly the same.

My personal wishlist:

1. AF/UI timers removed. Run around and do whatever and still keep your place in the rotation.
2. AF/UI stacks reworked to show rotation progression, not a generic buff, possibly implemented into spell animations directly to spend them down.
3. Thunder DoT removed, reworked into mini combo all its own, intended to replace triplecast.
4. Leveling Rework.
5. Amplifier and Manafont merged, reworked, enables actual new spells in a small mini-rotation.
6. UI rotation, expanded massively, AF rotation shortened.
7. Button streamlining, removal and/or consolidation of low use buttons.
8. Transpose: Replaced with Umbral Soul outright, simply acts as if you just ended the UI phase, that is resetting you to full mana, 5s GCD, 60s cooldown. Cooldown affected by spell speed because reasons.
9. Transition from AF to UI phases handled via mana levels and fun capstone spells enabled by using other spells with bypass functionality to allow shorter cycling if desired, but the full rotation is the best overall DPS in normal situations.
10. Scathe, Foul, Xenoglossy: Merged into 1 button, hybrid st/aoe skill, acquired at low levels.

BLM was always a combo-adjacent class. Baking in the combo system while removing the hyper-punishment from failure would do well to structure the class better than timers ever did, and building up the UI phase while adding a thunder phase of sorts would allow for the class to actually be more than just a fire mage, while still being a master of explosive damage.