BLM 6.x speculation

It has that singular use, yes. Helped me get credit for many a hunt on laggy days. :D

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

I'd still advocate for B2 to be kept for those with more popoto hardware (at least until they find a way for invisible mobs consistently targetable).

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At that point I'd just say return Freeze to the way it was in SB with the ground-targeting. We can macro it to auto-place under targets, including ourselves if we don't have one.

Though considering that's a gap in the kits of RDM and SMN too, I somehow don't think that's an area the devs are focused on addressing anyway.

I want some upgrade to the thunder mech, it hasn't changed since ARR (ST) and could get some upgrade.

I would really much like a trait that improve Fire1 to a stronger *once per astral phase* version (as a way to ensure the no B4 rotation doesn't come back)
Like, when casting F3 in Umbral, gain "improved Fire"
Fire1 becomes Pentacast (1 cast)
Pentacast - 2.0s recast 2.5s
Launch a barrage of Fireball (Fire1 animation but 5 of them looking like a chaotic barrage)
Potency : 100 per Fire (500 total, each DMG is independent like DreamWithinaDream)


Also, I feel that after so many mvm utility (which made the job so much more enjoyable) a bit of the "I can't move" fantasy has been lost and, while I'm unsure about how it would fit into the current rotation, I thought of some sort of very long cast that would deliver some massive damage.
Like a "brace yourself, here I come!!"

Something like this

Doomsday
30s CD
Cost 100 "void gauge" (max200) - get 1pts per sec under enochian.
Gauge at 100 when combat starts

Cast 2.5s : you start gathering energy consuming 20 gauge up every sec up to 100 over 5s. Canceling the channel or depleting the gauge will trigger Doomsday. Cannot be instant.

Potency : 500 per 20 gauge
(2500 potency over 7.5s. 333 PPS, about 70% stronger than F4. About 1000 potency over the regular F4 rotation over 7.5s.
Deals 25% to adjacent ennemies, 10yalms


Additional effect : astral fire, umbral ice and leyline duration do not go down while gathering energy.
Additional effect : Spellspeed increase the rate at which the void gauge fills.
Additional effect : each instance of gauge consumption has its own crit/DH chance calculated. (This is to prevent putting too much potency on a single cast, it is essentially 5 cast so Crit/DH should averages out after 3-4 cast)

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

I want some upgrade to the thunder mech, it hasn't changed since ARR (ST) and could get some upgrade.

I would really much like a trait that improve Fire1 to a stronger *once per astral phase* version (as a way to ensure the no B4 rotation doesn't come back)
Like, when casting F3 in Umbral, gain "improved Fire"
Fire1 becomes Pentacast (1 cast)
Pentacast - 2.0s recast 2.5s
Launch a barrage of Fireball (Fire1 animation but 5 of them looking like a chaotic barrage)
Potency : 100 per Fire (500 total, each DMG is independent like DreamWithinaDream)


Also, I feel that after so many mvm utility (which made the job so much more enjoyable) a bit of the "I can't move" fantasy has been lost and, while I'm unsure about how it would fit into the current rotation, I thought of some sort of very long cast that would deliver some massive damage.
Like a "brace yourself, here I come!!"

Something like this

Doomsday
30s CD
Cost 100 "void gauge" (max200) - get 1pts per sec under enochian.
Gauge at 100 when combat starts

Cast 2.5s : you start gathering energy consuming 20 gauge up every sec up to 100 over 5s. Canceling the channel or depleting the gauge will trigger Doomsday. Cannot be instant.

Potency : 500 per 20 gauge
(2500 potency over 7.5s. 333 PPS, about 70% stronger than F4. About 1000 potency over the regular F4 rotation over 7.5s.
Deals 25% to adjacent ennemies, 10yalms


Additional effect : astral fire, umbral ice and leyline duration do not go down while gathering energy.
Additional effect : Spellspeed increase the rate at which the void gauge fills.
Additional effect : each instance of gauge consumption has its own crit/DH chance calculated. (This is to prevent putting too much potency on a single cast, it is essentially 5 cast so Crit/DH should averages out after 3-4 cast)

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Please give me some of what you're smoking.

Two words: Astral Hearts.

The job feels boring and I have loved black mage. For easily 15 years between 11 and 14. So thank you yoshi-p for proving the job can have an interesting dynamic feel, see yashtola as a trust. Can we have that PLEASE

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Originally Posted by Ordoric

The job feels boring and I have loved black mage. For easily 15 years between 11 and 14. So thank you yoshi-p for proving the job can have an interesting dynamic feel, see yashtola as a trust. Can we have that PLEASE

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Y'shtola is a sorceress not a blm. i.e She uses both conjury and thaumaturgy to fight while our blm's only use blm combined with thaumaturgy

So its been a minute since i did a trust run, let alone one with Y'shtola as DPS, LET ALONE one where i paid attention to her spell casting. The way i remember it, she casts one weak spell all 6 elements, one strong spell of each element, and ends in Foul. Always in the same order. Thats more elements then we currently have, and 13 spells is more then we use in our single target rotation. Neither of those makes it seem "dynamic" to me. Its just more buttons. And as Rymi said, she isnt actually a BLM.

The idea of gaining another tier of Maim and Mend is interesting - it'd theoretically provide far more of a substantial boost to damage (what with a new multiplier to AF) and cut off mp-tick issues in one, and wouldn't need to improve Enochian's damage boost yet again because once you get it, you're never notusing it.

That being said, BLM is probably the most well-polished DPS and has been for a while, so unless they plan to rework the job, I can't see them doing more than giving us upgrades to spells we use often. I want that neat looking Flare spell Y'shtola and that one spectre uses in the cutscenes, dammit.

i do hope we get Fire, Blizz, and lighting V and VI. also Manaward gets a rank II and doubles what it can absorb. more ranks of polyglot would be nice.

what would ya'll think of a tornado spell. lift them up and take pop shots at them and let em fall down.

i would like a comet spell maybe through a 3rd or 4th rank of poly.

another rank of enhanced Enochian

The only real change I can think of to BLM is to have Leylines give BLM faster Mana ticks during UI, or mana immediately refreshing after switching to UI.

Casting only 1/2 GCDs to replenish mana will probably be broken, but I can't wait for the absolute sheer destruction LeyLines can bring if they did implement it.

Increase potency of firega and that's it.

just started to reprog savage with blm, after clearing e9-11s with rdm and needed more dps for the latter floors.
i notice a few things that is more toward a qol improvement in 6.0 since you can still work around it in 5.4 with good planning becusse fights are decide around with current abilities cd consideration.

so with 5.0, blm has really good mobility tools (instant cast)if planned right.
now at times when in pf/pug setting, ive been leylining at certain point of the map because i tried not to delay leyline too much. good example is the 2nd and 5th (or 6th, forgot) leyline in e9s, where you use it at anti air/wide angle location. you can get full use of leyline there before needing to do the cleave>protean/buddy stack. before that, theres a raidwide dmg. it isnt much a problem even if you dont get full healed, as you can just weave manawall there to survive it but it got me thinking. if in 6.0, there's more of these mechanic where leyline is used and raid wide coming often and you not at the optimum spot to receive heals, it would be nice if manawall have 1 more charge to somewhat be in line with leyline cd.

also, for e11s when you get the tether for bound. the action that raise your char in a goal/jail state interupts cast depending how early your cast is still in progress. had alot of interuption when playing rdm.
so it got me in thinking, it would be nice if manawall has a cast interuption prevention effect like surecast. i dont need the anti kb effect, just prevent cast interuption would be fine.
just make it as a trait to upgrade manawall to have 1 more charge and cast interupt prevention in 6.0 and i will be happy.

now this following suggestion came out from my arse, so dunno how viable or good it can be in 6.0 but what if theres a trait to have a chance to proc and give you 1 free cast of f4 every time you use f3 (firestarter 2)? now the only thing im undecided is if this free f4 should be a instant or still need cast time or not. in term of balancing the dps output being too op??

another suggestion out of my arse for 6.0. probably not a good one but hey, its an option i guess.
a new ability, lets call it tranpose stagnation.
what this ability does is freezing enochian (ui/af timer and mana regen tick) for a duration (preferrable 15+s, hopefully minimal 20s) and or until you cast a next spell to start the timer again.
the reasoning for this suggestion is mainly for retaining enochian if cutscene transition, you cant umbral soul. or helps lock your af timer when you need to lb3 (lets hope this dony trigger transpose stagnation to fall off and unfreeze enochian timer again) at the next cast and dont want to tranpose from af to ui to refresh/retain enochian (ui timer).

also i forgot Flare was on my bars that could use another rank next expansion

I can see them adding a third stack of Polyglot and adding a huge nuke that would consume 2 stacks.
Leading to the result every BLM wants : More bigger explosions.
This, and F/B/T 5, for the same reason.

Some ideas that might or might not work for 6.x:

- Fire II changed back to 100 base potency from 80 and cast time reduced from 3.0s to 2.8s. From 68 onward, gets a trait that makes it grant three Astral Fire stacks, thus giving the job an aoe start to its fire phase for hot flare rotation.

- New leylines ability: Level 82, gain an ability known as Reconnect on a 30s cooldown. Using the ability will teleport an existing use of leylines to the caster's location. The cooldown ensures it can only be used once per leyline phase.

- New support ability: Level 86, gain an ability known as Umbral Refresh. Grants 1000 MP + 15s refresh of the same potency as Lucid Dreaming to target party member. Basically a small bit of prog utility for BLM, not as strong as a caster raise, but still has niche use.

- Trait: level 88, Enhanced Enochian III. Bonus increased to +20%. Hitting the Enochian button again while Enochian is active grants a 5s buff, where if the BLM receives the debuffs [Down for the Count] [Sucked In] or [Stunned], then the Umbral Ice / Astral Fire timer would freeze for the duration of that debuff.
This is intended to provide BLM with a tool to potentially allow retaining Enochian through forced downtime such as the Mother Porxie's Meat Mallet phase in Matoya's Relict, the phase transition in Castrum Fluminis, or the cutscene in Eden's Verse: Refulgence (Savage).

- New burst phase idea, based on AST's Neutral Sect: At level 90, gain an ability known as Dual Aspect on a 120s cooldown. This combines the Astral Fire and Umbral Ice phases temporarily for 15s, granting the bonuses of both(+80% to damage, gain 6200 mp per tick, and -100% to mp cost) to both Fire and Ice spells.
The rotation during this phase would thus become as follows(NOTE: Despair is unaffected by MP cost reductions, so a filler spell is needed between each cast for MP ticks unless the BLM gets lucky on an instant cast): Despair -> Blizzard or Fire IV -> Despair -> Blizzard or Fire IV -> Despair. Effect reverts to either Astral Fire or Umbral Ice once the duration runs out.

This is of course all just speculation, each of these likely have their own balance issues if they were actually implemented.

^that nuetral sect suggestion got me thinking about unaspect ability/trait/spell dabbling. perhaps instead of that ability, lets have a 30cd ability that give you 1 polygot while in combat instead. with this ability, i would say the polygot max charge should still stay at 2 max. this ability is more to improve qol for openers fixes where if you are sps base, xeno wont come up in time and also ofcourse add a bit of dps inc in overall blm rotation.
or
a new trait, makes scathe have chance to generate 1 polygot upon use. or 100% gaurentee polygot generation in a sharped scathe (must have enochian up, so you cant stock polygot prepull)? (this whole trait idea is base from thinking what can we do to reduce button bloats on hotbar) this dps inc here might be a little too much due to 15s cd of sharp tho. so i dunno.

also since ppl been quite vocal that we should get a tier upgrade for f/b/t spells. and i think we should too, due to its 6.0, which is 3rd expansion after 3.0 where we got f4. perhaps i should revise my suggestion of casting f3 proc a free f4 into, casting f3 will proc f4 button change to f5 for the next f4/f5 button cast. this will reduce button bloat and not be overwhelming inc in blm overall dps because its not spammable. unless theres a trait, the amount of umbral heart = the amount of consecutive f5 cast. thus max 3 f5 can be casted in af phase if you have 3 umbral heart. OR, make it that casting f5 will consume all hearts.
^ slight change, lets temp swap/switch/change f1 to f5 instead. thus f5 is still avaible and that not mandotory to press/get f5 out before you can cast f4 again.

if there's f5, then ofcourse b5 should be proc'ed the same way?
b5 spell will basically be the combination b3+b4. grant ui3 and uh3 upon use. (tho i would hate that b1 will temp change to b5 since i have already remove b1 from my hotbar already)

now with b5 suggested too, then i suppose b5 and f5 should not be an instantcast. we got plenty already in shb, any more instantcast will make blackmage too mobile and lose its turretlike portrayal

lol just notice something nice about the transpose stagnation ability i suggest a few post above. it can be weaved right before despair and freeze enochian timer, enabling you to cast despair even at 1s left on enochian. with that said, the cd need to be tuned to not be abused and become a basic/normal rotation usage ability?

Now I thought about it, a couple of possible things I can see with BLM getting, though in no particular order:
1. Extra Triple Cast Charge / Triple Cast Upgrade to Quadra Cast - depending on if they need more movement for future mechanics (though unlikely since there's a lot of ways to add more mobility)
2. Elemental Attunement - Skill to Automatically go start with 3 stacks Astral Fire - something for an absolute disconnect where you would lose Enochian and can't use Umbral Soul to maintain it.
3. Some Aspect Mastery that enables BLM to get 4 stacks of Astral Fire and 4 stacks of Umbral Ice
3.1. Possibility that Fire V requiring 4 stacks of Astral Fire and then directly replaces Fire IV with Fire V - though 4 stacks of Astral Fire may have its own unique properties with the way BLM's gauge evolves.
3.2. Possibility that Fire V grants us 4 stacks of Astral Fire (requires Enochian), but requires at least 1 Umbral Heart to cast so you would still be using Fire IV
3.3. Blizzard V with a similar mechanic where 4 stacks of Umbral Ice directly replaces Blizzard IV with Blizzard V - Blizzard V adds both a Blizzard DoT and refreshes Umbral Hearts

Some form of thunder skill/trait
4. Thundercloud II - Grants 10% chance next DoT tick inflicted by Thunder III /Thunder IV will add double its full damage over time amount to its initial damage, have no cast time, and cost no MP
5. Thunder Mastery III - Thunder III to Thunder V, Thunder IV to Thunder VI

6. Third Polyglot

how bout we just play like y'shtola in the current version and we get ultima

Ultimate is for the final days where they give us the toys to go nuts

you think F/B 5 will be the Aoe mini nukes while the new/upgrade poly spell will be the the main nuke

or F/B 5 replaces F/B 4 as single target spells

The AoE suite pre-72 needs tidied up so it doesn't feel like a janky-ass halting influid mess in level
synched content.

is everyone happy with the 15 sec timer?

when i start my rot with b3 then E then b4 then F3 then F4 i run out of time before i run out of mana and thats not fun would 10 extra 10sec be broken?

also should the timer pause for cutscenes and transitions?

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Originally Posted by DarkZeroUnit

is everyone happy with the 15 sec timer?

when i start my rot with b3 then E then b4 then F3 then F4 i run out of time before i run out of mana and thats not fun would 10 extra 10sec be broken?

also should the timer pause for cutscenes and transitions?

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You cast Fire 1 to reset your timer.

And no. Know when to dump your stored resources. Black Mage is one of the few jobs that can go from 0 to 100 in just a GCD.

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Originally Posted by DarkZeroUnit

is everyone happy with the 15 sec timer?

when i start my rot with b3 then E then b4 then F3 then F4 i run out of time before i run out of mana and thats not fun would 10 extra 10sec be broken?

also should the timer pause for cutscenes and transitions?

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I'm happy with it. It leads to some really tight shennanigans during raid and I'm honestly all for it.
More time on the timer isn't needed 100%.

I suggest learning the no B4 opener since it's pretty simple to learn. IIRC:

Sharpcast (12 seconds countdown) + B3(Enochian) + Thunder 3 + Fire 3(Triple cast) + Fire 4 (Pot) + Fire 4 (LeyLines) + Fire 4(3x) + Despair + Thunder 3 proc(Manafont) + Fire 4 + Despair

BLM has a lot of weird shennanigans you can do, like:

Skipping Blizzard 4 and Fire 1 if you're under Leylines and you have enough spell speed
If you have a Fire 3 proc and a Thunder 3 proc and enough time on these two procs you, Fire 3 proc(Tranpose) + Thunder 3 proc + Xenoglossy + Fire 3, this should give you mana by the time Fire 3 is done.
Skipping Blizzard 4 if you DoT timer is going down and you get fast mana tick.

I recommend checking out the Balance discord server. They have a lot of good resources in there.

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Originally Posted by Tracewood

I want to like this job, but I'm soooo bad at it. I tried looking up different rotations, but aside from dummies I seem to falter so badly on heavy movement fights.

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You are not the only one. Black mage continues to elude me. But, practice makes perfect!

two thing off the top of my head and a third... One astral soul so we don't lose astral fire to mechanics. Two is an upgrade to fire 2. Has to be something. The third is more of general boost to all classes not sure if blm needs to be included but dps inc to that of the summoner pre nerf.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

two thing off the top of my head and a third... One astral soul so we don't lose astral fire to mechanics.

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Astral Soul wouldn't be useful. It would be a DPS loss to use. Umbral soul works because it's helpful during downtime, and in that situation it would be better than Astral soul because it refills your MP.

I would say Transpose needs to become Umbral Soul when you acquire it / are in ice form. Would remove one button.