Black Mage Change thoughts

If they're keeping the 3.0s time, I hope they buff Fire II's potency so that it's more worth using at low levels, and maybe reduce its MP cost to that of Fire 1. Most AoE skills are balanced such that they have the same usage speed as single target skills but do between half and a third of the damage, so you want to pull them out at 3+ targets, but it's harder to make that determination for the slow and expensive Fire II given how Astral Fire works.

So my understanding of what we saw in the LL was:

- The IcyHot spell resets the AF/UI timer, no clue if it increases AF/UI stack or has any AoE (though we probably won't need it in AoE anyway), but it at least replaces Fire 1 in the rot
- Freeze no longer gives UI but gives a full stack of UH
- Hi-Fire 2 and Hi-Blizzard 2 each give a max stack of AF/UI
- The intent is to use Hi-Blizz2 into UI, Freeze for UH, Hi-Fire 2 for transition into AF and your first two UH casts, and Flare with your last UH and any remaining MP -- essentially the same flow as the "intended" ST rotation, if all the "Fire X" spells were merged and Despair was recastable.
- ... but since that takes so long to execute I'm guessing it'll be a week into the expansion before we weigh whether we can skip Freeze and just use one Hi-Fire 2 and Flare apiece.

Anything I missed?

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

- The IcyHot spell resets the AF/UI timer, no clue if it increases AF/UI stack or has any AoE (though we probably won't need it in AoE anyway), but it at least replaces Fire 1 in the rot

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The Antipodes animation has a ground glow that suggests AoE, though it is smaller than the ground glows for spells we know for certain are AoE. Regardless, you will presumably need it in AoE because it's probably what makes the opposite Element V spell available.

The JP versions of the new Blizzard and Fire spells are named "Hi-_____" because Yoshi-P didn't want to be responsible for choosing the next tier suffix to be canonized in the FF brand. It's uncertain if the EN spells will get the Hi-Element naming or just be Element V because our localization doesn't have that tier suffix dilemma.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Antipodes

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Is that the confirmed name or just a guess?

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Element V

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... are you just using that interchangably with the Hi-element spells?

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Antipodes

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Is that the confirmed name or just a guess?

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Nothing has been confirmed yet. They could call it anything. Even "Antipode" *cringe*. (Antipodes should be referred to in pairs. The Greek singular of "antipodes" is "antipous")

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Element V

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

... are you just using that interchangably with the Hi-element spells?

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I thought I made that clear?

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Originally Posted by Rongway

The JP versions of the new Blizzard and Fire spells are named "Hi-_____" because Yoshi-P didn't want to be responsible for choosing the next tier suffix to be canonized in the FF brand. It's uncertain if the EN spells will get the Hi-Element naming or just be Element V because our localization doesn't have that tier suffix dilemma.

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The whole Hi-element thing was worth mentioning in the PLL because it was delivered in Japanese; this doesn't mean they're going to use the same naming in the EN localization, and even Aimi (the translator) doesn't always know the EN names for things when doing her translations. The only things that are clear regarding Hi/V spells is that they are upgrades to ファイラ/FireII and ブリザラ/BlizzardII and they are AoE (as per PLL, around 3h30m).

I hope they're useful in single target rotations as well as mobbing.
I feel like we've got an abundance of aoe's.
We already hit like a ten ton truck in that area I feel like, and while fire4 has pulled its weight, after three expansions it's time for a new top dog spell that is used more than once per astral phase or held for mobility damage.

Enochain was one of the things that made me really dislike BLM. Mainly because it ultimately only served as yet another "one mess up breaks your rotation for 20+ seconds" along with the mana management and something else that i forgot... Which ended up making me prefer blm at lvl 50.

BLM simply had too many failure states.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Nothing has been confirmed yet. They could call it anything. Even "Antipode" *cringe*. (Antipodes should be referred to in pairs. The Greek singular of "antipodes" is "antipous")

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Wait, are you shaking your fist at the heavens because that the headcanon name you just gave it is grammatically incorrect? Knowing full-well they've given no reason to expect that's even remotely its name?

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The whole Hi-element thing was worth mentioning in the PLL because it was delivered in Japanese; this doesn't mean they're going to use the same naming in the EN localization, and even Aimi (the translator) doesn't always know the EN names for things when doing her translations. The only things that are clear regarding Hi/V spells is that they are upgrades to ファイラ/FireII and ブリザラ/BlizzardII and they are AoE (as per PLL, around 3h30m).

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K, until we get official confirmation otherwise, I'm just gonna keep calling them the Hi-2 spells like we were told they are in the LL, particularly since it feels weird to give them the 5th rank knowing that Flare and Freeze outclass them and functionally are now the AoE equivalents to the 4th rank spells.

And it's just gonna be confusing to swap terminology back and forth.

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Originally Posted by Orbus

I hope they're useful in single target rotations as well as mobbing.
I feel like we've got an abundance of aoe's.
We already hit like a ten ton truck in that area I feel like, and while fire4 has pulled its weight, after three expansions it's time for a new top dog spell that is used more than once per astral phase or held for mobility damage.

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Going back to my original point, that's actually something that worries me.

The current AoE rotation is basically Freeze -> Thunder IV or Foul -> Fire III -> Flare -> Flare, repeat until TC or cooldowns are available. Tossing F3 in there feels tedious because it's not an AoE, but the rotation is otherwise fairly short.

The new AoE rotation is shaping up to be designed as Hi-Blizzard II -> Thunder IV or Foul -> Freeze (bump forward a slot if Foul's down and the UI tick delays MP) -> Hi-Fire II -> Hi-Fire II -> Hi-Fire II -> Flare -> Flare, repeat until TC or Manafont -- which is 100% AoE, makes two of our currently useless skills actually useful, and allows for nearly 1:1 instant substitution to get back into our single-target rotation... but takes twice as long to execute accounting for cast times, so you may not even have the time to use more than one rotation (or even ramp it all the way up to Flare once) before the pack dies.
It gives us more tools, but conversely, gotta wonder if they're worth being pushed to use them.
Unrelated sidenote, anyone else notice that the final Hi-Fire 2 had a shorter cast time than the second? Wonder what that's about.

We won't know if it's viable until the final potency values are available, but there's a potential alternative in just Hi-Blizzard II -> Thunder IV or Foul -> Hi-Fire II -> Flare, which would be more convenient if only because it's way shorter but also could force Freeze into the same slot that Fire/Blizz2 had until now (on top of rendering the QoL traits for our AoE pointless) and once again forces a pause if the UI tick is poorly timed before you can cast T4.

Plus I wonder if the FrostFire spell means the functional death of Firestarter as a trait (Freecure, anyone?), and of Sharpcast on anything but Thunder spells...

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Wait, are you shaking your fist at the heavens because that the headcanon name you just gave it is grammatically incorrect?

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No, I've been calling it Antipodes (ann-TIP-uh-deez), as it should be. Others, who probably played the original release of Chrono Trigger, have been calling it Antipode (ann-ti-PODE), no S.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Knowing full-well they've given no reason to expect that's even remotely its name?

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In SquareEnix history, Antipode, Antipode 2, and Antipode 3 were the names given to a collection of fire-ice Dual Techs in the original localization of Chrono Trigger. Ostensibly the name was intended to be something longer but the technology of the time required the name be shortened. Later releases use the names Antipode Bomb -/2/3. I have enough faith in Michael-Christopher Koji Fox's team to think that if they decided to call it Antiposomething, they would choose the more elegant Antipodes rather than the clumsy Antipode.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

K, until we get official confirmation otherwise, I'm just gonna keep calling them the Hi-2 spells like we were told they are in the LL,

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The naming anecdote during the PLL is only relevant to Japanese and German, because the English and French localizations don't use power suffixes. If it had been an English-only PLL, it wouldn't have been a story worth telling.

Hi-Fire II and Hi-Blizzard II look bad, particularly because they should be parsed [[Hi] [Fire II]] and [[Hi] [Blizzard II]], but Hi-Fire II and Hi-Blizzard II imply [[Hi-Fire] [II]] and [[Hi-Blizzard] [II]]. As there were no Hi-Fire and Hi-Blizzard spells to begin with it would make more sense to just call them Fire V and Blizzard V which is consistent with the EN spell naming conventions.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

particularly since it feels weird to give them the 5th rank knowing that Flare and Freeze outclass them and functionally are now the AoE equivalents to the 4th rank spells.

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Flare and Freeze aren't Fire and Blizzard spells. They are Ancient Magicks, a different group of spells in the Final Fantasy brand.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

And it's just gonna be confusing to swap terminology back and forth.

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So we should be using the one that's consistent with the current EN naming conventions. English forums, English action names. At any rate, I'm going to keep calling them Fire V and Blizzard V until official information that is specifically relevant to the English client becomes available indicating otherwise, so please get used to it.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

The current AoE rotation is basically Freeze -> Thunder IV or Foul -> Fire III -> Flare -> Flare, repeat until TC or cooldowns are available. Tossing F3 in there feels tedious because it's not an AoE, but the rotation is otherwise fairly short.

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You shouldn't be casting Fire III when there's a group, unless you're quadraflaring. If you don't have Manafont and an EtherHQ handy, you should just Freeze > Flare > Flare repeat, with (Sharpcast) Thunder IV and Foul as appropriate.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

The new AoE rotation is shaping up to be designed as Hi-Blizzard II -> Thunder IV or Foul -> Freeze (bump forward a slot if Foul's down and the UI tick delays MP) -> Hi-Fire II -> Hi-Fire II -> Hi-Fire II -> Flare -> Flare, repeat until TC or Manafont -- which is 100% AoE, makes two of our currently useless skills actually useful, and allows for nearly 1:1 instant substitution to get back into our single-target rotation... but takes twice as long to execute accounting for cast times, so you may not even have the time to use more than one rotation (or even ramp it all the way up to Flare once) before the pack dies.

It gives us more tools, but conversely, gotta wonder if they're worth being pushed to use them.

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This is assuming that Blizzard V is usable immediately at the start of a trash pull; it may not be. The PLL slide for BLM states

https://i.imgur.com/a0sclYo.png

"Under certain conditions, swapping between Astral Fire and Umbral Ice will make new actions available" (emphasis mine). This strongly suggests that you can't use Blizzard V unless you previously used FireIII/FireV/Flare to switch directly from Umbral Ice to Astral Fire, and you can't use Fire V unless you previously used BlizzardIII/BlizzardV to switch directly from Astral Fire to Umbral Ice. If this does happen to be the case, we'd need to open with the old spells on the run, so that once all the mobs are gathered we're ready to go into the tier V rotation.

This could make Blizzard V and Fire V much less useful on half pulls, not just because there would be half as many targets but because we'd arrive at each pull probably under Umbral Soul spam, and we don't yet know if Umbral Soul would preserve Fire V usability. If Umbral Soul preserves the activation conditions for Fire V, this would of course be a non issue, as we would arrive at the next pull with three hearts and ready to go straight into 3x Fire V + 2x Flare. This is just me thinking about the possible ways things could work wrong and bracing for possible disappointment.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

We won't know if it's viable until the final potency values are available, but there's a potential alternative in just Hi-Blizzard II -> Thunder IV or Foul -> Hi-Fire II -> Flare, which would be more convenient if only because it's way shorter but also could force Freeze into the same slot that Fire/Blizz2 had until now (on top of rendering the QoL traits for our AoE pointless) and once again forces a pause if the UI tick is poorly timed before you can cast T4.

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If the final calculations indicate that Blizzard V > Fire V > Flare is more potency per second than Blizzard V > Freeze > Fire V > Fire V > Fire V > Flare > Flare I fully expect the potencies for Blizzard V and Fire V to be adjusted up. Finally getting upgrades to Fire II and Blizzard II after four expansions of obsolescence would be pointless if we don't even get to use them in their implicit rotation.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Plus I wonder if the FrostFire spell means the functional death of Firestarter as a trait (Freecure, anyone?), and of Sharpcast on anything but Thunder spells...

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Sharpcast will charge up to twice, so it should be easier to use it specifically for Thunders without losing uses over a fight duration.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new icyhot spell is able to trigger Firestarter. This would work out in a pretty cute way in Umbral Ice, since it would mean you could Transpose-Firestarter rather than hardcast F3 for a bit of extra damage going into Astral Fire as well as a callback to a function for Transpose that hasn't really been relevant since ARR.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Nothing has been confirmed yet. They could call it anything. Even "Antipode" *cringe*. (Antipodes should be referred to in pairs. The Greek singular of "antipodes" is "antipous")



I thought I made that clear?

The whole Hi-element thing was worth mentioning in the PLL because it was delivered in Japanese; this doesn't mean they're going to use the same naming in the EN localization, and even Aimi (the translator) doesn't always know the EN names for things when doing her translations. The only things that are clear regarding Hi/V spells is that they are upgrades to ファイラ/FireII and ブリザラ/BlizzardII and they are AoE (as per PLL, around 3h30m).

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Somewhat of a redundant comment - the Japanese katakana translates to "Firara" and "Blizzara", which in the previous Final Fantasy games I played (the 13 trilogy) were AoE. The upgrades would be Firaga and Blizzaga.

Can't wait for the french name
Feu
Extra feu
Méga feu
Giga feu


What will it be ?
Omega
Supra

I kinda like Supra
It's like the "S" tier spell :3

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Can't wait for the french name
Feu
Extra feu
Méga feu
Giga feu


What will it be ?
Omega
Supra

I kinda like Supra
It's like the "S" tier spell :3

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Well...Logically, they would follow the 'flare' (brasier) naming convention from things like Bahamut, and also following logical metric prefixes:
Mega -> Giga -> Tera -> Peta -> Exa
So, I am guessing it will be Tera feu.

Looks like a leak on Reddit determined the name of the IcyHot spell. It appears to be unaspected F1 with a raw potency buff.

Might want to be careful detailing anything, stuff about the leaks is getting removed given the embargo.

Small update, Antipod names seems to be "Paradox"

While it fits, I think I prefer Antipod

Oh well...

Now that the media tour NDA period is over, we know the official names for the new spells. The new Blizzard and Fire spells are "High Fire II" and "High Blizzard II", full high rather than "Hi-" and the antipodes spell is named "Paradox". I'm still watching videos and will see how I feel about the changes over the next while before reporting back.

The best feeling change is easily the 72 trait being moved to level 1. Transpose is still there for out of combat upkeep, which is good, and given how they made Fire and Blizzard 2 both relevant, like Freeze in ShB is nothing short of surprising.

Paradox seems pretty interesting, and while it might throw a wrench into the No B4 Opener, having such a strong spell to use in UI is still nice... Well, depending on whether it's worth it or not to use it before going back to AF over just... Going back to AF, but the math folks will guaranteed have that figured out before too long.

Overall, I'm personally pleased, and still plan to play it though Endwalker's story.

Very interesting to see Sleep become a Role Action. As a RDM main I'm a little excited that I can say we have a Black Magic-inspired utility spell, even if it won't see much use outside of questing.

With the changes to the first two ranks of elemental spells (Paradox apparently replacing B1 or F1 depending on what phase you're in), I think the only spell left that's really of no use anymore is Scathe.
A low-level trait for B1 and Umbral Paradox to be instant would eliminate it entirely...
Would have been nice to see Drain added just for solo content and QoL, but the main ST and AoE rotations are looking absolutely spicy now, so I have no reasonable complaints. The only question left is, does Sharpcast affect Astral Paradox?

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Very interesting to see Sleep become a Role Action. As a RDM main I'm a little excited that I can say we have a Black Magic-inspired utility spell, even if it won't see much use outside of questing.

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Surecast and Swiftcast were both originally BLM abilities that got shifted to role skills instead. So you have 3 now.

My initial calculations based on the Action Helps provided by GamerEscape suggest that skipping Blizzard IV may still be a damage gain in Endwalker. However, these calculations don't yet account for oGCD use, which ostensibly should have similar effects in either rotation but if lined up right may push the intended rotation back into the lead; Polyglot debt/surplus since one rotation is longer than 30s and one is shorter; and Firestarter opportunities provided by Astral Paradox in the intended rotation. So some more maths need to be done before we can draw any conclusions.

I probably won't bother until EW EA though, since potencies can still change in the next month. I just did this out of mild curiosity and an overabundance of time.

https://i.imgur.com/zxtnS4x.png

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Originally Posted by Frizze

Surecast and Swiftcast were both originally BLM abilities that got shifted to role skills instead. So you have 3 now.

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Surecast and Swiftcast were both always available to non-BLM magic users, though.

You have to rely on rng if you wanna proc Paradox? Sharpcast only say fire, thunder and scathe?

https://i.imgur.com/HkAcHl0.jpg

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Originally Posted by Sunako

You have to rely on rng if you wanna proc Paradox? Sharpcast only say fire, thunder and scathe?

https://i.imgur.com/HkAcHl0.jpg

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https://youtu.be/zatikwF_jhk?t=349

Yes, Sharpcast does work on Paradox. You have to remember these are from a build that is probably a few months old and so they will have some errors in the tooltips which should be sorted out by release.