They are gutting Black Mage even more in 7.2

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Take 5.0 SAM and in one patch turn it into 7.1 VPR

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...Oh. Oh dear.

My condolences.

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Originally Posted by Underscore

Never played Back Mage in my life, can anyone explain this in melee terms?

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The way BLM currently works is they have 2 stances, Umbral Ice and Astral Fire. When applied, each one has a 15 second timer and allows the use of specific spells. The main one to pay attention to is Astral Fire, since it is where BLM spend most of the time.

During Astral Fire, they have access to Fire 4, which is what they should be spamming, the downside to Fire 4 is that, unlike other fire based spells, it does not reset the Astral Fire timer. In total, you wan to get 6 Fire 4s off before going back to Umbral Ice, but the Astral Fire timer does not allow for this. This is where Paradox comes in. This resets the timer on Astral Fire, allowing more time. You then have the guaranteed Firestarter proc off of Paradox, which allows a use of Fire 3 that is instacast, which again rests the Astral Fire timer.

The balance comes into play in using as many Fire 4s as you can before you reset the Astral Fire timer with Paradox/Firestarter. The most common split is 3 Fire 4s, Paradox, 3 Fire 4s, though other splits are used based on the situation.

On top of that, you have Thunderhead, which allows you to use High Thunder and you have Polyglot stacks to use Xenoglossy. Both are strong spells and should be used when appropriate. The fun then comes in that, using High Thunder or Xenoglossy uses up a GCD slot, which would otherwise be used for Fire 4. So you are effectively balancing the number of Fire 4s, keeping High Thunder ticking and making sure Xenoglossy does not over stack whilst ensuring the Astral Fire timer does not run out.

This might seem quite a lot to keep track of, but just from simple playing it does come fairly naturally, though not always 100% optimally unless you take the time (just like with any other job).

By removing the Astral Fire timer, you take away the thing you have to work around. You no longer have to worry about when to use Paradox or making sure you still have enough time left when using High Thunder/Xenoglossy. The timer never really got in the way in a casual sense, but it was still something to think about.

Unfortunately, I cannot think of an equivalent melee mechanic to try and explain it in, unless someone else thinks of something that I am missing.

I don't really participate in these forums but I just wanted to say that I am unhappy with the changes shown on-stream so that my voice is somewhere.

I don't know if we're just stuck in the past and in the long run this will end up being good, but it feels like they're systematically taking away everything I loved about blm. I remember when they made enochian a trait instead of a skill and was upset they were dumbing the job down, now it's removed, I'm going to miss the need to learn fights in and out to optimize my layline placement. It's just not the job I know anymore. I've stayed positive to this point, I've given the benefit of the doubt, I've turned a blind eye, and it's getting hard to keep doing that. I'm happy with the 7.2 patch content, but blm is just disappointing to me now.

I just started picking up the job proper, and it's getting Summoner'd. Can't have anything nice after being shoved off a job I enjoyed to appeal to people who never even tried to get into it!

Just when I found a new caster after two years of being lost and trying things... Finding my home in BLM finally, where it appeals to my ADHD.
Now they're gutting it for who? The people who have no interest? The people who cannot press buttons even thought they're lit up? Who cannot read?
Why aren't the mains asked about these changes, the people who hang around the middle? This isn't even harkening back to the classic FF because at that point you'd have to just spam an elemental spell once you know an enemy's weakness. Is this going to be the route where 8.0 BLM brings us? It's absolutely ridiculous!
"We are working on adding in more depth to classes" which is now proving to be a LIE! People played Picto because it was busted. Not because it was fun to play.

The enochian timer was really fun and engaging to play around with, the satisfaction of barely managing to keep it was immeasurable and indescribable whilst also really fun! Managing stuff was also really fun. Just why take it away?

Genuinely thought this game was supposed to be inclusive and stuff but I'm feeling more and more discriminated against, for having ADHD. Like what's the point of playing the game, if the game actively goes to make me feel unwelcomed after 10 years of playing.
But hey, this will fall on deaf ears again as I'm clearly not and never will be the target audience at this rate, I came into XIV on the premise of difficult stuff and enjoyable fights. And since EW this has been taken away from me several times, barring a few absolute gems of a fights.

To add to this post, because I actually don't even want to make new posts on this forum anymore.
I don't want to quit the game, but if this is the course things are taking and all regions are being ignored... Then I'll be forced to quit. Something I really don't want to do because I love this game.
What I do not love is the developers making choices that go against the desires of the players and thinking we want this.
There's no real point to playing if everything becomes the same flavour, just with a different packaging. The world and story can be as flavourful as you want, but if the gameplay isn't actually gameplay, why even pay for the game? Why even play?
It's depressing how out of touch the job team is at this point.

Let me play the game, let me ENJOY the game through jobs that have some identity. Let the jobs have some identity in general, aesthetics aren't all that is needed. Gameplay feel is very important too and people have different niches they fall into.

This is the worst thing they could do to BLM. Making Despair instant has been the beginning of the end.

Anyone know what the JP forums are saying about this?

Taking the caster out of Spellcaster. Or maybe it was right under our noses all this time, hope they remember to correct that bit about movement.

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

This is really upsetting lol and a horrible potential preview of future job design.

With the caveat that I'm not the best or most experienced black mage;

I can't imagine a black mage without the enochian timer. That pressure to get your spells in on time is what makes the class exciting, and what makes it feel so good when you get it perfect. I choose to play it over other dps classes not because I always get it right but because it's more stimulating than other casters.

I haven't enjoyed playing one of my other favorite classes (AST) since the 7.0 changes, so it would be sad to lose another one.

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Originally Posted by Evermomo

With the caveat that I'm not the best or most experienced black mage;

I can't imagine a black mage without the enochian timer. That pressure to get your spells in on time is what makes the class exciting, and what makes it feel so good when you get it perfect. I choose to play it over other dps classes not because I always get it right but because it's more stimulating than other casters.

I haven't enjoyed playing one of my other favorite classes (AST) since the 7.0 changes, so it would be sad to lose another one.

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Yeah I would never, ever pretend to be an endgame or high skill player at all. But I loved its plate spinning and unique stationary intensity and now all of that is just kind of gone. The jobs identity got ground up and turned into paste.

Never posted on the forum before, probably never will after this. Was already in woe about the class homogenizing and wasn't very optimistic about promised class changes coming, now my optimism is entirely gone. I don't even play Black Mage in any content outside of for fun stuff, but I've always been a big fan of it, just never had the right time, place or will to commit to the class. I've seen various lamenting from the forums and laughed at them as being exaggerated and very whiny, I even saw some of the previous black mage changes and thought "Eh, not that big of a deal, still pretty cool of a class" but the currently on the table changes are very disappointing to me as a player who doesn't even play the class that much. I understand as a Game Designer the need to make every class accessible to every player, but there is a line and its being crossed, it feels like the game is two steps away from classes just being visually different and not mechanically. Removing the timers from BLM and making the class fool proof feels a bleak look into the future in an already currently boring time.

These changes go against anything BLM stood for and what a huge part of it's players liked about it.
Finding ways to perfect a fight and keep the timer rolling.
Honestly at this point why should I even keep playing this job when PCT will probably be more fun AND will do similiar damage.
Jobs get more and more complexity removed but I guess flashy and fast fights are more important nowadays...

I add my voice here as well but the whole forum has shown me already that it will be useless to post here as always.

Man I can't do this shit again. First AST (again) and now BLM.

This change is utter slop. What happened to "job identity" improvements? Why are we homogenizing BLM to PCT now? The job design team, in no hyperbole, are horrible at their jobs. I know this is usual XIV Forums "I'M SO ANGRY" banter, but DUDE. Where the hell is the communication from the team?

What happened to no job reworks outside of major expansions?

Why is BLM, the only really unique job left in the game, being gutted?

Do you really think this is healthy for the game moving forward, after the game director himself admitted the game was too homogenized?


You can tell a lot about a player's skill level on this job, by their reaction to the changes.

Please SE, do not push these through. I beg. I have so little enjoyment left in combat content as it is. Stop killing the fun of your jobs. This is the essence of what kills good games.

We as BLM players, DO NOT WANT THIS

People complained picto does too much damage for being brain dead easy to play, so they make BLM brain dead easy to play. I love it.

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Originally Posted by hydralus

People complained picto does too much damage for being brain dead easy to play, so they make BLM brain dead easy to play. I love it.

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And it still wont match picto lmao

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

Anyone know what the JP forums are saying about this?

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They're probably ecstatic with the BLM changes considering they rather have braindead jobs so they can focus on the fights instead, without being a hindrance due to failing at their job/role.

#BitterEx-healerMain

Sorry BLM mains, BLM was still deemed too complicated and must be brought inline per the shitification of FFXIV jobs.

There is no hope in 8.0 with these incompetent devs.

I'm sick of these changes.

I feel this even more as this happens to every job i like because frankly i like unique and difficult jobs, this happened to paladin, dragoon, monk, astro now is happening to black mage even more then it was ruined in 7.0 I had hope after 7.1 that it would remain decent but no.

8.0 won't fix anything frankly I'm tired of giving any sort of hope or want for better.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

Anyone know what the JP forums are saying about this?

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Only from Google translate, however, I haven't seen many posts over there (literally went to the BLM thread) and it seems to be a similar sentiment, who asked for this? sort of deal.

Take that with a grain of salt though because Google translate.

Could kinda see this coming with how much movement is still in the encounters and the design concept of the BLM not working well with it, esp for someone just wanting to play the most iconic job casually.

I think there were other ways they could have improved the job to make it approachable for more people and also have raid statics not hate progging with a BLM. I'm interested to try the job and see how it feels. But keeping up enochian and pulling off your cast on a tight timer is very satisfying. Main points of annoyance for me were procs dropping off due to long lines and that flarestar felt very weak potency and animation wise for the build up too it.

I very much enjoy the blm as it is presently. I expect I will still enjoy the class after the changes, I wasn't ever really into non standard, and I don't want non standard being mandatory for movement as it was previously in some fights. But I was more hoping they would tone down the huge and long sections of continuous movement in fights rather than making sweeping changes to BLM.

On the bright side I think more pugs will be open to BLM in their groups now.

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

Could kinda see this coming with how much movement is still in the encounters and the design concept of the BLM not working well with it, esp for someone just wanting to play the most iconic job casually.

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This entire game's identity and charm has been killed off so that the mythical "casual player" can do anything they want with zero effort.

Nobody wants this, please just leave BLM alone...

At this point this feels like the BLM designer is spiteful of the players that enjoy the job.

Firt 6.0 brought uneeded changes that were all for the worse, destroying the amazing design of EW BLM just to destroy non-standard in it's entirety, not caring how it would affect the vast mayority of BLm players that might not even know non-standard existed.

By 6.1 they did kinda fix this mess, lowering the level of umbral soul and adding insta cast despair which opened the door to completly new optimization.
...
So they saw the people rebuild non standard and decided to burn everything to the ground until not even the husk of BLM is left.

Whoever did this just didn't like BLM nor understood why people liked BLM, I find many people recognize that BLM is not for them and they don't enjoy it's playstyle, but still respected it as good and interesting dssign that filled a niche. Seems the devs don't understand this concept at all.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Only from Google translate, however, I haven't seen many posts over there (literally went to the BLM thread) and it seems to be a similar sentiment, who asked for this? sort of deal.

Take that with a grain of salt though because Google translate.

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Google translate's correct. There's also 2 posters in there that were clearly using machine translation but given the upvotes and the other posts everyone in there seems to share the same sentiment so far.

Here's some translation:

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Originally Posted by Blmplayer

The live broadcast of Black Mage gameplay currently shows the following changes:

Enochian timer removed
Ley Lines duration reduced to 20 seconds
Firestarter proc no longer has a time limit
Caster tax removed (GCD > cast time)

Is this really what Black Mage players wanted?

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Originally Posted by ChaeleWard

I **didn’t notice at first** when I watched the video, but after reviewing it again, I can definitely see that the **15-second countdown is gone**.

That countdown was always **one of the biggest constraints**, so in that sense, **this is actually a major benefit**.
Most importantly, it means **we no longer have to swap to Umbral Ice just to refresh the Enochian timer when Astral Fire is about to expire**.

Also, **Fire IV and other spells seem to cast faster**.
However, I’m curious about how the **potency values** will be adjusted—**Fire IV was shown at 320**.

Since **casting time is now shorter than the GCD**, that means **the number of casts per unit time will increase**.
If the **potency per cast remains unchanged**, the **total damage output over time would increase significantly**.

To prevent **an excessive DPS jump compared to pre-7.1**, it’s likely that they’ll **reduce the potency per cast slightly**.

Additionally, **according to the video, Astral Soul stacks still reset to zero when transitioning to Umbral Ice**, just like before.

However, **since the countdown is gone**, it seems like **as long as you don’t transition to Umbral Ice unnecessarily, it won’t be a major issue**.

Regardless, **removing the countdown alone** is going to **significantly change how the job feels to play**.

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Originally Posted by ViewExplorerSelena

I’ve completely given up on hoping for 6.x Black Mage to return.

I’m not even a Black Mage main, but how do actual Black Mage players feel about this?

In any case, it looks like they’ve completely abandoned the concept of "insanely high skill ceiling in exchange for equally high damage."

Maybe—just maybe—it’ll turn out to be surprisingly fun like 7.05 Samurai once we actually try it.

...But honestly? I highly doubt it.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

It’s like they have a personal vendetta against timers with how aggressively they’ve been removing them this time around.

Even if I grudgingly accept that some changes need to be made to keep up with the times, why is it that they’re only taking things away without adding new, equally rewarding mechanics to replace them?

Can we please do something about that?

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Originally Posted by ViewExplorerSelena

I tried my best to hype myself up... but I just can’t do it.

Let me say one thing—

DON’T REDUCE THE RISK (CAST TIMES)!!!!!!
INCREASE THE REWARD (DAMAGE) INSTEAD!!!!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by bp_isa_ff

Hello, it looks like Black Mage has undergone another lobotomy. I'm back to update you on the situation in the English-speaking fandom.

If you hate these changes, you're not alone. The English-speaking community is reacting even more harshly, with some players uninstalling the game.

At some point, it really feels like the developers aren’t listening to either of us.

The general sentiment among current Black Mage players is that once these changes hit live servers, the job will lose a lot of its fun. There are a few players who enjoy the changes, but among those actively discussing job design, they are an overwhelming minority.

Personally, I enjoy playing with the changes and understand the appeal of making the job more accessible to new players, but if it's not too late, I hope the developers reconsider.

Edit: Sorry if the translation quality is bad! lol

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Originally Posted by dodoya

If the 7.2 Black Mage changes are really happening as described, I will choose to uninstall the game.

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Originally Posted by dodoya

After removing the 6.0 playstyle, I feel like a compelling new playstyle hasn’t been properly introduced to replace it.

If the developers aren’t capable of coming up with an engaging alternative, wouldn’t it be better to just leave things as they are instead of making unnecessary changes?

I’ve been giving feedback since 7.0, and I cannot support the oversimplification you’ve implemented.
Everything feels rigid and dull now.

I thought the 7.1 changes were a great start, but unfortunately, 7.2 has ruined everything.

Casual players already have plenty of accessible content and job options to choose from.
So why are you so fixated on simplifying Black Mage?
It really feels like you’re ignoring the voices of the player base.

We love Black Mage—it’s meant to be a powerful, turret-like job that delivers massive damage.

The PTC (Party Content meta) has already driven away a large number of Black Mage players, and now, with these new changes, it feels like you’re trying to drive out the remaining ones too.

I genuinely want to ask: Are you actually playing the game before making these decisions?

I’m sorry if this sounds like a rant, but I used to truly love this game—now, I just feel heartbroken.
I hope you can understand how I feel.

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Originally Posted by SangsangIincho

I used to love the feeling of pulling off a perfect rotation, overtaking melee in enmity rankings, and thinking, "I'm so damn powerful!"—but with melee DPS getting buffs too, I guess that experience is going away...

I know I can’t fight against the trend of simplification, and maybe that’s what most players want...
But what I wanted wasn’t "system simplification."
What I wanted was "rotation flexibility," and a rewarding trade-off: high damage in exchange for difficulty and lack of party support.
I guess that’s just not what the game is going for anymore…

I always thought each caster had a distinct identity in how their casts worked:

Summoner: Almost fully instant-cast.
Red Mage: Alternates between casted and instant spells.
Pictomancer: Cast time < Recast time.
Black Mage: Cast time > Recast time.

And that made them feel unique. Even within Black Mage, instant-cast optimizations provided meaningful DPS boosts.
But now? This isn’t Black Mage anymore—it’s just Pictomancer in disguise.

Maybe I’m just an outdated Black Mage player stuck in the past, but I still want them to leave at least some challenge (and sense of achievement) in the job.

At the very least, they could stop at making cast time = recast time, instead of shortening it even further…

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Originally Posted by t-o-stp

For me, Black Mage has always been about balancing high firepower and movement restrictions by utilizing:

Flexible skill rotations using Transpose to adapt to encounter timelines.
Swiftcast and Triplecast during Astral Fire to maximize damage while managing movement.

These mechanics allowed Black Mage to unleash its full potential and contribute to clearing content, and that’s what made the job enjoyable.

Personally, I found Endwalker’s (6.x) version particularly engaging, but 7.1 also struck a good balance. It introduced flexibility in rotations while ensuring that the standard (6 Fire IV) and alternative rotations didn’t differ too drastically in performance.

In 7.1, the instant-cast Despair created more opportunities to utilize Transpose, and there were multiple resource-based attack routes using Lucid Dreaming, Paradox, and Firestarter procs.

However, based on the information from the PLL gameplay footage, it looks like the changes in 7.2 will force players into a nearly fixed standard rotation.

Additionally, shortening Fire IV’s cast time eliminates the instant-cast Fire IV damage boost technique, which was a rewarding skill expression (perhaps only Flare Star will retain this aspect?).

That said, removing the timers for Enochian and procs makes the job more accessible to beginners, and I don’t necessarily see a problem with that (though I haven’t examined every fine detail yet).
Making the entry-level experience smoother is fine, as long as there’s still depth for players who want to master Black Mage—which there was, at least until 7.1.

However, if the core aspects that make the job fun are removed, that’s a major disappointment.

I’ve personally loved Black Mage, but in 7.0 Savage, due to its low performance, I ended up playing healer instead.
For 7.2 Savage, I had been practicing Black Mage again, but given the current situation, regardless of its firepower compared to Pictomancer, I don’t see myself enjoying Black Mage anymore.

At this rate, I may never play Black Mage again.

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Originally Posted by awsds

Flare Star is 500.
Thunder spells and P-gauge buff are now permanent.
Foul’s damage reduction goes from 60% to 25%.
Xenoglossy is 890.

Well, up to this point, it's fine.

Blizzard IV is 300 (which means Fire IV is also 300?).
Enochian timer is removed.
Casting speed is increased (Yoshida said that for a spell speed (SS) build, Fire IV is basically 2 seconds? Since it started at around 1.47 under Ley Lines.)

Sorry, but I don't see what's fun about this.

I get that content will have a unique feel, and we won’t know the full impact of these adjustments until we try them out, but...
SS build? Isn’t that outdated? lol The current trend is Crit-Direct Hit builds, right? I think making it like this was a bad move.

I’ve been playing Black Mage this whole time, but I’m starting to lose interest.

Well, at the very least, as long as Black Mage remains the highest DPS job no matter what adjustments they make, that’s fine. That’s how it’s always been.

Also, I don’t know if the devs or the job balancing team have forgotten, but Pure DPS jobs are supposed to be able to output more damage than synergy-based DPS when played properly, even when factoring in party synergy.

If they remember that, then it’s all good. But if they don’t, this game will forever remain in a state where synergy jobs are overwhelmingly dominant, and Pure DPS jobs (Samurai, Black Mage, Machinist, etc.) will have no reason to exist. Hope they understand that.

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Originally Posted by awsds

All of my Black Mage friends around me are saying things like:

"That job has no future anymore, right?"
"The rotation is boring. The 6.x-style situational rotations were way more fun."
"I’m not interested in Black Mage anymore."
"That garbage job is useless now."
"It’s just a job that only survives because of its die-hard fans, but it’s not needed."
"People keep calling it 'Yoshi-Mage,' but from 7.0 onwards, Yoshida’s main job clearly isn’t Black Mage anymore."

It was just a complete roasting session.

The only thing they liked from the changes discussed here was the permanent duration of the Thunder spells and Firestarter buff.

Of course, it’s impossible to take in every single opinion, and everyone will always say whatever they want. But at the very least, there were many ideas that, if implemented, could have made the job more interesting.

I heard that Pictomancer is getting nerfed, but since it has synergy abilities, if it still ends up stronger than Black Mage because of synergy, then it doesn’t even matter, does it?

I hate to say this again, but please, fix Black Mage… actually, fix all pure DPS jobs.

Changes can be exciting, but what Black Mage players want isn’t simplification. We want something brutally difficult but with insane damage rewards in return.

It’s not about whether someone can pull it off or not—it’s about the constant effort to improve and master it.

Black Mage had a role in cultivating that kind of player mindset. If you destroy that, then what’s left?

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Originally Posted by Chajii

Additionally, the "grants Umbral Blizzard" effect from Umbral Blizzard Paradox has been removed.

During the PLL (Live Letter) showcase, when Umbral Blizzard 1 was active and Umbral Blizzard Paradox was used, it didn’t upgrade to Umbral Blizzard 2—it just stayed at Umbral Blizzard 1.

Because of this, the previous strategy of Transposing → Umbral Blizzard Paradox → Blizzard → Blizzard IV → Normal rotation to safely dodge first-time mechanics is no longer possible.

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Originally Posted by awsds

It looks like the Enochian timer removal is pretty much confirmed at this point...

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Originally Posted by Gj0dnLbboAAI5i1

The removal of the Enochian time restriction makes no sense.

They could have just increased the duration slightly (from 15s → 20s) instead.

The casting speed buff is even more confusing. As others have mentioned, instead of making the job easier, they should have increased the damage output as a reward for difficulty.

Even if Black Mage ends up stronger than Pictomancer, it doesn't feel great knowing that players who have been using Pictomancer could just switch to Black Mage and easily output high DPS without the effort that used to be required.

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Originally Posted by Gj0dnLbboAAI5i1

Correction:

It doesn't just feel bad—it feels absolutely terrible.

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I haven't posted on a thread before, but for me, this is important enough to make me do so. DT so far has seen the dev team making some... questionable decisions. Over time all the jobs have been made easier. It started with SMN getting declawed, and I thought, "OK, they have one easy job. At least they still have one hard job, too, so people can have choices." Today, they decided to kill that job and turn it into another SMN because they refuse to make any sort of meaningful change to their golden child PCT, and instead of just buffing BLm, they decided to just make it easy.

They promised in 8.0 that they would make jobs more unique, and then they decided to make this change, which makes BLM, the sole job they have that truly has a unique identity, into just a regular caster closer to SMN. All hope and goodwill I had for that has been lost. This is apparently the direction they are walking and I'm not sure if I have an interest in following. I really hope they turn back and show us that they hear the community and want jobs to stay unique. We want SOME jobs that are hard. I am not saying all jobs should be hard but there should be a mix. Having everything feel like a Genshin job, but with button bloat, it feels bad.

This is disgraceful, genuinely. I am not a Black Mage main but this is just really sad, they need to stop taking skill expression away from every single job, Black Mage was the only one that feel at least different from the rest. Knowing that whoever has made this change is going to work on ALL jobs in 8.0, makes me really scared for Reaper, my main, and all other melees.

Yes there should be simple jobs in the game but not ALL of them. And Black Mage was the only one that felt like a caster with its slow casts and now they're taking that away.

Please stop taking away skill expression and PLEASE do not ruin melees. (Or any other job for that matter).

I have no faith, it's been a good run, Reaper.

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Originally Posted by Fagotura

Here's some translation:

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Are these all from JP,DE,FR forums?

Either way, it's hard to disagree. This whole situation is making me quite worried about the future of my favourite job.

Unironically, the changes they get will inevitably draw in some new ‘fans’ to the job & I bet those new fans will be SE’s new scapegoat as to why they make these shift of BLM’s core design.

It has happened before, it happens again, and it will happen more & more in the future.

RIP our only turret’y caster. You will be missed.

EDIT: Curious how the forum is getting a lot of 502 server errors lol. Is that because the forums are overflowing with these sort of complaints?

welcome to the SMN club black mages!

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Originally Posted by Fagotura

Here's some translation:

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

It’s like they have a personal vendetta against timers with how aggressively they’ve been removing them this time around.

Even if I grudgingly accept that some changes need to be made to keep up with the times, why is it that they’re only taking things away without adding new, equally rewarding mechanics to replace them?

Can we please do something about that?

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Man I wish I could actually speak that well in either language

EW BLM was the best state of BLM there ever was. Everything was perfect, and pre-DT drop, I was worried how they would change up the class because it seems everything already fell in place so nicely.

DT dropped and it was horrible, but later on they made despair and paradox ice instants , which triggered some players but still fairly agreeable since despair had to make up for the extra flare star cast in AF
(but of course, the raiders were happy because it opened up some very interesting non-standard lines)

It is blatant than ever that they dont want any non-standard gameplay, doubling down by buffing flare star and removing 1 stack gain from paradox
F4 gcd becomes 2.0 sec, and removed the timers, remove the existence of non-standard all in the name of wanting to open BLM to new players.

But there was never a reason to forcefully remove non-standard in the first place, and the only time you might need it is high end raids, whose target audience isnt casuals not wanting to put time into learning the class in the first place.

We are only going to see the opposite effect, lesser BLM players will appear in higher end raids

As the high end players lost satisfaction playing and the job loses identity
The casuals playing BLM will just touch it for abit in expert or w/e content and not play it anyways, why would they? They have picto

Essentially, pretty much more than 90% of the BLM players do not want this change, I for one would rather leave BLM with no buffs and changes, at least it gets to keep its identity.
But it has been shown in the liveletter, the changes is almost finalized at this point, I doubt the devs would listen to the community or check out their own forum page and revert change

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Originally Posted by seolhyun

welcome to the SMN club black mages!

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Its funny cause when summoner got redesigned I thought it was actually kind of cool, instead of dots we're actually yknow, summoning things. It was dirt simple but I assumed it was just a basic foundation for further development and complexity down the line.

But now I see its just the intended design, for everyone it seems.

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Originally Posted by Wired-Lain

Its funny cause when summoner got redesigned I thought it was actually kind of cool, instead of dots we're actually yknow, summoning things. It was dirt simple but I assumed it was just a basic foundation for further development and complexity down the line.

But now I see its just the intended design, for everyone it seems.

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I really don’t know where this “you summon things so it’s good” mantra comes from

Sure old SMN could be argued to be a poison mage but it’s not like new SMN is anything besides a weird evoker given 99% of its time is spent casting aspected spells of a summon that lasted 2 seconds

Like FF has never agreed on what a SMN is so I don’t see why this one “got it right”

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I really don’t know where this “you summon things so it’s good” mantra comes from

Sure old SMN could be argued to be a poison mage but it’s not like new SMN is anything besides a weird evoker given 99% of its time is spent casting aspected spells of a summon that lasted 2 seconds

Like FF has never agreed on what a SMN is so I don’t see why this one “got it right”

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Because when I play a job called "Summoner" I want to at least see a big cool monster drop down once in a while. Also please read the rest of my post before claiming I said it was "good."

Btw job designers, the ppl saying "good job design" are sarcastic, they arent praising this. stop touching our job thanks, in fact erase all the code and copy paste blm code from ew. thanks

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Originally Posted by Wired-Lain

Because when I play a job called "Summoner" I want to at least see a big cool monster drop down once in a while. Also please read the rest of my post before claiming I said it was "good."

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That’s the thing, you aren’t doing anything with that summon, they do a raidwide and leave, you are basically an elemental evoker. The only summons that stay and do something are Bahamut and Phoenix but they are holdovers from ShB and they were more complex in ShB

And I’m not saying you said it’s good as a complete job I’m saying you said it’s design direction is good in terms of it feeling like a SMN

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

That’s the thing, you aren’t doing anything with that summon, they do a raidwide and leave, you are basically an elemental evoker. The only summons that stay and do something are Bahamut and Phoenix but they are holdovers from ShB and they were more complex in ShB

And I’m not saying you said it’s good as a complete job I’m saying you said it’s design direction is good

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I'm not sure how else I can express that in my personal opinion getting to see guys like Ifrit or Garuda actually drop down and do a move which then imbues me with some of their abilities (like punching a dude) was cool and I thought made for a pretty neat foundation for additional things down the line (like more summons, greater use of them, etc) over poisoning enemies with my floating nugget. I stress again, I thought it was cool as a basic foundation. The future could have brought anything and it brought nothing but another Bahamut for some reason.

this is like removing Jump entirely from dragoons. or Suiton from ninja, or Enshroud from rpr, or Forms from monk, or generation/legacy from vpr, or stickers from Samurai. It is a complete massacre of the jobs identity, and the reason ppl wanna play blm. this will bc the great caster exodus

Visually, new SMN is more of a SMN than old SMN, but that doesn't change the fact that it's only in visuals. Egi-Assaults, while not visually exciting, were far more mechanically in line with what is expected out of the SMN experience than what we have now. DoTs are a separate story, but maintaining timers could've still been retained with something more primal-themed to at least keep a similar feel in gameplay.

Ideally, I'd rather have both. Ifrit comes in, I get to order him around for a bit, then he Hellfires and goes away. Also add some cast times to the summons, they're supposed to be visually impressive and powerful, the idea that they're "instantly channeled" with a flick of the wrist goes against that idea.

Anyway, back to the main topic; why Square, are you gutting BLM? Self-sabotage sounds like the only reason for most of the decisions this expansion.