Dear SE, BLM is great, but please consider the following

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Originally Posted by TsundereImouto

i think BLM is in a very good spot. the BLM in our raid regularly pulls close to 4.7 - 4.8k in savage runs. like SAM, if their numbers are that crazy, it can't come with ease, and their utility needs to be tuned properly as well. I understand where you're coming from, feeling lackluster when comparing BLM to RDM, but recognize that's not a BLM problem; RDM is simply too strong when you consider embolden along with their mobility, res utility, and personal dps.

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Really I just want them to fix surecast, that's what this is all about, but I figured I'd throw the rest of my suggestions in. As a long time BLM main it's so much easier and better for the group for me to roll my face on the keyboard as RDM and do almost as much damage and support the entire party, I mentioned above that I cleared v3s yesterday at 4.2k and raised 4 people. If SMN was viable and running BLM SMN was a good decision based on gear options, then that would be great, as well, but there is one caster spot normally.

And lastly, like I said, BLM is strong, it just needs more mobility adjustments in a raid tier that favors mobility.

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Originally Posted by RuneSevalle

If we're proposing changes to AM, then how about just not requiring it to be targeted?

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I'm on PS4 and if I had to target a spot to AM, I'm guessing it would be like targeting an area just like an LB and that can take 1 - 3 seconds. Not enough time to get out of an AOE.

IMO the range of AM should be doubled from 25 to 50 yalms. I have no idea how long a yalm is, but I do know that given the size of most boss arenas, usually the healer I want to AM to, to get the F out of an AOE, is just a little bit past the 25 yalm range :( So doubling it's range would be a big help.

I agree with some of your points, and I disagree with others. But your take away is BLM will be better with mobility... and while that's true... I don't feel that is the way BLM should go. SMN and now RDM are the more mobile casters. BLMs are turrets pumping out damage. If we don't know how to properly use our few mobility skills, we should lose dps for that.

I do agree with your raise thought. I'm not a big lore buff, but it's just not fair for BLM to not have a raise type ability. To get around the "we have infinite mana", I was thinking make the raise give the walking dead debuff from DRK that requires being topped off quickly by a healer. Can't help save a run with both healers dead, but can help get the one person up when they screw up.

Personally, I like the spot BLMs have now, being the in the top 3 for damage, but the 4.0/4.05 changes I feel missed the mark on some things. For 1, we have almost no unique raid utility. Technically our manashifts give like 20 more mana than the other casters, which is negligible. And we have sleep... which doesnt work on 99% of useful targets to use it on. On top of that... as of right now in 4.05, a variation of the 3.X rotation is still the highest potency rotation for us. Blizzard 4 should only be used in cases to help extend Foul timer a bit, or we get super unlucky with mana ticks and procs. Umbral Hearts don't do enough.

So I personally would either like A. Put potency for F4 back and let us be the real masters of destruction or B. Give us some unique raid utility, whatever that might be.

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Originally Posted by RyeMinx

But your take away is BLM will be better with mobility... and while that's true... I don't feel that is the way BLM should go. SMN and now RDM are the more mobile casters. BLMs are turrets pumping out damage. If we don't know how to properly use our few mobility skills, we should lose dps for that.

So I personally would either like A. Put potency for F4 back and let us be the real masters of destruction or B. Give us some unique raid utility, whatever that might be.

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The point I'm trying to make is the concept of "turreting" is fine, unless you're designing fights that require massive mobility. It's senseless to take a BLM over a RDM when it can do almost as much damage, handle mechanics like a champ, AND buff/support the entire party.

An increase to potency would be a mistake, BLM is already very (very very) strong outside of raid where intense movement isn't required. And again, I've mained BLM since the beginning and cleared all content on it save for deltascape savage, so I'm all about planning ahead for movement, but right now it's just too much, it NEEDS the surecast buff at the very least. It would also be nice for summoner and for healers and even for red mage so it's a win win situation all around. Please hook us up.

IN FACT, I would argue with anyone that BLM has actually LOST mobility after 3.0 since its damage used to be entirely proc based with firestarter/thundercloud which were always instant cast, but now it must stand still to cast Fire IV for damage. Procs used to be great for movement, and now you get far less of them. They aren't interested in giving BLM damage AND utility, which is fine, but if mobility hinders damage, then in order to keep the high damage they need to give us mobility.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

I understand your point Ichi but once more, classes that are mobile will be favored in raid tiers that demand mobility. If nothing else the surecast change would be great. I see nothing wrong with being able to move while casting one single spell once every 30 seconds. Hell, they could even increase the spell's cast time by .5 seconds or something and it would STILL be useful!

Also look at my scathe suggestion!~

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I'm not a fan of scathe alltogether.
I'm all in for having an on demand skill that makes the next cast instant but thats kinda what Swiftcast is already.

It's not just mobile classes that get favored, its classes that can keep up their dps rotation during mechanics. And BLM sure has it hard with that. But I think that Black Mages who know a fight very well can still keep up their dps well while moving around mechanics.
Just save skills like Triplecast & Swiftcast for such moments.

You also have Thunder 3 procs & Fire 3 procs you can utilize for mobility if necessary.

They could reduce the Swiftcast cooldown to 45 maybe 30 sec but since its a role skill it would affect more than just BLM.
I think if anything reducing Triplecast cooldown is the best option but they already already buffed it last time. maybe they could buff it to 45 sec cd at most?

I'm rather new at black mage but what I like about it (compared to RDM) is that you have to learn a fight and position yourselfwell & try to use your few mobility skills that you have at the most optimal time to keep your dps going.

As I said before, I'm a very well-seasoned BLM who has raided every raid tier on the job including second coil savage pre-3.0 (and in fairness I did creator prog on DRG but I've still done it all on BLM), and as such planning ahead for mechanics and knowing fights is second nature to me. Yet, I'm still here saying that it's not enough right now, particularly in comparison to RDM, as mentioned before.

If their desire is for BLM to be strong damage low utility, then said damage needs to sufficiently surpass RDM, and in order to do that BLM needs better mobility.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

IN FACT, I would argue with anyone that BLM has actually LOST mobility since 3.x since its damage used to be entirely proc based with firestarter/thundercloud which were always instant cast, but now it must stand still to cast Fire IV for damage. Procs used to be great for movement, and now you get far less of them. They aren't interested in giving BLM damage AND utility, which is fine, but if mobility hinders damage, then in order to keep the high damage they need to give us mobility.

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I'm very confused by this... how do you think we lost mobility... we were not proc based at all in 3.X. Sure we would make sure we have firestarter for opener, or use T3Ps when necessary, but our damage still came from F4 and casting it as much as we could while managing our thunder dot properly. Nowadays, T3P is almost by itself stronger than F4 without considering the DoT. add in the dot and it can be stronger than Foul on a single target. On top of that, we have to cast T3, not T1 to fish for procs. This dot lasts longer and leads to more chances at getting a Proc, which means more procs overall. On top of that, we now have triple cast, which can be used for both damage and mobility, as well as between the lines. We have LOTS of mobility now.

Just gonna put this out there.
I've cleared V3 with and we're stupid mobile on this patch.
You literally need to offset the first Ley Lines a bit and delay your ogcds here or there for like 2~3 gcds tops and you can literally ignore every mechanic in that fight except literally one, which is the stupid hop into a protean wave waltz panel on the last phase.
I would like an Aetherial cd reduction to 20s, and I think the Convert cd reduction is fine too (Convert on it's own isn't a big deal- the real power was lost when we lost access to Raging Strikes).

And please don't bring dps without posting parses for that fight up, either, since add padding and who has the burden of LB will warp the results a lot.

Edit: Let me add that since the 5xF4 3.X rotation is an unconditional pps gain over the 4.0 one (regardless of whatever happens in UI), you actually have decent AF leniency again. I can alter the order my casts for stuff like the Forced March and never drop AF. Further, one good aspect of losing Raging Strikes is that our dps is the absolute definition of consistent dps (which I adore). Convert brings only a smallest variation in our dps, so we get almost maximum efficiency from songs/TA/Balances regardless of when they happen.

Edit 2: Can you people stop mentioning the "utility" and "void raise" rubbish for BLM? No offense, but if that's what they bring, then I'd pretty much play RDM all the time. This is how you get job homogeneity. If you want to campaign for Umbral Hearts buffs (and you should, since they're rubbish), that's fine. If you want small QoL things like Aetherial or Convert cd reductions, or mana tick modifications, that's also fine. But come on, a raise? Now all casters raise. Fascinating. I sure as hell don't want to give up a mobility tool in Swiftcast so I can have it at the ready to raise >.>
I used to hate the idea of having to favor the 3.0 rotation, but it's growing on me to the point I'm starting to think this mana tick nonsense adds depth to the job. What's happened to me x)

Edit 3: Let me put something else out there too (my god all the edits xD). I literally have not used Scathe since Thordan EX on a raid. Scathe is worthless and if you're planning your cds correctly, you're literally never ever going to use it now. Honestly, delete this spell for all I care, or rework it into something more interesting. Also, don't touch Triple. Reduce the cd on that thing more and we'll become RDM v2, which I do not want. BLM is already super forgiving this patch. It's very enjoyable right now because you don't struggle much at all with mechanics if you know what you're doing. We do not need another Triple buff (unless it's something like "gets 10% bonus damage if you consume an Umbral Heart on the cast", which would fix that 4.0 being weak nonsense, and also promote swapping between both rotations. Hire me SE).

I play RDM (and BRD) because I'm asked by my team (love you guys), but the rush of adrenalin you feel when doing something risky as BLM (knowing full well the punishment that awaits if you mess up) and the absolutely amazing feeling of "outsmarting" the game when you have a planned cd rotation down to the fraction of a second and you execute it, casting through every mechanic... that is something RDM cannot match. I do not think BLM is strong enough to warrant a spot in an optimal comp, but it's such a glorious job to play optimally right now.

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Originally Posted by RyeMinx

I'm very confused by this...

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Clarified. I meant in 2.x so since 3.0 started. Furthermore between the lines is great but you can't cast while using it, meaning that it's a loss unless you used a proc or a scathe, and no one likes scathe.

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Originally Posted by Galvuu

lotsa words

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You sound mad, bro. I literally just want them to fix Surecast. Also you don't bring a BLM "for void raise", you just don't NOT bring a BLM because it's the only disciple of magic that has no raise. Easy. Furthermore my suggestion would be a cooldown, so no casting required, just 180s recast. This counteracts BLM's infinite MP while not shorting them the ability to do it at all.

Also I get what you mean by the rush, and as I said before I'm no stranger to planning movement on BLM, but I hate the idea of holding CDs for long periods of time for crap, and yes 3-4 GCDs is a long period of time, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

You sound mad, bro

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Well yea. I love this job. Your suggestions (like for Surecast) are not only completely broken, but it destroy our identity of high skillcap turret mage.
And, like I said, slapping a Raise is about as unimaginative as it can get. And an ogcd raise is kinda broken too, especially for a job with infinite mana.
In fact, now that I think of it, that probably was the reasoning behind us not having a Raise- we don't incur the hefty mana penalty since we have unlimited mana.
Your suggestions will literally turn BLM into a mutant RDM. If I wanted that I'd... play RDM :/

And no Mhachi brother or sister of mine would say "raise fits the BLM lore".
Did you not heed lady Shatotto's words? Destruction is our creed. Raising doesn't have the same ring to it as "cinder everything in sight" for me.