BLM Changes Are Fantastic. The timers were so annoying. Thanks FFXIV team ! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ViinaS

Not to mention PCT feels so shit cause using your hammer at all is a dps loss after that "amazing update". When I was told that I basically dropped PCT asap.
I liked the hammer...

---

It's worth using now, but PCT is a half-baked class of 3 quarter-baked class ideas slapped together and then praying it all works. There's a reason a major UI element is completely ignored by most PCTs, and it's not because the class is well designed.

They need to better integrate paintings with the rest of the class, holy in white needs to be worth casting.. Oh, and it should probably be more of a caster than it is now. But that's a general complaint worth levying to every caster except red mage.

Honestly, seeing the numbers of PCTs in EX5 is distressing, the class is basically abandoned on the fight, and a new class shouldn't be made to feel unwelcome in any content because the devs don't understand how to make good content anymore.

Holy in white doesn’t necessarily have to be more than an emergency movement tool. PCT’s awful playrate in EX5 relates to how it’s too rigid with its gaylines but that’s more fight specific

I’d say PCT is still the best post SB class from a design perspective it’s real downside is simply the fact that square just hates casters these days outside of making casters pseudo physical ranged they calling them casters

To be fair, everybody is a pseudo physical ranged those days, the only thing keeping them from being called full physical ranged being the damage output.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Holy in white doesn’t necessarily have to be more than an emergency movement tool.

---

Yeah that's in fact smart design, movement tools that are a net DPS gain are in fact the bad design as that means you won't have them available for movement. This can be done intentionally, but only in very small measures, like if you have 10 DPS classes that work one way, and one inverts it and can only move at specific moments as it has to use its one movement tool rotationally every 8 seconds or so, so it's immobile except for a brief moment just about exactly every 8 seconds or so. Wouldn't work in FFXIV, but that's how you'd do it.

It's a bigger problem how way to many other jobs like RDM or BLM use their supposed movement tools nilly-willy as they gain them damage. Or like how tanks use gapclosers for damage. It's part of why fights can never expect these tools to be used for mechanics, which in turn lessens fight design.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

Yeah that's in fact smart design, movement tools that are a net DPS gain are in fact the bad design as that means you won't have them available for movement. This can be done intentionally, but only in very small measures, like if you have 10 DPS classes that work one way, and one inverts it and can only move at specific moments as it has to use its one movement tool rotationally every 8 seconds or so, so it's immobile except for a brief moment just about exactly every 8 seconds or so. Wouldn't work in FFXIV, but that's how you'd do it.

It's a bigger problem how way to many other jobs like RDM or BLM use their supposed movement tools nilly-willy as they gain them damage. Or like how tanks use gapclosers for damage. It's part of why fights can never expect these tools to be used for mechanics, which in turn lessens fight design.

---

Then devs should just force a player's hands. Force us to ration skills. That's already a thing with LBs, as some fights force tank LB.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elliongrey

Personally, the timers were a nuisance more than anything. It didn't add to job identity or complexity, it was just annoying, and clunky.

---

When people describe a job as "clunky" what they're actually saying is "I got filtered."

Since the BLM changes went live all the threads I've seen on the subject across social media (threads with hundreds upon hundreds of posts) have been overwhelmingly negative. The only people who seem to like the changes are the usual crowd that cheer every time a job gets lobotomized.

I used to love dabbling in BLM and now it's about as exciting as watching paint dry.

I am not a job design expert but imo the job feels very much on rails now vs how it felt before, and I do not enjoy it. They did fix the issue with Flare Star potency though, which is nice.

I can see being a fan of new BLM if you enjoy routine, old BLM was better if you wanted to do your own thing and possibly even get more damage while doing it.

This is why I have no faith in 8.0 redesign. Because if the goal is to standardize every job so everyone likes it, then how is it supposed to feel unique, or allow for skill expression??

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CidHeiral

When people describe a job as "clunky" what they're actually saying is "I got filtered."

---

You don't have to project, you know? :P

And if we go by the few times devs have talked about this, then listening to the vocal part of your MMO playerbase (as in: social media etc) is actually really dangerous, as it heavily skews. It's a tiny tiny percentage, and at the same time people need to be angry to speak up, so you naturally get the ones who don't like something, and it's a minority. But now you got no clue what the rest thinks! If say, 4% are angry and vocal about it and 1% are happy and vocal about it, what does this mean? That 96% like it? (and hence are quietly playing) That the entire playerbase is split 80% dislike : 1% like? That only 1% of players like it, everyone else is unhappy? You cannot know. You got stats that you need to form the base opinion on, you can then take exemplars of the "I disliked this, I stopped/quit/dropped XYZ" via the social media. But that only works for the unhappy ones.
Now say your stats show that 60% of existing BLM players dropped the job, but overall there are now 400% as many BLMs as before. You know that the 60% of the original population that quit are angry because say, you removed the timers and simplified the job. But they're only ~1/7th of the current playerbase, and for ~5/7th you know they only picked it up after those changes. Do you make those quit again (the overwhelming majority) by undoing the changes? Maybe. Maybe not.

Yeah but let's assume 1/7 total players across all jobs are unsubbing or have unsubbed since every job has essentially been reworked at this point. Your total job participation is down, even though you might have 400% more "local" participation across all those jobs from people who are still subbed but playing multiple or all jobs.

The 1/7 figure is generous. Is it worth nuking the player base is what we should be asking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

You don't have to project, you know? :P

---

Huh?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

And if we go by the few times devs have talked about this, then listening to the vocal part of your MMO playerbase (as in: social media etc) is actually really dangerous, as it heavily skews. It's a tiny tiny percentage, and at the same time people need to be angry to speak up, so you naturally get the ones who don't like something, and it's a minority. But now you got no clue what the rest thinks! If say, 4% are angry and vocal about it and 1% are happy and vocal about it, what does this mean? That 96% like it? (and hence are quietly playing) That the entire playerbase is split 80% dislike : 1% like? That only 1% of players like it, everyone else is unhappy? You cannot know. You got stats that you need to form the base opinion on, you can then take exemplars of the "I disliked this, I stopped/quit/dropped XYZ" via the social media. But that only works for the unhappy ones.

---

It is reasonable to extrapolate general sentiment from trends across various sources and thousands of people even if that doesn't give you an exact breakdown of every single person's individual opinion. IRL polling does much the same thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

Now say your stats show that 60% of existing BLM players dropped the job, but overall there are now 400% as many BLMs as before. You know that the 60% of the original population that quit are angry because say, you removed the timers and simplified the job. But they're only ~1/7th of the current playerbase, and for ~5/7th you know they only picked it up after those changes. Do you make those quit again (the overwhelming majority) by undoing the changes? Maybe. Maybe not.

---

Your 60% vs 400% example would be a net negative in subscribers. It's one group of people quitting the game entirely because there's nothing left for them vs another group of people just shuffling around from one simple job to another.

To think about it another way, suppose SE decided to rework Hrothgar entirely and replace them with another "cute" race like Miqo'te, Au Ra, etc. The cute races are extremely popular and this new version would almost certainly be way more popular than current Hrothgar, but the massive increase in player count would largely just be fans of the current cute options trying this new option as well. Meanwhile people who liked playing a beast race would have nowhere to go so they would quit the game en masse. Though it may appear at first glance that you've added an incredibly popular feature, in reality you've lost more than you've gained.

After reading through the thread. I would formally like to welcome black mage to the healer paradox!

I have no idea why people think that a job being reworked increasing its immediate playerbase is good when you can just see the loss immediately come out of another job

Like BLM’s playerbase soared after this rework……..coming straight out of PCT’s playerbase

Like congrats you achieved nothing at all

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Likethewind

After reading through the thread. I would formally like to welcome black mage to the healer paradox!

---

I unsubbed for like 330 days and came back for the free week only to find the player base in further disarray than before and longer queue times than ever. It appears the game is in dire straits. But at *least* BLM is more popular, yay. They didn't learn anything from healers it seems.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I have no idea why people think that a job being reworked increasing its immediate playerbase is good when you can just see the loss immediately come out of another job

---

And how else would it work? Miraculously defying all known facts about how MMORPG playerbases work, the news of a BLM rework in FFXIV brings 300000 new players into the game suddenly?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

And how else would it work? Miraculously defying all known facts about how MMORPG playerbases work, the news of a BLM rework in FFXIV brings 300000 new players into the game suddenly?

---

Don’t rework a job just because it’s not the most popular job

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Don’t rework a job just because it’s not the most popular job

---

Who said that was the reason it was done?

(edit)
And I mean, in extreme cases I would still see this as a valid reason, clearly this job is (significantly) underplayed so there might be a specific reason that is unwarranted and could be changed. Plus in the case of BLM, it's not like it was reworked, in the grand scheme of things it's a pretty minor change (compare other MMOs in particular, where even full-class-swaps aren't uncommon, like with the DAoC Necromancer or partial ones like the entire WoW Shaman Totem system). All they did here, overall, was once again change how we get our DoT (the 12 months were up, it was time to change it again!) and then remove the Enochian timer + some minor window dressing around that change. Really not a big deal. I mean, you largely press the same buttons in roughly the same sequence as before (you just wouldn't have to in all situations), so it's really a comparatively small rework.

Dunno, just don't see the big deal? And it clearly seems to have made the job more popular, lastingly so, too. Don't get me wrong, personally I don't like BLM post-change. I should however qualify this by saying that I didn't like BLM pre-change either, and I like it equally not-at-all before and after, it's a trashy implementation of what should be the big-badaboom-caster of this game either way (and even that is stupid, since by nature of how FFXIV works, the Summoner needs to be the big-badaboom-caster). The changes apparently made the mess that this class has always been since they started bolting 1 UI element onto it each expansion easier to handle, but the underlying design is just as bad as before, and I sadly don't see Square actually doing actual reworks, where they rip the vast majority of a class out and do something else entirely. Because those types of reworks (which again, are not uncommon at all in MMORPGs!) would actually help this job. A lot!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

) Plus in the case of BLM, it's not like it was reworked, in the grand scheme of things it's a pretty minor change (compare other MMOs in particular, where even full-class-swaps aren't uncommon, like with the DAoC Necromancer or partial ones like the entire WoW Shaman Totem system). All they did here, overall, was once again change how we get our DoT (the 12 months were up, it was time to change it again!) and then remove the Enochian timer + some minor window dressing around that change. Really not a big deal. I mean, you largely press the same buttons in roughly the same sequence as before (you just wouldn't have to in all situations), so it's really a comparatively small rework.

---

Respectfully, you didnt mechanically understand BLM if you think the DT changes are minor.

Not sure we can attribute the surge in BLM popularity with its stellar design when the job was made a lot easier to execute while simultaneously both buffing the job and nerfing its direct competitor.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mecia

Respectfully, you didnt mechanically understand BLM if you think the DT changes are minor.

---

Respectfully, you don't have that much comparative experience if you think DT changes are major.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ShaneDawn

Not sure we can attribute the surge in BLM popularity with its stellar design when the job was made a lot easier to execute while simultaneously both buffing the job and nerfing its direct competitor.

---

Of course. We can't exclude that it was a or even the reason, but we can't truly know, either. It's just no surprise that the players came from other job players, that's just how MMO populations work. And it's quite unexpected (to me at least) that the increase in BLM players is so noticable and seems to stick around.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

Respectfully, you don't have that much comparative experience if you think DT changes are major.



Of course. We can't exclude that it was a or even the reason, but we can't truly know, either. It's just no surprise that the players came from other job players, that's just how MMO populations work. And it's quite unexpected (to me at least) that the increase in BLM players is so noticable and seems to stick around.

---

I don’t know why you find it so surprising that the increased popularity “seemed to stick around”. I mean the only change they did in 7.3 is nerf PCT again.

This just reads like SMN’s 6.0 popularity. Of course it remained somewhat popular with it spent the entire expansion having a completely disproportionate effort to output ratio; exactly what BLM has now.

It’s hard to see how you can claim enduring popularity of the change in design when nothing actually changes in terms of BLM’s ridiculous effort to output ratio; it’s the same reason VPR is popular.

Like if I buffed SGE’s dosis potency to 700 tomorrow it would shoot ho to being the most popular healer. Does that make its design good? Does its status as the new most popular healer justify the change that made it easier to do more? Like this is just circular logic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I don’t know why you find it so surprising that the increased popularity “seemed to stick around”. I mean the only change they did in 7.3 is nerf PCT again.

---

Because like others said, usually blips in popularity from simplifications tend to only last for a short time. See Summoner, who is nowadays only popular on new encounters in numbers, since it's so mobile and hence you can pay more attention the new mechs while you're learning. Just surprised it worked out that way. Mind you like I said before I feel the changes are a good thing, if for quite different reasons than other players commending them feel that way (I feel both pre- and post-changes BLM is badly designed, so the new one is better entirely by virtue of being less quantity of the bad design). I just expected it'd flare up big time, then drop down again as players go back to Picto, especially now that Hammer is fixed, since while the output of Picto is lower, it's a supremely easier and more consistent job to play. No rezz like Summoner and not remotely as mobile, but also higher output and more involved gameplay. Just surprised me. /shrug

“See SMN”

Yeah a class who’s “blip” was an expansion long

BLM was simplified a patch ago

"See SMN"

SMN was by far the most played caster through all of Endwalker and only got shafted because PCT did more damage on release than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, and PCT only got replaced because Hammer was broken and BLM got simplified while still pulling bigger numbers.
We have very different definitions of "a short time."

While easier jobs have higher playrate I don't think as many people as some are thinking would stick to smth like smn just cause it was easy. If a job bores you to tears you're not gonna play it. I think the more average player is less interested in the fflogs ranking on dps than others. In average gameplay, like normal raids and trials blm is seeing far more playrate and it has stayed that way for a while now. The ones who hopped on to try and found it not for them would have dipped already. If you are the kinda player who rerolls to whatever is meta then yea, but honestly who cares about those people. They would play a turd if it got them more dps.

That still leaves the question of why SMN’s playerbase crashed and burned and why we shouldn’t believe that BLM will do the same for no long term benefit

SMN’s 6.0 popularity was more stable than BLM’s current popularity (it lasted all the way to 7.0), so why would we believe BLM is going to stay consistently popular when SMN didn’t

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

In average gameplay, like normal raids and trials blm is seeing far more playrate and it has stayed that way for a while now.

---

Every job does not need to be equally popular. It is good for the game to have jobs that are niche. As explained earlier in the thread, you are losing more than you gain by turning every job into a bland soup.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

That still leaves the question of why SMN’s playerbase crashed and burned and why we shouldn’t believe that BLM will do the same for no long term benefit

SMN’s 6.0 popularity was more stable than BLM’s current popularity (it lasted all the way to 7.0), so why would we believe BLM is going to stay consistently popular when SMN didn’t

---

Put it simply, new class in the same role happened. and this is generally consistent among each expansion. PCT also released in a state where it isn't much harder to play than SMN and also very strong overall (to the point that they had to add more aggro gen to tanks for AoE and also had to make a rare nerf). the effects for picto also appealed to a lot of the same people that flocked to summoner post 6.0, paired with the rather disappointing nature of SMN's 7.0 changes. So naturally, people moved to the new class.

BLM by comparison outside of 7.0 -7.1 had often been fairly consistently played as a caster simply also because it was strong in many cases and had easy to follow fundamentals that made the class. while the current changes made the skill floor of BLM much lower, it also came at the cost of reducing the skill ceiling of the class simply from removing the timers and making the cast times for fire much shorter than before.

overall, when there are changes made to classes that are more than changing the numbers, a lot of the time it is because the play rates for the class is overall very low (see: pre 5.0 MCH, pre 6.0 SMN, 6.0-6.3 PLD, MNK, AST)

Yeah so that just circles back to my point

If all it took for SMN’s “we are fixing its popularity” rework to come crashing down is another caster or even a change in the caster meta why does anyone believe that BLM’s popularity change will stick

I only moved to BLM because PCT didn't really feel that great to me (and being yet another cookie cutter 2 minute job). I formerly played RDM but got tired of simply doing less damage by virtue of being a RDM. BLM does substantially more damage for less effort so I hung up the rapier for the time being (from 4.0 all the way to 7.2 launch). PCT kit also felt very backloaded to me since both rainbow drip and star prism are over 90, making the lower levels feel kinda dull.

Me playing BLM was not on my bingo card when this expansion launched. Got tired of my only perk being able to scoop people off the floor. They can take care of themselves now.

why simplify?.. same reason they made DT "woke" & androgynous.., loud activist tourists, who complain about difficult jobs?
....
that said, fights were getting borderline too difficult / annoying for BLM... Do believe future fight designs have less restrains with the new BLM
....

It's one of my favorite jobs, unfortunately I didn't like the changes. I felt like I was playing a mage in wow, so I went back to gnb and the ninja I leveled up right now. Also, let's not forget that BLM is Yoshi's character, so it wouldn't surprise me that these changes were made to check people's reactions to the changes that Yoshi says will be made to jobs in 8.0.

I think the changes made BLM more flexible and approachable, but at the cost of making it way too easy for seasoned players.

Since i dont think they will revert to the previous build, at least add a little complexity by adding a timer to Enochian ( a 15 sec for example), which is refreshed by all fire, blizzard spells except for Fire VI and Blizzard VI.

Do the opposite! Make Fire/Ice automatically swap every X seconds, and your goal is to make the most of each phase no matter when it the right it aligns? :D

Another upside of that approach would be that hotbars could be cleaned up massively as a lot of current spells exist primarily to "manage" stance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kentribal

It's one of my favorite jobs, unfortunately I didn't like the changes. I felt like I was playing a mage in wow, so I went back to gnb and the ninja I leveled up right now. Also, let's not forget that BLM is Yoshi's character, so it wouldn't surprise me that these changes were made to check people's reactions to the changes that Yoshi says will be made to jobs in 8.0.

---

Wait: What do you mean: "playing a mage in wow."?
The Black Mage IS the mage/wizard in FF. It seems clear, that they should play very similary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keichi

Wait: What do you mean: "playing a mage in wow."?
The Black Mage IS the mage/wizard in FF. It seems clear, that they should play very similary.

---

Come to think of it, I bet most BLM players disliking the new state wouldn't even know what a "pure caster" looks like as it's been a long time since any MMORPG had them. In GW2 you could do that, but as the Elementalist constantly stance-dances and the Mesmer has very few casted abilities not really, while WoW only had Fire Mage and Destrolock as cast-centric characters for most of its life, with TBC-era Arcane Mage being just about the purest caster alternating fast casts you spam with a relatively slow channeled abilities but few tools to be mobile.

And that's kinda the point: Old BLM could already skip so many of its casts. Plus all the mobility it had. In comparison to games featuring actual casters, very little of gameplay value was lost in the change simply because of very little being there beforehand that could be lost. Was it then a good change? IMO no, but that's because it didn't go far enough, BLM has been badly designed before, it needed ripping out and re-implementing. Not... this.

Mh yeah no. Saying that HW BLM could skip so many of its casts is ridiculous. One swiftcast and one sharpcast every minute, that's it. The only thing without cast times was Scathe (even Thunder had cast times), and you were not guaranteed to get many firestarter procs when casting F4, that with B4 and Freeze also had a 3s cast time back then. Flare was 4s.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

Mh yeah no. Saying that HW BLM could skip so many of its casts is ridiculous. One swiftcast and one sharpcast every minute, that's it. The only thing without cast times was Scathe (even Thunder had cast times), and you were not guaranteed to get many firestarter procs when casting F4, that with B4 and Freeze also had a 3s cast time back then. Flare was 4s.

---

As you seemingly agree with, it's been a long time since any MMO had pure casters.

I probably misunderstood what you meant with old BLM I guess.

Haha yes, but I probably could have worded it better, too. Apologies. I meant "old BLM" as in "before the current change", but wasn't worded well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThorinG

I think the changes made BLM more flexible and approachable, but at the cost of making it way too easy for seasoned players.

Since i dont think they will revert to the previous build, at least add a little complexity by adding a timer to Enochian ( a 15 sec for example), which is refreshed by all fire, blizzard spells except for Fire VI and Blizzard VI.

---

Let's not bring the skill floor back up after they finally lowered the massive skill cliff of the class.

The problem isn't that BLM is too easy now. BLM was always a stupendously easy class in principle. Its difficulty almost always came from contact with boss mechanics. Nonstandard wasn't a real thing for most of the classes life, so the majority of its difficulty was learning where to stand during fights and maximizing cast times.

The problem with this reworked BLM is that the devs well and truly, finally, have killed caster DPS' core gameplay. Sitting still and casting. If the class still had 2.8s and even 3s casts, 7.2 would be a challenge harder than the hardest ultimate. That's how much movement there is in modern fight design. That's how utterly divorced it is with older fight design and how roles fit into the game. Unfortunately, this issue is so dire that RDM won't survive modern fight design without a major change, and I strongly suspect that BLM and PCT will both lose their ley lines because this nonsense is extremely caustic to core caster gameplay. And then we'll have the true reality of casters laid bare. Casters aren't that hard to play bereft of cast bars. Even shadowbringers summoner isn't that hard if you remove the cast bars, outside of optimizing the pet AI to not drop abilities. It's also core to casters as an identity, so every class that gets them reduced or removed has slowly gotten worse and worse.

The devs need to bring back full cast bars, and design fights with 2 of 5 roles not having much in terms of movement. They need to be static classes. That is the challenge, that is where the fun of playing casters truly lies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

Mh yeah no. Saying that HW BLM could skip so many of its casts is ridiculous. One swiftcast and one sharpcast every minute, that's it. The only thing without cast times was Scathe (even Thunder had cast times), and you were not guaranteed to get many firestarter procs when casting F4, that with B4 and Freeze also had a 3s cast time back then. Flare was 4s.

---

BLM also couldn't skip jack crap in Stormblood either. Your highest damage spell was foul, followed by a proc'd thunder 3, then fire 4. The entire class was maximizing fire 4, and the only time any BLM skipped anything in the rotation was because the boss was about to jump and the timers wouldn't survive said jump. All the nonstandard stuff where BLM started skipping casts came about because of high spellspeed builds in shadowbringers, and didn't gain traction until paradox solidified it in endwalker. It's part of why I say nonstandard is demonstrably not intended nor is it healthy for the class. It's the equivalent of summoners in Heavensward boosting their expected damage by 25-40% by abusing the bad design of Dreadwyrm Trance, snapshotting, and contagion. Doesn't matter how much anyone likes it, it is aggressively bad to the game's overall health and in no way representative of how the class is intended to be played, or even how it was played throughout the years.

Endwalker is almost literally the only expansion where BLM was regularly played in a way other than what was intended.