Why does Enochian have to be a pain in the neck?

I'll make it really, really simple: the only thing a half dozen experts prove is that the class isn't *impossible* to use.

They don't prove it's not broken, they prove that someone can do well in spite of it.

Most of the people who say they dislike the mechanics or find the mechanics broken have tried them. They've tried them extensively. And our conclusion is, they aren't fun and make the class worse overall. You few say that you can master them and use them for glory. The rest of us think "This class could be awesome if the enochian mechanics weren't so bloody awful".

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Originally Posted by Joronas

"This class could be awesome if the enochian mechanics weren't so bloody awful".

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Then don't use it. Pretend it's just a mini-Raging Strikes, ignore Fire IV and Blizzard IV, and play 2.0 style. The real world damage increase of a F4 rotation is only about 15%, much less in high movement fights.

I just get annoyed with the general attitude that the argument on the opposite of the fence is giving, I do not think of myself as a better person than any of you, not by any means. I do however feel that a level of commitment to something isn't a terrible thing.

This thread has gotten into a debate of what fun is. That's pretty much like arguing about difficulty (also brought up in this thread.) and that is totally subjective. Asking someone to disprove something is kind of funny though, considering arguments made by Bertland Russle here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Look, I get that some people aren't having fun with it. But I have a feeling that lack of success has something to do it with it, but at the same time numbers do not, which may not make sense to some, myself included. BLMS were fine running around doing 30-40% less dps than high end blms in the prevoious patches, which truth be told is about what the difference should break down to now. I pulled about 570 on turn 11 for instance varying by the week, events... whatever. Other blms I have seen can pull as little as 350 on that turn. 570*.3 = 171. 570-171=399, or 30% of that. BLM did not complain then, they just chalked it up to skill, time or whatever else.

Now let's talk about something in the middle ground, let's say alexander 1 normal mode. While I haven't like gone all out in the fight in recent times I can say that I can usually push 1100 in that turn while in a pug (so it jumps a ton). Usually if I'm paired with a pug blm they pull less than that... lets say 800ish. 1100*.3 =330. 1100-330 = 770. This is roughly about the same gap in terms of percentage, It's simply a larger number, but it has the same meaning.

So that being said is this strictly about not being able to use fire 4? Because the gaps now and the gaps then are near identical. If you couldn't cast fire 1 but pulled the same numbers would you of had the same argument then as you do now? I'm trying to understand why you want to change something that I personally have fun with (that fun argument you keep using) that is also balanced and works.

Xisin, you're correct in many ways.

The difference I find is that before, while I wasn't top of the charts DPS, it was generally due to little things that could be optimized a bit more.

Now, it's one glaring thing that just feels like it's rubbing in my face that I'm not good enough. It feels like the entire Enochian mechanic was set up as a giant slam against people who are not able to micromanage everything to the degree to keep 95% uptime with optimal damage. Can you even integrate thunder successfully? Because when I try I either lose thunder or enochian on the 2nd phase; or waste procs. THAT'S why I find it not fun.

Tying that much DPS to one specific mechanic that gives people a lot of trouble doesn't always make the split any worse; but it does make the people on the opposite side feel worse about said split. At least IMO.

Throw in the 'git gud' (which again, comes across as scornful, insulting and so on), and I'm sure you can see why things escalate quickly there.

I've read about 10 pages of this thread. I learned something new from it.... Apparently all midgets like the phrase "git gud".

Rather than fun sounds more like they want the class to be easy. Back in 2.0 the concept of playing BLM is easy and outside of that they cared little. Now that the rotation requires attention, timing and a decent level of skill, it seems to be not fun anymore. Personally I love the way BLM is now, and I find the job significantly more fun than it was in 2.0 because of the challenges that are currently present on the rotation. But maybe I'm different, I love BLM as a class for better and for worse and currently vs SMN it sort of is for worse simply because SMN can out perform BLM because of the way most fights are set up. But that won't stop me from trying to do better than them regardless. If you don't like the class play a different one because the people that actually like it now don't want to see it changed for worse.

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Originally Posted by Aysin

If you don't like the class play a different one because the people that actually like it now don't want to see it changed for worse.

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Gee Aysin ... if only we'd thought to say something like that before they changed BLM on us with HW... not all changes are for the worse. Ley lines, sharpcast.. those are neat and add something. Maybe, just maybe, if Enochian got fixed into something that more people liked, then you'd find you enjoyed it more to? Sometimes you just want to play the game and not feel like you're struggling .. to be in the running for 3rd place.

Because that part about you not wanting it changed for the worse? That's what I think has been done to it already.

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Originally Posted by Maddonious

The class IS - NOT - SHIT!
(snip)
bosses and raids? Besides neverreap (the very bain of our class sometimes)
(snip)

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So you admit there is a problem? Because until you get up to Alexander ILV, Neverreap seams to be the "go-to" dungeon for end game shenanigans.

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Originally Posted by Noob_Sauce

So you admit there is a problem? Because until you get up to Alexander ILV, Neverreap seams to be the "go-to" dungeon for end game shenanigans.

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A dungeon having two bosses that are rough for every job, including BLM, means there is a problem with BLM?

Give me a tank that pulls more than 2-3 mobs at a time, and I'll blow away any other dps in Neverreap or any other dungeon.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Give me a tank that pulls more than 2-3 mobs at a time, and I'll blow away any other dps in Neverreap or any other dungeon.

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Not a Summoner.

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Originally Posted by OneWingedSora

Not a Summoner.

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Maybe not a top tier SMN, but 90% of them.

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Originally Posted by ignacioricci

The discussion makes no sense at this point. People that are not good to the job, and don't even do high raid content say it's bad with no real argument at this point and don't want to listen.

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The point is that shouldn't matter. There is a matter of fun and how it plays. And how blm plays at 50 is ENTIRELY different from 60. The only thing in common is you want to turret. At 50 blm was a reactive class, responding to procs when they happened. At 60 you are a timer based class. You can't react to procs at all because TC now only matter if it procs at the right time. And it's hard to fit in beyond that first Enochian window. Can you at least admit that the class HAS changed from how it felt at 50, and that some people may want the old class back?

50 Blm was a unique simple and enjoyable class, especially because every other dps was fairly complex. Now every dps is that same level of complexity and it isn't fun.

Would any significant change to Enochian close the gap between those players who've mastered (and enjoy) the class and those who haven't (and don't)? On the one hand, I could see this being the case, since you can only do as well as 100% uptime, so there's is a limit to how much easier Enochian could get. On the other hand, easing the requirements for Enochian might only make it easier for those of us who can maintain optimal uptime, and the skill gap might continue.

Edit: And please, you can react to TC and FS procs plenty. You will occasionally have to miss them, it's true, but I miss maybe one or two a fight and it's usually because of a mistakes I made--often waiting too long to use the proc hoping to push into ice.

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Originally Posted by Noob_Sauce

So you admit there is a problem? Because until you get up to Alexander ILV, Neverreap seams to be the "go-to" dungeon for end game shenanigans.

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The one dungeon I admit is not friendly to blm, ONE DUNGEON, and you try to say the class has issues cause of neverreap? Weak argument.

Remember brayflox HM? Every other class must have had major issues with them cause that dungeon was catered to BLM with its huge pulls. Tight logic, can't argue with that.

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Originally Posted by raisetheglass1

Edit: And please, you can react to TC and FS procs plenty. You will occasionally have to miss them, it's true, but I miss maybe one or two a fight and it's usually because of a mistakes I made--often waiting too long to use the proc hoping to push into ice.

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How are you having the time left to react to them in the 2nd or third phase? I cut timers insanely close there without using Thunder, and see no place for it before you swap to Ice phase as it means cutting a F4. As for what I'd want changed, I feel Enochian is fine as a mechanic, its Astral Fire that's the problem. Granted F4 makes that a problem, but that's what I have trouble managing and find unejoyable.

As well I think a difference between a "bad" blm at 50 and 60 is that at least at 50 you could feel like you are playing it correctly and it's a matter of optimization and familiarity. Here it's a struggle to even play it correctly and when you mess up its very blatant and in your face.

Slightly off-topic I know, but what's best rotation to use? I keep seeing people say "100%" uptime, but in mine enochian falls off after the 4th Fire 4 of cycle 3, then I blizz3+Thunder3 before F3 and putting enoch back on. Since this isn't 100%, and since the enochian QoL buff makes 0 difference in this case, wondering if my rotation is wrong somehow?

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Originally Posted by Kailii

The point is that shouldn't matter. There is a matter of fun and how it plays. And how blm plays at 50 is ENTIRELY different from 60. The only thing in common is you want to turret. At 50 blm was a reactive class, responding to procs when they happened. At 60 you are a timer based class. You can't react to procs at all because TC now only matter if it procs at the right time. And it's hard to fit in beyond that first Enochian window. Can you at least admit that the class HAS changed from how it felt at 50, and that some people may want the old class back?

50 Blm was a unique simple and enjoyable class, especially because every other dps was fairly complex. Now every dps is that same level of complexity and it isn't fun.

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Of course it changed. ALL JOBS CHANGED. And yes, is harder than before.
If ppl find it so hard to play, they can switch to another job.

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Originally Posted by Core1019

Slightly off-topic I know, but what's best rotation to use? I keep seeing people say "100%" uptime, but in mine enochian falls off after the 4th Fire 4 of cycle 3, then I blizz3+Thunder3 before F3 and putting enoch back on. Since this isn't 100%, and since the enochian QoL buff makes 0 difference in this case, wondering if my rotation is wrong somehow?

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Your question could probably be better answered here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...A-Guide-to-DPS

Im no pro but what your doing sounds about right to me. I personally wouldnt refresh enochian mid rotation just to maintain 100% uptime. Id much rather let it run down (squeeze in as much fire 4 as I can) refresh my mana in umbral, apply a stress free thunder dot, and restart enochian fully charged and ready to get as much out of it as I can. But id ask a more pro blm.

Edit: ok so I followed my own advice and reread aikaals updated guide and he recommends refreshing enochian when it becomes available during the 20 sec timer. This ill have to practice :)

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

2 - They think heavy movement fights disproportionately punish BLM. Neverreap bosses are just as bad for melee, the last boss is worse for melee. A4 BLM is more valuable for the mechanics than any other dps.

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I don't think that this is an entirely unfair claim. BLM derail very easily. Like for example on a F4-F4-F1, if you get interrupted at all, you can lose astral III, or you need to sacrifice attacks entirely. Same with any delays in the second enochian. Melee combos have several second windows to use the next attack, and even greased lightning requires a lengthy pause to fall off. Numerically BLM might be fine, but there's some QOL frustration that seems fair to at least raise as a point of discussion.

Im fine with how blm is, so far in savage I've been able to maintain high numbers comparative to our raid smn as he gloats about his Dps.

I will not lie though; blm has become much more stressful than our caster counter part, leveling and raiding with both classes I feel...annoyed?

Maybe ticked at how they can do 90-95% of our damage at minimum and 150%+ our damage in a good environment at not even half brain power.

Not saying smn are stupid, I just dont like how disproportionate the difficulty of class vs output have become, aethertrails are laughably easy to keep up, all their biggest damage dealers are instant casts minus ruin 3 and we only use it 5 times mid dread (4 times if you screw up badly) and mash death flare on the last .5 seconds of dt.

Something about this seems...wrong in my eyes.

Either that or blm are supposed to face tank aoes using their wards, except in A4 because the orbs are physical damage.

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Originally Posted by Psycofang

Either that or blm are supposed to face tank aoes using their wards, except in A4 because the orbs are physical damage.

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Except that they nerfed the wards. I wonder if Enochian was easier to maintain during development testing (full refresh from Eno and Bliz IV), but they were afraid it was OP during dev testing on dummies, but without real testing on movement heavy fights. That, or making life very difficult on high movement fights was a deliberate if unbalanced design choice.

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Originally Posted by Viviza

I don't think that this is an entirely unfair claim. BLM derail very easily. Like for example on a F4-F4-F1, if you get interrupted at all, you can lose astral III, or you need to sacrifice attacks entirely. Same with any delays in the second enochian. Melee combos have several second windows to use the next attack, and even greased lightning requires a lengthy pause to fall off. Numerically BLM might be fine, but there's some QOL frustration that seems fair to at least raise as a point of discussion.

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Simple solution in heavy movement fights: don't use F4 back to back unless you have a firestarter proc, and then you can knock off 3 in a row if you have the MP. Slight dps loss, no risk of AF3 loss.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Simple solution in heavy movement fights: don't use F4 back to back unless you have a firestarter proc, and then you can knock off 3 in a row if you have the MP. Slight dps loss, no risk of AF3 loss.

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That's correct, but not really my point? I'm going to pick on monks again because they haven't changed too much since 50 and I'm familiar with that.

If a monk has to move for an AOE, they can pick up where they left off. They only have to rethink their combos if they lose more than a few seconds. If a blm has to move for an aoe, they might need to cancel an F4 and use an F1. They might have their F1 disrupted and need to swiftcast an F3 to get astral iii back up, they might not have swiftcast, and have to hardcast F3, but now MP consumption is abnormal and they have to worry about losing time when swapping back to umbral and finding themselves under the MP value they need to use B4. Now enochian maybe falls off if you timed that wrong. Or you timed it right, but mistimed the regen tick, and you're in astral iii with 8,000 mp. You drop a F4 off but find yourself 5 MP too short to use B3, so you convert, but the tick isn't coming for B4 and enochian has 5 seconds left you might not have time to wait and cast B4 but you try anyway and enochian falls off 0.5 seconds too soon and cancels your cast so maybe B3 hardcast to start recovery faster or would thunder be better and F3 after and aaaargh. And so on.

There are a lot of balls to juggle by managing an aspect, a timer, and mp values, all with specific conditions to refresh them in timely manners. It's easy to acknowledge that yes, this is fragile. I'm not saying that you are wrong, only that the views of others are reasonable. Some BLM embrace this as a challenge, but others get frustrated at all the work to keep it all in order.

There are a lot of solutions to the rotation QoL issues that would be fairly simple to implement. Here are some options:

1. Mana abnormalities. Under Enochian, F1 and F3 cost the same as F4. (Maybe add F2 in there as well, so all Fire series spells cost the same under Enochian). Now you can throw in an extra F1 when needed without becoming unable to get in 4 F4's due to mana. You will still be limited on how many F4's you can get in as you will eventually have to refresh Enochian.
In effect you have 11319 MP and 30s of Enochian. W/ all Fire spells costing 1768 you can do 6 Fire series spells, leaving you with 711 MP, enough for B3 and nothing else. Atm if you need to add an extra F1, say 4-1-4-1-4 instead of 4-4-1-4-4, then you are forced to trade an F4 for an F1, 176.4 pot/sec traded for 136.1 pot/sec, a 22% loss.
If everything cost the same, then you could throw in that extra F1 and still have enough for 4 F4's and B3. The issue will still be that you must swap to UI for B4 with enough time to refresh Enoch.

2. Timing issues. As I have suggested before, one of the easiest ways to fix a lot of the timing issues in the AF phase, is to either provide a 2nd effect to F4 which makes the next F1 instant cast. Or make F1 automatically instant under Enochian. Or possibly the single easiest solution to ALL the timing and movement QoL issues w/ BLM... Make our personal effects FRONT-LOADED.
Instead of having our effects be applied when the spell hits, make them apply when we start casting. Suddenly we can refresh everything on time, even if we have to dodge, however we still lose out on damage.

3. The Durations Fix... Make AF3 last 12s, UI3 last 12s, Thunder spells add 3s to the duration of AF, UI, and Enochian (no penalty for using Thunders), and if a spell is past 50% of its cast time when a required buff drops, let the spell finish.
Hey, they did it for Monks when Monks claimed they were overly punished for disconnecting for more than 1 gcd, do the same for BLM.

The real question is, Are The Devs Listening?
Have they really tried BLM in the endgame's movement heavy fights, with things becoming untargetable for periods of time. For a BLM, moving at the wrong time means you risk messing up your buff timing. Having your target die at the wrong time, or losing your target in general, means messing up your buff timing.

Personally, I think the best solution to all of this would be frontloading the buffs.
I think people realize that as a caster you are expected to lose dps when you have to move. This is the punishment that casters get in exchange for being able to hit targets from 25y away.
The concern is that with Enochian, in addition to breaking or delaying a cast due to movement, we are also punished by potentially losing the buffs which enable our 60 rotation, which means having to seamlessly switch to the 50 rotation, and likely end up with an unfavorable combination of buffs and mana for doing actual dps.
If the AF, UI, and Enochian refresh effects were applied the moment we press the corresponding spell, then almost all of the buff punishment issues would go away... Note that I say "almost". If you have nothing to hit or the boss is invulnerable, you will lose your buffs. If you personally fail to refresh things at the right time, you will lose your buffs... and you are bad and you should feel bad...

See, the rotation would not suddenly become idiot-proof, which is what I think the devs are afraid of happening, but BLM would simply not be AS punished by mechanics as it is now.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

say 4-1-4-1-4 instead of 4-4-1-4-4, then you are forced to trade an F4 for an F1, 176.4 pot/sec traded for 136.1 pot/sec, a 22% loss.

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This is another huge issue with BLMs, looking at the big number all by itself. 22% damage theoretical turret damage loss translates to real world dps GAIN.

How much of a loss is that to the overall rotation, 3-4%? And that's assuming you never have to cancel due to mechanics, which is the entire reason you make that change.

Harder hitting slower spells give you less time to react, meaning you will lose more dps from interruptions than using faster spells. Also with time lost from movement, it helps you get to that 2nd B4 faster.

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Originally Posted by Rover1983

@ Madddonius -

Nice of you to call people out in a condescending manner.
"Git Gud" all you want, it wont change the fact that Enochian is shit and people are changing classes because of it because if you aren't using Fire IV then you're stuck using Fire 1 which puts our dps sub par compared to others at 60

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Whats stopping you from getting better at mastering the mechanic?

Its funny that the people who are getting better at the mechanic arent complaining but the ones that arent are. What is stopping you people exactly?, an easy class to play is a boring one, skill play is very much needed in this game.

There is a easy mode alexander for people that struggle, savage mode demands all players are good anyways.

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Originally Posted by Kailii

As well I think a difference between a "bad" blm at 50 and 60 is that at least at 50 you could feel like you are playing it correctly and it's a matter of optimization and familiarity. Here it's a struggle to even play it correctly and when you mess up its very blatant and in your face.

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I wonder if that's a good thing, though? It seemed that BLM especially was a class that was played very poorly by some members of the populace. You've all seen the Fire 3 > Blizzard 3 > Fire 3 Black Mage, so maybe the fact that it's pretty obvious when things are going wrong--maybe that's not a bad thing?

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Originally Posted by Sethra

nerfed the wards. I wonder if Enochian was easier to maintain during development testing (full refresh from Eno and Bliz IV), but they were afraid it was OP That, or making life very difficult on high movement fights was a deliberate if unbalanced design choice.

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Its also a problem that their defensive capabilities that would allow aoe tanking got nerfed.
It counters the current issue instead of alleviating it.
With the old wardings pre 2.4 nerf we could prepare ahead of time but now its situational, short and not as effective for virtually no reason.

A caster that doesn't work half as hard for most or more of our dps says to me that the development team is paranoid of CERTAIN classes or they do this on purpose to add..."depth".

Im mot sure, I can do great dps in all turns I know the tricks, slide casting, the whens and when nots but I dont enjoy this.

Not one bit.

Ill give it a little more time before I make a final call, call me bad or sling as many git guds as you feel.

Okay i finally read through all this 15 Pages and now i unleash my wall of text, hope it is readable.
Also if i got any Facts wrong or something like this, please correct me.


First of a bit about "Me and the Blackmage":
I'm playing the Blm since 2.5 Changed from Bard around that time.
I changed because Bard was "too boring" for me and i like the way of optimising the Blackmages DPS with good movement/holding on to procs and stuff like that.

Fast forward to now. I love the Enochian an the mechanic behind it.
I did every fight up to A1S as a BLM by now, several times and i never found myself in a situation where i dropped AF/UI or Enochian that was not duo to my own fault.
Even tho i need to admit that Neverreaper is "shit" and if RNGesus really hates you and you get "stunlocked" by the tornados you will lose it duo to mechanics. I guess the same goes for Bis Ex in the second phase.

I always found a way to walk around certain mechanics and after about 4h of A1S i am Nearly able to never let my Enochian drop. Still struggling with the adds and uptime of AF/UI and Enochian.



I read several times that people don't have fun with the new rotation and they prefer the 2.x one. Aslong you don't want to beat Alexander savage you can simply use the 2.x rotation with the new buffs (Using enochian as a simple CD like Raging Strikes).

I did with my ilvl 188 blm (everything except 1 ring and Chest ilvl190) and pulled about 970 dps (i guess 1000 is possible, i choked a bit) at the dummy (also i didn't refresh enochian with blizz IV waht would not be to much of a trouble).
This Should be enough for the content outside of Savage. (Im unsure about Rav Ex tho).
If you still want to go on about how less fun BLM is or how bad it is, consider a Class change. I heard bowmages/Machinist are kinda like the 2.x BLM.

The other thing i read often was the DPS a BLM can output compared to Meele.
As far as i remember it always was that meele dps have a higher DPS then the caster (ranged).
Ranged have the advantage from being able to attack from about anywhere and don't having a positional.

You actually should compare the Blackmage to the other available Magic DPS role, the Summoner.
The Blackmage is harder to play, and also being punished harder for mistakes.
But therefore Blackmages put out a higher (single target) DPS then the Summoner.



Also yes, Blackmage has gotten way harder and in "perfect" execution it is on a difficulty level with a meele now.
In 2.x Meele was harder then the Blackmage, atleast thats how it was for me.
Now the meele difficulty has increased a bit. The Blackmage difficulty alot, but dou Meele being harder then Blackmage before they are on about the same difficulty level.



I would be really dissapointed if they would do changes to the Enochian/Fire IV/Blizz IV i really enjoy it the way it is.

But what SE actually could would be something similiar they did to the Dragoon and the positionals. (Talking about the lowered dps loss if executed wrong.)
(I also didn't put much effort into the numbers it was more of a Brainstorming thing)

Option 1: Make Fire IV castable outside of enochian (with a lowered potency, i'd say around 200) and when Enochian is active it is the usual 280. (Just Fire IV not Blizz IV).

Option 2: When "canceling" a Fire IV Cast you still do damage but with a lower potency (something aorund 150 or 200 or so). Making the movement less punishable.
But i don't know if this could work given how FFXIV works.

But i would not prefer any changes. I like it a lot how it is right now.



And i also think the whole "git gud" thing is totaly viable. The Class works fine. The Mechanics works fine, proven by several players.
I don't like to go up to someone and just say "get good" it implies that they are (currently) bad.

Rather tell people that for a high DPS amount they need to put (alot of) work into the class the rotation and stuff. This goes for every dps not just the BLM. (This also does not implie that people are bad just that they didn't put in as much effort as others)

"Relevant": http://i.imgur.com/0Lceauv.jpg

Disclaimer: Just to clarify, no i don't think of myself superior to anyone i know there are many better player then me. If anything in this post made you think that, i apologies for putting it wrong.

Thanks for reading.


Edit: Thanks for the advice Duelle!

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Originally Posted by Drakor

Okay i finally read through all this 15 Pages and now i unleash my wall of text that i can't unleash because it is way to long and i would need to do like 5 post for it (4383 symbols).
So if you are intressted i did a Pastebin for it: http://pastebin.com/Cu9GwLTN

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Cut and edit it into your post. You can edit a post to be more than 1000 characters.

Honestly at this point it's pretty clear that a large majority of the community doesn't like the way BLM has been set up. To my mind, the easiest change to the BLM is to make Fire 4 and Blizzard 4 refresh their respective stacks.

This would be a huge QoL change with minimal DPS increase (one Fire 1 would be replaced by one Fire 4). Dodging would no longer be significantly more punishing than it was in 2.x, because you can dodge most mechanics without risking your Astral Fire. Enochian would be the only stack that required our careful attention--but it would still be a serious limiting factor, and too much movement would still force us to sacrifice Fire 4s to keep Enochian up. Furthermore, Thundercloud procs would be useable once again, because we would be in fear for Astral Fire at all times.

There would be downsides to this change (fire 1 would be less useful as a skill, and Firestarter procs would be essentially outdated), but there would be a lot of benefits:

I personally feel Enochian is fine as it is. The only issue we have is having to move a lot in most/some fights.

What SE can do is to give us AST's Lightspeed equivalent ability

Reduce cast times

Personnally, I don't think Enochian is the problem, or the whole 3.0 BLM rotation. The main problem for us has always been mobility. Moving during a fight is at best a small dps loss, at worst a huge dps loss (loose Enochian and/or AF/HI). Having to move when casting I3 or I4 is a massive pain in the ass.

I would be really fine if we had a way to counter this drawback on our class, not all the time, but on most situations.

And this could be resolved by changing the CD of SwiftCast from 60 to 20 or 30 sec.

Still a CD long enough to not use it in a Rotation, but you become able, when needed, to move for 2 sec while not sacrificing dps (start moving > swiftcast > spell > land in your new spot and keep casting).

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Originally Posted by Thorsparkle

Personally, I don't think Enochian is the problem, or the whole 3.0 BLM rotation. The main problem for us has always been mobility. Moving during a fight is at best a small dps loss, at worst a huge dps loss (loose Enochian and/or AF/HI). Having to move when casting I3 or I4 is a massive pain in the ass.

I would be really fine if we had a way to counter this drawback on our class, not all the time, but on most situations.

And this could be resolved by changing the CD of SwiftCast from 60 to 20 or 30 sec.

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I'll mention something I suggested earlier in the thread: how about changing Scathe so that it extends Enochian/Astral Fire/Umbral Ice by some amount? The ability was designed to be used with movement in mind, so I still think it'd be a good fit.

I agree that Fire IV/ Blizzard IV need to refresh their stacks. But in doing that people may think that BLM may become too over powered.

Letting Fire 4 refresh Astral Fire is most straightforward way to lower the extent to which we are punished for mobility. It might be a little too far in the wrong direction, moving us back to the difficulty of the 2.x rotation (but hey, people still failed epically at 2.x BLM).

Other options include letting Fire 4 add 2 seconds to Astral Fire (taking 3 seconds, giving 2 meaning that eventually Astral Fire with drop off) or increasing Astral Fire two a twelve second stack.

Of these options, I think my favorite is letting Fire 4 add 2 seconds. If the rotation could be tuned that with absolutely no movement (Faust, Ravana opener) we could spam Fire 4s, but then any real movement required us to use Fire 1 to keep our stacks, that would be a nice mix between difficulty and less punishment.

I feel like any skill rework we come up with will be considered op. Like how about in astral 3, fire 3 is now instant cast and has the same mana cost as fire 1. Always being able to insta refresh astral would be a nice qol and in the event enochian falls off we can be mage bard and a3 fire 3 spam while running circles around bard in wanders minuet (toss him a /comfort in between gcd since we have nothing else to do) with less of a dps drop but still a drop compared to enochian rotation.

Jokes aside adding 2 seconds to astral phase would be a nice qol that wouldn't also be op. But imo a lot of the people will come back asking for 15 seconds long astral. Once we get what we want we want something more. Its human nature.

I disagree that human nature is opposed to compromise :) Yes, a lot of people will want more but a lot of other players will realize 2 seconds is the extra forgiveness the class needs to be less punishing.

There will, of course, be BLMs who make sure to let us know that they did not need the extra 2 seconds because they could manage their stacks just fine, and SE should stop catering to filthy casuals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by raisetheglass1

There will, of course, be BLMs who make sure to let us know that they did not need the extra 2 seconds because they could manage their stacks just fine, and SE should stop catering to filthy casuals.

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Omg yes! Love it!! I smiled out loud

The more I consider my joke suggestion the more I like it. A change that improves qol in refreshing astral in enochian, movement issues and helps our gimped out of enochian dps. But it might be too confusing so let me make it more confusing: scathe removed. New skill: firaga. Can only be used in astral 3, instant cast, 220 potency (less than 3 more than 1), around same mana cost as fire 1, refreshes astral by 10 sec, has no mana cost during enochian. We still have to baby sit timers but its less of a chore. We can move and refresh our a3 always. Out of enochian its the same 2.0 rotation replacing fire 1 with firaga but dealing better damage.

I personally dont like the fire/blizzard 4 adding to astral/umbral timer. If its a full refresh then were just blm 2.99. Same basic rotation but more damage. If it added like 2 sec per cast I think I would get MORE confused and stressed than currently. with ping and lag a barely making it fire/blizzard 4 would give me just enough more time to screw up royally imo. Maybe I haven't thought it through thoroughly but I'd rather have a straight forward timer that is counting down

Yeah, can we just get rid of Scathe... and Freeze...

Almost nobody uses Scathe anymore, it is a waste of a skill AND a trait.
And Freeze... yeah... what is it good for outside of say pvp? For that amazing 4s bind with a 3s cast... Its about as worthy of being a job skill as One Ilm Punch.

Make Scathe another Fire series spell. Instant, OGCD, 10s CD, 150 base potency. Have the trait increases the duration of all personal effects on you by 5s. At a bare minimum it should increase AF, UI, Firestarter, and Thundercloud. It would be awesome if it also extended Enochian, but that would likely be OP... But hey, Scathe would be useful!