They are gutting Black Mage even more in 7.2

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Originally Posted by Valence

To be honest the biggest cardinal sin this game ever did was pushing Mao away.

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And making Mao break character for a moment.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

And making Mao break character for a moment.

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That threw me off for a moment, didn't realise it was Mao at first.

If 7.2 was supposed to show off their "enhanced content", then I don't want it if it comes at the cost of job variety. There's no rule that says content can't be fun and jobs can't be unique, we should have both, and we did have both once upon a time.

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Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

That threw me off for a moment, didn't realise it was Mao at first.

If 7.2 was supposed to show off their "enhanced content", then I don't want it if it comes at the cost of job variety. There's no rule that says content can't be fun and jobs can't be unique, we should have both, and we did have both once upon a time.

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Honestly it feels like Occult Crescent is their 'excuse' specifically in DT period to just wreck the jobs to pieces just because.

"Look, if you want any shred or semblance of identity we seclude them into one singular content... please look forward to that. Oh yeah none of those will shows up in regular content because we can't be arsed to even try deal with the consequences of varieties so please stop asking for it from now on, you already have it in Occult Crescent."

Something like that, probably. This, like any other attempts, are akin to a smokescreen. Less people will complain because they 'tolerate more' by the time Occult Crescent comes out and it's their cue to continue axing something else after BLM after the 'crying' dies down.

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Originally Posted by Altera

I've been a BLM main since they added Jobs System to 1.0. And depending how BLM feels in 7.2, I feel this might the first time in 14 years that I'm thinking of quitting the game. Possibly permanently if they bastardise the job this much in mid expansion. They messed up hard with PCT and refused to nerf it unlike they did with a full rework of Viper just 1 month in to the expansion.

Everybody said to nerf PCT rather than bring every order job up and tune them to be like PCT


PCT imo has broken this game xD

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Yeah, but now they're finally nerfing PCT after months of players begging and still look what they're doing to Black Mage... I really don't think PCT is the big problem, but the Battle Jobs teams, it's leaders and even Yoshi-P.

Can't have people stepping out of line for their strict dance scripts. Remove room for it by making recovery difficult, if not outright immediately wipe. Can't put much more pressure on the healers than our scheduled raidwides anyways. If some jobs can't deal with a mech gracefully then it's surely the job's fault. It can't be the fight design, the newest content's the only thing that matters after all.

Do not question Yoshi P's Battle Designer

CONSUME BLACK MAGE PRODUCT

I have no strong feelings about the removal of the timers, but I do think they got the cast, and recast times of the spells wrong with these changes. They should be a little longer.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

I have no strong feelings about the removal of the timers, but I do think they got the cast, and recast times of the spells wrong with these changes. They should be a little longer.

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Yeah, the timers offer nothing of value, they are just there to punish the player. Ontop of being punished for losing uptime when you move, ontop of losing uptime inside your Ley Lines.

BLM gameplay and identity is defined by it's ressources and the difficulty to move. The timer can go, the cast times have to stay.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Yeah, the timers offer nothing of value, they are just there to punish the player. Ontop of being punished for losing uptime when you move, ontop of losing uptime inside your Ley Lines.

BLM gameplay and identity is defined by it's ressources and the difficulty to move. The timer can go, the cast times have to stay.

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I mean doesn’t that circle back to yoshi p’s “a platformer with no holes isn’t very fun” quote. Losing a GCD because you were in the wrong spot and had to move over casting isn’t really a failure state compared to that leading to you losing the enochian timer

It’s why healers damage optimisation ending at ABC is boring as hell, because losing a cast feels bad but overcoming that doesn’t feel good because it’s not a true fail state

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Originally Posted by Tint

Yeah, the timers offer nothing of value, they are just there to punish the player. Ontop of being punished for losing uptime when you move, ontop of losing uptime inside your Ley Lines.

BLM gameplay and identity is defined by it's ressources and the difficulty to move. The timer can go, the cast times have to stay.

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Well neither are staying currently.

I'd like to keep long cast times and timers personally but the long cast times are most important to me.

If timers are going, people need to ask themselves what does Fire I and/or Fire-Paradox serves to do in their kit from that point.

EDIT: It'd be funny NGL if they add a band aid fix that prevents BLM from executing two Flare Stars under one Astral Fire window lmao.

Is paradox even a DPS gain anymore (AF1F3 or otherwise)

Like is their goal making it a holy in white style “low DPS loss movement tool that is a bigger loss if you don’t AF1F3”

The long cast times and the AF/UI timers were interwoven mechanics to a degree; remove one and you lose an aspect of the other.

No timer gives no pressure to risk just one more Fire IV cast before refreshing with Paradox or Firestarter. Low (or no) cast times reduces that pressure to get that cast out just in time (and in turn also reduces the value that Spell Speed used to provide).

If we start removing mechanics because failing them ends up too punishing, you can very much extend that to many other mechanics. Failing to DPS properly punishes you with enrage, so why not get rid of the enrage timer? Failing to mitigate can kill a tank during a buster, so why not just remove mitigation and reduce damage from bosses to compensate? Not healing can result in the party's dea-- okay you can see where that's already starting to no longer apply with how easy it is to drop healers in a semi-competent party. These are extremes of course, but that's the end result of "removing punishing mechanics". At some point, you have to have pressure to play the content or job at hand.

It's one thing to reduce some punishing aspects in a jobs kit to keep the skill floor low, it's another to remove the punishment entirely.

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Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

The long cast times and the AF/UI timers were interwoven mechanics to a degree; remove one and you lose an aspect of the other.

No timer gives no pressure to risk just one more Fire IV cast before refreshing with Paradox or Firestarter. Low (or no) cast times reduces that pressure to get that cast out just in time (and in turn also reduces the value that Spell Speed used to provide).

If we start removing mechanics because failing them ends up too punishing, you can very much extend that to many other mechanics. Failing to DPS properly punishes you with enrage, so why not get rid of the enrage timer? Failing to mitigate can kill a tank during a buster, so why not just remove mitigation and reduce damage from bosses to compensate? Not healing can result in the party's dea-- okay you can see where that's already starting to no longer apply with how easy it is to drop healers in a semi-competent party. These are extremes of course, but that's the end result of "removing punishing mechanics". At some point, you have to have pressure to play the content or job at hand.

It's one thing to reduce some punishing aspects in a jobs kit to keep the skill floor low, it's another to remove the punishment entirely.

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Problem is removing punishment from jobs is basically what SE has been doing this whole time.

Tanks/healers self explanatory, healers barely have to heal "because it feels bad to be not healed" Tanks don't have aggro management, nor boss positioning because "it feels bad if tank gives you aggro, it feels bad for melee that the tank isn't good at boss positioning"

DPS like ninja got ten chi jin changed because "it feels bad if you need to move", raid buffs became 120s with 20s duration "because it felt bad if they didn't align" they removed cone AOE's "because it feels bad" they removed Dots from jobs like PLD, SMN, MNK because "it felt bad to mess up"

All these changes are because "it feels bad to make mistake and be punished" now we have a job system that hand holds you so much it's harder to not mess up, but in return you feel absolutely nothing for playing your job correctly.

What makes jobs interesting is upsides and downsides, some jobs should be better at certain things then others, you don't just remove those downsides to balance a job (sometimes you can make them less), you make their upsides impactful and useful. Black mage was truly unique in that yes it was hard to play and hard to position compared to other jobs... but having that potential damage was always such a nice upside that made the job feel amazing when played correctly.

Jobs need pain points and ways to shine... otherwise they become bland samey clones of one another.

I have not played BLM since early EW so I cant remember how rotations worked at all other than "Pick your spot well because you going to be there a while" being half of the part of the job. I liked PCT in DT because it felt like a more mobile BLM removing the need for intricate encounter knowledge.

From what I am gathering is BLM basically going to be like taking PCT and swapping out the muses for other spells ? If so for someone like me I think "Oh I get to have similar mobility but be more of a caster with a difficulty up ?" and I'd actually go back to looking at BLM which is potentially what SE is trying to do ? I really feel sorry for BLM players if I am right though because that sounds like they may as well just make a new job and leave BLM as it was.

Just trying to understand what 7.2's "Playstyle description" would be for BLM.

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Originally Posted by NaoSen

I have not played BLM since early EW so I cant remember how rotations worked at all other than "Pick your spot well because you going to be there a while" being half of the part of the job. I liked PCT in DT because it felt like a more mobile BLM removing the need for intricate encounter knowledge.

From what I am gathering is BLM basically going to be like taking PCT and swapping out the muses for other spells ? If so for someone like me I think "Oh I get to have similar mobility but be more of a caster with a difficulty up ?" and I'd actually go back to looking at BLM which is potentially what SE is trying to do ? I really feel sorry for BLM players if I am right though because that sounds like they may as well just make a new job and leave BLM as it was.

Just trying to understand what 7.2's "Playstyle description" would be for BLM.

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Less PCT more WHM with no healing

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Less PCT more WHM with no healing

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Do you think SE might be sacrificing current BLM playerbase to create a job that might attract more people then ?

Edit: As well as fall in line with new encounter design requiring more movement.

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Originally Posted by NaoSen

I have not played BLM since early EW so I cant remember how rotations worked at all other than "Pick your spot well because you going to be there a while" being half of the part of the job. I liked PCT in DT because it felt like a more mobile BLM removing the need for intricate encounter knowledge.

From what I am gathering is BLM basically going to be like taking PCT and swapping out the muses for other spells ? If so for someone like me I think "Oh I get to have similar mobility but be more of a caster with a difficulty up ?" and I'd actually go back to looking at BLM which is potentially what SE is trying to do ? I really feel sorry for BLM players if I am right though because that sounds like they may as well just make a new job and leave BLM as it was.

Just trying to understand what 7.2's "Playstyle description" would be for BLM.

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"Press orange buttons until pink bar is empty, then press blue buttons until pink bar is full. Press purple buttons sometimes."

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Originally Posted by NaoSen

Do you think SE might be sacrificing current BLM playerbase to create a job that might attract more people then ?

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They've tried that multiple times with other jobs and it hasn't worked. Just look at all the AST and MNK reworks that didn't move the needle.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

"Press orange buttons until pink bar is empty, then press blue buttons until pink bar is full. Press purple buttons sometimes."

They've tried that multiple times with other jobs and it hasn't worked. Just look at all the AST and MNK reworks that didn't move the needle.

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No matter how much destroy AST you will not make WHM mains play anything besides WHM

Square still doesn’t see this

If you look at the movement of the healers in the clears WHM didn’t move to AST, mostly SGE did

I dont main BLM, but this scares me other jobs like BRD gonna be hit soon too.
I really dont want to see that happen. Man... that battle designer needs some change of heart desperately.

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Originally Posted by NaoSen

Do you think SE might be sacrificing current BLM playerbase to create a job that might attract more people then ?

Edit: As well as fall in line with new encounter design requiring more movement.

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Their main goal seems to be to prevent Flare Star from falling off. Without a timer you don't have to switch to UI when the boss becomes untargetable etc. so you can just continue your AF phase where you left it.

Paradox will need a potency adjustment, I am more concerned about Despair. It was a finisher and a disengagement tool. Flare Star took it's place as a finisher and now you don't disengage anymore, so you don't need a disengagement tool. Despair becomes button bloat now.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Their main goal seems to be to prevent Flare Star from falling off. Without a timer you don't have to switch to UI when the boss becomes untargetable etc. so you can just continue your AF phase where you left it.

Paradox will need a potency adjustment, I am more concerned about Despair. It was a finisher and a disengagement tool. Flare Star took it's place as a finisher and now you don't disengage anymore, so you don't need a disengagement tool. Despair becomes button bloat now.

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A better solution would have been to have never add flare star considering it was always a terrible addition that nobody wanted

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Originally Posted by Tint

Their main goal seems to be to prevent Flare Star from falling off. Without a timer you don't have to switch to UI when the boss becomes untargetable etc. so you can just continue your AF phase where you left it.

Paradox will need a potency adjustment, I am more concerned about Despair. It was a finisher and a disengagement tool. Flare Star took it's place as a finisher and now you don't disengage anymore, so you don't need a disengagement tool. Despair becomes button bloat now.

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Prediction for 8.0: Flare and Despair will be removed and Flare Star will be learned at 50 instead.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Their main goal seems to be to prevent Flare Star from falling off. Without a timer you don't have to switch to UI when the boss becomes untargetable etc. so you can just continue your AF phase where you left it.

Paradox will need a potency adjustment, I am more concerned about Despair. It was a finisher and a disengagement tool. Flare Star took it's place as a finisher and now you don't disengage anymore, so you don't need a disengagement tool. Despair becomes button bloat now.

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Yes it's pretty hilarious that's the actual solution they came with.

You know the sad irony is that high difficulty--but rewarding--jobs is good midcore content in and of itself without needing to find a premade or deal with the party finder nonsense.

The problem is that a lot of high difficulty jobs weren't rewarding enough vs their mindless faceroll counterparts.

SE's solution? Get rid of the difficulty. Brilliant.

CB3 needs a new voice.

Can anyone show me who asked for theses changes? I'm very curious, seeing as how CSIII is often so tight-lipped on WHY they are implementing job changes. I know the rumor that the VPR changes came from a single JP post with only a couple of likes, but can anyone identify the source, if there is one?

Was it just general "WAAAH I DON'T LIKE IT, CHANGE IT, EVEN THOUGH I DON'T PLAY THE JOB AND STILL WON'T!" ? I'm tired of this modern-day mentality of "ruining something for someone else that enjoyed it as it was, by demanding that it change to suit me, even though I didn't interact with it and still will not, even after they bow to my capricious whims."

And the answer was simple. Just... nerf PCT. That was it. Or maybe give us some potenct buffs on BLM. Instead, we get whatever the F*** this is supposed to be.

I am genuinely disturbed and curious as to who wanted these changes.

EDIT: Just realized. They're doing this because of the mobile version. They want jobs to be more action combat-y, so they're beating all the jobs to death so they fit the "shape" of the mobile version better. Which means there's no room for an immobile turret caster. Either they were "inspired" to take this direction by the mobile devs, or Yoshida just wants to remake FFXIV into an "action combat spectacle fighter", like it's Devil May Cry or something. As if I didn't already hate the existence of the mobile version enough, now they have ruined my favorite job.

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Originally Posted by NaoSen

Do you think SE might be sacrificing current BLM playerbase to create a job that might attract more people then ?

Edit: As well as fall in line with new encounter design requiring more movement.

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They're trying to make it more "Cool" and "ACTION-Y!" like the mobile version. hence the new encounter design and the gutting of playstyle.

if anything flarestar should've been a followup to flare/despair like everything else they added this patch

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

They're trying to make it more "Cool" and "ACTION-Y!" like the mobile version. hence the new encounter design and the gutting of playstyle.

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Let's not put the blame entirely on the mobile version, this has been a creeping problem for like 3 expansions now.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Let's not put the blame entirely on the mobile version, this has been a creeping problem for like 3 expansions now.

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Oh I never did. I'm just saying that it's clearly had a compounding effect on their job design ideas. They just finally decided everything is going to be gutted and braindead now.

I know nothing about Black Mages but from reading and listening to a lot of Black Mage players - I do believe this is a step too far.

This is more than player dramatism.

This issue needs daylight and addressing.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

I know nothing about Black Mages but from reading and listening to a lot of Black Mage players - I do believe this is a step too far.

This is more than player dramatism.

This issue needs daylight and addressing.

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Removing the timers and reducing the cast times so drastically brings it from one of the most difficult jobs to one of the easiest, very close to SMN territory. Keep Thunder up, don't overcap Polyglot, and know the correct(and obvious) static sequence for fire phases. That's all it has left.

If this is the direction of jobs redesign in 8.0 ....

Though tbh I kinda want to see the community's meltdown if it's true lol

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Originally Posted by Kozh

If this is the direction of jobs redesign in 8.0 ....

Though tbh I kinda want to see the community's meltdown if it's true lol

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What you talking about jobs are already at the same level as the new black mage, black mage was the only sort of unique job left.

Black Mage was pretty much the last job left if you wanted to feel what jobs used to be like, and we are entering the "final days" of that now.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

If this is the direction of jobs redesign in 8.0 ....

Though tbh I kinda want to see the community's meltdown if it's true lol

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What can meltdowns do in this day and age?

The developers do not care. There won't be a reversal. They haven't cared about feedback in a long time now, except for random troll feedbacks on 2ch like SGE icon triggering a medically unrecognized "condition".

As a veteran player of over 10 years, and as someone who has always gravitated back to BLM after flirting with other jobs, the projected 7.2 BLM changes have become a sad indictment of a process of streamlining that began in Shadowbringers and has culminated in the attack on identity of a job - admittedly one that's had its up and downs over the years - that represents a beloved and daring take on the caster role.

In a game that heavily enforces at least one job from each role in a standard party composition, it beggars belief that variety in gameplay style has been seen as anathema to the design of said jobs, and that there does not exist a spectrum of difficulty, class identity, and gameplay mechanics represented within each role, to offer something for everyone. Understandably, such a pursuit may inevitably lead to balance disparity, but I would argue that in attempting to appease everyone, such a philosophy ultimately pleases no one, and instead leaves a stale gruel of homogenisation that is bereft of charm and flavour.

I say this with no hyperbole, but I would have played BLM with all of its quirks and nuances until FFXIV's last dying gasp.

It seems laboured to reiterate what many have said before, and probably more eloquently and in-depth, but gameplay and job identity is the vehicle with which the player engages with the world of an MMO, and is the lens through which the experience is perceived. We've seen the homogenisation of tanks, then healers, the gutting of BRD's dot mechanics, the controversial reworking of SMN, the questionable changes to SAM, the peripatetic reworks of AST and MNK, the slavish obedience to the 2 minute buff meta, the panicked stripping of any 'stressful' aspects of VPR, and the list could go on and on.

Perhaps the problem is an individual one, but when a Live Letter that promises such a colossal amount of content fails to generate any excitement or spark - mainly due to the rehashed nature of its contents - and also portends the needless mutilation of a core job identity then it is difficult to remain invested in a a product that seemingly neglects parts of its audience. If there are actually voices crying out for such changes to BLM job identity, then perhaps consideration should also be concentrated towards the quieter but content portion that were perfectly happy with BLM as it was, and largely has been through the game's life.

Be as it may, and with little evidence to suggest that SE listen to such feedback - even if it is from the minority - then there is no recourse but to detach from the game and vote with one's wallet, which is not done with any vindictiveness but with a heavy heart, and a hope that there may again in the future be a space for a Lalafell that desires simple things in life: to wear an oversized hat, stand in place and with a grin on their face, and to melt things with long but satisfying blasts of Fire IV.

So honestly?

After speaking to other Black Mage players, and taking some time to play Black Mage some more, I've changed my mind somewhat, and believe that removing the Enochian timer is probably a step too far. Reducing the cast times is objectively the correct decision, as the existing cast times make Black Mage feel clunky to play compared to every other job in the game.

However, Black Mage, if I'm seeing it correctly, is actually fairly simple to understand in it's current iteration, and the old memes of spreadsheets and 40+ page Google documents are largely a thing of the past.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

So honestly?

After speaking to other Black Mage players, and taking some time to play Black Mage some more, I've changed my mind somewhat, and believe that removing the Enochian timer is probably a step too far. Reducing the cast times is objectively the correct decision, as the existing cast times make Black Mage feel clunky to play compared to every other job in the game.

However, Black Mage, if I'm seeing it correctly, is actually fairly simple to understand in it's current iteration, and the old memes of spreadsheets and 40+ page Google documents are largely a thing of the past.

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Why do long timers make BLM clunky?

Like PCT’s reverse aetherhue combo and muses are longer than an average BLM class and nobody ever calls them clunky

It helps if we can define what "clunky" even means.

I've heard old PLD defined as clunky, SCH Energy Drain, Kaiten, long cast times, cast times in general, every gap closer. What counts as clunky and not? And within that definition, why would X mechanic count as clunky?