What I think should change about 3.0 BLM.

Hello everyone, I have been maining lvl 50 BLM in end game raiding content for over a year now. I have practised the new lvl 60 extendedly, farming lvl 60 dungeons again and agian for law, clearing Bismarck Ex, and training Ravana Ex atm (1% wipe ftw :D).

I have been thinking about where this new lvl 60 rotation is lacking in terms of viability, fluidness and overall "fun-level". Keep in mind, these are my opinions, after a fair amount of testing and with solid lvl 50 experience, I'm not saying there are no other or better solutions, but these are my 2 cents.

What I think needs to change is this:

Ley Lines:

- This either needs to follow you where ever you go

or

- the area needs to be a lot bigger

or

- this needs to be a selfbuff that allows movement while casting.



Blizzard 4:

- This either needs its cast time reduced to 1 or 1.5 seconds

or

-the cast should stop being interupted when enochian falls off during the cast of Blizzard 4.

or

- both. It's not like we're using Blizzard 4 for its damage output, it's a utility skill, that we use once during Umbral, meant purely for refreshing Enochian. It needs some serious tweaking.



Fire 4 / Astral Fire stacks:

- What we need right now, is either Astral Fire to last 12-15 seconds instead of the current 10

or

- a completed Fire 4 cast should give us 1 or 2 seconds on top of the current duration of Astral Fire stacks, this way, we would still need to weave Fire 1 in between Fire 4's, but this elemenates the heavy dps loss when you have to move for more than 1 second.




I have not yet seen a good lvl 60 SMN yet to compare DPS with and I do not know any details about lvl 60 SMN either, so I will refrain from saying anything about the whole BLM vs SMN debate. Anyone with solid, reliable numbers on "BLM vs SMN" is very welcome to share them though.

AF/UI lasting 12s
B4/F4 snapshotting the cast much like F3/B3 do. Being able to go down to 1s before casting would allow another proc or two within the rotations, maintaining mobility and versatility.
F2 120 potency

These things would complete BLM. It's acceptable as is but a little clunky.

Still wouldn't fix the thundercloud issues though.

Delete Blizzard 4 and give us Thunder 4 instead. Use this to extend enochian duration.

also Astral +2-3 seconds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OmegaStrongtan

Delete Blizzard 4 and give us Thunder 4 instead. Use this to extend enochian duration.

also Astral +2-3 seconds.

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I wouldn't want to see Blizzard 4 deleted, it would be wasteful.
I completely agree we should have Thunder 4 - But make it so it can only be used in a Thundercloud and it extends the enochian duration by 5 seconds, and change Thunder 2 to give a low potency AOE damage over time (say, 15 potency) - similar to Bane (as there isn't really a use for Thunder 2).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

AF/UI lasting 12s
B4/F4 snapshotting the cast much like F3/B3 do. Being able to go down to 1s before casting would allow another proc or two within the rotations, maintaining mobility and versatility.
F2 120 potency

These things would complete BLM. It's acceptable as is but a little clunky.

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That would make it less stressful, but I'm not sure if it would make it fun. Frankly I think that flat out Fire IV and Bliz IV should just reapply Astral/Umbral, Fire IV should proc Firestarter. Lower potency if it's needed. I would rather do that than keep a slightly less clunky but still meh thing we have going on. Enochian should be enough of a timer to watch for, and I'm not sure that 12-15s Astral Fire lets Thunder be useful again. Frankly 2.0 blm was a happy accident with Firestarter and Thundercloud allowing a normally immobile class some grace with movement. Right now it's gotten even worse due to F4 being 3.0 cast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kailii

That would make it less stressful, but I'm not sure if it would make it fun. Frankly I think that flat out Fire IV and Bliz IV should just reapply Astral/Umbral, Fire IV should proc Firestarter. Lower potency if it's needed. I would rather do that than keep a slightly less clunky but still meh thing we have going on. Enochian should be enough of a timer to watch for, and I'm not sure that 12-15s Astral Fire lets Thunder be useful again. Frankly 2.0 blm was a happy accident with Firestarter and Thundercloud allowing a normally immobile class some grace with movement. Right now it's gotten even worse due to F4 being 3.0 cast.

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I don't think this is the solution, as that would result in us spamming Fire 4 forever instead of finding the most optimal balance between Fire 1 and Fire 4 for your situation. It just needs to be less clunky and less punishing, imo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pyroclastic

I don't think this is the solution, as that would result in us spamming Fire 4 forever instead of finding the most optimal balance between Fire 1 and Fire 4 for your situation. It just needs to be less clunky and less punishing, imo.

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I don't really feel like we need to use Fire 1 anymore. Why not let it get replaced? I mean I totally expect them to just increase Astral Fire duration and call it a day, but its not like Fire 1 is interesting from even an animation and sound standpoint.

Hmm, well here's an idea... maybe a bad idea, but an idea nonetheless.

How about having Enochian act as a rotation enabling buff, where when it is up we use F4, B4, and T4, and we use the 2.0 rotation while it is down.
Here is how I envision it, and the required changes to make it happen... hopefully without being "too" OP.

1. Enochian is a 30s buff with a 60s CD.
2. Under the effect of Enochian:
You get a 10% damage increase.
All Fire series spells (including Flare) are converted into Fire 4, which applies AF4 (2x Fire spell potency).
All Blizzard series spells (including Freeze) are converted into Blizzard 4, which applied UI4 (100% mp per tick).
All Thunder series spells are converted to Thunder 4 (30s 50 potency dot) - to make it worth using.
B4 does not increase the remaining time on Enochian. It has a 50% base uptime.
Lastly, all spells are instant under the effect of Enochian.
3. Increase the radius of Ley Lines from 3y to 6y. Same effect as we have now. This will still reduce the gcd during instant-spam Enochian.
4. Add a spell at 60 which refreshes the Enochian ability (not the duration the ability that applies the buff). This spell should have a 2 (maybe 3) minute refresh. So if you truly need more burst for longer, you can have it.

That leaves 1 spell spot left.
52 Ley Lines
54 Sharpcast
56 Enochian
58 ???
60 Enochian Ability Refresh

Maybe move Enochian to 58... or maybe 52 to introduce it sooner... Anyway that is the general idea.
For ~50% of the time, you use the standard low mobility 2.0 rotation.
The other 50% you are FREE!!! Free to move and cast devastating spells of devastation... but no AoE aside from throwing T4 on everything that moves. This will likely mean that the potency of F4 and B4 will be reduced, maybe to 240 like F3 and B3.

With this in place, you basically have a short term stance toggle. You cant really aoe in Enochian, though you can click it off, it is more of an ST - dealing with mechanics like a bard - stance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pyroclastic

I don't think this is the solution, as that would result in us spamming Fire 4 forever instead of finding the most optimal balance between Fire 1 and Fire 4 for your situation. It just needs to be less clunky and less punishing, imo.

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This is the closest post to correct in this thread in my opinion.

But the problem isn't just "clunky and punishing"

1) Super clunky. The amount of times you lose a full Fire/Blizzard IV just because you lost one of the stacks at the last possible moment is aggravating. And because of the enochian window, you really can't afford to lose 2 whole seconds over a 30 second period. That's a huge reliance on turreting.

2) Ridiculously punishing. A lot of people don't realize that black mages CANNOT do their 2.0 rotation any more. There isn't enough mana for 5 fires. They have to go down to 4. The difference between 4 and 5 fires is about the difference between 1 fire IV's and 5 fires in terms of DPS. This means that you lose about 25% of your DPS simply from a rotation standpoint if you drop stacks which is excessively easy to happen. What did monks lose with greased lightning being dropped in 2.0?

3) The enochian window means you can't really waste time using Thunder procs. You cannot afford to lose an extra GCD. This means many black mages are forgoing their DoT- so if they move or the boss jumps they're doing zero DPS.

Some Black Mages think stuff like "letting Fire IV proc firestarter" or "Having Fire IV renew astral fire" or "I want to be Godzilla overpowered" is the solution. Really, just make the class less punishing and clunky. As it is right now, it's harder than Summoner, does less damage than Summoner (except in certain fights, where they're about even), much more punishing than summoner and the nature of a 'mistake' is such that you can lose your stacks when you have done NOTHING wrong.