Lackluster Mechanics and/or Leveling: Dark Arts, RDM AoE, Aetherpact

(The above are just examples.)

Which job toolkit or trait mechanics do you find the most lackluster at level cap and/or unfulfilling over the leveling experience?

How would you improve them?

Umbral Hearts. I've often advocated an extreme solution in making them useful for ST gameplay by allowing them to fully discount the price of affected Fire spells (allowing for a bonus of three Fire IVs instead of the one they currently provide) but the fact is, even with my unpopular solution, Umbral Hearts have been a sore topic for other BLMs that needs solving, partially by allowing Freeze to generate them, and for them to have a better effect.

Most lackluster at 70? WHM lilies. They basically do nothing. Needs an overhaul.
Most lackluster while leveling? MCH heat gauge. No control for Overheating, but not Overheating is a dps loss. Cooldown needs to be available when the gauge is gained.

WHM liles by far. Seriously? Very light CD reduction as a job mechanic?
And you don't even get them by playing normally. No decent healer sits there and spams cure on a target.

I'd say Lilies are useless since they are unlocked and I won't be surprised if they'll be reworked in w/e is the next expansion.
In fact i'm calling a rework on WHM and DRK (that was kinda hinted last LL)

edit: as for how I would improve them? I dunno honestly, they could scrap the confession stacks making plenary indulgence use lilies instead while also adding a ST heal option and call it a day
oh also making them proc from other heals too ofc

Oh boy, here we go again

AST:
Lightspeed trait, it's just plain useless
Time Dilatation, too reliant on Diurnal Stance and barely effective when it comes to increasing card duration. (it's only really good in 4man, +15sec on a 5% card is rather useless)
Draw cd not ticking unless the card is spent. It's extremeley annoying to be forced to use the card asap otherwise the cd is ticking


BLM:
Scathe, no explaination needed I'm sure
AoE rotation is clunky. The proposed Freeze rework to be an AoE BlizzIII giving umbral heart would solve the issue
Enochian button being useless once cast
LeyLine duration is plain too long, the fact that they had to add Between the line to compensate somewhat supports my point
Having to cast FireI is annoying, you're hurling tiny exploding sun and every 3-4 cast you need to shoot a spark


Tank in general:
I hate the fact that they're subpar dps with defensive cd
I'd like tanking (damage mitigation) to be more active.
The Blackest Night is by far my favorite skill in the tank department.
I'd like to have a greater control over how tanky I am and I'd like raid to value more mitigation over dps. But with boss hitting like wet noodles (spare tank bursters) it's not gonna happen anytime soon

DRK:
DA spam
Only one combo

PLD:
Requiesast + HolyStar spam, like really? Who thought that was a fun mechanic?
Having to cast for the Star/Heal is just plain weird, I'd rather those to be abilities and requiesast to be removed and changed to something new

MCH
Wildfire, it's just an aweful skill. They should at least make it last longer (like 10sec) and affect only a set amount of skills
Overheat being weird, sometime good sometime bad
Turrets being the borringness they are. Seriously I thought I was playing a MACHINist

SMN
side note:I really like the direction they're heading with the transe and bahamut (not considering bahamiut clunkiness in this statement)
The summoner doesn't feel "summony" enough. I think I'd prefer to have more smaller summons (like demibahamut) that comes down and do some burst (it's not like the pet are doing anything interesting atm beside AA and applying a debuff every2min)
Eatherflow cd is too long compared to the time it takes to burn through our stacks. There's always this awefully long and boring 40sec where you're just waiting for the CD to come back.

DRG
10 skills combo is what it is
Not enough jumps
SpineShatter dive granting a Mirage Dive is dumb imo, I shouldn't have to use my movement skill in my core rotation. (Especially when it has such a long cd)

NIN
Dream Within a Dream and Duality are utherly boring (espeically the former) and should be reworked
Hyoton needs some sort of rework, most option are already taken, I once proposed it would buff our Throw Drager to give NIN a option to keep good uptime when away from boss
Ninki was a nice addition but I want the next spells to improve furthermore on the Mudra (which is the core identity of the job IMO)

RDM:
I find the job overall very good with few flaws (not talking about number or raid viability here)
My only complain is the pace of the job. To me RDM should be that quick caster opposed to the slow yet hard hitting BLM
I would like them to make that verthunder/aero have a RECAST time of 1.5sec so that once they're cast you're not standing still like a moron for 2.3sec (the fact that we have so many instant makes this especially annoying visually speaking).

WHM
Lilies uselessness
Plenary Indulgence needs its duration to be increase to 30sec, when do we actually need 450 AoE potency heal after 3 medica?

...I'm just gonna focus on the BLM part of Sylvain's post, since that's the job I'm most experienced with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

BLM:
Scathe, no explaination needed I'm sure

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Certainly not, but it does help with tagging monsters for chaining in Eureka, so it's not entirely garbage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Enochian button being useless once cast

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Not sure what they'd do with it (since Foul needs to be a separate button since it's designed to be able to be used even outside of Enochian if you proc it)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

LeyLine duration is plain too long, the fact that they had to add Between the line to compensate somewhat supports my point

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https://i.imgflip.com/skw39.jpg

I'm... honestly not sure how to take this. Like. You do realize most personal buffs are around the 30s/24s mark anyway, right? What does this point even mean?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Having to cast FireI is annoying, you're hurling tiny exploding sun and every 3-4 cast you need to shoot a spark

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Not to sound like an butt, but this is called nuance. If you could just hurl Fire IVs all day, it'd be the same exact thing as pre-HW Black Mage, and be a braindead job. Do we REALLY want this?

Any of the 3rd eye nonsense for SAM... the damage/heal/defence seems totally unnecessary... they are far to weak to make any difference plus needing to be hit and THEN spending kenki on top of it... why?

MNK: GL ramp up even with the recent "qol" changes just made the ramp up itself trivial and unnecessary. Chakras need more depth than RNG for (still) one skill.

The way I see it. They should give more meaning to MNK loops rather than just a GL refresh. And really work on chakras as a resource with different options rather than TFC spam.

A lot of jobs in general need the same approach they did to BRD. Really go back to its early job levels and see how they can improve what exists or rework them.

As a BLM, I'd like Blizzard 4 to do something other than generate Umbral Hearts, maybe like a 10%,15s magic vuln on the target or something. Remove the damage buff from Enochian to compensate and turn that into a trait, nothing changes Foul since everything is tied to being in AF/UI anyway.

I'd also want some use out of Freeze, I like the idea of it being just an AoE Blizzard 4, maybe make it an upgrade from the largely useless Blizzard 2. Traiting Between the Lines so that it and Leylines share a button, similar to how Fell Cleave/Inner Beast work.

Other than those changes (except the blizzard 4 vuln thing, that's pretty major), BLM feels like a complete kit. Leylines duration is fine, it lasts a full fire > ice > foul rotation and part of the fun/skill in using it is knowing when and where the best places are to use them.