Flare feels bad now because anticipation adds weight

When I heard about the 7.2 BLM changes, I expected that the shorter cast times and loss of timers would result in less engagement and satisfaction in the moment-to-moment job experience.

But what I didn't expect was how those shortened cast times would impact the feeling of casting each individual spell. And there's no spell where I'm feeling this difference more than Flare.

On paper, a reduction from 3 seconds to 2 seconds of cast time might not seem like much in terms of game feel. And yet, when I cast Flare now, despite it having the same visual effects, the spell feels like it lacks weight and power.

If I had to take a guess as to why, I'd posit that fantasy media has taught us that the longer a spell takes to channel, the more powerful the result will be when the cast is completed. And alongside that there's the natural psychological process of anticipation: the longer the spell takes to channel, the more our anticipation for the result builds, and at the moment of the cast all of that anticipation gets released, and that release has a feeling to it, a weight.

So now that Fire and Flare have the same cast time, they feel much more similar to cast, even if their effects are meaningfully different. And in my subjective opinion, it's a bummer to lose part of what made this iconic spell feel more weighty and powerful.

That's one more layer of disappointment I have about the BLM changes that I wanted to post as feedback.

That's what happened with Holy in 7.1 as well

Mages like casting big spells? woah really?? imagine that.

That's what happened with Holy in 5.0 as well. It used to be 3s hardcast, heavier potency and feeling. Which also rewarded good use of swiftcast and presence of mind as well.

With all due respect, I find myself instant casting Flare too often for this to matter. Triplecast and Swiftcast combined with Manafont gives up to 4 instant Flares in one pull. I certainly take advantage and then I'm left with another charge of Triplecast for the next pull, while the first charge is recovering.

If anything, the tools that let us instant cast so often should be seen as a problem if speed is making spells feel less impactful.

I talked about this in my post as well. I'm of the opinion flare needed a change. It needed to hit harder for how slow it was or this. I would have preferred the former but not getting my flare canceled by a mob dying is nice.

For Flare this actually takes a lot of the feeling away, aye. I also feel Flare Star should cast longer and deal significantly more of the fire-phase damage, proportionally (i.e.: shift potency into it, now that it's ~guaranteed you'll always get it).

OTOH, Fire IV with it's incredibly anemic audio and visuals feels far more natural as a faster cast, in fact I still think it feels almost like an oGCD, Blizzard IV feels more impactful if I ignore the actual number.