60 BLM: This simple fix could solve A LOT of troubles with the job

The Fix:

**Increase the time of Astral Fire from 10 seconds to 12 seconds (or even 15s)**

60 BLM's are well aware of how punishing movement and interruptions are. Keeping up Enochian is challenging and rewarding. But not every situation can be planned for.

The typical 60 rotation involves casting 2 Fire IV's followed by a Fire I to keep up Astral Fire 3. If the first F4 is interrupted, we have to start over with F1 to keep up AF3, then continue our next F4. Basically, any time a F4 is interrupted, we lose it in the current rotation, because we need to cast a F1 to reset the timer on AF3, and that eats our MP that would have been used on a F4. If the second F4 is interrupted, there's a good chance we'll lose AF3 completely, as there may not be enough time for a F1. Increasing the duration of Astral Fire may solve these issues.

Another issue this fix may solve is the usage of Thundercloud and Firestarter procs. More often than not, there is not enough time in the rotation to use these procs, as we are too tight on timing with AF3 and Enochian.

This fix is extremely simple, it requires no changes to any part of the job, and could alleviate quite a few issues.

What do you guys think of this? Please upvote if you like it, or comment to add to the discussion.

No way dude I love not ever using Thunder ever again to keep Enochian up.

Whoever thought juggling 3 buffs with like 4 spells was going to not be exhausting was crazy. I mean yeah its doable, but I'm still debating on if I'm finding it fun yet. Keeping it up feels good but when you have to do ANYTHING at all and it drops, its just the biggest sadclown face ever for your dps.

I'm not sure how I feel about BLM anymore either. I've always found the immobility annoying but with two buffs on separate timers, our high potency move being reliant on those buffs being active at the same time, and Ley Lines having a small area of effect BLM feels clunky. It's more complicated, sure, but it feels complicated for the sake of being complicated. I enjoy it when I'm just attacking a dummy but it gets infuriating when you have to Neverreap. I mean move.

Whoever thought giving a job taught and known for movement to keep a distance from its enemies would be saddled by an ability that makes him/her stationary for the duration of effect in order to use it at all. ( ley lines) They need to change this to an Aura effect around the caster not a placement on the ground. Very similar to Greased Lightning on mnk, or the new ability on Drk. As far as the rotation goes, on trash its hard enough in a dungeon but on a boss fight with mechanics its impossible to use. UNLESS! The party understands and accepts that in order to achieve max DPS now the healer has to treat a Blm the same as a tank and heal them through dmg so that they can burst DPS when needed.

With regards to the fire rotation, when you have a moment watch the mp cost of your spells as you go through your rotations over several rounds and you will find that its now dynamic and not a fixed cost. Maybe they fixed this in the patch last night but I haven't been on my blm since the update.

The new abilities are great abilities, they will just never work as intended in a raid or boss situation. Unless of course the idea was to eliminate a blm as a player in raid content. :(

Increasing Astral duration would help a great deal, but it's worth mentioning you can sharp cast your first fire in the rotation and then store the firestarter for use as a quick astral reset in between fire 4 volleys I've found this helps a lot.

Also if you put down ley lines and then force yourself to move to an outer edge of the spell cast before you start your rotation for alot of AOEs bosses throw out this effectively baits them out to one side of ley lines so you still can dodge the AOE and stay in ley lines.... Sometimes.

it'd be super cool if using aetherial manipulation with no valid target put you back in the middle of your leyline.

I main MNK/BLM and i don't have problem maintain GL or Astral/Umbra.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bideogames

it'd be super cool if using aetherial manipulation with no valid target put you back in the middle of your leyline.

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Oh wow nice idea xD

Astral/Umbral Ice extended to 12 seconds sounds good.

I understand everyone's frustration as it is a SUPER tight rotation that leaves little room for movement or error. But when it's working, it's an absolute blast (pardon the pun) to play. I really feel like a true damage dealer when it's on. Fire 4 just feels and sounds like it has so much weight. It's truly an "immersive spell"... if that makes sense.

I think we're all in agreement though that a simple 2 sec extension of Astral/Umbral would put a lot of the bellyaching to rest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bideogames

it'd be super cool if using aetherial manipulation with no valid target put you back in the middle of your leyline.

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That is actually a really awesome idea. Fits the job perfectly and would make ley lines slightly less of a pain.

It doesn't suprise me at all that the BLM players that should voice their opinion in this thread, hasn't shown up yet, if ever. As if SE even reads the threads in the class forums.