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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Xenitan

\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

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How do you make it less clunky and punishing without doing something like that? Increasing AF duration reduces the punishment on aoe, but it's still clunky. I'm not sure how to make it less clunky without removing F1 from the rotation somehow. What do you think would work and solve the problem?

They ruined this class since day 1, when they made astral fire/umbral ice mechanic LOL. this class as it is now is beyond saving, unless they rework the whole class from the ground up

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Originally Posted by Kailii

How do you make it less clunky and punishing without doing something like that?

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Just change how Enochian works. Blood of the Dragon works really well by comparison.

Make Blizzard IV do 200 potency but have a 2 second cast (this is lower dps since you will have to wait for the GCD to expire) and add 25->20->15->10->5 seconds to the timer as opposed to overwriting it. This way it's beneficial to activate Enochian at any time since you don't need to get every single second out of the window.

Or make Fire IV and Blizzard IV not require their respective Umbral/Astral stacks, but casting them removes the opposite element if it's up.

Or whatever. There are so many solutions that aren't "let Black Mages have a spammable 504 potency (280*1.8) 3 second cast spell"

BLM - RIP 6.23.2015

I think making Leylines a buff like Raging Strikes or Enochian, etc. would help. Right now you throw it down and then immediately get locked out of it by RNG ground poops from bosses. Extending Astral Fire duration would be nice. I'm ok with the rotation most of the time it's just super unforgiving. I don't like having to be 100% on point for every fight just to be on par with other classes when they can operate at faceroll efficiency and do well.

I'm down for anything because right now its so damn clunky to play compared to 2.0 BLM which was easy but fun. I don't mind having a tough rotation but there's way too many CLUNKY buffs/abilities that go against every single design encounter so far in Heavensward.

Bad English incoming. When I charge up my Enochian and Astral Fire it often takes a moment until I am allowed to hit Fire 4... no queening possible. If busy watching the screen it more than once happened I hit fire 4 but now spell is cast...
Also every time a Ice 4 is aborted because Enochian runs out while casting god kills a Miqo'Te.

Sharpcast... should be allowed to use while casting something.

And then maybe I want a way to gain some extra seconds for Astral if the Boss goes Immune or I have to run a lot. Was already punishing at 50 but now I lose Enochian AND Astral...

Hmm...
Would having the Enochian buff giving full MP, AF3, and a reset max duration help fix it?

Basically when you would go into Enochian by using the buff itself, you instantly gain full mp and are placed in AF3, putting you in an ideal position to begin the rotation.
Then you extend it 2 times, and let it run out or click it off on the 2nd extension. Now you can again use the Enochian ability to reset yourself to "ideal circumstances".

It would still be nice to have AF and UI extended to 12-15s.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

Hmm...
Would having the Enochian buff giving full MP, AF3, and a reset max duration help fix it?

Basically when you would go into Enochian by using the buff itself, you instantly gain full mp and are placed in AF3, putting you in an ideal position to begin the rotation.
Then you extend it 2 times, and let it run out or click it off on the 2nd extension. Now you can again use the Enochian ability to reset yourself to "ideal circumstances".

It would still be nice to have AF and UI extended to 12-15s.

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Nah, that would make it too simple.. and prolly even "OP"

Agreed on the AF and UI duration extension though

if they extended astral fire everyone would just try and squeeze in the extra fire 4 before going to fire 1, so wouldn't really fix things especially at 15 secs, 12 secs might be ok as it would give us some mobility but im not really convinced.

its also why fire 4 cant refresh / extend astral fire because we wouldn't use fire 1 to extend astral fire anymore. also shorter cast on fire 4 wouldn't work as we would finish our rotations quicker which in turn may throw off the refresh timing for enochian, although that would only be by a few secs or so.

casting bliz 4 directly after fire 4 would help as it would save us the bliz 3 cast time, but really a big fix would be enochian not having less duration each refresh from bliz 4.

as for thunder maybe making it insta cast ogcd is the best choice for it now, with a 30sec cooldown so we can only use it when it naturally falls off, of course it can still proc to give us that utility that way we can weave it into our rotation whenever is convenient and maybe with the thunder 2 potency.


as for mobility mid chain or during boss jumping, maybe a skill that allows us to pause enochian and astra fire / umbral ice for a short duration, maybe 5 secs with possibly a 2nd chance to recast for longer pauses, this way its upto the player to judge whether to use it or not. this wouldn't break any of the scripted boss jumps that effect all player dps as the pause duration would be still shorter than most of these sections of encounters. it could help when tanks decide to run ahead just as we popped enochian though.


as for ley lines I also thought of it as being a straight speed boost but it kinda defeats the purpose of the skill, and so I think extending its radius alittle is probs the best choice but that has to be in balance to still force us out of it at times.

I think removing the -5 second duration mechanic would make most if not all of my problems go away. To balance that out, maybe make Enochian have a 90second cooldown.

For those that say "more Spell speed will fix it", maybe you haven't noticed that SS no longer lowers cast time at the same rates. In 2.0, 10 SS took .01 seconds off of cast time. It's now 23-24 SS to get that same .01 removed. Meaning that even though I have nearly 100 more SS than I did before with all this new gear, my cast times are slower than they were in 2.0.

Enochian falling off is a 40-50% DPS loss. Period. Not even monks lose that much DPS if they lose Greased Lightning. This is the issue with current BLM: if we follow mechanics we risk getting our DPS cut in half. Surecast is useless against movement interrupts, Swiftcast has too long of a CD to be effective enough to keep the Enochian rotation going. We can't use our DoT without a DPS loss. We can't use or procs without a DPS loss.

What other job in this game takes a DPS loss because they use a proc? None of them.

There are some major issues with end-game BLM and some very simple fixes to make it better that don't involve changing potencies or giving damage buffs. Having Fire 4 and Blizzard 4 increase the duration of their respective elemental phase ( AF/UI) by 2 seconds would be a major improvement. Making one of the thunder spells an instant cast would also be nice and not break anything.

The changes I would make for the sake of keeping it balanced but keeping the same playstyle would be

Thundercloud procs should be Off GCD so we can actually use them with a firestarter etc..

Enochian should timer should not be reduced by 5 seconds when refreshing, then we would be like monks keeping up GL3 and then using perfect balance(enochian) when bosses disappear at transitions

and to balance these changes Fire 4 should be reduced to around 240 potency which also makes flare relevant again in single target

The real question, in my line of thinking at least, is, are BLM even expected to frequently use Enochian and keep it up for longer parts of encounters?

Generally I agree with all of that, I've struggled a lot to get the new abilities under control, I agree that it's "super clunky" and sometimes infuriating. But look at fight design for a moment, there clearly are phases that want you move, others want you to DPS. Ex trials, Alex, all have that. With that in mind, 3.0 ability design might just be, keep it up while you can but don't expect to be able to keep it rolling forever. Losing your buffs and returning to 2.0 rotation might be intended, keeping up burst is seen as a damage increase by developers. This would explain why there is nothing done - everything "works as intended" for SE.

Now I don't say that's my personal opinion. I bite my keyboard everytime buffs runs out too. It's just that, we might simply misunderstand the developer's intention with the current state of BLM.

Astral Fire Duration Increase
Thunder 4 - Thundercloud giving extended Enochian by 5 seconds (so that using Thundercloud doesn't punish you)
Allow finish of B4/T4/F4 cast if the cast has started even if Enochian drops off
Fix of the F3-Gap-F4 bug.
Reduction of the Mana cost of F1 to be the same as F4 (so that using F1 instead of F4 doesn't double punish you)
Enochian refresh always fully refreshes Enochian

The base numbers are fine for the most part, theres just a number of huge QoL issues. Or just run another melee and provide more to the raid.

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Originally Posted by Egnasya

The real question, in my line of thinking at least, is, are BLM even expected to frequently use Enochian and keep it up for longer parts of encounters?



Now I don't say that's my personal opinion. I bite my keyboard everytime buffs runs out too. It's just that, we might simply misunderstand the developer's intention with the current state of BLM.

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The issue is that not keeping Enochian up 100% of the time costs BLM 40-50% DPS. Using the old spam fire 1 rotation doesn't cut it. You can't meet DPS checks/enrage timers if one of your DPS constantly takes 40-50% DPS loss because they dodge or take part in a mechanic.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrusM

The issue is that not keeping Enochian up 100% of the time costs BLM 40-50% DPS. Using the old spam fire 1 rotation doesn't cut it. You can't meet DPS checks/enrage timers if one of your DPS constantly takes 40-50% DPS loss because they dodge or take part in a mechanic.

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Dropping Enochian is bad but it's not a 40-50% loss, no. I've done full no Enochian parses and I get 1k~ when it's more like 1,150-1,200 with normal Enochian.

If thunder ticks on something AF will last longer, Thundercloud will insta add some seconds
or
Scathe will add to AF timer
or
simple and boring increase AF timer
or
change surecast to: you may cast while running for 15 Seconds. has cruel long cooldown.

As it is now Thunder spells need some overhaul. Right now i only use it for opener, when i derped my main rota and have to use 2.0 rota or have spare time left after B3.

oh and please make Enochian refresh always fully refresh duration.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

Dropping Enochian is bad but it's not a 40-50% loss, no. I've done full no Enochian parses and I get 1k~ when it's more like 1,150-1,200 with normal Enochian.

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Shooting myself in the foot here cause I do want BLMs to get some QoL changes to make the timers more forgiving but... Im tempted to agree with this.

Lets see, the old rotation is for example...
240(T1) + 180(B1) + 240*.7*2 (B3 and F3 swapping) + (5*180+2*240)*1.8 = 3240 pot over 11 gcds = 117.82 pot/sec.

A general "lets pretend its a full refresh every time" Enochian rotation may look like...
240*.7*2 (B3 and F3 swapping) + (5*280+180)*1.8 (lets claim we can fit in 5 F4's) + 280(B4) to refresh = 3460 potency, over a total of 25.5s due to the longer cast times of F4 and B4 = 135.69 pot/sec.

So 135.69/117.82 = 15.2%
From a pure math standpoint, not counting the EXTRA dps loss from having to wait for mana ticks or having a buff fall off because the timer ran out, the perfect sustained Enochian rotation is only 15% stronger than the perfect sustained non-Enochian rotation.

So IDK, my BLM is still 59.6ish so I cannot truly speak for how much of a dps gain having F4 will be... but from a math standpoint, if you simply HAVE TO drop Enochian and revert to the old rotation, it is not a 40-50% dps loss... (again my viewpoint may change when I hit 60 and get some better gear)

I think a lot of it is the idea that messing up the Enochian timer hell and losing 40-50% is that when you DO mess it up, you are fundamentally messing up core BLM mechanics because you were desperately trying to maintain Enochian.

Perhaps the solution is the accept BOTH rotations and practice some fluidity in switching between them?
Perhaps if you see that you are forced to move and will be entering a "red zone" in your timers, it may be a good idea to fluidly change back to the old rotation and let Enochian fall off. As opposed to trying to do a last second salvage, failing, and now you have no Enochian, no stacks, and not enough mana to cast a damn thing!

That said, do I think the current state of BLM is good? NO!
BLM when played perfectly CAN be good, some would say very good, but the way the current timer and stack mechanics are set up is SO unforgiving that 1 small mistake, 1 slightly long forced movement phase, and you are SCREWED! And that is wrong.
The timers need to be extended, B4 and F4 should be allowed to finish casting if AF or UI or Enochian fall off, and maybe the personal effects of these spells should be frontloaded, applied at the start of the cast, not when the cast lands AND deals damage (hello invulnerable boss).
But we should not completely shun the old rotation. If you honestly see that you are in a situation where trying to maintain the Enochian rotation may very well cause you to lose all your stacks and end up in a sorry state, then just switch back to the old rotation until Enochian refreshes. It is better to fluidly change rotations and do 15% less damage, than fail to salvage Enochian and quite likely end up doing 40-50% less damage.

The only changes I would like is for Ley Lines to get a slight buff (5%) and for Blizzard and Fire IV spells to always finish casting if we are able to start it. I would also love it if they would rework Thunder spells to line up with Blizzard and Fire ones a bit more, but that's probably subjective.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

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You cant fit 5 fire I in an astral fire rotation like in ARR. it's 4 now.
You're also not counting the 5% flat damage increase enochian give.

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

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Basically what the other one said, so I'll re-calculate it

old rotation (at lvl60)
180(B1) + 240(T1) + 240*0.7*2 (F3/B3 swapping) + (4*180)*1.8 = 2052 pot over 2.5 + 2.5 + 1.75 + 1.75 + 4*2.5 = 18,5s => 110.92pot/s
I don't consider (double) Flare a part of a basic rotation, also, 11 GCDs is wrong since Flare has a longer cast time.

A general "lets pretend its a full refresh every time" Enochian rotation
240*.7*2 (B3 and F3 swapping) + (4*280+180)*1.8 (with 4 F4) + 240 (T1, you will use it in most cases during UI3) + 280(B4) to refresh = 3196 potency, over a total of 23.5s => 136pot/s => 142.8pot/s due to 5% dmg from Enochian
110.92/142.8 ~ 77.7%, which means that dropping Enochian is about 22,3% potency lost. Still not the 40-50% but still more than what you calculated.

I hope I didn't screw anything up.

What I'd like to have is that the AF3 check from F4 would occur only at the end of the cast. You would fix the issue of UI3 -> F3 -> F4 issue as well as another issue where you cast F1 right in time so that AF3 drops for a split second, which causes to mess up F4 too. Same stuff with B4.

One thing I'd like to see is if Ley Lines is deployed and we had to move AND we do not have a party member targeted then Aetherial Manipulation will move you back to center of Ley Lines. If you have a party member targeted then it still takes you to them.

I agree with a lot of the other suggestions but just thought I'd throw this one out as well.

4 F1's becomes ~2743 over 24s = 114.3
135.69/114.3 = 18.7% more pot/sec for the Enoch rotation.

So not a "huge" difference, but still a larger difference.
I got BLM to 60 today, havent had a chance to play with the new rotation in an expert. Or the old rotation for that matter.

What I've always wanted is Thunder to be an AoE DoT. That's what Thunder 4 should be if there's ever going to be one.

Potency amounts aside, I know and see what the damage difference is between casting a Fire 1 and Fire 4. An Average fire 4 at i180 is doing about 2100. A Fire 4 is averaging 3500. That's a 40% or 1400 damage PER SPELL difference, multiply times 4 for a typical full Fire 4 rotation, and that's 5600 damage lost over about 12-15 seconds. This equates to about 370 DPS lost each time you can't/aren't able to use Enochian and Fire 4 and just spam Fire 1. Maybe it's not an overall 40% drop in total DPS, but it is very close to that every time you can't keep Enochian going.

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Originally Posted by Syn-X

What I've always wanted is Thunder to be an AoE DoT. That's what Thunder 4 should be if there's ever going to be one.

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Thunder 4 should be related to Enochian. Thunder 2 should be based around AOE>