One can always dream- BLM edition

I edited this some more as per the feedback.

Just what if these changes were to happen... :p

Categories A, B, and C contain changes based on Enochian;
the proposed changes related to Thunder are not related to the categories.

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Category A: Fire IV and Blizzard IV becomes detached from Enochian.

Fire IV and Blizzard IV both change as follows:

• Fire IV and Blizzard IV no longer requries Enochian
• Fire IV and Blizzard IV base potency nerfed to 250

Blizzard IV changes as follows:

• No longer refreshes Enochian
• Deals circular splash damage around target with reduced potency depending on the number of targets, like Flare or Holy
• If more than one victim is hit, inflicts a 20 potency DoT on all victims that lasts for 12 seconds
• Costs 0 mana with at least one Umbral Ice
• Cast time reduced to 0s when MP is below 50% (still subject to GCD- think Ruin II)
• When used under at least one Umbral Ice, immediately grants 3 Umbral Ice stacks

Fire IV must have Astral Fire III to be usable.

Enochian revamp for category A

Suggestion 1: heals HP of self + freezes the current timer of Astral Fire or Umbral Ice for 30 seconds + transfers agro on self to whoever the monster is attacking at the moment; the Astral Fire/Umbral Ice clock freeze effect ends after 10 seconds or if a Spell is used (notice that Abilities are not included) (the clock would restart ticking when the spell finishes casting); cooldown adjusted to 30s

Suggestion 2: heals HP of self + freezes the current timer of Astral Fire or Umbral Ice for 30 seconds + transfers agro on self to whoever the monster is attacking at the moment; the Astral Fire/Umbral Ice clock freeze effect ends after 30 seconds or if a Spell is used (notice that Abilities are not included) (the clock would restart ticking when the spell finishes casting); cooldown adjusted to 90s

Suggestion 3: reduces all spell cast time by 2.5s (spell speed is not buffed, so do not think Divine Seal or Ley Lines where the GCD itself is cycling faster) for 10 seconds; cooldown adjusted to 30s

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Category B: Enochian changes like SCH's Aetherflow. Enochian gives you stacks with no expirty timer; you consume a stack to use Fire IV, and use Blizzard IV to recharge to maximum.
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Category C: Enochian changes like SCH's Aetherflow. Enochian gives you 10 stacks with no expiry timer initially; you consume a stack to use Fire IV, and use Blizzard IV to regain one stack.

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Thunder III becomes AoE DoT.

Thundercloud procs change as follows:

• Thunder: GCD firing, refreshes DoT, 270 potency initial damage, no mana cost
• Thunder II: oGCD firing, refreshes DoT, 170 potency initial damage, no mana cost
• Thunder III: oGCD firing, does not refresh DoT, 390 potency initial damage, no mana cost; Thunder III will gain a 60-second cooldown after use

What I conceived with regards to Blizzard IV would not work like Freeze; it would work like Fire II or Flare- requires a target to use, but has circular splash damage.

But what happens to the Enochian ability? :( without delegating Fire4 and Blizzard 4 to Enochian, it just becomes another (insert damage boosting % here) cooldown. In essence it becomes another extra button you press every minute that adds little to no variety to the rotation at all. In some ways it even hinders the rotation, because using OGCDs delays your next GCD. However, if enochian was completely removed from the game, I think I'd quite like this and I wouldn't mind this being a more 'simplified' version of the rotation in 4.0. But I'd only agree if the rotation -had- to be simplified though. I think that if it had to be changed, then it should be replaced with an equally more interesting mechanic, but one that doesn't necessarily have to be the same difficulty as enochian.
As for the Blizzard 4 change, I wouldn't mind the damage increase, but I don't see how it would add to the rotation in terms of opening up other gameplay possibilities.
Maybe including a short paragraph to explain your reasoning behind your proposed changes will be helpful, so we can better understand what you're trying to go for here.

Motivation for simplification: while one can always "git gud" and thoroughly study the fight to minimize movement, with a gazillion things going on at once for the very difficult fights, it can be all too easy to lose track of one (or more!) of the timers.
Also, when the boss cannot be attacked, losing even one of the timers can be a pain.

Fire IV not adding Astral Fire means that you still have to be intelligent about deciding Fire IV vs Fire I (4-4-1-4-4 vs 4-1-4-4-1 vs 4-1-4-1 vs...) - a step up from blind Fire I spam while occasionally minding the Firestarter as in 2.x.
As for Enochian itself- how about revamping it completely; I added something in the original post.

The proposed change to Blizzard IV would allow you to do something like this:
Fire III -> Fire II a few times -> Flare -> Transpose -> Blizzard IV (deals AoE damage + 0s cast time + 0 mana cost- even if the tick is fast enough, one mana tick on one stack of Umbral Ice still fills you for below 50%) -> rinse and repeat from Fire III (now on reduced recast due to the changed Blizzard IV giving you three Umbral Ice stacks!)

I would like an ogcd ability that would front load spells for 15 seconds. Kinda like lightspeed on ast. It might lower dps, eno clipping, but at least you could dodge mechs and still attack.

Don't really get why these threads seem to be becoming more frequent, suggesting that f4 and b4 no longer be under enochian. the only complexity to blm is balancing this timer with movement, remove it and we're back to the 2.0 yawnfest

the other enoch changes you suggest seem to be redundant as well imo. a self-heal, when we already have wall/ward. a timer freeze that will end immediately if you're always casting as you should be, and isn't needed anyway. and an aggro modifier, when we already have QS

the only meaningful change from what you've suggested is that b4 be changed to aoe, cost 0mp, be instant and grant UI3... which is ridiculously overpowered

these changes aren't my "dream" at all

the lightspeed idea above is much more interesting. obviously it'd be nice without the damage reduction, but even with it, I can still see it being some nice utility in certain scenarios, which fits with the BLM style; like apoc, it's not always needed, but there are certain times when it can make a world of difference (love it when I apoc a tankbuster, the tank survivies with a tiny amount of hp and I know without that he'd be facedown in the dirt had I not hehe)

I'd like to see a different thunder proc. keep t3 as it is, resetting the tick, but hate it when I get an early proc and either have to clip my dot massively or just waste the proc - t1 proc could be an oGCD bolt or something

As long as it stay as the OP dream i'm ok

Because it sound like nightmare to me
Just reading "simplification " made me shiver

OP's dream sounds like a dream - a nightmare.
One that I do not hope becomes reality.

I very much enjoy the Enochian rotation we have going on right now, thank you very much.
(although I do think a "freeze timers" ability would be a nice addition for a future expansion)

Sounds like a lame aggro reduction change you are asking for and to turn B4 into a Freeze 2.0. I think I'll pass. Plus no mention of a Fire DoT or a Deep Freeze status effect makes me not care.

In the recent Famitsu article (two weeks ago) Yoshi said the skill ceiling for jobs at 60 was too high (too many buffs to watch). So they'll likely make the rotations easier with less buffs to manage.
That said, I'd like anything where I'm not having to weave three buffs before my rotation really starts going and then another buff and random procs and dodge mechanics and refresh the dumb Enochian buff. I'd be happy if they just got rid of Enochian altogether. Just change F4 and B4 to require AF3 and AI3 instead of ANY AF/AI and Enochian.
I don't want a snore fest, but I don't want the shenanigans where I have to manage which buffs I can fit where which change for every fight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Il_Gatto_Nero

Also, when the boss cannot be attacked

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This is what I want to see go away. Why have they decided that bosses need to jump out of the arena every 20-40 seconds?

lol no. BLM was a joke to play at 50, and your changes would make it a joke at 60.

Instead of an action that acts like lightspeed, why can't we have a trait for swiftcast? "Swiftercast" has a percentage chance to activate when a spell is cast under the effect of swiftcast. It allows the caster to cast spells instantly for the next 15 seconds. Because it's a proc like firestarter, Crit Scathe, and Thundercloud you can use sharpcast to guarantee it in a pinch allowing for it to be used as movement utility as well as a random burst in damage.

That might be a bit too OP tho, sharp and swift are both only 1min CDs, so you'd be proccing this "swiftercast" every minute, having it active for 15 secs means a quarter of you're time you'd be under it's effect. it'd also line up with 1min enoch refresh so I think it's just be built into the standard rotation rather than ever saved

if we were given lightspeed with the damage reduction it wouldn't be something youd use in rotation

I just want an AoE Thunder and a chance of resetting Swiftcast after a crit. The rest is fine if you ask me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by randysquirrel

That might be a bit too OP tho, sharp and swift are both only 1min CDs, so you'd be proccing this "swiftercast" every minute, having it active for 15 secs means a quarter of you're time you'd be under it's effect. it'd also line up with 1min enoch refresh so I think it's just be built into the standard rotation rather than ever saved

if we were given lightspeed with the damage reduction it wouldn't be something youd use in rotation

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You fix that the same way they "fixed" lightspeed. You lose a portion of the damage for each spell, you have a 150 second cooldown on sharpcast. Though... I can't imagine people are as willing as you to completely give up assured firestarters or thunderclouds for three or four spell casts while moving every minute or so.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kerii

You fix that the same way they "fixed" lightspeed. You lose a portion of the damage for each spell, you have a 150 second cooldown on sharpcast. Though... I can't imagine people are as willing as you to completely give up assured firestarters or thunderclouds for three or four spell casts while moving every minute or so.

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sorry yes, for some reason I overlooked youd be foregoing sharp as we already use it. so it'd either be movement or our current guaranteed proc.
not sure what you mean about 150 secs on sharp tho

Quote:

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Originally Posted by randysquirrel

sorry yes, for some reason I overlooked youd be foregoing sharp as we already use it. so it'd either be movement or our current guaranteed proc.
not sure what you mean about 150 secs on sharp tho

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Lightspeed is an action that has 150 second recast. Since "swiftercast" would be a proc that has to be activated at random, or by force with sharpcast, I chose to make the latter more difficult. Swiftcast is a much stronger utility than sharpcast in my opinion, so I would rather free procs less often than not be able to swiftcast in a bad situation.

Here is something that may be worth considering for 4.0, assuming we wont get significant class changes till then.

Instead of having Enochian on a timer, have it act "sort of like" ammo does for MCH. I envision this as follows:

Right now the standard rotation uses 4 F4's and a B4, which is 5 casts.
Suppose that instead of Enochian having a 30s duration it has 7 charges, 5 to cover the basic rotation, and 2 as a buffer for Convert or a mana pot.
The charges have a 30s duration, which is reset every time a charge is used (so they will not drop for a small phase transition).
F4 and B4 can only be used when you have any Enochian charges, each consuming 1 charge per use. However B4 refreshes your charges to 7. And as before, when you have any Enochian charges up, all outgoing damage is increased by 5%.

This approach makes Enochian less of a pain to maintain. Instead of fighting a 30-25-20 second timer, you must keep track of charges, which is a new mechanic to BLM, but better than tacking on another timer to juggle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

Here is something that may be worth considering for 4.0, assuming we wont get significant class changes till then.

Instead of having Enochian on a timer, have it act "sort of like" ammo does for MCH. I

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Why not just like Aetherflow stacks? They last forever but you only get so many of them per cooldown?
That's certainly better than the timer within a timer that it currently.

I actually like how blm is atm and how it should have been a while ago.
I still loved 2.X blm but like others have indicated it was far too simple

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reptiletc

I just want an AoE Thunder and a chance of resetting Swiftcast after a crit. The rest is fine if you ask me.

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That would be a sick dps gain
Having a new aoe skill like aéro III is huge ! Plus the thundercloud proc possible...
And reset on crit if we count thunder DoT crit it's gonna be a feast !

Especially because we're played crit and SS