Black Mage Blizzard II (and other minor suggestions)

Recap:
Blizzard II is useless. Pre-5.0 it was useless as well, but it at least had Bind on it that allowed it to be used as an escape if you were being attacked by a group, or a Tank lost control. Post-5.0 it doesn't even have bind. Freeze is a better ice-based AoE - it has targeting (doesn't need to have everything beside you), does double damage of Blizz 2, and can upgrade your Umbral gauge to 3 immediately.

Blizzard II pretty much only gets used by new players who don't understand its uselessness, or by the die-hards who badly wanna find a strategy where it would be useful.

Suggestions:
1. Remove Blizzard II, change Freeze's name to Blizzard II. Freeze is pretty much what Blizzard II needs to be anyway. It's also in perfect level alignment since Freeze is obtained before Blizzard III, so it would still stay in chronological order. This would be the simplest solution, but not necessarily most popular since we would have a small gap for learning a new Blizzard skill. (Maybe tweak the levels to when you learn some skills to make the gap shorter.)

2. Upgrade Blizzard II to Freeze at the level you would get Freeze. A lot of abilities "upgrade" already anyway, like Thunder I changing to Thunder III and Thunder II changing to Thunder IV. This would make more sense for a change to how Blizzard II works since it would "evolve" with your ability to cast Ice-aspected magic.

3. Tweak Blizzard II and Freeze so that both have different uses, but similar effects.
A good example would be to make Blizzard II stronger than Freeze in potency, have the same targeting ability as Freeze and still cost 800 MP, while Freeze would still keep its Umbral 3 buff to be used as a "quick-buff" ability. This would give Freeze the use of being an Umbral buff, and Blizzard II can become the standard AoE Ice spell that maintains the buff. This suggestion is the one I'd like most to see, since it would give both abilities a unique use, and remove nothing from the repertoire of spells that BLM has.


Other thoughts:
I do also think Ley Lines should have a shorter cooldown, like maybe 60 seconds instead of 90. Ley Lines is kind of one of those essential skills that tend to make Black Mage's job a lot easier, but it's also one of those skills that can be easily screwed over and wasted under a number of unforeseeable conditions (such as if the tank decides to keep running when they probably should've stopped, or if a boss casts a long-term AoE pool right in your Ley Lines' space just as you've sat comfy with the spot.) It would be nice to be able to get those casting speed boosts out more frequently, and recover from those bad luck placements faster. This is just a small opinion of mine, but I thought it worth mentioning while I'm making this post. :o

Blizzard II does have some applications in low-level dungeons at least, where individual enemies might die in the time it takes you to charge a Fire II so it's more reliable to cast Blizzard because it doesn't need a target.



...hmm, it's just occurred to me that it's also possibly a more efficient way of keeping you in Umbral Ice phase between battles or when the boss is invulnerable, instead of transposing and losing stacks. Does that work? Or does it need to hit something to reset the timer? Am I just playing BLM entirely wrong? (Probably yes.)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Blizzard II does have some applications in low-level dungeons at least, where individual enemies might die in the time it takes you to charge a Fire II so it's more reliable to cast Blizzard because it doesn't need a target.

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The application there doesn't even work as efficiently. BLM shouldn't even be close enough to need to use Blizzard II to finish off enemies. Plus Cycling to the nearest target and casting Fire II isn't that hard. They have the same cast speeds, and if you're playing BLM from a distance like you should, you'd have to run up to the enemies to do Blizz II. Easier to just cast Fire II.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

...hmm, it's just occurred to me that it's also possibly a more efficient way of keeping you in Umbral Ice phase between battles or when the boss is invulnerable, instead of transposing and losing stacks. Does that work? Or does it need to hit something to reset the timer? Am I just playing BLM entirely wrong? (Probably yes.)

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Yea, you can't do that. Any cast spell, even Blizz II, needs to hit something to add/maintain the stacks. Only Transpose circumvents the timer.

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

if you're playing BLM from a distance like you should, you'd have to run up to the enemies to do Blizz II.

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There's no need to "play at distance" in low level dungeons. As long as the tank has control of all the enemies, you can stand right up close and only need to dodge the occasional short-range AOE.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

There's no need to "play at distance" in low level dungeons. As long as the tank has control of all the enemies, you can stand right up close and only need to dodge the occasional short-range AOE.

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.. The point of a ranged/magic DPS is to stay away from monsters to begin with. The only Magic DPS that should be anywhere near the monsters is Red Mage, and only when using the Melee-combo after getting their gauge up. The only time a ranged or magic DPS should be close to the action is if the mechanics of bosses or monsters demands it. Otherwise, even in low level dungeons there should always be some distance between yourself and the monster group. It's worth noting, that Blizz II is literally the only spell in Black Mage's repertoire that demands you to be within 5 yalms of your enemy, everything else having the 25 yalm standard you come to expect for all other spells. IF Blizz II actually did some sort of crowd control, like Stun or even Heavy, that might make it slightly more useful... But there's never a need for a Black Mage to be anywhere close to the action if the mechanics don't call for it.

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

But there's never a need for a Black Mage to be anywhere close to the action if the mechanics don't call for it.

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There's never a need to be far away either, "if mechanics don't call for it" - it doesn't affect your spell potency, and potentially inconveniences your healer as they try to position themselves so everyone is within their AOE circle.

Stand far away enough to be out of the enemy's attack range. That's all that matters. Extra distance adds nothing.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

There's never a need to be far away either, "if mechanics don't call for it" - it doesn't affect your spell potency, and potentially inconveniences your healer as they try to position themselves so everyone is within their AOE circle.

Stand far away enough to be out of the enemy's attack range. That's all that matters. Extra distance adds nothing.

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I'm not saying stand so far that it inconveniences the healer, but you definitely shouldn't be close enough to be doing a spell like Blizzard II. Believe me when I say I know the grievances of a Healer's job when it comes to positioning. I main Healers, not just here but in any MMO I ever play. It doesn't change the issue with Blizzard II though. As you said, out of the attack range of the enemy is where a BLM should be. If you're close enough to do such a short-distance spell, then you are indeed too close to the action for what the Job was actually built to do. I mean even the first several quests of Thaumaturge teach you to keep your distance. lols. To each their own though, if you want to be close enough to have to stop your casting every few seconds to dodge AoEs.
Pre-5.0 though, Blizzard II had a Bind, and the use was meant to be a means of escaping, not damaging. Since in dungeons you'd have no need to escape a group of monsters, however, unless the tank lost control or missed a few monsters, it was only really useful in field-work to keep monsters at bay. Without the bind though, its low potency makes it pretty well useless, and the close-range makes it too risky to use.

Number 1 seems the most ideal to me. Like you mentioned, there is very little use of Blizzard II and simplifying the job has some small benefit.

While many abilities upgrade, as far as I'm aware, the majority of them are merely a potency upgrade and function almost exactly the same. This would make the second approach fundamentally different from a mere upgrade compared to other spell/skill upgrades in the game. And this is also essentially the same as #1, but might cause some confusion as the functions of the spells have changed with the upgrade.

My reasoning against number 3 comes from the completeness of BLM's kit and how the job is in as perfect of a spot as a job can be imo. I don't think the job needs any changes Blizzard II might bring and I'd rather have the devs focus on other aspects of the game.

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

To each their own though, if you want to be close enough to have to stop your casting every few seconds to dodge AoEs.

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If you have to stop casting that's probably your fault, especially at the low levels where you use B2. There are barely any AoE's to look out for. B2 also has a fast-ish cast time, so it's very easy to slidecast and keep 100% uptime.

As far as tweaking the skill goes, I'd say give it a slight potency buff so you don't need to wait for 5ish enemies before it's worth it and then give it a slow/heavy/bind debuff again.

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

I'm not saying stand so far that it inconveniences the healer, but you definitely shouldn't be close enough to be doing a spell like Blizzard II. Believe me when I say I know the grievances of a Healer's job when it comes to positioning. I main Healers, not just here but in any MMO I ever play. It doesn't change the issue with Blizzard II though. As you said, out of the attack range of the enemy is where a BLM should be. If you're close enough to do such a short-distance spell, then you are indeed too close to the action for what the Job was actually built to do. I mean even the first several quests of Thaumaturge teach you to keep your distance. lols. To each their own though, if you want to be close enough to have to stop your casting every few seconds to dodge AoEs.

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You keep saying that a BLM (or any caster/ phys. ranged for that matter) should stay at range when there is absolutely nothing to gain from it.
As long as you don't stand in aoes you can stand whereever you want and standing closer to the boss/ mobs is in most cases preferable because many aoes are cone-shaped and easier to dodge if you stand closer plus there's usually a "sweet spot" for most mechanics at max melee range where you can safely place your Leylines and dodge both melee and ranged mechanics while staying within them.

The point of casters and physical ranged being able to attack from range isn't that they should stay at range but instead that they can, if a mechanic calls for it.
Can. If, and only if, a mechanic calls for it. Everything past that is unneccessary and generally leads to more problems than staying closer.

If you have to stop casting every few sec, you simply positioned yourself poorly and that has nothing to with standing close or farther away. If you have to frequently stop casting in close range, you're doing something wrong and need to position yourself differently. Escpecially at lower levels, where Blizzard II still has its uses, there next to nothing going on in melee range.
From experience I can tell you that most mechanics are easier to play close to melee range. Only very few, like automatically centered meteors, force you to the outer ring.
Just because it doesn't fit your idea or preference for a caster doesn't mean it's wrong to get closer to the action.

The only thing I'd change about Blizzard II is a slight potency increase so THM/ BLM has a decent AoE rotation at low levels starting at 3+ for both AF and UI.

Leylines... nah, don't touch them. Learning to place your Leylines correctly to get the most out of them is one of the key challenges of BLM and making it easier to use would take that away. The basic rotation is simply while it's more difficult to get the most out of it and your Leylines and that's part of BLM's concept. It's supposed to be easy to learn while hard to optimize.
You get the occasional bad eggs in DF runs that make it harder but that is something all jobs struggle with. Just ask Monks how much fun they have with a tank who enjoys taking the boss for a spin or two. Or Dancers when the started pre-dancing because the tank ran towards the boss only to stop last second and not pull for who knows how long after all.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

You keep saying that a BLM (or any caster/ phys. ranged for that matter) should stay at range when there is absolutely nothing to gain from it.
As long as you don't stand in aoes you can stand whereever you want and standing closer to the boss/ mobs is in most cases preferable because many aoes are cone-shaped and easier to dodge if you stand closer plus there's usually a "sweet spot" for most mechanics at max melee range where you can safely place your Leylines and dodge both melee and ranged mechanics while staying within them.

The point of casters and physical ranged being able to attack from range isn't that they should stay at range but instead that they can, if a mechanic calls for it.
Can. If, and only if, a mechanic calls for it. Everything past that is unneccessary and generally leads to more problems than staying closer.

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This would be right if it was in a raid setting. But in dungeons during trash mob pulls (which is the most relevant to this discussion), most aoes will not reach you if you are farther away. The ones that do reach are rare and are an exception. Your odds of needing to dodge an aoe are MUCH higher if you stand in the max melee distance as you suggested.

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Originally Posted by OneTrueMiqote

This would be right if it was in a raid setting. But in dungeons during trash mob pulls (which is the most relevant to this discussion), most aoes will not reach you if you are farther away. The ones that do reach are rare and are an exception. Your odds of needing to dodge an aoe are MUCH higher if you stand in the max melee distance as you suggested.

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That's very dependent on the individual dungeon though. Killing fireflies in Sastasha is barely a risk, but good luck doing that with Fire II before your party kills the individual one you chose to target. Blizzard II is weaker but goes off reliably; Fire II is stronger but does zero damage if you lose your target.

The Keypoint of my argument is that Blizzard 2 puts you far too close to the action. The "sweet spot" where you can be close isn't close enough for Blizzard 2 to be effective, yet being too close can put you too close to close-range AoEs.
For those who say most low-level dungeons don't have many AoEs, I'll recap because a lot of people forget about the lower dungeons.

Sastasha, Tam Tara, and Copperbell don't have many Circle AoEs, mostly Cones and Lines.

By the time you hit Halatali however you start seeing more circles from the likes of bombs, which are pretty well littered around the place.

Toto-Rak and Haukke Manor are littered with Circle AoEs. The Ochus (minions and bosses), are AoE poisons that you don't wanna be within 5 yalms of, but are littered through the first half of the dungeon, which is to say, all the way until the 2nd Ochu Boss is dead. Haukke Manor on the other hand gets its AoEs in the form of Succubi, the Maid Servants that wander the halls as well as all 3 bosses have close range AoEs you don't wanna be up against, being further than the distance that B2 would ever be needed or effective. You might be able to sneak some B2s in when the Maid servants aren't around, but at that point I'd just stick to the standard "Fire1/2 spam, Blizz 1 til mana tops, repeat" method since ya know.. It's easier and safer.

Brayflox starts to see a fall off of Circle AoEs until you get to the swampy area with the Surf Efts and Wyrmhounds, which have their own AoE circles, and the Hellbender. Otherwise most of the AoEs in the dungeon are cone/line and the boss has targeted AoEs which you can't really help.

I can see no use for B2 in these dungeons though, where it wouldn't be better to just use Fire 2 until your mana is gone, then B1 a couple times for mana pip, then back to Fire 1 or Fire 2 Spamming. By the time you reach Sunken Temple of Qarn, the next dungeon after Brayflox, you have your Freeze, which is all-round better than B2 would ever be in damage, range, and utility. The only time I could feasibly give B2 a purpose in any of these dungeons would be the first and second boss fights of Copperbell with the monster hordes, more so on the 2nd than the first since the Ichorous Ire doesn't do do anything, and it's a quick way to dispatch the low-healthed little slimes, but even then a Fire 2 would be more effective, and you should be mostly full mana for that fight anyway since most of the fight is ya know.. Tank?

Preaching positioning though is not the issue here. Positioning is key for most Jobs, always. It's just there's never really a time to want to use B2 since you have to be too close to the action to need it. If it had a better Radius like say 15 yalms akin to White Mage's Assize, or even a cone AoE would be better than a centered 5 yalm AoE, then it may be used more often by many. I just think it needs to be tweaked so that it doesn't stay in the chasm of disuse.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's very dependent on the individual dungeon though. Killing fireflies in Sastasha is barely a risk, but good luck doing that with Fire II before your party kills the individual one you chose to target. Blizzard II is weaker but goes off reliably; Fire II is stronger but does zero damage if you lose your target.

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Most of the time in this situation I don't even use Fire 2, I use Scathe since it's Insta cast.. and still does more than B2. When in this area though most of the time a BLM will kill the clams first, and only attack Seekers if there are any left. Usually not since the rest of the party, like you said, already killed them

Edit: Also I should point out that Blizzard 2's Cast-time is the exact same as majority of BLMs other spells. 2.5s baseline. It is not "Faster" to use Blizz 2 over any other spell standard spell. That being said, Blizzard 2 desperately needs something to make it useful again or needs to be removed/replaced by Freeze. Because I wanna ask how many of you that are preaching me about positioning, actually use B2 as part of skill rotations?

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

That being said, Blizzard 2 desperately needs something to make it useful again or needs to be removed/replaced by Freeze. Because I wanna ask how many of you that are preaching me about positioning, actually use B2 as part of skill rotations?

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Oh, I guarantee most of them don't even have it in a convenient spot on their bar until they do Leveling roulette.

Meanwhile, I agree with the OP: B2 is redundant in the same kit as Freeze, and too weak to justify using at high levels during the brief window of the UI phase. Either B2 should upgrade into Freeze at the level the latter is obtained (same with F2 into Flare, since we drop the former long beforehand), or B2 should gain some other utility like a stun or slow to give it a niche use in AoE scenarios.
Personally I'm a fan of the former, since it would cut down on some button bloat -- and as I said, it eliminates needing to pull it out of the spellbook during roulettes.

Granting, I'm also a maniac who advocates dropping Scathe to make B1 the new instant at 15, halving the cast time of F1 in the 50-60 range for the purposes of weaving and AF timing, merging Enochian/F4/B4 buttons as well as LL/BtL, and letting Aspect Mastery affect Flare so we won't F3 during AoE.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Oh, I guarantee most of them don't even have it in a convenient spot on their bar until they do Leveling roulette.

Meanwhile, I agree with the OP: B2 is redundant in the same kit as Freeze, and too weak to justify using at high levels during the brief window of the UI phase. Either B2 should upgrade into Freeze at the level the latter is obtained (same with F2 into Flare, since we drop the former long beforehand), or B2 should gain some other utility like a stun or slow to give it a niche use in AoE scenarios.
Personally I'm a fan of the former, since it would cut down on some button bloat -- and as I said, it eliminates needing to pull it out of the spellbook during roulettes.

Granting, I'm also a maniac who advocates dropping Scathe to make B1 the new instant at 15, halving the cast time of F1 in the 50-60 range for the purposes of weaving and AF timing, merging Enochian/F4/B4 buttons as well as LL/BtL, and letting Aspect Mastery affect Flare so we won't F3 during AoE.

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Upgrade F2 into Flare at level 50 and then have no AoE rotation (or rather a very clippy/clunky one) between level 50 and 68?

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Granting, I'm also a maniac who advocates dropping Scathe to make B1 the new instant at 15, halving the cast time of F1 in the 50-60 range for the purposes of weaving and AF timing, merging Enochian/F4/B4 buttons as well as LL/BtL, and letting Aspect Mastery affect Flare so we won't F3 during AoE.

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See the issue is that Fire 2 can still be useful aside from Flare, unlike the Blizz 2/Freeze relationship. Fire 2 can be spammed with Umbral hearts in later levels for decent damage, and finish the combo off with Flare as a burst attack, follow up with Trans> Freeze then your back to full mana in like a second. B4 for umbral, F3 for fire switch, then back to your fire attacks. Flare and Fire 2 don't have the same issue as Freeze and blizz 2 though. Also nuuuu I love scathe, it's an off-combo insta-cast finisher. XD That being said I only use scathe to finish off low-health targets where I would be too slow to cast something on it. Usually works well.

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Originally Posted by Ardox

Upgrade F2 into Flare at level 50 and then have no AoE rotation (or rather a very clippy/clunky one) between level 50 and 68?

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I'm glad you asked!

So thanks to the buff Freeze received this expansion and its sub-GCD cast time, under current circumstances, at 35+ the math is that you get more value out of just spamming Freeze (and Thundercloud) for your entire AoE rotation than you get from using the standard "spam F2 until you run low on MP then swap to ice phase to recover", partly due to the damage lost on F3. At best you get more situational burst out of F2, but at the cost of PPS over the entire encounter.

So from 35-49, you spam Freeze. You get Flare at 50, but F2 has not become more appealing or gained any value so it's best to just skip it still (just going Freeze, F3, Flare, Transpose ad nauseum until a TC proc or Manafont gives an extra Flare -- bearing in mind Flare scales its cost so you can swap elements after 1 MP tick in UI this way, which equates to more burst that F2s would only dilute), and you shouldn't be stopping to B4 during your AoE, making an Umbral Heart calculation moot until Freeze gains the ability at 68 (at which point you get a second Flare, so F2 is still moot) and Aspect Mastery at 72 (at which point you skip Transpose, making it only marginally less "clunky").

So in short: F2 is equally dead weight after 35, so there's zero reason not to swap it out later on.
The fact that it maintains symmetry with the suggestion for B2 to upgrade to Freeze is a happy accident.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Oh, I guarantee most of them don't even have it in a convenient spot on their bar until they do Leveling roulette.

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I have it on my bars permanently, I try to include every skill.

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B2 should gain some other utility like a stun or slow to give it a niche use in AoE scenarios.

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B2 being castable with a target already gives it a niche, especially since Freeze lost this ability. Now it's quite niche I admit, but it's there. Freeze was much much more consistent than Flare in killing the O5S mobs for instance. At low HP they'd tend to die before Flare would cast. You could also precast Freeze for damage on spawn, though I never really got the timing for that down in that case.

The biggest problem right now is that the damage is next to nothing, it just needs to be boosted. It could even match Freeze as it would have the drawback of not being ranged and not providing hearts.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

You get Flare at 50, but F2 has not become more appealing or gained any value so it's best to just skip it still (just going Freeze, F3, Flare, Transpose ad nauseum until a TC proc or Manafont gives an extra Flare -- bearing in mind Flare scales its cost so you can swap elements after 1 MP tick in UI this way, which equates to more burst that F2s would only dilute), and you shouldn't be stopping to B4 during your AoE, making an Umbral Heart calculation moot until Freeze gains the ability at 68 (at which point you get a second Flare, so F2 is still moot) and Aspect Mastery at 72 (at which point you skip Transpose, making it only marginally less "clunky").

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On paper Flare only is more damage, but such a rotation is probably going to suffer from MP tick issues more. I haven't worked it out myself, but you're going to be pressing transpose more often at intermediate levels. It feels awful when you can't cast anything for 3 seconds afterward. It might not be optimal, but I still use F2 to space out transpose casts and allow Thunder to proc more per use of transpose (to cover MP ticks). If it is a DPS loss it's not a huge one.

There has been so many threads about this already. Please just leave the thing I can impress sprouts with alone. -It does have questionable function in low level duties.

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

I have it on my bars permanently, I try to include every skill.

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Congratulations, you are not "most" people.

At any rate, the qualifier was "a convenient spot" on the bar. I assume it's probably closer to your mount button than the spells and abilities you use in your main rotation, largely there just to say it is. That's not the same as actually using it and you know it.

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B2 being castable with a target already gives it a niche, especially since Freeze lost this ability.

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I assume you meant "without" a target, and will proceed accordingly.

As you said, that's incredibly niche. Being able to precast an ability for mobs spawning gives you, at most, the damage of one extra cast -- and more often than not, the need to get within melee range will end up biting you more than waiting for targets.

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It could even match Freeze as it would have the drawback of not being ranged and not providing hearts.

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... then what would the point of it be. If they have the same damage, there's still no reason to use B2 over Freeze, especially if you can cast the latter at-range which is a far greater convenience than precasting.

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On paper Flare only is more damage, but such a rotation is probably going to suffer from MP tick issues more.

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And so long as you're using Flare, you would suffer those exact same MP tick issues until Aspect Mastery anyway. The damage of Flare is too good to pass up just because the rotation is "clunky."
The problem there is the invisible timer on the MP tick itself, honestly.

At any rate, what are you arguing against here? F2 doesn't solve that problem unless you skip Flare completely, and at that point you're still better off just using Freeze.

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It might not be optimal, but I still use F2 to space out transpose casts and allow Thunder to proc more per use of transpose (to cover MP ticks). If it is a DPS loss it's not a huge one.

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And I don't think the developers are catering the job to suboptimal play.

But really, you're saying B2 should be preserved for the "optimal" value of being able to precast it, while also saying F2 should stay so you can use it suboptimally? Pick a side, we don't need the button bloat caused by either.

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Originally Posted by Ursa_Vonfiebryd

Please just leave the thing I can impress sprouts with alone.

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Just use Ley Lines instead.

I use(d) blizzard ii sometimes to tag s rank hunts that aren't visible when /targetenemy selects an add.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I assume it's probably closer to your mount button than the spells and abilities you use in your main rotation, largely there just to say it is. That's not the same as actually using it and you know it.

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I use it whenever I'm synced below Freeze, it's located where I can use it easily, but lower priority than higher level skills.

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I assume you meant "without" a target

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Yes, my mistake with that typo.

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As you said, that's incredibly niche. Being able to precast an ability for mobs spawning gives you, at most, the damage of one extra cast -- and more often than not, the need to get within melee range will end up biting you more than waiting for targets.

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Melee range isn't really a problem between slidecasting, AM, and prepositioning. In some cases it's a better position for a BLM (vs cone AoE's for example). Precast gives you only one extra cast (though B2 refreshes UI as well), but not needing a target saves you from the hassle of having casts cancelled by target death. That damage won't be huge, but can add up to something noticeable. It's certainly better than a canceled Flare.

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... then what would the point of it be. If they have the same damage, there's still no reason to use B2 over Freeze, especially if you can cast the latter at-range which is a far greater convenience than precasting.

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B2 would have precasting/target-free casting. That's at least as valuable as the range of Freeze. The ability to cast at range is an advantage but not something that a BLM needs to maintain in general.

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And so long as you're using Flare, you would suffer those exact same MP tick issues until Aspect Mastery anyway. The damage of Flare is too good to pass up just because the rotation is "clunky."
The problem there is the invisible timer on the MP tick itself, honestly.

At any rate, what are you arguing against here? F2 doesn't solve that problem unless you skip Flare completely, and at that point you're still better off just using Freeze.

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F2 serves as a filler so that you press transpose less. That leads to two things, less downtime waiting for MP ticks, and a higher chance of having a thunder proc to cover MP ticks. F2 doesn't remove the tick issue, but it does mitigate it a little.

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And I don't think the developers are catering the job to suboptimal play.

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It's not really sub optimal. If you're unlucky and you constantly have to sit waiting for MP ticks after Flare, you're losing damage. Since ticks are randomish it's harder to work out what the loss actually is. In the worst case, about 3 seconds for MP tick, Flare (now effectively a 7 second cast) becomes the same DPS as F2 at best (3 targets, base cast time). MP issues essentially negate the advantages of Flare vs F2. If you use F2 you can at least expect more procs to cover the MP ticks and maximize the damage of Flare.

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But really, you're saying B2 should be preserved for the "optimal" value of being able to precast it, while also saying F2 should stay so you can use it suboptimally? Pick a side, we don't need the button bloat caused by either.

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I don't have any bloat issues on BLM. My stance on B2 is there is no need to remove it, you can always take it off your bars if you find it useless. The ability to precast it is helpful and something I don't want to lose, though at the same time it needs a bit of a damage buff to really be worthwhile. F2 meanwhile has some use in trying to get around MP issues at intermediate levels, I only pointed that out and said nothing about whether or not it should be kept.

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

.. The point of a ranged/magic DPS is to stay away from monsters to begin with.

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Maybe if we were playing in a game without excessively high-enmity tanks, our positioning would matter enough to differentiate between Ranged and Melee that way, but honestly it just comes down to Melee having their first pick of spots for spread AoE / tower positions while priority thereafter goes to whoever has the least mobility.

With tanks being so powerful and CC so lacking, there's no point at which you're going to lean on a Ranged's range "advantage" outside of soloing, and then only as convenient. In this game, XIV positioning near or far from mobs means almost nothing without simultaneously necessary arena positioning.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Maybe if we were playing in a game without excessively high-enmity tanks, our positioning would matter enough to differentiate between Ranged and Melee that way, but honestly it just comes down to Melee having their first pick of spots for spread AoE / tower positions while priority thereafter goes to whoever has the least mobility.

With tanks being so powerful and CC so lacking, there's no point at which you're going to lean on a Ranged's range "advantage" outside of soloing, and then only as convenient. In this game, XIV positioning near or far from mobs means almost nothing without simultaneously necessary arena positioning.

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The benefit of being at a distance is to be away from melee range AoE's that would otherwise be a burden on casters who would need to move to stop casting. The enmity means nothing if you're close enough to take an AoE to the face. At which point, the argument I've been making all along should be clear: If you're close enough to use B2, you're close enough to be interrupted by close-range AoE's.
It's just common sense, which would you rather do, avoid the risk of interrupts for close-range attacks, or just stay at a distance where your only risks are the targeted AoEs that you can THEN focus your energy moving away from? There's literally no need to use B2 when you have more powerful spells that have less risk, even at low levels. Most monster groups at the levels where you would use B2 don't have targeted AoEs, and few bosses have them at all up until Haukke Manor or Brayflox. So why not just stay distanced so that you can move around less? BLM's whole shtick is by being a caster with significantly long cast times, they need to stay stationary as much as possible. Why burden yourself by needing to move every so often from a melee range cast or just to get in close enough to cast such a spell when it's just plain easier to cast from a distance?

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Originally Posted by KayliRose

The benefit of being at a distance is to be away from melee range AoE's that would otherwise be a burden on casters who would need to move to stop casting. The enmity means nothing if you're close enough to take an AoE to the face. At which point, the argument I've been making all along should be clear: If you're close enough to use B2, you're close enough to be interrupted by close-range AoE's.

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It's technically not a matter of either. It's solely a matter of whether the devs want to make use of that gameplay loop (being within melee range, and all the concerns and gameplay decisions that come with that) or not.

Sure, between any two choices, taken without any care for context or consequence, we'd rather have whatever is most effective, which tends to coincide tightly with whatever has the fewest requirements, considerations, and vulnerabilities. We'd rather not manage our rotations during IR. We'd rather not have to remember to pop Blood Weapon before Delirium to make the latter do anything. ...At least, at first.

But it's not just between two equally profitable choices. It's between BLM having X and not having X. A salient weakness does as much for identity or distinguishing phases or playstyles as a salient strength does.

At present, Blizzard II does not fit BLM's kit. I'll fully agree with that. But that shouldn't solely cue its need to be removed or standardized. It should also cue the question of whether we'd ever want to have the ability to, say, periodically AM into melee range and AoE frost nuke everything around us for rewards commensurate to its risk, in our kit.

If that appeals to no one, then by all means, let's standardize Blizzard II. But questioning whether Blizzard II not be... not crud... while still introducing the same gameplay loops Blizzard II has in its best times, should at least be the prior question.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I'm glad you asked!

So thanks to the buff Freeze received this expansion and its sub-GCD cast time, under current circumstances, at 35+ the math is that you get more value out of just spamming Freeze (and Thundercloud) for your entire AoE rotation than you get from using the standard "spam F2 until you run low on MP then swap to ice phase to recover", partly due to the damage lost on F3. At best you get more situational burst out of F2, but at the cost of PPS over the entire encounter.

So from 35-49, you spam Freeze. You get Flare at 50, but F2 has not become more appealing or gained any value so it's best to just skip it still (just going Freeze, F3, Flare, Transpose ad nauseum until a TC proc or Manafont gives an extra Flare -- bearing in mind Flare scales its cost so you can swap elements after 1 MP tick in UI this way, which equates to more burst that F2s would only dilute), and you shouldn't be stopping to B4 during your AoE, making an Umbral Heart calculation moot until Freeze gains the ability at 68 (at which point you get a second Flare, so F2 is still moot) and Aspect Mastery at 72 (at which point you skip Transpose, making it only marginally less "clunky").

So in short: F2 is equally dead weight after 35, so there's zero reason not to swap it out later on.
The fact that it maintains symmetry with the suggestion for B2 to upgrade to Freeze is a happy accident.

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F2(A3) potency is 144 on a 3s cast and Flare(A3) is 187 (for the additional targets) on a 4s cast. Freeze is only 100 potency and you still need to wait over 2.2s because of the GCD (at level before aspect mastery). If you add the extra time for the mana uptick, the fact you'll have to use F3 more often to come back to do your single flare... What you're proposing neither feel good nor give you more DPS

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Originally Posted by Avenger

I use(d) blizzard ii sometimes to tag s rank hunts that aren't visible when /targetenemy selects an add.

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Yeah, targetless AoEs are good for that. It's prettymuch the only use for summoner's Physick, too.

I've decided healing spells are easier though, if you have one at the right level - especially if you can cast Regen pre-pull so there's no chance of missing out on old marks that die quickly.

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Originally Posted by Ardox

What you're proposing neither feel good nor give you more DPS

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You say that like I'm the one who came up with it, or this is some fringe theory, when the reality is it's already generally accepted as how BLM works. F2 ceases to be a substantial gain once we have alternatives -- the most favorable math puts a F2+Flare rotation a mere 3.5 PPS higher than Flare alone on 4 targets in sustained combat, which means losing the burst advantage of the Flare-focused rotation. Burst which tends to be more valuable in add encounters.

At any rate, Flare in general doesn't "feel good" until you get Improved Umbral Hearts (or Aspect Mastery in some opinions), no matter what rotation you use it in. That's a matter that's best patched by adjusting how UI provides MP, not by B2 or F2.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

You say that like I'm the one who came up with it, or this is some fringe theory, when the reality is it's already generally accepted as how BLM works. F2 ceases to be a substantial gain once we have alternatives -- the most favorable math puts a F2+Flare rotation a mere 3.5 PPS higher than Flare alone on 4 targets in sustained combat, which means losing the burst advantage of the Flare-focused rotation. Burst which tends to be more valuable in add encounters.

At any rate, Flare in general doesn't "feel good" until you get Improved Umbral Hearts (or Aspect Mastery in some opinions), no matter what rotation you use it in. That's a matter that's best patched by adjusting how UI provides MP, not by B2 or F2.

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I think overall it's moot in dungeons below ShB. I've been leveling my blm and just hit 60. Doing HW dungeons every pack is just Freeze > T2 > F3 > Flare and maybe I get one more freeze off before the pack dies. I'll see if SB dungeons change anything but right now nothing survives long enough to matter.