Endwalker BLM Thoughts?

Ello, I didn't really see a megathread for Black Mage in Endwalker (if there is one I missed, I will edit this OP with that thread's link and remove the content of this one). What are you guys' thoughts?

I'm still pushing to 70 and already the changes are feeling quite nice. 2 charges of Triplecast? Heck yes! No MP needed to use Blizzard 2 after a pre-Umbral Soul Flare? Pretty awesome, the Transposing just felt so wrong. Fire 2 giving Astral Fire III is such a dream, and I'm supposing Enhanced Flare is going to stop it from becoming obscure later on. I'm also curious about the 80+ skills. How do Paradox and such work exactly?

Thanks for reading and dropping in comments.

This is purely personal but I think BLM at level 90 is the highest peak regarding job design this game has ever reached.

Started leveling blm after got war to 90, and its confuses me a little, mostly sharpcast and thunder, cant quite figure out a steady rotation, thunder ends up falling off in some wierd spots and not sure what to use the 2nd sharp. Only rotation ive been finding on lv90 blm is the weird transpose one, which im sure will get tweaked later so not bothering to learn, lul

It feels great, my only main complaint is that 120s feels too punishing when you can't preposition your circle to sync with the party's raid buffs. With the old 90s cooldown you could adjust better since the buff is a 30s duration and most of party buffs are 15 or 20s. If the goal is to have players sync buffs together changing Leylines cooldown to be lower to properly cast it in a safe position would be a better design choice for it.

Manafont has a similar issue, always had though. It is a long cooldown but becasue of BLM's nature to rely on GCD and the fact you use at the end of you Fire cycle when you empty mana, the round cooldown fixed at the same value of everyone else can cause some sync akwardness if you don't plan for it. This is only a real issue to me now since SE explicitely wants parties to have all their core skills used together, you can still sync it with your party with proper planning but since the new design philosophy is to naturally have it all sync this seems odd to me.

All that said the job feels amazing, I though two Sharpcast would be akward but the change on thunder and thundercloud durations made it extremely comfortable. Two chages of triple a good idea since becauseof the nature of the job you'd hold that cooldown sometimes for a weave slot and this change is so you can let the second charge cooldown holding when that happens without altering the nature of the ability. If anything sometimes there are too many non fire spells to use on a fire cycle but that will eventually get smoother with more spellspeed.

Eh, I'm honestly getting a little annoyed playing BLM because there's so much running during fights.

I absolutely love it, even though I'm still bad at it - I'm not sure how to navigate the oGCD logjam at the start of a fight, I often let Amplifier sit for upwards of 20 or 30 seconds before I remember + find space to use it, etc. The super long duration on Sharpcast and its procs is also taking some getting used to, since there's literally never a moment in which Thundercloud is running out but Thunder isn't.

If I have two quibbles it's these:

1. I wish being Paradox-primed only transformed one of your basic spell buttons, not both. As in, if you're in Astral Fire then Blizzard 1 transforms while Fire stays normal, and vice versa. It's very marginal, but I'd prefer to be able to refresh my aspect but save Paradox if I want.

2. I wish Paradox did something AoE-related, like Flare could consume the crystal instead of an Umbral Heart and Freeze consumed the crystal to deal more damage. I guess that could be where they go for 7.0 and beyond?

I'm still working my way around it, however my initial impression is that Standard has been increased significantly and the additional charges have made the rotation more static.

The increased duration of Thundercloud removes a fair amount of the on-the-fly decisions you would make around it, as well as extending the duration of Thunder to 30. It's taking adjusting to, so while I do not like it initially, maybe I will later, but so far it feels like training wheels were put on, instead of the gradual loosening of them we've had so far.

I have a question about High fire 2.
While in UI phase, how many HF2 should I throw ?
2 times just for enchanced flare then double flare.
OR
3 times to make the most out of umbra hearts then double flare ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kahnom

I have a question about High fire 2.
While in UI phase, how many HF2 should I throw ?
2 times just for enchanced flare then double flare.
OR
3 times to make the most out of umbra hearts then double flare ?

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3 normally, 1 cold and 2 hot. Skip one of the F2's if you're using triplecast.

BLM is in a good spot again this expansion, but the AoE actually feels a little clunky to me. The rotation is longer and cast time of Flare is still long, which means I need to predict ahead of time how fast something will die or else risk having my casts cancelled. I think Flare under ice could have still been an option. Enhanced Flare from F2 would still make it worth while to cast those. I preferred having Freeze combine UI3 and hearts. Having to use B2 doesn't really add to the rotation. B2 should have remained a player centered AoE with no need for targets, it served a niche that way.

expert dungeon wise. i dont like the slow ramp up feel of first pull. but once you got af/ui going and such, like on the 2nd pull, its gooood.
the 2x charge triple is great feel to be able to have the cd refresh timer keep running as long 1 charge was used. this definitely give you less of a feel that your triple will lose a usage while the tank is still pulling / we are moving/ transition etc
as for the instantcast foul, it definitely well suited for dungeon mob aoe'ing
rotation usually goes like this for me:
if have uh3 and manafont up, from ui>hf2 x2>foul or t4proc (weave triple)> 3x flare (weave manafont)
if ui3 but no manafont, ui>hf2 x2 > foul/t4proc(weave triple)> hf2 > 2x flare

the instantcast for ui paradox is so good too.
usually back in shb, i would spam scathe in ui while running with the tank and is still pulling. i would then press umbralsoul when ui timer goes low.
but now with instantcast ui paradox, i can use paradox while moving to refresh ui timer instead. which is a dps gain compare to what i did in shb.

ok after thinking about it. the devs need to increase the radius of high fire II to like 10yalm. Its high fire II but still puny radius. the mobs in the expert dungeon are so large in hitbox, that its tough to get all the mobs. the small mobs tends to die way to fast to be my focus target for hf2 and flare. please increase the high fire 2 radius from 5yalm to 10yalms atleast, so that we can cover the map with aoe.

As for potency wise, it does need some more buff or tweaking when compare to other dps jobs or even other caster in term of single target dmg.

BLM will always be fine as long as Yoshi-P plays it.

BLM is still peak caster design. Almost everything has a point and you can manipulate the rotation as needed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RocciaSolida

This is purely personal but I think BLM at level 90 is the highest peak regarding job design this game has ever reached.

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I disagree. The class has basically fallen into the position of Monk at the start of ShB. The class has been stagnating for several expansions, its leveling experience is incredibly uneven (and has been since HW), its skill floor is described as a "cliff" and not a hill, it's very player unfriendly to learn. About the only thing fine about BLM is that its core rotation as designed and desired, absent gimmicky rotations like hypermeme which, iirc, is now dead, is and has been fine since SB. Which is why it's in the position of Monk.

The biggest problem with the class are the AF/UI timers, which are rendered redundant by Paradox and the change to Blizz 4's cast time (hypermeme was killed), and if they took that change backwards in time in a re-imagining of the leveling rotation to make the class more consistent throughout all levels, the class would be a lot better. The proc nature feels very tacked on still, and has been basically since HW completely changed the class into a static rotation instead of a RDM-styled proc rotation, and esp. if AF/UI timers are removed, would also need a rework.

However, as the monk rework showed us, if you get rid of something chokeholding the class, it gives you breathing room to breathe new life into the class. Which is why I'm so adamant that the class needs to lose the timers. It needs more than just that, but it needs that to get started.

I'm very happy with the BLM changes. I feel a lot more mobile with the additional triple cast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kpxmanifesto

Eh, I'm honestly getting a little annoyed playing BLM because there's so much running during fights.

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I felt that way till i got use to the fact i have 2 triple casts now and a forced polyglot charge. Also thunderstorm procs ao much i seem to always have one when i need it weather to weave or for movement. Add that paradox is instant in UI phase. The new no blizz+transpose rotation really performs well with movement