SE, the 7.0 BLM changes will not increase engagement. They are completely-pointless.

Standard Opening Disclaimer: Remembering the humans behind the designs

To SE / "CBU3" / Mr. Yoshida / the Job Design Team / the Community Moderators / the Unpaid Interns / or, whoever is actually reading this...

...Let me clarify that I do understand that, ultimately, you and your designers want to create a good game that makes your audience happy. And I do understand that you devote immense amounts of time and energy into trying to do exactly-that.

Please understand, in return, that any hostility or harsh criticism that I seem to present is not intended as malice towards the actual individuals and humans working on FFXIV.

Rather, what I write stems from my own continued passion about FFXIV, and my own desire to try to make it the best experience possible for myself and my fellow players, based on my own experience and judgments.

So, please be clear — I do appreciate the reality, regardless of how much I may disagree with some of your design choices, that those choices are ultimately born from the same sort of passion and desire.

And in turn, I hope that the players and the developers can continue to maintain a productive and mutual dialogue about the future of Job decisions in FFXIV.

First of all, I want to make clear:

• I do not "main" Black Mage
• I am not personally-experienced with playing Black Mage in difficult or high-end content such as Savage
• My experience with Black Mage is generally at a casual / "alt" level

...However, I think that these points are exactly why my perspective on this subject is actually relevant here.

Because, I am very well-acquainted with the actual reasons why "most players" do not "seriously" engage with Black Mage as a Job-choice — both from my own personal experiences, and from speaking about FFXIV Jobs with a lot of other people, many of whom approach the game more "casually".

...and now, I really think I need to just put this in gigantic font, because the situation really-is this simple:

The reason that most players avoid playing Black Mage in Endwalker (or earlier) is not because players find the Endwalker (or earlier) Black Mage rotation confusing, or difficult-to-understand.

...In fact, most players that I have personally-encountered — whether in-game, or on various forums, social media, Discords, other mediums of interaction, etc. — consider the Endwalker (and earlier) Black Mage rotation to be intuitive, fun to execute, and a satisfying/rewarding challenge.

The sole actual reason that most players avoid playing Black Mage in Endwalker (or earlier) is because you cannot move-around freely or spontaneously without completely-ruining your rotation and performance.

Now, in reality, that claim is somewhat of an exaggeration.

However, the "factual accuracy" of that claim at an analytical level isn't what's actually important here, because it is an accurate depiction of the way that "more casual" / "less dedicated" players seem to, in general, perceive and feel about Black Mage.

Or, simply put — the constant, suffocating pressure of the Astral Fire Timer, and the manner in which Black Mage's reliance on long-casts causes its playstyle to severely-punish unexpected movement, or movement over long distances, or movement for prolonged periods of time...

...causes Black Mage to simply not be fun for a large-number of players that try-out the Job, because "absolute failure" feels too frequent, too likely, too easy to happen, too hard to avoid, etc.

I really want to emphasise that the issue is not that players dislike the idea of Black Mage's Endwalker (or earlier) rotation, nor the hypothetical "challenge" of executing the Endwalker (or earlier) Black Mage rotation.

In my personal experience and discussions, even "casual" players tend to respect and enjoy the "satisfaction" of successfully-executing Black Mage's movement-constraining rotation, in content where they feel like they can "handle" doing-so.

However, it also seems to be "beyond the limits" — or maybe "patience", or "interest" — of most "casual" / "less dedicated" players to employ the time, energy, attention, encounter-timeline research, or just have the requisite "mental finesse" that is required to consistently-execute a Black Mage rotation when players are attempting to complete more-difficult — or just more mechanically-complicated — encounters.

So, in my personal experience, most players have, essentially, no trouble with comprehending the intended Endwalker (or earlier) Black Mage rotation.

Rather, players just cannot "keep a grip" on the Black Mage rotation once unexpected or high-movement mechanics begin to repeatedly hammer-down on a would-be Black Mage player.

And then, once Black Mage drops Astral Fire prematurely, a player quickly begins to feel like the entire Job has simply "shut off", and Black Mage quickly develops a perception of being an unfun disaster to try to recover-from.

When you combine this with Black Mage's total lack of Support or Raise tools, entering a Black Mage "failure state" makes "more casual" players feel like they are suddenly completely-failing to contribute effectively to their Party (which is, basically, true).

In turn, this overall feeling of "panic" / "uselessness" once Black Mage's "standard" / "obvious" cycle begins to fall-apart, contributes to more-casual players quickly beginning to experience:

• An intense negative-feedback impression of the Black Mage Job
• An intense fear / paranoia / self-consciousness about entering content as Black Mage.
  • Especially, new or unfamiliar content...
  • ...or just, any content that the player knows will be complex or movement-demanding.

None of the previewed 7.0 Media Tour Black Mage changes address the actual issues that "most" / "casual" players have, when trying to play Black Mage.

...Therefore, these changes make no sense to me— it seems as if the 7.0 Black Mage adjustments are benefiting, "basically nobody".

On one side...

...you are setting-up 7.0 to anger and frustrate the experienced and passionate "Black Mage mains" who have the mental-finesse and/or dedication necessary to wrap their heads around the planning, positional-management, and quick-thinking rotational-creativity that is currently (and historically) required to play Black Mage at a high and effective level in difficult or complex content.

But then, at the same time, on the opposite-side...

...you are also not making any sorts of changes that will actually make the Black Mage Job any more appealing or accessible to "casual" / "less dedicated" players.

So... you are removing or crippling the gameplay that preexisting Black Mage players enjoy, while also not addressing any of the issues that prevent "most" other players from wanting to voluntarily and regularly-use Black Mage in various content.

Therefore, I am struggling to comprehend what the motivations or goals behind the 7.0 Black Mage design-changes actually are.

In the case of the now-infamous "Summoner Rework" (which, to be clear, I am NOT advocating anything similar for Black Mage), at least you did accomplish "changing" many of the issues that had turned-off more "casual" players from Summoner, and also succeeded in making Summoner significantly more appealing and "accessible".

Now, in my own personal opinion, Summoner's "accessibility increase" was accomplished in a frankly-horrific manner, which led to basically-obliterating all of my previous enjoyment of the Summoner Job.

But setting my own personal biases aside, I can at least objectively-observe that the 6.0 Summoner changes actually did accomplish something — turning Summoner into one of the most popular Jobs in FFXIV, and making its aesthetic "fantasy" significantly more satisfying to "most" players.

However, in stark contrast — and speaking, of course, based only on my own personal perspective and experiences — the previewed 7.0 Black Mage changes will neither increase Black Mage accessibility, nor Black Mage popularity... while also, simultaneously, serving to frustrate, irritate, and demoralise previously-dedicated and passionate Black Mage "mains".

Again, I can only speak from my personal experiences. However, already, just in speaking to other people in my own circle of friends — many of whom are decidedly less-passionate about rotations and Job design/gameplay than I am, and all of whom do not "main" Black Mage, specifically due to their perceived inability to perform the Black Mage rotation consistently in complex or high-movement content...

...the general reaction that I am seeing to the revealed 7.0 Black Mage changes has been some mixture of:

• Confusion
• Complete disinterest
• Disappointment
• A hesitation about whether any of these changes sound fun at all
• A general reaffirmation that Black Mage sounds too difficult and punishing for them to enjoy playing it
• Feeling even more certain that they probably won't use Black Mage as their Dawntrail Job

...So, even if the design-goal of the 7.0 Black Mage changes is to try to make Black Mage "simpler and easier to understand", these changes currently don't seem to be actually accomplishing anything meaningful, in the process.

I think that the only way to actually make Black Mage more "appealing" to a broader segment of players, while simultaneously not "ruining" Black Mage for players who already enjoy the challenge and "puzzle-like" nature of optimising Black Mage gameplay, is to simply provide players with a choice between two different "Black Mage experiences".

...Here is a simple and hasty example of what I mean:

• Imagine that Black Mage has two "stances".
• One "stance" makes Black Mage extremely "mobile" / "reactive", and possibly grants Black Mage support-tools of some-sort.
• The other "stance" makes Black Mage extremely "immobile" / "punishing", locks-out any support-tools, but also increases Black Mage's rotational damage significantly.

Or, in other words, allow Black Mage players to self-select between:

• A "low-risk, low-reward" playstyle that's primarily "for fun / accessibility" — ie, "6.0 Summoner Mode"
• A "high-risk, high-reward" playstyle that's primarily "for challenge / accomplishment" — ie, "Traditional Black Mage Mode".

"Tooltip Examples" to demonstrate how the basic framework in the previous section could empirically be applied:

Legacy of Cessair

• Ability
• Instant
• 1.00s Recast
• Cannot be activated in Combat
• On activation, replaces Legacy of Shatotto.
• Model your Spells after the teachings and legacies of the Mhachi High Voidmage Cessair, who attempted to exercise discipline and restraint in her magicks, and use her powers for the good of her people and civilisation.
• Reduces the Casting Time (but not the Recast Time) of all Black Mage Spells by 50%.
• Causes some of your Black Mage actions to grant additional beneficial effects to Self and Party Members.
• Enables usage of Soul Seizure.

Soul Seizure

• 8.00s Cast
• 2.50s Recast
• Unaspected
• Invoke the power of the Void to seize a fallen Soul, and prevent it from being drawn towards the Aetherial Sea.
• Resurrects target to a weakened state.

Legacy of Shatotto

• Ability
• Instant
• 1.00s Recast
• Cannot be activated in Combat
• On activation, replaces Legacy of Cessair.
• Model your Spells after the teachings and legacies of the Mhachi Archmage Shatotto, founder of Black Magic, who disregarded caution and restraint in the pursuit of absolute destructive power above all else... even her own wellbeing.
• Increases the Damage of all Black Mage Spells by 30%.
• Does not add any additional effects to Black Mage actions.
• Enables usage of Soul Surrender.

Soul Surrender

• Instant Cast
• 2.50s Recast
• Unaspected
• Violently-detonate the aethers of your own Soul to forcibly-shove a jolt of life-energy into the unconscious body of a fallen ally.
• Instantly reduces own HP to 0, causing self KO.
• Resurrects target to a weakened state.

...or, etc.

Numbers would need to be adjusted in actual implementation, in order to actually-balance "Cessair Black Mage" to be on-par with Summoner/Red Mage, and "Shatotto Black Mage" to sit at the very-top of the DPS hierarchy.

Regardless, the exact shapes of my quickly-sketched ideas above, are not sacred or "important", in contrast to the more-general points that I'm trying to demonstrate, and my more-general attempts to convey the seeming-incomprehensibility of "who" the 7.0 Black Mage changes are supposed to be "for".

ie — I am just attempting to show that there are path-ways forward which could make Black Mage feel "playable" in "all" content for more-casual players, or anyone-else (such as myself) that just struggles to "handle" a Job with severely "non-spontaneous" movement / reactivity...

...while also still allowing more-dedicated Black Mage players to enjoy a complex and challenging playstyle that rewards them, accordingly, with significant damage-output.

I frame this in-contrast to the current plans for 7.0 Black Mage, which — again — seem to be improving the situation for basically "no one", and thus, makes the near-whole of the 7.0 Black Mage changes seem perplexing and pointless to me...

...because I can say, with great confidence, that the currently-previewed 7.0 Black Mage changes will not motivate myself, nor anyone else that has avoided using Black Mage in difficult content, to want to play Black Mage "seriously"... because 7.0 Black Mage still looks too difficult to use effectively in any sort of mechanically-complex content.

Ultimately, my point with this over-all post is: if you are just going to end up with the same small "core" of die-hard Black Mage "mains" playing the Job in 7.0...

...then, nothing will change from the situation that we already have in 6.58 / Endwalker.

...Except for the fact, that the previewed 7.0 changes will also make the Black Mage Job less-fun for those preexisting, dedicated Black Mage players.

So, I really don't understand — why bother making these changes at all—??

It seems like nothing is being "gained" — certainly not Black Mage engagement-numbers, I can pretty-much guarantee that — while a lot is being "lost", for the dedicated players that were previously already-enjoying Black Mage.

I think what makes the changes to BLM even worse is that PCT exists and is literally built to be a caster in the same vein as BLM but without the scary skill ceiling of the job.
Which makes the massive changes to BLM even more pointless

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CasterSvarog

I think what makes the changes to BLM even worse is that PCT exists and is literally built to be a caster in the same vein as BLM but without the scary skill ceiling of the job.
Which makes the massive changes to BLM even more pointless

---

Less the scary skill ceiling, and more to fit within the game the devs are making. The problem with BLM is that it's an extremely old class, and PCT is going to reveal all of its glaring flaws.

The skill ceiling will still be there, because the majority of the classes difficulty is optimizing it for fights and movement. That's not going anywhere. But the thing that made BLM scary was its skill floor. Juggling timers, handling procs, and the very real punishment of well in excess of 2000 potency in lost DPS if you messed up. That is something PCT isn't likely to have. And the devs will get a very real wakeup call when BLM gets abandoned even harder than in EW as most players find out that PCT is BLM but without the stupid design elements that are literal holdovers from ARR.

Hell, to show how really stupid this is, PCT just has a ley lines that is a 15 yalm diameter. I wouldn't be surprised if BLM's ley line eventually is also 15 yalms because the fights are, once again, designed without BLM in mind, and 2 dedicated buttons to deal with trying to either move or get back to ley lines is a lot of resources to waste on a class that's already massively button bloated. Note, I don't want this, but the devs are designing a game that is going to force this.

I mostly like the changes BLM is getting, and I don't care how unpopular that is. If BLM doesn't get modernized, the class is going to have the same play rate as MCHs in stormblood. But the work is only half finished by my observation.

Erg pretty sure that instant paradox and garanteed fireIII will help most of those who struggle with movement and xeno/triple cast management.

Sure there's the whole issue of keeping fireIII for transpose for optimal dps and how doing so makes the fire phase actually quite tight especially on low SpS.
But I feel that most BLM will actually find it much easier to have 2 garanteed instant in every firephase.
And not loosing a gcd (or eno-chan) >>> than transpose fireIII.

I personally feel that BLM will become more popular.

"i don't play blackmage but im going to give anecdotal evidence and be a forum queen"
yawn, looking forward to DT BLM

Positive over the blm changes but they could do improvements like lowering the level we get umbral soul. They also need to remember blm exists when they make the fights cause it rly felt they gave no thought for the job on some fights. Give std rotation tools to deal with all these frequent, long periods of movement. Flare star looks fun and the rotation I think is easier for someone new to blm to understand. You have a clear goal in the rotation to get enough f4 off to do your flare star and so on.

Picto looks like a modern blm with all the tools to deal with what they throw at you. BLM looks fun to me still but it might benefit from some extras if DT is also movement heavy .

I understand ppl being sad to lose non standard but I'm glad there is no more awkward tick timer to worry about.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

Positive over the blm changes but they could do improvements like lowering the level we get umbral soul. They also need to remember blm exists when they make the fights cause it rly felt they gave no thought for the job on some fights. Give std rotation tools to deal with all these frequent, long periods of movement. Flare star looks fun and the rotation I think is easier for someone new to blm to understand. You have a clear goal in the rotation to get enough f4 off to do your flare star and so on.

Picto looks like a modern blm with all the tools to deal with what they throw at you. BLM looks fun to me still but it might benefit from some extras if DT is also movement heavy .

I understand ppl being sad to lose non standard but I'm glad there is no more awkward tick timer to worry about.

---

To be fair. The manatick was nothing to worry about in EW if you did standard.
Blizzard 4 and Paradox gave enough time and if you always used thunderprog in ice because that was kinda easier even if the dot dropped off you had even more time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylvain

I personally feel that BLM will become more popular.

---

While I think it will be more fun for those who just played the job on a normal level (standard, maybe an extreme here and there) and those who like the jobdesigning since shadowbringers, I don't think it will get many new players.
The fight design is still very BLM unfriendly (more so now that we know that they want to "increase the stress level for players") and now there is also Pictomancer.
I guess some will leave the job for pic and others will pickup pic instead of trying blm.

I'd wager a lot that what keeps most players away from the job (once past the leveling phase) is the punishing timers that you can drop. I'm not saying it's hard or easy to juggle with here, I'm just saying my feeling is that this is the primary repellent to the job right now. They act as an immediate punishment for not keeping up casting (or refreshing with cumbersome transpose/umbral soul for max dps loss), while moving is already a punishment on its own when people aren't able to use instacasts.

The latter makes sense because by definition it's what defines casters (being able to manage your cast times and instant casts in regard to mobility). The former just acts as another layer of being slapped on the fingers for messing up or being surprised by mobility for a lot of players, which feels a little like doubling down on something that's already punishing. But perhaps this is also part of BLM's core identity as well, which could be argued, but my point here is that I do feel this identity, if this is really identity, is working against the job's accessibility. When compared to PCT for example, the job has a lot of insta casts and long casts to juggle with like any caster, but it doesn't drop timers on top of it. Maybe the idea is to have a caster that's a rphys in a trenchcoat (SMN), two casters with cast times to manage but nothing more, and a caster with cast times AND timers to keep up to fill up the caster dps roster I guess, but there is a reason more than half of the raiding scene just plays SMN in this day and age, and I think it gives a decent idea of what pushes people away from BLM.

Imagine if they had axed the timers instead of MP regen, sharpcast, etc, and I do believe we'd still have non standard being viable. The timers bring nothing to the actual rotation, what they do bring is an additional hurdle to juggle with and demolishing your rotation if you fail to keep it up.

( To be clear, I am NOT advocating for the removal of those timers or whatever, it's just the explanation that makes the most sense to me )

I don't think the changes are meant to make new players previously intimidated flood into the job, precisely because the astral/umbral timers (which I like) are being kept and in fact being made more strict in some ways (messing up your astral phase such that you cast less than the absolute maximum possible F4s is now even more punishing than before).

I think the changes have three main goals: first, they streamline and make automatic things that were effectively already foregone conclusions/almost totally deterministic. This is why you just get a free thunder cast per phase for a predictable amount of damage: all the buffs to Sharpcast and the difference between the value of Firestarter and Thundercloud meant that you were already just throwing a free, instant Thunder every ~30s, which Sharpcast's recharge timer lined up with, and if you weren't doing that you were probably losing damage, so the actual utility of even having a separate Sharpcast button was highly marginal. It wasn't zero, but it might not have outweighed the hotbar space, weaving, and just straight-up button pressing it demanded.

Second, the changes make it some combination of rewarding and mandatory to actually use all your core spells. "Nonstandard" rotation wasn't used because it was weird or quirky or personally expressive; it was used because, by only casting strong spells and not weak spells, you could deal more damage per second. However, for what you might call the average or midcore BLM player (and what I would call myself; I'm good enough to do Savage raiding but I'm not at the absolute bleeding edge of the job), someone who likes the feel of the cast times and timers but doesn't want to install third party tools to keep perfect track of the server's mana tick and therefore know when or when not to make certain shortcuts and substitutions, it feels bad to know that casting Blizzard 4 or otherwise using your spells in an intuitive way is secretly only the second- or third-best thing you could be doing, and in fact that you're a chump for swapping to UI3 by casting B3 when you could instead be cobbling together something jankier out of Transpose, Lucid, and Paradox. So, they've firmed up the utility or the necessity of the spells that the very best players were skipping, so that no one actually wanted to skip those spells, because otherwise why are they there?

Third, freedom from the mana tick is a reward in and of itself, because especially if you itemized for spellspeed even an average player like me could find themselves depending on or getting screwed by the server's 3 second timer. I don't know all the nonstandard tricks but I do know to Transpose-Firestarter out of Umbral, and it's very common to wind up in a situation where that may or may not be a good idea purely based on when I'm getting my next lump sum of regen. As well, at the end of EW, it was entirely possible for me to be in leylines, do B3-B4-Paradox-F3, and discover that I only had 60% of my MP bar at the start of my next astral cycle. Awful!

There's some stuff I don't like about the DT changes - I want to cast Paradox in both my ice and fire phase, I want to use High Fire II for damage and not just for phase change, I want some kind of fun proc, time, or meter-based reward for using thunder spells that has a big up-front damage number - but I've been a BLM main since I started playing in ARR and I largely appreciate all the changes being made here. On top of everything else, I'm really looking forward to the button consolidation; as soon as I saw how various iterations of the PvP BLM worked, I was always annoyed that I couldn't have any of my pairs of PvE mirrored, phase-exclusive spells on a single, auto-swapping hotkey.

Nah. Standardization is better. Why would I play BLM in the content I care about when I am unwilling to play non-standard and will therefore be doing less than I should be doing relative to if I were to pick another job? It's a team game and that's called letting the team down for selfish reasons. It makes me feel things like "Black mage isn't really the job for me. I really want to play it, but mechanically I have gripes with the playstyle at the limit so I shouldn't play it. I am not a true black mage" and that's just poor design.

If you can't adapt to the changes, maybe you're the one who isn't a true black mage. The job is about maximum explosions, not esoteric math and addon abuse to track mp ticks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ferrinus

Third, freedom from the mana tick is a reward in and of itself, because especially if you itemized for spellspeed even an average player like me could find themselves depending on or getting screwed by the server's 3 second timer. I don't know all the nonstandard tricks but I do know to Transpose-Firestarter out of Umbral, and it's very common to wind up in a situation where that may or may not be a good idea purely based on when I'm getting my next lump sum of regen. As well, at the end of EW, it was entirely possible for me to be in leylines, do B3-B4-Paradox-F3, and discover that I only had 60% of my MP bar at the start of my next astral cycle. Awful!

---

The biggest problem with the proposed DT changes, though, is they did not free BLM from the mana tick. Blizzard II requires a target these days. Umbral Soul is level 76. You need to use an Ice action, specifically, during Ice in order to restore your MP, and there is no free Ice action or even something you can swiftcast if the boss has gone untargetable for ten seconds and you're in ARR, HW, or Stormblood content.

I agree that some of the MP changes at high level are probably for the best, but they didn't consider that an entire half of the game now has far less access to MP regen as BLM than they do now, with simply using Transpose while you run around or do mechanics.

BLM main here. Overall I like the sound of the Dawntrail BLM changes, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them.

I don't think there's a problem with lots of players not wanting to play BLM; in fact, I genuinely think it's a good thing. BLM offers a very specific experience that no other job in the game comes close to offering; its timers and long cast times result in an engaging experience that I simply can't get with other classes. Which is to say, BLM serves the needs of a specific subset of FF14 players, and without BLM's unique design those players would not be served.

I honestly think more jobs should do that. Because overall, there's a lot of homogeneity in FF14's job design. If you like one job, you're probably going to like a lot of them. But if you dislike one job, there's a good chance your needs might not be served by any of them. And that's a bummer. I want more people to be able to find at least one job that really feels like "home" for them, because I want more people to play and enjoy the game. I don't want every job to be to my tastes. I greatly dislike playing Monk, but I'm super glad that it's in the game for the people who want the experience it provides. If it weren't in the game, those people would be having a worse time.

So in short, BLM changes seem good, and I would like to see more jobs get less homogeneous so that the FF14 community can grow and thrive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wildvenonat

The biggest problem with the proposed DT changes, though, is they did not free BLM from the mana tick. Blizzard II requires a target these days. Umbral Soul is level 76. You need to use an Ice action, specifically, during Ice in order to restore your MP, and there is no free Ice action or even something you can swiftcast if the boss has gone untargetable for ten seconds and you're in ARR, HW, or Stormblood content.

I agree that some of the MP changes at high level are probably for the best, but they didn't consider that an entire half of the game now has far less access to MP regen as BLM than they do now, with simply using Transpose while you run around or do mechanics.

---

I think you're right that Umbral Soul or an equivalent should come earlier (a trait that gives you old-school super regen out of combat, say) but I don't think the current DT design is leaving us at the "mercy" per se. Like, if we're fighting a Stormblood boss that jumps away when we have 1600mp left, and we curse and transpose to umbral, and then just sit there until the boss comes back and we have 1800 mp thanks to natural regen... well, fine, we cast Blizz3 and Blizz4 and get back into it. It's less that we lose something to the randomness of mana ticks and more that we don't have any no-target resource builder yet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Nah. Standardization is better. Why would I play BLM in the content I care about when I am unwilling to play non-standard and will therefore be doing less than I should be doing relative to if I were to pick another job? It's a team game and that's called letting the team down for selfish reasons. It makes me feel things like "Black mage isn't really the job for me. I really want to play it, but mechanically I have gripes with the playstyle at the limit so I shouldn't play it. I am not a true black mage" and that's just poor design.

If you can't adapt to the changes, maybe you're the one who isn't a true black mage. The job is about maximum explosions, not esoteric math and addon abuse to track mp ticks.

---

Because you could clear any content you wanted with standard black mage? I've had black mages in basically every static I've been in, and only a couple of them used non-standard. Never had a problem with DPS checks, even on heavy movement fights.

My idea of fun isn't just acting out the square enix mandated rotation over and over that doesn't change in any fight. It's figuring out the best way to do damage with the tools I'm given, and adapting to each obstacle by breaking the rotation to optimize it. It's why I liked monk in DSR. All the downtime let me do some crazy stuff, and it was satisfying. Now? That might as well be gone.

I didn't really like non-standard, and I wasn't good at it, so I didn't do it. Did I think of myself as less of a player for it? Did I think I didn't deserve to clear? Of course not. I just... played the class the standard way. These changes don't really affect me, but I can emphasize a lot with losing an interesting playstyle for the sake of simplicity, and I don't want black mage to lose it. If anything they should just make any spell while in UI give mana, not just ice spells. It would play very similar but also not rely on mana ticks.

Instead, I think you are a very bitter person who was upset that something was too hard but slightly more optimal, and is now cheering on that it's gone. All because you weren't satisfied playing the game as it was intended and being able to clear anything you put your mind to. If you were failing dps checks bc you weren't doing non-standard, it was probably a skill issue related to yourself or your party. DPS checks were designed with standard in mind... So if you weren't failing them, why do you care?

...Another thing, you wanna call people out for third party abuse, and yet somehow you know how much dps you were doing on BLM compared to a non-standard player? Curious.

God when the mana regen change was annouced i meekishly said maybe it won't be that bad and we just need to see it in action. Then the media tour released and pretty much any tiny amount of defense I had for it on the forums got destroyed, I should of learnt my lesson. My fav classes went from SCH to SMN to PLD to BLM i really am cursed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Nah. Standardization is better. Why would I play BLM in the content I care about when I am unwilling to play non-standard and will therefore be doing less than I should be doing relative to if I were to pick another job? It's a team game and that's called letting the team down for selfish reasons. It makes me feel things like "Black mage isn't really the job for me. I really want to play it, but mechanically I have gripes with the playstyle at the limit so I shouldn't play it. I am not a true black mage" and that's just poor design.

If you can't adapt to the changes, maybe you're the one who isn't a true black mage. The job is about maximum explosions, not esoteric math and addon abuse to track mp ticks.

---

Im sorry did non-standard existing force you into doing it?
We didn't point a gun to your head and say you have to play non-standard, there was no party finder conditions that said "BLM Non only" or anything like that. Only speedrunning or parsing raid groups would complain about you not doing the highest possible damage you can do and at that point its YOUR fault for surronding yourself with people who don't want you to play how you want to play. Im not a parser in fact I hate it and any record of my parses are recorded by other people and I infact played non-standard because I enjoyed having flexibity and adaptation in my rotation. So please explain to me why me losing my option to play the same Job as you in a different way effects you, when both ways are perfectly viable to do the most important thing clear the content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

It's a team game

---

Says the Samurai.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

So in short, BLM changes seem good, and I would like to see more jobs get less homogeneous so that the FF14 community can grow and thrive.

---

The changes will literally turn BLM into a builder > spender job like any other dps (build Flare Star, spend Flare Star, repeat)... it will make it more homogeneous. It even lost all dot management since you just auto-apply it on stance swap (none of the casters have it now). How can you say, in the same breath, "BLM changes good" and "I want to see less homogenization"?...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

The changes will literally turn BLM into a builder > spender job like any other dps (build Flare Star, spend Flare Star, repeat)...

---

BLM has always been about building and spending. Build mana with Ice, spend it via Fire. Build Umbral Hearts with Ice, spend them with Fire. Build Polyglots by keeping your plates spinning, spend them on boom. If building and spending is bad, then BLM has always been bad, and I don't see how one more facet of building and spending would move the needle one way or the other.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

How can you say, in the same breath, "BLM changes good" and "I want to see less homogenization"?...

---

Because BLM is very much still its own thing. In my opinion, the core of what makes BLM unique is the need to manage long cast times that require standing still while under time pressure. Most classes are predominantly instant-cast, meaning when mechanics happen, they just step out of the way while continuing their rotation unphased. Not us; BLM's have to think ahead, have to adjust on the fly, have to make strategic decisions about whether to finish a cast or move out of the way. And I don't see that changing in a meaningful way.

Will I miss Thunder procs? Probably. They added that extra element of chaos to trying to keep all of BLM's plates spinning. But Manafont just got more interesting, and I'm curious to see how the changes to Thunder and Ice will impact the class's mobility; my guess is that they'll cancel each other out, but we'll see. I also like how some of the changes seem like they'll address some of BLM's button bloat. So there are some things that have my interest, and I won't really know how to feel until I've had my hands on it and get to feel it for myself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

BLM has always been about building and spending. Build mana with Ice, spend it via Fire. Build Umbral Hearts with Ice, spend them with Fire. Build Polyglots by keeping your plates spinning, spend them on boom. If building and spending is bad, then BLM has always been bad, and I don't see how one more facet of building and spending would move the needle one way or the other.

---

BLM, right now, does not follow this builder/spender pattern at all. There's no gcd or button (or combo) you do to build anything up. You go into UI and you can use whatever you want there while you get your MP back. Unless you think "Thundercloud" and "Xenoglossy" are builders. And that's the magic, really. It's also true for the "spending" part- if you cut your AF short into a Despair (because the boss is going to disengage or it's somewhat advantageous), your loss is minimal- because you're not "losing" a resource that is somehow unrecoverable. That's why BLM is so flexible- you have a wide array of high potency gcds (in both AF and UI) and can more or less change their order with great liberty to suit your needs. That's why people say current BLM is "flexible". Only have time to do 4x Fire IV > Despair before the boss jumps off? No problem! Doing some Transpose line to dump Xenos and optimize Firestarter? No problem! Need a burst of movement and must dump Thundercloud, Xenoglossy and a Triplecast right now? No problem! Ups, need to go ice early? Just Despair, Transpose and Paradox, no problem!
In the DT BLM you cannot do any of these things, because the moment you do not use a Fire IV (aka, use your builder) or don't cast Flare Star (aka, your spender) you permanently lose that one Flare Star. You have to follow the 6x Fire IV pattern no matter what, or you either don't build enough or don't spent it.
Ofc if you want to engage in extreme pedantry, you can say that if you overwrite a Xenoglossy right now you're doing the "same" (didn't spend the Xeno) or if you just skip your entire AF (like, go into Fire and immediately cast Despair) you're also wasting the "MP you built", but the fact that how you build and spend those resources, when you do that and in what order you do it is so free-form is why BLM doesn't fit that pattern at all (it fits it in the loosest sense possible).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

Im sorry did non-standard existing force you into doing it?
We didn't point a gun to your head and say you have to play non-standard, there was no party finder conditions that said "BLM Non only" or anything like that. Only speedrunning or parsing raid groups would complain about you not doing the highest possible damage you can do and at that point its YOUR fault for surronding yourself with people who don't want you to play how you want to play. Im not a parser in fact I hate it and any record of my parses are recorded by other people and I infact played non-standard because I enjoyed having flexibity and adaptation in my rotation. So please explain to me why me losing my option to play the same Job as you in a different way effects you, when both ways are perfectly viable to do the most important thing clear the content.

---

What the hell are you even babbling about? I couldn't care less what others expect of me. I know that non-standard lines are more potency than standard lines, so I know that I am not bringing the full potential of the job if I play standard. This means I should play another job where I can bring the full potency or else I am sandbagging the team's performance. It's one thing if non-standard is what the devs want us to be doing and if they were to support that I would just continue as is and avoid the job because it's not what I want to be doing. Since they are clearly not supporting non-standard, I am excited because I am going to be able to play a job that really appeals to me in fantasy.

The job is just not as popular as it should be because people know that you have to do non-standard to bring full potential with it. Doesn't matter how much I want to spam fire 4 if I'm not willing to play the job optimally. I will always be second-rate and that's not appealing to me. I would rather play something else that is tailored to my preferences naturally, and now with the changes in dawntrail, blm is something that is tailored to my preferences naturally. It is still a really hard and demanding job because of how immobile you have to be to execute the standard rotation, but now standard is optimal so I won't be sandbagging the team's dps anymore.

Again, I don't care what others expect, I know what is optimal and it is non-standard. Why would I try to engage in a job that I know I will never play optimally? People don't complain, but they also don't celebrate your mediocrity as a standard blm player.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

What the hell are you even babbling about? I couldn't care less what others expect of me. I know that non-standard lines are more potency than standard lines, so I know that I am not bringing the full potential of the job if I play standard.

---

(I'm pretty sure the reason why you're not "bringing the full potential", if that's truly the case, is uptime and has nothing to do with standard or non-standard, since non-standard is a 1.5%ish gain in most scenarios, but you do you. Just don't pretend that doing the standard rotation is a problem at all, or that it's "sandbagging the team"- most people won't even notice or care since you can do damage comparable to the top 10% BLM players just using strictly standard if you plan your Triple/proc usage around movement. You almost sound like you want to use this a scapegoat. The funny thing is, if you struggle with uptime, DT BLM will be much worse to play and your performance will drop even further)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

(I'm pretty sure the reason why you're not "bringing the full potential", if that's truly the case, is uptime and has nothing to do with standard or non-standard, since non-standard is a 1.5%ish gain in most scenarios, but you do you. Just don't pretend that doing the standard rotation is a problem at all, or that it's "sandbagging the team"- most people won't even notice or care since you can do damage comparable to the top 10% BLM players just using strictly standard if you plan your Triple/proc usage around movement. You almost sound like you want to use this a scapegoat. The funny thing is, if you struggle with uptime, DT BLM will be much worse to play and your performance will drop even further)

---

Do you think you sound intelligent in italics?

The whole thing is, I wouldn't play BLM at all let alone be good at it as is. The job designers probably feel it is a failure because people are obsessed with being optimal in these games and most games. BLM is a niche and that's a crying shame because it's a really fun job to play. If they supported non-standard I would continue to avoid it like the plague, now that they are making it standardized, I feel like it is worth engaging with. I guarantee you that way more people will play BLM after dawntrail changes come out.

Also.... What are you even on about with the uptime remark? I am talking about something objective that is unrelated to anything I've done. Non-standard rotations are more potency than standard. This is objectively true.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

Doesn't matter how much I want to spam fire 4 if I'm not willing to play the job optimally. I will always be second-rate and that's not appealing to me. I would rather play something else that is tailored to my preferences naturally, and now with the changes in dawntrail, blm is something that is tailored to my preferences naturally. It is still a really hard and demanding job because of how immobile you have to be to execute the standard rotation, but now standard is optimal so I won't be sandbagging the team's dps anymore.

Again, I don't care what others expect, I know what is optimal and it is non-standard. Why would I try to engage in a job that I know I will never play optimally? People don't complain, but they also don't celebrate your mediocrity as a standard blm player.

---

So basically you don't like BLM. You liked BLM's look and Job fantasy but don't like how the Job has played since like Heavensward.
I don't like Samurai, I think the combos are boring, Kenki is boring and all the big attacks are flashy without substances and just seem ungabunga do damage to me. However I love the Samurai job fantasy and look. You know what I think about that?
Oh well, other people enjoy how Samurai plays there are so many other Jobs in the game for me to play I dont need to beg for it to conform to my preferences just because of how it looks. For someone who seems to care so much about being a teamplayer so much so that doing 8% less damage than people on a third party leaderboard makes you feel like you're sandbagging. (despite BLM standard rotation still being higher damage than most other DPS) You sure do want other people playing the game to lose their fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

I guarantee you that way more people will play BLM after dawntrail changes come out.

Also.... What are you even on about with the uptime remark? I am talking about something objective that is unrelated to anything I've done. Non-standard rotations are more potency than standard. This is objectively true.

---

Ignoring your obvious insults/provocations (funny, coming from someone complaining about ad hominem), I’m saying that 98% of BLM is uptime/planning, and 2% is the (optional) non-standard. You can literally get orange on the funny spreadsheet site playing standard. Your opener and reopener crit matter waaay more than non-standard. If you ever “let your team down”/“sandbag your team” on BLM, it’s because of bad planning or bad uptime.

Also, you’re very probably wrong about “way more people playing BLM”- BLM has been one of the least played dps jobs in the game since HW because of the heavy turret playstyle (which is very niche)… and it’s becoming more turret in DT. I agree with the other posters- I think you just don’t like and understand BLM.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

...

---

I've re-read your post several times in an earnest attempt at understanding your perspective. There were times when I felt like maybe I was close to getting it, but then I'd realize I didn't. And after several reads, I think this is where we see things differently:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

In the DT BLM you cannot do any of these things, because the moment you do not use a Fire IV (aka, use your builder) or don't cast Flare Star (aka, your spender) you permanently lose that one Flare Star.

---

I genuinely don't see how this is different than any other spell: if you don't cast it, you don't get the good results it provides. Whether that's damage or tokens or Umbral Ice or something else, not casting the spell means you don't get the thing. So I'm not seeing how Fire IV's tokens are different. It seems like you tried to guide me towards understanding how they were different with this...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

you can say that if you overwrite a Xenoglossy right now you're doing the "same" (didn't spend the Xeno) or if you just skip your entire AF (like, go into Fire and immediately cast Despair) you're also wasting the "MP you built", but the fact that how you build and spend those resources, when you do that and in what order you do it is so free-form is why BLM doesn't fit that pattern at all (it fits it in the loosest sense possible).

---

...but I don't follow. How are Fire IV and Flare Star dictating when and in what order you do things in a way that other BLM spells aren't? And maybe it will help if I explain the way I'm thinking about it, which might be different than the way you do.

It seems to me like I'll be playing my Fire phase, and if I cast Fire IV then I'll get a token, and if I cast something like Xenoglossy then I won't. And unless there's something I'm missing, I can interweave casting those different spells in any permutation that I want, toss in a Fire whenever I want to sustain my Astral Fire, etc. Naturally, when I've built up 6 doodads, I probably want to unload with Flare Star, but I don't see how that's meaningfully different than unloading a Xenoglossy when my Polyglots are full. It still feels free form to me, in that the context of the actual fight plays a large role in determining what spell will seem best to cast at any given moment.

Is the issue that when you get that last token, you feel like you have to immediately cast Flare Star before you cast another Fire IV, and that's a meaningfully shorter window than the 30 seconds it takes to build a Polyglot? This is my best guess at trying to understand what you're trying to communicate, but I'm not sure if that's what you're trying to say or not.

While I don't understand, I'm genuinely interested in understanding. So I'm hoping this explanation of my thought process might help you to see where we're not seeing eye-to-eye so you can share it with me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

Ignoring your obvious insults/provocations (funny, coming from someone complaining about ad hominem), I’m saying that 98% of BLM is uptime/planning, and 2% is the (optional) non-standard. You can literally get orange on the funny spreadsheet site playing standard. Your opener and reopener crit matter waaay more than non-standard. If you ever “let your team down”/“sandbag your team” on BLM, it’s because of bad planning or bad uptime.

Also, you’re very probably wrong about “way more people playing BLM”- BLM has been one of the least played dps jobs in the game since HW because of the heavy turret playstyle (which is very niche)… and it’s becoming more turret in DT. I agree with the other posters- I think you just don’t like and understand BLM.

---

?????????? Which insults?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

snip

---

I’ll attempt to clarify with an hypothetical scenario, and will honestly be technical about it because you sound like you know what you’re talking about. Let’s assume that you’re using every Xenoglossy in a 2 minute segment of a fight (both in EW and DT BLM) and assume no party buffs (for simplicity). And, while we don’t have official potencies for Flare Star yet, let’s assume it’s powerful enough that it’s always a gain to use it.
For both versions, there’s some sequence of spells that yields the maximum expected damage (let’s call this sequence A). Now, assume that during those two minutes, you’re forced to move for 10s every 20s (half of it), making it a very disruptive mechanic for BLM. (This is quite similar to TOP p6, honestly)
In EW BLM, you can diverge from A by, for example, cutting your AF short (instead of 6xF4+Paradox+Despair, you’d do 4xF4+Despair), hitting Transpose and using UI Paradox, Xeno and using Triple with F3 and 2xF4. Doing this slightly changes your dps- it’s now a bit less than A, but the difference is very small, like 1 or 2%. You can repeat this process for every 20s segment until you’re out of Sharpcasts, Xenos and “natural” (rng) procs. Your damage is still close to A (within 2%) because changing your rotation to suit this scenario doesn’t impede building any resource- maybe you can 2 more Paradox and 2 less Fire IV, but neither “build” anything, so it doesn’t matter beyond that 100 potency.
With DT, if you apply the same logic, it *does* matter- if anything would cost you one less Fire IV, you lose access to Flare Star and lose more damage. If the timer or movement impede you from casting Flare Star, it’s gone. Diverging from A now loses you this finisher. Your “main” gcds are now “builders” of Flare Star, so whereas before skipping one for 1% overall damage was no big deal, in DT you lose the Flare Star. Pretend Flare Star is like a second Xenoglossy that’s “lost”i f you can’t do 6xF4.
Does it make more sense with this hypothetical? If not, I can try a different approach.
(The crux of it is that you cannot keep the same number of high potency gcds in DT if you "miss" one of your builders- you permanently lose Flare Star. In EW, you can. Swapping one Fire IV for a Paradox on your overall gcds for that 2 min window has no penalty)

Since just spending a Firestarter proc in AF3 is no longer going to constitute a slight damage loss, and since Paradox is instant under AF3, BLM is simultaneously getting more strict and more lenient; on the other hand, you'll suffer more than before if you weren't able to cast every possible F4 in your astral phase. On the other hand, you now don't necessarily need to cast more than two F4s in a row between your various instant casts, and you might even have the opportunity to weave a Thunder spell in if your enemy's DoT is about to run out. You'll be missing more if you know the boss is about to jump away in only 4 GCDs and your MP is still full, but your actual decision-making remains exactly the same as it used to, which is to say that it becomes incumbent on you to just squeeze out as many F4s as possible and swift/triplecast your Despair at the absolute last second.

Rather than making every hit restore MP in ice mode, I think I'd prefer to see every hit grant an Astral Soul stack in fire mode, so that really screwing up and needing to cast Fire 1 or even Scathe doesn't deny you your Flare Star at the end of the phase. But at this point we're just haggling over the price; it's always going to be the case that there's a single, optimal way to play the class and you lose damage if you fail to play it that way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I don't follow. How are Fire IV and Flare Star dictating when and in what order you do things in a way that other BLM builds aren't? And maybe it will help if I explain the way I'm thinking about it, which might be different than the way you do.

---

The main difference then before is that the main spender (Xenoglossy/Foul) outside of just straight up using your Fire spells was connected to simply keeping Astral/Umbral up. It seems to be that Fire IV's tokens that give you Flare star forces you to linearly use as many Fire IVs to get it then use it and switching back to ice form drops this making you lose potency. This along with the MP regen changes has made it that switching to Ice phase and dropping Flare star fails your rotation ergo destroying non-standard rotation where you'd use tranpose to switch to Ice for certain reasons.

It makes it similar to how other Jobs in the game make you do a combo rotation that gives resources (Sen for example) to use on a spender (Midare Setsugekka) when previously BLM didn't have anything like this. Instead you were limited to using Despair or Flare at the end of your "combo" because your MP was running out. So you could technically switch to Ice to regain Mana and skip Despair or do Despair early even if you have enough mana to spend on extra Fire IVs.
But now because we have Flare Star we are forced to do as many Fire IVs as we can to get Flare Star as our finisher after Despair removing the decision making from it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

So basically you don't like BLM. You liked BLM's look and Job fantasy but don't like how the Job has played since like Heavensward.
I don't like Samurai, I think the combos are boring, Kenki is boring and all the big attacks are flashy without substances and just seem ungabunga do damage to me. However I love the Samurai job fantasy and look. You know what I think about that?
Oh well, other people enjoy how Samurai plays there are so many other Jobs in the game for me to play I dont need to beg for it to conform to my preferences just because of how it looks. For someone who seems to care so much about being a teamplayer so much so that doing 8% less damage than people on a third party leaderboard makes you feel like you're sandbagging. (despite BLM standard rotation still being higher damage than most other DPS) You sure do want other people playing the game to lose their fun.

---

I didnt ask for them to change BLM, they changed it because it wasn't getting enough play. Now I celebrate the changes I didn't ask for because the devs knew what I wanted without any complaining.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

I didnt ask for them to change BLM, they changed it because it wasn't getting enough play. Now I celebrate the changes I didn't ask for because the devs knew what I wanted without any complaining.

---

Ok I hope you enjoy your one button spam Job then go back to Samurai after realising 1-1-1-1 is actually very boring.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

The main difference then before is that the main spender (Xenoglossy/Foul) outside of just straight up using your Fire spells was connected to simply keeping Astral/Umbral up. It seems to be that Fire IV's tokens that give you Flare star forces you to linearly use as many Fire IVs to get it then use it and switching back to ice form drops this making you lose potency. This along with the MP regen changes has made it that switching to Ice phase and dropping Flare star fails your rotation ergo destroying non-standard rotation where you'd use tranpose to switch to Ice for certain reasons.

It makes it similar to how other Jobs in the game make you do a combo rotation that gives resources (Sen for example) to use on a spender (Midare Setsugekka) when previously BLM didn't have anything like this. Instead you were limited to using Despair or Flare at the end of your "combo" because your MP was running out. So you could technically switch to Ice to regain Mana and skip Despair or do Despair early even if you have enough mana to spend on extra Fire IVs.
But now because we have Flare Star we are forced to do as many Fire IVs as we can to get Flare Star as our finisher after Despair removing the decision making from it.

---

Well, Fire IV has always been BLM's single hardest-hitting and spammable spell, so the goal (on single target, anyway) has always been to maximize the density of Fire IV (and Despair) of casts in the total list of spell casts populated over the course of a fight. Even if Flare Star didn't exist, you'd still be trying your hardest to execute an astral cycle consisting of six F4s, one Paradox, and one Despair every time you can, with an awareness of an imminent boss jump/death just leading you to cut your astral cycle short by casting your Despair early.

Various transpose/lucid/paradox tricks ultimately amounted to purging as many weaker-than-F4 spells from the rotation as possible, but if by some miracle you could still cast six F4s per astral cycle while also skipping B3, B4, F3, whatever, that's what you'd do, because it would further increase your F4 density. So it's just generally true that you always want more F4s, and lose out on damage if you can't do all your F4s. DT knows what the maximum number of F4s is and rewards you for hitting it, which is a bit of a win more mechanic, but doesn't really change your basic goals in so doing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ferrinus

Various transpose/lucid/paradox tricks ultimately amounted to purging as many non-F4 spells from the rotation as possible, but if by some miracle you could still cast six F4s per astral cycle while also skipping B3, B4, F3, whatever, that's what you'd do. So it's just generally true that you always want more F4s, and lose out on damage if you can't do all your F4s. DT knows what the maximum number of F4s is and rewards you for hitting it, which is a bit of a win more mechanic, but doesn't really change your basic goals in so doing.

---

I know I was just trying to explain the basic idea of why people are upset about the change and giving a scenario of why you might transpose without getting into any actual specific non standard rotation for a specific boss.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ferrinus

Well, Fire IV has always been BLM's single hardest-hitting and spammable spell, so the goal (on single target, anyway) has always been to maximize the density of Fire IV (and Despair) of casts in the total list of spell casts populated over the course of a fight. Even if Flare Star didn't exist, you'd still be trying your hardest to execute an astral cycle consisting of six F4s, one Paradox, and one Despair every time you can, with an awareness of an imminent boss jump/death just leading you to cut your astral cycle short by casting your Despair early.

Various transpose/lucid/paradox tricks ultimately amounted to purging as many weaker-than-F4 spells from the rotation as possible, but if by some miracle you could still cast six F4s per astral cycle while also skipping B3, B4, F3, whatever, that's what you'd do, because it would further increase your F4 density. So it's just generally true that you always want more F4s, and lose out on damage if you can't do all your F4s. DT knows what the maximum number of F4s is and rewards you for hitting it, which is a bit of a win more mechanic, but doesn't really change your basic goals in so doing.

---

This is a simplified view of the overall problem, in fairness. The goal, in reality, at least for EW, is the following: "how can I maximize the average potency of my gcd?". This includes many aspects- maximizing your powerful spells like Despair, Paradox and Fire IV is one. But so is keeping Thunder rolling without overwriting it and using your instant casting ogcds (Swiftcast and Triple) on Despair as much as possible (since it's a slower cast and doing so grants you more potency per second).
In addition to these, another aspect of this is "how can I minimize the number of weak spells in my gcds?" and "how can I keep perfect uptime at all times?". And it's these last two that make DT BLM problematic. For the former, they're attempting to force you to use them. For the latter is where the "rigidity" aspect comes into play. It's just like the hypothetical I gave you exemplifies- if movement, or a mechanic, or downtime, or just an honest mistake forces you to lose one of your "builder gcds" (your Fire IV), then you lose a very powerful gcd (Flare Star) for the whole fight, with no way of recovering it. It's like losing a Xenoglossy for not casting 6xFire IV. This is the "builder>spender" pattern. People have given good examples and thoughts on this in other posts.
It's really thinking about the problem a bit differently (and more completely) than just "I wanna cast as many Fire IV/Despair as possible".

(Oh my God, I replied to the wrong post... I'm sorry. I'll leave it up because I think the info is still useful...)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

Ok I hope you enjoy your one button spam Job then go back to Samurai after realising 1-1-1-1 is actually very boring.

---

Funny enough, SAM is also becoming more rigid, with severe implications for fights with downtime... wouldn't be the best job to turn to.
But that's why we have Pictomancer :')

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Galvuu

Funny enough, SAM is also becoming more rigid, with severe implications for fights with downtime... wouldn't be the best job to turn to.
But that's why we have Pictomancer :')

---

Yeah it's actually pretty funny that picto simply having forced downtime already intrigues me more for optimisation around boss fights then anything new added to black mage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

Ok I hope you enjoy your one button spam Job then go back to Samurai after realising 1-1-1-1 is actually very boring.

---

Project harder little guy