BLM changes are really tonedeaf

I've been playing BLM since Shadowbringers and with the changes to the class in Endwalker, I felt like I had alot more freedom in how to play the class due to the nature of non-standard rotation.

Mainly the point that we had mana ticks and didn't need to always be casting Blizzard spells. Plus the addition of Paradox (ice).

However, with these new changes to BLM, the class does feel really guttered and that the devs are forcing only one way to play BLM.

One of the changes that speak loudest to me that whoever designed the change around Manaticks and removing nonstandard gameplay is honestly that the devs added a 3rd Xeno Slot..... Most of the time I barely have 1 stack of Xeno and it's not like we are getting a buff to Amplifier that'll give us more than 1 stack of Xeno.

Honestly, the changes to manatick and the death of non-standard gameplay is really disappointing and just feels like the Devs don't understand what made BLM so unique and enjoyable as a class.

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Originally Posted by Shunik

I've been playing BLM since Shadowbringers and with the changes to the class in Endwalker, I felt like I had alot more freedom in how to play the class due to the nature of non-standard rotation.

Mainly the point that we had mana ticks and didn't need to always be casting Blizzard spells. Plus the addition of Paradox (ice).

However, with these new changes to BLM, the class does feel really guttered and that the devs are forcing only one way to play BLM.

One of the changes that speak loudest to me that whoever designed the change around Manaticks and removing nonstandard gameplay is honestly that the devs added a 3rd Xeno Slot..... Most of the time I barely have 1 stack of Xeno and it's not like we are getting a buff to Amplifier that'll give us more than 1 stack of Xeno.

Honestly, the changes to manatick and the death of non-standard gameplay is really disappointing and just feels like the Devs don't understand what made BLM so unique and enjoyable as a class.

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Agreed on alot of things.

We will have to begrudgingly(mostly as a joke, but still having to adjust) try it out.

and if not, hopefully find out another role does us nicely.

I still have yet to take a good look at the Data from the Media Tour.

And I saw somethings about the Mana Gain, and the Upgraded "Manaflow".

Hopefully the Mana Regen ain't that bad.
And skill expression makes a return in future expansion.

Agreed. The mana recovery adjustment alone is awful.

This is like when MNK had an alternate rotation with those kicks and they killed that too. They won't back down from this. It's GG.

Would be more forgivable if Thunder/Xeno spells were made oGCD. Could probably get behind it otherwise but the current changes seem bad to me. Easy swap to PCT.

From what I saw in the media tour, you cast like... one ice spell before you swap back to fire. and there's a lot more fire then before. there's one ice spell that regens 10,000 MP. That's the whole bar.

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Originally Posted by justausername

From what I saw in the media tour, you cast like... one ice spell before you swap back to fire. and there's a lot more fire then before. there's one ice spell that regens 10,000 MP. That's the whole bar.

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blizz 3 gives 5k and blizz 4 gives 10k ,

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Would be more forgivable if Thunder/Xeno spells were made oGCD. Could probably get behind it otherwise but the current changes seem bad to me. Easy swap to PCT.

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I kinda feel that this is exactly their intention. They always make changes at the start of an expac with new jobs coming out, then sorta fix things later. They want people to play the new stuff for one reason or another , so it looks like a success since so many people tried it.

I can understand people doing some non-standard rotation might be upset.

But as a casual BLM I was still just switching to ice, using Blizzard 4 and any procs available, then going back to Fire and I don't see it being much different with or without mana ticks?

To me the worst thing they could have done on BLM is remove the countdown timer that allows Fire/Ice to expire and reduce cast times to 1.5 seconds, because that would make the job as easy as red mage. But from what I have seen that is still there. I actually was concerned they'd remove it given they have on other jobs (ie. GL4, Blood of the Dragon, Darkside, Huton). But they must be aware of how that is what makes the job appealing to play for many people. The fact it's one of the few jobs you have to "manage" something still while also overcoming long cast times and moving during busy mechanics.

As much as repositioning leylines is a bit of a nerf, often if leylines gets misplaced once it will a second time anyway because mechanics don't always happen in one direction.

My first impression what happening is:
Players: Please make more complex nontrivial job rotations
SE: We made jobs more casual friendly :D

I just don't understand their train of thought on this, honestly. Everyone agreed EW was the best version of BLM and they listened to that feedback and... decided to butcher it?

Casuals still won't play the job because at the end of the day it still is BLM. Hardcore players will now drop the job because they've killed off non-standard and most optimization you could do, making it less enjoyable for them.

So congrats I guess. They made one of the least played jobs in the game even less popular. Takes effort and creativity to achieve that.

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Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

My first impression what happening is:
Players: Please make more complex nontrivial job rotations
SE: We made jobs more casual friendly :D

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No
The same never happy forum posters ask for it
The playerbase doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Arphene

I just don't understand their train of thought on this, honestly. Everyone agreed EW was the best version of BLM and they listened to that feedback and... decided to butcher it?

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It is the best version, sure, but that doesn't mean it was perfect. It is certainly true that the mana ticks can be unpredictable (for example, you might be able to use Thunder immediately in ice phase, or you might have to wait a GCD) and this just cleans it up so you know exactly what you have to do.

They obviously want to move away from DoT-gameplay so that change most likely wasn't related to whether it was good in EW or not. And obviously they want to give it the standard 2 minute burst.

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Casuals still won't play the job because at the end of the day it still is BLM.

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Maybe. I think new players get up through level 50, but after that I stop seeing them using this job. They probably get overwhelmed, die a lot due to the cast times if they can even work out which of their fire and ice spells to press, and see a free Red Mage and just switch to that.

But I think what might actually help is the new gauge. It shows fire slots that you are meant to fill so the gauge will clearly reflect if you're doing it correctly or not, whereas in Endwalker it's only communicated you're doing it right by the fact you haven't let Astral/Umbral Ice expire and by MP management going down to 0, regenerating, repeat and I would expect odd people get stuck here and either just stay in Umbral Ice or can't figure out why they run out of MP or let Astral Fire expire. That is when they're not dying to the cast times. :D

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Hardcore players will now drop the job because they've killed off non-standard and most optimization you could do, making it less enjoyable for them.

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I think they said they wanted to make it possible to express skill in other ways in the patches, but I doubt this will be damage-related necessarily, or not in a way that means a gap of 20% damage. Trouble is all these intentions are going to take time (the next 2 and a half years into 8.0), so some players will probably want to check back at what's changed then.

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Originally Posted by Shunik

I've been playing BLM since Shadowbringers and with the changes to the class in Endwalker, I felt like I had alot more freedom in how to play the class due to the nature of non-standard rotation.

Mainly the point that we had mana ticks and didn't need to always be casting Blizzard spells. Plus the addition of Paradox (ice).

However, with these new changes to BLM, the class does feel really guttered and that the devs are forcing only one way to play BLM.

One of the changes that speak loudest to me that whoever designed the change around Manaticks and removing nonstandard gameplay is honestly that the devs added a 3rd Xeno Slot..... Most of the time I barely have 1 stack of Xeno and it's not like we are getting a buff to Amplifier that'll give us more than 1 stack of Xeno.

Honestly, the changes to manatick and the death of non-standard gameplay is really disappointing and just feels like the Devs don't understand what made BLM so unique and enjoyable as a class.

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i mean yea it sucks that the great filter came for your job aswell but hopefully in 8.0 they fix this. i personally for now would just advise to change to a different job

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

i mean yea it sucks that the great filter came for your job aswell but hopefully in 8.0 they fix this. i personally for now would just advise to change to a different job

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Well in all honesty, I've stuck to tank jobs almost entirely the whole time I've played. I was so content with Paladin for example that I would just always stick with it but then that changed from what I really liked.

But now I get so bored of expert roulette, that I'm genuinely just switching jobs lately just so I can have fun. I can maybe accept if now we are supposed to get our fun by switching jobs a lot but it is strange that this is the first I've had to do this in my whole time playing.

It's not just the jobs and it's not even necessarily the quality of the content, but the fact you get the same 2 expert dungeons to the point of wanting to be sick, whereas before patch cycles were faster combined with having 2 fresh dungeons every 3.5 months (and expansion lulls were only 5 months before). We get the last one mostly which has been there for about 8 months and we get the other one which has been there for literally 1 year.

The jobs I've been switching to have been BLM, NIN, DRG, GNB and BRD just because their rotations have enough going on to distract me from the content or change how I approach the content.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

i mean yea it sucks that the great filter came for your job aswell but hopefully in 8.0 they fix this. i personally for now would just advise to change to a different job

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What job is there to go to? They're all static, expressionless, illusions of choice.

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Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

What job is there to go to? They're all static, expressionless, illusions of choice.

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Blue Mage and Fisher

I'm a relatively new Black Mage main, and I really don't mind most of these changes. As someone who refuses to use Addons, non-standard was hell to try and do without seeing when your MP ticks were going to happen.
I'd also just randomly not get enough ticks to get full MP when in Ice Phase under Ley lines because of my high spell speed. I think it would be nice to keep Ice Paradox, but at least that movement is put into the fire phase now where you can have more flexibility with it, without just giving us too much more movement. Though I'll agree that they should add in some way to get back your MP for downtime, especially at low levels. Maybe they didn't need to remove the MP ticks entirely, just keep it the way it is now, but make Ice Paradox give you 5000 MP to guarantee you hit 10K in just one tick.

What I'm actually upset about is the removal of Sharpcast, Thundercloud, and Firestarter procs. Finding time to weave Sharpcast to use on Thunder before your Paradox was fun, and the randomness in Firestarter added some needed variance to fights. It meant that aside from the pull, you're never entirely certain where your rotation will be at any specific point in a fight because of the chance of firestarter. Unless you use the free proc to swap from ice to fire, but you're not supposed to do that since that means less time to cast in fire phase.

The MP bar is literally hanging on for dear life by the skirt of BLM's robe. I feel like 8.0 will mark the death of the bar, entirely, followed by resurrection being on a CD.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I think they said they wanted to make it possible to express skill in other ways in the patches, but I doubt this will be damage-related necessarily, or not in a way that means a gap of 20% damage. Trouble is all these intentions are going to take time (the next 2 and a half years into 8.0), so some players will probably want to check back at what's changed then.

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"Play how we want you to."

In other games developers are delighted when players find creative solutions to puzzles the developers lay out. And in single player games sometimes they even cheer for exploits in speedruns.

In this game, if you so much as dare to do anything that gives you a 1% damage boost the devs don't expect, which impacts literally no one other than the 0.1% of the playerbase who needs to clear Savage week 1, and where the impact is so mild that players don't even factor in that MNK can do optimal drift or that BLM can do opti nonstandard lines when deciding what comp to use for prog, you WILL get neutered because you don't fit into the dev's vision.

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

"Play how we want you to."

In other games developers are delighted when players find creative solutions to puzzles the developers lay out. And in single player games sometimes they even cheer for exploits in speedruns.

In this game, if you so much as dare to do anything that gives you a 1% damage boost the devs don't expect, which impacts literally no one other than the 0.1% of the playerbase who needs to clear Savage week 1, and where the impact is so mild that players don't even factor in that MNK can do optimal drift or that BLM can do opti nonstandard lines when deciding what comp to use for prog, you WILL get neutered because you don't fit into the dev's vision.

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I don't think they hate it when players find different tech or ways to play beyond their desires.

They just know it'd be easier on them with less variables (until 8.0 or whenever they want to diversify the jobs)

And balance is much easier to deal with when the job has less tech gaps.
(They really are stuck on their desires or want for all jobs being equal. Which by itself is fine. but they also have to balance fun, and high end gameplay. Which is what they actually care about. Not normal/story/side dungeons. as much as healers think that's a valid point to strike about)

Hopefully they find out that some of the changed are better reverted. so it tides folk over til when they actually improve the system.

[Perfection or Fun being delayed for now, basically]

First of all , i would like to know whose feedback did they listen to, to make the BLM changes. Certainly not the majority of BLM players.
Or did they just play it themselves and figure this would "enhance" the BLM just by themselves.
We have 3 other casters now. Easy rotation (SMN), slightly okay rotation(RDM) , and gigabrain rotation (BLM). Why streamline BLM. Who did they even listen to.
Guess its going to be near impossible for BLM to do ultimate content now, with a lack of flexibility.

Theoretically, without adjustments, the changes to BLM are going to lower its DPS performance and alienate casuals by moving into a less flexible and more punishing rotation. I expect several adjustments will be made presuming the rotation results how I think it will under different circumstances.

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Originally Posted by GTK0HLK

I don't think they hate it when players find different tech or ways to play beyond their desires.

They just know it'd be easier on them with less variables (until 8.0 or whenever they want to diversify the jobs)

And balance is much easier to deal with when the job has less tech gaps.
(They really are stuck on their desires or want for all jobs being equal. Which by itself is fine. but they also have to balance fun, and high end gameplay. Which is what they actually care about. Not normal/story/side dungeons. as much as healers think that's a valid point to strike about)

Hopefully they find out that some of the changed are better reverted. so it tides folk over til when they actually improve the system.

[Perfection or Fun being delayed for now, basically]

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I mean <2% DPS difference that only a handful of people will ever pursue after progression, and almost never during progression (other than simple lines like transpose f3p) is something that did not require any neutering.

Probaly not enough players are using BLM in endgame content, so if rotation is too complex for your average player, then I can understand these changes.

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Originally Posted by kidknee

First of all , i would like to know whose feedback did they listen to, to make the BLM changes. Certainly not the majority of BLM players.
Or did they just play it themselves and figure this would "enhance" the BLM just by themselves.
We have 3 other casters now. Easy rotation (SMN), slightly okay rotation(RDM) , and gigabrain rotation (BLM). Why streamline BLM. Who did they even listen to.
Guess its going to be near impossible for BLM to do ultimate content now, with a lack of flexibility.

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I mean - Yoshi is a BLM main afaik lol.

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

I mean <2% DPS difference that only a handful of people will ever pursue after progression, and almost never during progression (other than simple lines like transpose f3p) is something that did not require any neutering.

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People shouldn't be chasing the 2% DPS increase during prog, but non-standard isn't just a damage tool - it's for movement and speed too. I use prog to figure out where I can mix up my rotation to get the most out of the time the boss is targetable/movement/etc. I do something non-standard basically the whole time the boss is actually targetable in DSR P2&5, and I had to do an N113 when I was progging TOP just to have enough movement for Pantokrator...

I mostly stick to standard rotation until an encounter requires me to think outside of the box to move/keep uptime/get as many F4s in an active phase because I'm not great at planning my stuff on the fly, I usually just sorta feel out how to do my rotation the more prog pulls we get, but it very much is something I do during prog.

I'm kind of... standard-with-a-sprinkling-of-non-standard, so I'm not as upset about the changes as some, but I do think the class will lose some of its charm because of it. It's certainly going to lose flexibility.

I'm mainly just frustrated that when I finally do go back to TOP I'm going to have to go through the stress of figuring out how to do Panto all over again...

It's about time BLM got dunked on. The other DPS have been ruined for years.

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Originally Posted by HighlanderClone

"Play how we want you to."

In other games developers are delighted when players find creative solutions to puzzles the developers lay out. And in single player games sometimes they even cheer for exploits in speedruns.

In this game, if you so much as dare to do anything that gives you a 1% damage boost the devs don't expect, which impacts literally no one other than the 0.1% of the playerbase who needs to clear Savage week 1, and where the impact is so mild that players don't even factor in that MNK can do optimal drift or that BLM can do opti nonstandard lines when deciding what comp to use for prog, you WILL get neutered because you don't fit into the dev's vision.

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"Play how you want to" seems to be a dying idea in gaming. I play at least 3 games(And left another where this got really bad) where every time players get creative the Devs kill themselves to make what the players did unworkable. These days it is more "Play how we want you to play."

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Originally Posted by Sesera

No
The same never happy forum posters ask for it
The playerbase doesn't.

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Yeah. I don't play BLM so I can't really attest to the specifics of these changes in particular. But trying to lump 'the playerbase' into one category on just about any topic is over simplifying things.

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Originally Posted by Sesera

No
The same never happy forum posters ask for it
The playerbase doesn't.

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While I agree that this forum has more doom and gloom then Endsinger you are forgetting something.

There are quit a few new people posting here against these changes, myself included. Even the japanese side is baffled and unhappy.
While the majority is probably "eh whatever" about many changes in this game or happy I personally think there are quit a lot like us who weren't really happy this entire time but didn't post here.
The silent majority is not uniform.

As someone who has tried to play black mage but couldn't due to ping, complexity and other issues - I am glad it is getting -some- difficulty reduction and something more standard which may be easier to play on a higher ping connection.
Especially since they changed SMN from a dot class which I really enjoyed before hand. I get why people are upset but I think overall the changes will feel fun.

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Probaly not enough players are using BLM in endgame content, so if rotation is too complex for your average player, then I can understand these changes.

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Of course they don't - and never will as long as the path of least resistance for players filling the caster slot with Summoner is still available. Job literally plays itself, has access to raise, has a raid buff, has rotational AOE healing, has 2-3 actual casted spells per minute between nigh endless supply of instantcasts, making SAMURAI more of a caster than Summoner.

Maybe if playing Summoner took a bit of finesse again and wasn't such a joke we'd see less caster spots be taken by the hamster wheel class.

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Originally Posted by MichiKyou

As someone who has tried to play black mage but couldn't due to ping, complexity and other issues - I am glad it is getting -some- difficulty reduction and something more standard which may be easier to play on a higher ping connection.
Especially since they changed SMN from a dot class which I really enjoyed before hand. I get why people are upset but I think overall the changes will feel fun.

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It may be getting some difficulty reduction in terms of understanding the rotation, but actually executing it is going to be a huge pain in the ass, particularly pre Umbral Soul.

Between removal of Ice Paradox and certain procs, changing the mp management to ice only, and locking the new flare star accrual behind just two spells, it's going to be a pretty punishing mess.

Ultimates are very movement heavy.
Without non std play, blm will be *impossible* in high level ultimates.

Lack of non std means lack of flexibility in deciding when you canmove and when you can't. When ur in ice phase n when in fire phase. Matters somewhat in savage but it means death by n ultimates.
Plus the fun aspect is gone now


I play blm with high latency.
Blm is one of the jobs that doesn't require high ping.

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Originally Posted by azaleai

People shouldn't be chasing the 2% DPS increase during prog, but non-standard isn't just a damage tool - it's for movement and speed too. I use prog to figure out where I can mix up my rotation to get the most out of the time the boss is targetable/movement/etc. I do something non-standard basically the whole time the boss is actually targetable in DSR P2&5, and I had to do an N113 when I was progging TOP just to have enough movement for Pantokrator...

I mostly stick to standard rotation until an encounter requires me to think outside of the box to move/keep uptime/get as many F4s in an active phase because I'm not great at planning my stuff on the fly, I usually just sorta feel out how to do my rotation the more prog pulls we get, but it very much is something I do during prog.

I'm kind of... standard-with-a-sprinkling-of-non-standard, so I'm not as upset about the changes as some, but I do think the class will lose some of its charm because of it. It's certainly going to lose flexibility.

I'm mainly just frustrated that when I finally do go back to TOP I'm going to have to go through the stress of figuring out how to do Panto all over again...

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You're right. I haven't looked into the movement lines as much because I was mostly just playing around with BLM in Savage for casual opti runs and so mostly looked into the damage lines, so I missed that.

It's such a shame that they just gutted it for no reason. I seriously don't understand what the point is. It almost feels personal, that someone on the dev team was offended people are not playing the job the way they want us to play it.