Issues with Black Mage go against Design Philosophy going into the Expansion.

The changes for black mage were proposed as lessening the learning curve for the actions and rotations for the class. While an admirable attempt, it falls short on multiple fronts.

1. Fire Paradox being instant is not the replacement to Ice Paradox that I assume it was designed as. Due to it being instant, the Astral Fire timer is refreshed sooner than it was as a hardcast, and as such, we have Less Time To Work With.

2. The added length of the fire phase, with Flare Star, has led to situations where it is hard to use our Xenoglossy's there, as well as keep uptime on our Thunder debuff. It makes it harder to use our resources to the best of our ability.

3. Black mage Feels Terrible to Play in Content under 76. While this is an issue that has been made known before, it's even more pressing now. When bosses go invulnerable, or untargetable, under level 76 We cannot Regen MP. Some of my friends tested this, and it turns out you have to land your ice spells to regen your MP. This further makes it easier to lose your phase, in a way that I do not believe is intuitive to the player.

4. Ice Paradox is one of the most beloved spells in our kit. Allowing us extra movement in our Umbral Ice Phase. While I understand its removal to get rid of the Nonstandard style of gameplay, I cannot put into concise words how bad it feels now that it's gone. So much of our instant cast kit are resources, which means, if we want to weave a potion, or an ability, like Amplifier, Triplecast, Swiftcast, or Leylines, we have one less way to do it, which makes it feel stricter, and Harder to Grasp for New Players.

With all of this, It's only right I give suggestions on how to rectify these issues.

1. Bring back Ice Paradox. It would solve most issues presented. It would Decrease the Rigidity and Immobility that are often decried by players new to Black mage, it's also just a fun button to press, and something I know many players, both experts and newcomers to Black Mage miss a lot.

2. Consider dropping the level of Umbral Soul. While I recall an interview where you say you want to be careful about where you put moves in a leveling toolset, I feel with this new system and how unfun it can feel to very slowly get your MP back, I believe that New Players will want Umbral Soul sooner, as well as the Veterans. Perhaps at level 40, or 56.

3.Consider Increasing the Astral Fire Timer when Fire Paradox hits, or Making Fire Paradox a Hardcast. Increasing the astral fire timer to, perhaps 17 or 18 seconds when Fire Paradox hits, would fix the issue we currently face, as well as making it a hardcast, as with the hardcasted version, The Timer would refresh at the End of the Cast .

4. Make the thunder dot last a bit longer. I am not too well versed in the mathematics, but I think 35-36 seconds is a good balance if you wish to keep the length of the fire phase intact.

Thanks for reading!

As an addendum to the first proposed solution, I would be fine if Ice Paradox did not restore mana, its main purpose in my argument is the free weave slot we get from it.

MP regen during downtime moving from level 4 to level 76 is the most ridiculous thing in DT BLM.

a blm friend mentioned the no mp regen during downtime thing to me and i just thought it was one of the most bizarre changes i've heard in a good while. clearly the job's not the director's pet anymore if something like that goes through lmao.

FF14, a MMO made by developers who used to play their own game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

FF14, a MMO made by developers who used to play their own game.

---

Come on now, they obviously play warrior.

I agree to all the points of OP.
BLM is a clunky mess right now. No idea what they were thinking. The fire phase feels so punishing now for messing up. No idea for whom the changes were.

I'm playing other jobs now, no use trying to cling to something dead. Maybe the player numbers of BLM will drop (not that it was big in the beginning) and it changes but somehow I have the feeling the devs don't care anymore.

Funny thing is PCT feels more optimisable then BLM now, though I haven't leveled it to max yet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

FF14, a MMO made by developers who used to play their own game.

---

This is what really gets me, the first few years when I started playing this was always something I saw cited as a strength of the game. Obviously I've seen people over the last expansion or two complain about job changes, but I can't really speak on those much since I dont really play other classes seriously, the only major rework I had experience with was summoner (which I disliked, but again I didn't have much experience with old summoner so I couldn't really give well thought out critique on it). But for years now the attitude towards blm changes was basically like "if it aint broke dont fix it" the core of class was identical with a few bits added on/QoL improvements.

So to see all these changes now that not only go against their stated intent of making the class more approachable, but also when most blm players loved Endwalker's version of the class feels so... odd. Like I've been slowly making my way through MSQ so I'm not max level yet but so many of the changes, especially at lower levels just have me thinking "literally who asked for this". Even removing time based MP regen, something some people did have genuine issues with, doesn't feel well thought out, and it exacerbates an already existing issue of the class not being great to play early on. Genuinely it feels like they just wanted nonstandard play completely gone, low level and high level player experiences be damned

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azebra

Like I've been slowly making my way through MSQ so I'm not max level yet but so many of the changes, especially at lower levels just have me thinking "literally who asked for this". Even removing time based MP regen, something some people did have genuine issues with, doesn't feel well thought out, and it exacerbates an already existing issue of the class not being great to play early on. Genuinely it feels like they just wanted nonstandard play completely gone, low level and high level player experiences be damned

---

I would honestly have been happy with them removing time based MP regen if you had Umbral Soul immediately and if Xenoglossy, Thunder, and Scathe gave you MP while in Ice. "MP regen is more obviously deterministic" is a fine concept. The problem is that there are more situations where you can't reliably regen MP.

Don't need ice para back, won't say no to it. But no to xeno etc giving mana. Yes to low level umbral soul for syncing content. Keep fire para instant and increase the astral fire timer.
I'd be pretty content with that. Much happier with my mp no longer being tick based.

The reason xeno etc should give MP in Ice is that then your movement tools benefit from you transposing into Ice any time you're running around, which means running around and changing to Ice early feels less like a punishment, and does not inherently devour all your Swiftcast uses. It does not need to be a huge amount of MP. 1K or 2K is fine.

This was already a standard form of playing black mage.

Everything should give MP during ice because the whole point was to replace server ticks, which you can't really keep track of easily and them arbitrarily and semi-randomly not aligning with your rotation. And one tick is close enough to one GCD. I.e. to fix the actual issue you were aiming to fix, unpredictable ticks, every GCD should restore MP for more predictable regeneration in about the same duration.

Otherwise you are just doing the unfortunate thing they ended up doing: Messing about with something that wasn't broken.

They could even make sure that ice spells refill a LOT more MP than other unaspected spells, would probably open the door for more depth and optimization tbh, and would keep some meaning behind ice.

But either way the loss of Flare Star gauge when swapping cripples everything anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valence

But either way the loss of Flare Star gauge when swapping cripples everything anyway.

---

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

---

Vivi deserved better... it's like he doesn't exist anymore

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

---

I don't think I'm the only one having said it, but Flare Star gauge should work like Monk's chakra gauge when consumed on SSS: Flare Star potency should increase by the amount of gauge stacks you have stored, which would immediately remove rigidity and make it less needlessly punishing when 6 fire IV just can't be casted during astral, whether by mistake or by necessity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

---

Can't second this enough, having it stay between phase switches, or like Valence suggested, adjusting the potency depending on how much of the gauge is full not only would make the rotation less strict, but make getting flare star off at maximum strength frequently feel like a reward for playing well, rather than punishing you for not getting 6 fire ivs during one AF phase, which sometimes only happens because you're trying to adjust for a fight.

Kinda feels like the devs forgot that a part of BLM's ability to move and adjust for fight mechanics came not only from instant casts, but also from the rotation itself being flexible

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ElevatedCosmonaut

1. Fire Paradox being instant is not the replacement to Ice Paradox that I assume it was designed as. Due to it being instant, the Astral Fire timer is refreshed sooner than it was as a hardcast, and as such, we have Less Time To Work With.

---

I was wondering why my AF timer was always so close to running out and just realized this was the reason for it.

I mean the solution of course would be to cast F3 > F4 x 4 > Paradox > F4 x2 or F3 > F4 x 2 > Paradox > F4 x 2 > F3 > F4 x2 but it messes up muscle memory for no reason.

So regarding the Fire Paradox I really don't see the problem.

Because it is instant, I can actually do 1 more FireIV before using it, making the next part shorter.

Same goes with Flare Star and the timer, how is that an issue? it costs 0 mp so it can be used after despair.
I'm having issue with Fare Star, but the fire timer isn't one.

I'm personally less pressed about how BLM feels at max level than most people who play the job, but as others have said, the changes do make it feel absolutely horrid at low levels. This is particularly troubling when you remember that there are ultimate raids at level 70, with large amounts of downtime where you have no way to restore MP unless you drop two casts' worth of damage before a boss dies or jumps away. There are still issues at high level, but I think that all of the issues are equally deserving of attention. Based on the understanding that they don't want to allow nonstandard play to return, here are my suggestions:

1. Bring back ice-boosted tick-based regeneration when outside of combat. This would prevent players from having to start a mob pack with a pittance of MP.

2. Grant Umbral Soul at the same time as Blizzard 4, or shift Enochian and Blizzard IV/Umbral Hearts back by two levels and place Umbral Soul at 58. I think it makes sense to add Umbral Soul while BLM's core rotation is being developed, and if you follow point 1, BLM will still retain MP regeneration between pulls below 60.

3a. As has been suggested by OP, Ice Paradox can come back. It's unaspected, so it wouldn't restore MP, and its removal shows how the design team misunderstood what made nonstandard BLM work, because the point was to avoid low damage spells (B3, B4) while waiting for your MP to regen, and MP regen being tied to casting ice spells makes that impossible.

3b. With the return of Ice Paradox, Fire Paradox would not need to be instant, reverting BLM to the same fire phase game plan that they've developed since level 60.

4. Offering a marginal reward for a partially-charged Flare Star, as was suggested above, isn't a bad idea. Nonstandard play would be very difficult to accomplish with MP regen on ice spells, but it's a careful line to walk to make sure this doesn't contribute as well. Maybe making it start out weaker than F4, then scale up based on charges. For example, starting at 300 potency with one charge and increasing by 20 for each charge, making it equivalent to Despair at 3 charges and higher than Despair at 4.

I've been pretty vocal about the inevitability of (and design decisions leading to) the removal of nonstandard BLM play, but the changes made have affected far more about the job than just nonstandard play.

I mained BLM in EW and it does feel really bad to play, till level 99 BLM is okey ish, the downtimes are really bad and you dont have that passive MP Regen but my problem was at level 100 when I didn't feel BLM was anywhere easier for new players lol if anything it feels super tight to complete your Fire rotation is a total mess with that new slow cast finisher it doesn't feel intuitive I wish it was an instant cast, even with that instant paradox I feel like in fights with alot of movement BLM is going to be really bad it also feels bad in situations where you need to refresh the thunder DoT during Fire Phase cuz of the fire timer and the Flare Star slow cast, at low levels BLM is literally unplayable it feels very bad to run any kind of content below level 80 when you dont have any kind of MP regen between adds or downtime, I honestly don't know what they were thinking by removing 90% of what EW did for the job they could have easily let those stay and include this new stuff. They need to fix the MP issues by bringing back the passive MP regen or giving us the Umbral Soul at low levels, if somebody in the dev team really tested BLM they did a pretty bad job about it

While this is true, it presents another problem. Putting 4 Fire 4's at the start of your Astral Fire Phase is not only going to make it tighter to execute before refreshing, it's also something that some players won't intuite that they have to change, as seen by your own comments.