Black Mage and Monk Should be reverted to Endwalker, for the most part

Both of these jobs were much more, expressive, interesting, and fun in the previous expansion. Both would be improved by reverting (almost) all changes made, and using the previous design as the base moving forward.

However, there are a few exceptions:

• Overcapping chakra during Brotherhood is a great change and fixes the biggest problem with EW Monk.
• Black mage gaining mana on spell cast fixes jank around mana tick timings, but it should trigger on every spell cast during Ice phase, not just ice spells. A core part of the fun of EW Black Mage is finding ways to intelligently skip ice spells.
• Repositioning leylines + leyline charges are good compromises to make the job more comfortable, while not sacrificing much skill in positioning.

Otherwise, return to EW. Monk should return to using a buff and dot timer to control its GCD flow, as it better rewarded game sense and made Burst phases and 2-target gameplay more interesting. Black Mage should return to random thunder and firestarter procs, as it allowed for smart ability sequencing that reacted to procs. Black Mage should regain its Fire/Ice phase timers, which pushed the player to use Paradox intelligently to not drop fire phase.

EDIT: The 6-sided-star change to consume chakra is also a good change to keep, as pointed out.

I don't have much to add because I pretty much agree for Monk, but I wanna give a nod to the Six-Sided Star change that makes it consume chakra for bonus damage. It's a pretty elegant fix to something I didn't even really think of as a problem.

Fully agree with op and everything mentioned above

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Originally Posted by carkie

Black Mage should regain its Fire/Ice phase timers, which pushed the player to use Paradox intelligently to not drop fire phase.

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This is something I always struggle with, tbh.

Not keeping it up. Seeing why players want it back. No even somewhat competent Black Mage would ever drop this timer during a fight. It just doesn't happen, it's one of those once-in-a-blue-moon things. It was so trivial to keep up, it might as well, yeah, well... not exist. It was a completely superfluous mechanic at the point when they removed it. And I'm always for removing complexity that adds no depth to the gameplay, so I kinda think this was a good call to remove?

The faster cast times OTOH? Uuuuugh. I want my casters to cast, all 4 of them. Not less.

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Originally Posted by carkie

Black mage gaining mana on spell cast fixes jank around mana tick timings, but it should trigger on every spellcast, not just ice spells. A core part of the fun of EW Black Mage is finding ways to intelligently skip ice spells.

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Not sure I understand. If fire spells gave mana instead of costing it, wouldn't you just sit in Fire spamming all day long with 0 variation?

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Originally Posted by Carighan

This is something I always struggle with, tbh.

Not keeping it up. Seeing why players want it back. No even remotely competent Black Mage would ever drop this timer during a fight. It just did - not - ever - happen. It was so trivial to keep up, it might as well, yeah, well... not exist. It was a completely superfluous mechanic at the point when they removed it. And I'm always for removing complexity that adds no depth to the gameplay, so I kinda think this was a good call to remove?

The faster cast times OTOH? Uuuuugh. I want my casters to cast, all 4 of them. Not less.



Not sure I understand. If fire spells gave mana instead of costing it, wouldn't you just sit in Fire spamming all day long with 0 variation? That's actually removing a really core and actually gameplay-affecting mechanism of Black Mage then, unlike the timer removal. :D

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The timer was a failstate and was more or less the core mechanic you tried to work around next to ice phase.
It also felt great to squish out the very last cast at the very last second.

I am all for the timer being gone but at least give something else to potentially fail at instead of what we have now.
It didn't matter that good players didn't drop it, it was still there.
But yes, the casttimes are worse I think, as well as the shorter Leyline duration.
In fact they took every single decision making out.
Mana ticks (ok, fine), thunder progs, Sharpcast, casttimes, timer. It's the multitude of those things that basically lobotomized the job to a point it doesn't deserve it's damage anymore.

Regarding the topic:
I don't dislike Flarestar and while I think EW was peak BLM, I think Flarestar should stay but in more flexible form.
Let me decide when to fire it for more or less damage for example.
This is actually something I would like over going back to EW.
Make casts adjustable. The longer you cast, the more damage it does.
There, simple skill ceiling with a good skill floor, apparently rocket science for the job designers.

A new player can now do comparable damage to someone who mastered that job for years or at least the two are very close nowadays.
That simply shouldn't be the case and the devs can shove their "difficulty through fight design" imo.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

A new player can now do comparable damage to someone who mastered that job for years or at least the two are very close nowadays.
That simply shouldn't be the case and the devs can shove their "difficulty through fight design" imo.

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I mean I get the design philosophy, as it skirts around the issue what to do with so many classes nowadays. Give them tons of buttons but no mechanical complexity, keep all complexity and depth in the high-end fight designs which makes everything else super approachable.

It's just also quite superflous because I really don't need 4 types of Caster DPS if they barely have enough mechanics for one when put together. Same for the melee and so on. Tanks are all carbon-copies anyways. Healers nearly are, too.

Sorry, I meant gaining mana on cast during Ice phase. Will edit OP to make that clear

have to agree with Carighan's perspective on the timers. It really felt non existant when you got used to the job so losing it really only added flexibility without taking away much of notice.

The fact black mage has so many mobility tools and shortened cast times really removes it from the static caster fantasy it used to be the poster boy for. As a starter job I kinda get why'd they wanna make it more accessible tho.

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Originally Posted by carkie

Both of these jobs were much more, expressive, interesting, and fun in the previous expansion. Both would be improved by reverting (almost) all changes made, and using the previous design as the base moving forward.

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Add DRG to the list as well.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I am all for the timer being gone but at least give something else to potentially fail at instead of what we have now.
It didn't matter that good players didn't drop it, it was still there.

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I think a "middle ground" can be achieved by looking into what does the timers affect and what can be refreshed, my suggestion is to bring back the Timer refresh mechanism (refreshed by all Fire/Ice spells except for Fire4/Ice4) but let it only affect the Enochian Gauge/Timer.

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Originally Posted by carkie

Sorry, I meant gaining mana on cast during Ice phase. Will edit OP to make that clear

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Aaaah, yeah that might make sense. It more closely emulates the old tick-gain, aye. I kinda wish they'd do more with ice phase in general (but that'd be a far bigger rework). But I agree, should return to an on-tick system or like you say, on-every-cast.

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Originally Posted by ThorinG

I think a "middle ground" can be achieved by looking into what does the timers affect and what can be refreshed, my suggestion is to bring back the Timer refresh mechanism (refreshed by all Fire/Ice spells except for Fire4/Ice4) but let it only affect the Enochian Gauge/Timer.

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Yeah, I am not against a middle ground.
I am also not against making jobs more approachable.

Things like that would be an idea instead of deleting every aspect of skill expression.

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Originally Posted by ThorinG

I think a "middle ground" can be achieved by looking into what does the timers affect and what can be refreshed, my suggestion is to bring back the Timer refresh mechanism (refreshed by all Fire/Ice spells except for Fire4/Ice4) but let it only affect the Enochian Gauge/Timer.

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I have been saying this for years now. Make Enochian the actual timer that you need to manage and always make your stance active. Tie polyglot generation and cast to your stance, and tie F4 Despair and Flare star to Enochian (like how it was pre-EW). So at least there is a fail state if you drop eno and has no way of getting it back aside from casting Fire 1. As much as I miss the timer, I do not want it back the way it was. Just losing your ability to generate polyglot if the boss decides to have a 20s cutscene mid-pull was not an enjoyable part of the job.