Why does Enochian have to be a pain in the neck?

[Sakurana]

I have seen some good points here but I agree that Enoc being tied to fire an blizz 4 is a bit too unfair with the already annoying requirement to maintain Ast and Umb with sub level spells, that said I do not want to see Enoc become a toggle I think it needs to stay very important activate, so here is my solution

Fire 4 and blizz 4 - remove the requirement to be under the Enoc effect, no other Direct change to these spells

Enochian - change this spell a 180 second cool down, Enoc will now allow Fire and blizz 4 to not only be cast with out Ast or Umb active but will apply and refresh there respective buffs, while under Enoc Blizz 4 would refresh the duration of Enoc up to a maximum of 90 seconds. triggering a refresh of Enoc causes the next fire 4 to deal 10% more damage.

these changes do 2 things. First they are a QoL change to an already convoluted rotation. but at the same time keep effective use of Enoc and buff interaction a higher source or damage.

[Happosai]

I personally like where blm's are at. Micromanaging timers actually give me something to do. As far as I know we are the only class with true infinite mana resource. So I feel having to manage strict timers is fair. Yes it is frustrating when you misjudge the situation and a timer falls off but I usually blame myself when that happens, not the class. Sometimes you can pull off the optimum rotation, sometimes you have to cut it short. Learn when and where each is appropriate.

[Maero]

Or those interrupts when you are casting FireIV and must use Fire in order to go back to FireIV, situational when that happens but a tad annoying.
The changes to blm do make the class more exciting, but now just have to work harder against say summoners.... lol
I really have not noticed a huge change with enochian fix, but it still does help

[Xisin]

the reports from veteran BLMs are that they're not even close to Top Tier DPS. And if you can't get perfect usage? Your DPS plummets to the bottom.

Okay, I actually talk to the blms that are good for the most part or atleast follow their comments on the forums, I am a good blm, and veteran one. Maintaining 1100+ dps on savage A3 is top tier damage and I'm not sure where you are coming from, the dps dips in the add phase only due to transition and in which case blm still is strong in that add phase, I can maintain 1100+ fairly consistently WITHOUT bard available to me, I'm sure other blms who have access to a freaking bard are doing better. BLM is great in every turn so far in savage. It's in a good place balance wise.

Ask ANY Other top tier blm in this thread (there are others besides me in here.) and you will likely get the same response.



The issue seems to be stemming from mid-tier/lower tier players who don't see this content due to dps checks/time or whatever, and for whatever reason these players seem to think the game should be balanced around them.

Also if you really believe that bard should be leading a fight with paeon then you really need to rethink that. Foe should be played on pull, regardless, there is absolutely no reason not to on any fight.

This patch is the best place blm has been in in a very long time. in 2.5 we were completely outclassed unless an aoe phase occurred and even then you were playing catch up at that point vs any competent melee (who are also aoeing in this phase harder than their ST). Even more annoyingly smns were complaiing that BLMS were op (lol) in that patch. This patch is the closest casters have EVER been to melee since 2.0 basic back when the first fire of astral fire gave you umbral ice cast times.

[drizzle234]

This patch is the closest casters have EVER been to melee since 2.0 basic back when the first fire of astral fire gave you umbral ice cast times.

Xisin I couldn't agree more. Having a blast with 3.0 BLM especially when I'm on top of the charts in savage XD.

Makes me sad to see all the negativity from so called blms.....

[Noira]

You guys really enjoy making stuff up huh ? Everyone always has this magical imaginary blm super uber friend that complains that the job they play aren't near top dps, despite parsers saying otherwise.

Enochian is the easiest to maintain buff, faceroll easy, and this "the most punishing" again if you find enochian hard to reset, it's because you're getting fire 4 happy. It's okay to let fire 4 go for a split moment to reset and dodge. If you know have to move for a few moment, use blizz 3, and time your blizz 4.

Again if your argument is you shouldn't have to learn the fight to maximaze dps then I'm not sure why you play a dps class because all of them have to do that to max dps.

[Yeldir]

So yeah, your point about Foes not being used for the sake of "buffing" melees is invalid.

No, you using these incredibly narrow, specific examples of how BLM interacts with other classes which may not even be part of the group composition in what is essentially a fraction of the available content at 60 when this thread is about the general functionality and ease of use for Black Mages relative to the amount of damage they put out.

Specific to Army's Paeon, you and I both and everybody reading this know it's highly effective in environments where targets are available for long periods of time, and that this represents the majority of content at present.

You're attempting to deflect a broad problem with minutiae and I won't accept it.

Savage A3 and A1 tend to disagree with you. Apoc is used to a great extend there and helps make healers life much easier which leads to more healing DPS.

Also, did Apoc recently receive a nerf where it's only usable in the first ten seconds of the fight or something ? I don't understand your comment on that part. Please elaborate.

I said majority of fights. I never said it wasn't useful, ever. To elaborate on the ten seconds bit: In the majority of encounters there are very few circumstances in which a player can predict a window wherein a specific person will take so much magic damage that it is worth my time to stop blasting away to hit them with this buff.

If you feel you're making more and better use of it than I am, I would be quite interested to read a thread about how you're making use of it in the full spectrum of level 60 content available to groups and players.

But all this is, frankly, of trifling relevance to the broader scope of the discussion.

BLM utility isn't comparable to more universally recognized utility classes such as bard, so the idea that we should accept inferior damage output or an increased complexity of play for the utility we currently have is not rational. No one has ever claimed we were a utility class, and seeing you argue by proxy that it is, well, that's one of the more baffling things I've seen on these forums.

[Yeldir]

Xisin I couldn't agree more. Having a blast with 3.0 BLM especially when I'm on top of the charts in savage XD.

Makes me sad to see all the negativity from so called blms.....

Link to parses, please.

Okay, I actually talk to the blms that are good for the most part or atleast follow their comments on the forums, I am a good blm, and veteran one. Maintaining 1100+ dps on savage A3 is top tier damage and I'm not sure where you are coming from, the dps dips in the add phase only due to transition and in which case blm still is strong in that add phase, I can maintain 1100+ fairly consistently WITHOUT bard available to me...

You still haven't answered my questions. I will restate them. I would like specific answers.

Do you think it's OK for Black Mage, a pure DPS class with zero support capability besides EFAE (and, to make Sora happy, rarely Apoc), to be substantially more complicated and demanding than most melee classes, while being flat out inferior damage to them?

Do you dispute the idea that Black Mages do less damage than melee classes of equal skill in single target environments and more or less level playing fields? (Single target means you're hitting one thing the majority of the time, plus thundercloud proc rotating, even if there's more than one target to choose from.) I'll ask this one another way, to help you answer: Do you feel like you are doing as much or more damage as melee classes in these encounters?

Do you dispute the idea that managing astral ice, astral fire, enochian, our mp bar, and thunder casts/procs, coupled with our lengthy cast times on everything, makes Black Mage a more difficult class to play than those same melee classes?

[Xisin]

To simply answer you yes I'm fine with this. LEtme break it down for you i guess.

The dev team balances casters around foe requiem. So lets go into detail

WITHOUT foe blm will be doing slightly less dps than melee, this is fine.

WITH foe blm will be doing slightly more dps than a melee, this is fine

WITH BV foe blm will be doing way more ST dps than a melee, this is also fine.

Foe isnt always up but should be maintained, now this part is the annoying part to me but I've lived with it, not every bard gives a shit about caster dps, resulting in pug bards not singing or w.e We can't really control that though.

To answer your question, yes in certain encounters, such as Savage A3 first half, Ravana whole fight etc I do more damage than than my melee counterparts, here is why, in Ravana EX blm burst is amplified HARD if you time it with his swords out + charging liberation. BLM also is arguable the best burster in game currently, I think it is the best burster tbh, it also deals with adds the best... Hell in savage A1 i would occasionally accidentally kill an add due to 2 crits in a row.

I honestly don't think there is anything complicated or convoluted about enochian, our base rotation is rather simple Fire 4 x2 -> Fire -> Fire 4 x2. Our opener isn;t that complicated either, Sharpcast, leyline, Fire 3, enochian, fire 1, RS/pot, fire 4x3, Firestarter for AF, convert, fire 4x3 blizz 3 blizz 4. This isnt complex, this is instead just a matter of planning ahead of time, something that casters simply have to do, smns do this too with their dreadwyrm phases.

[Yeldir]

To simply answer you yes I'm fine with this. LEtme break it down for you i guess.

The dev team balances casters around foe requiem. So lets go into detail

WITHOUT foe blm will be doing slightly less dps than melee, this is fine.

WITH foe blm will be doing slightly more dps than a melee, this is fine

WITH BV foe blm will be doing way more ST dps than a melee, this is also fine.

So then, you're of the opinion that BLMs are not an optimal choice if a Bard is not part of the group composition? That's incidentally my opinion, and I think it's evidence of a problem.

To answer your question, yes in certain encounters, such as Savage A3 first half, Ravana whole fight etc I do more damage than than my melee counterparts, here is why, in Ravana EX blm burst is amplified HARD if you time it with his swords out + charging liberation. BLM also is arguable the best burster in game currently, I think it is the best burster tbh, it also deals with adds the best... Hell in savage A1 i would occasionally accidentally kill an add due to 2 crits in a row.

I'm surprised you left out seeing wing. Ravana is skewed in our favor in a way no other encounter is, at present. It isn't really a good representative of overall BLM performance. I agree with your statement about burst, however. In that respect we are either king of the mountain or tied for it.

That aside, is clear from how you worded this statement that you aren't topping the meters in most other encounters, and that's nothing to be a shamed of - you could be at the absolute limit of player skill, and still not do that. I have said before that I do not necessarily think that black mages need to be the best damage solution in most encounters or superior to melee, but that leads me to...

I honestly don't think there is anything complicated or convoluted about enochian, our base rotation is rather simple Fire 4 x2 -> Fire -> Fire 4 x2. Our opener isn;t that complicated either, Sharpcast, leyline, Fire 3, enochian, fire 1, RS/pot, fire 4x3, Firestarter for AF, convert, fire 4x3 blizz 3 blizz 4. This isnt complex, this is instead just a matter of planning ahead of time, something that casters simply have to do, smns do this too with their dreadwyrm phases.

This isn't quite what I asked. I asked you if you thought it was more complicated than what other primary dps classes deal with. The entire basis of my frustration is that in most encounters I have to juggle a mechanic that is much more punishing and complicated than what other primary dps classes chew on.

I like to call out Dragoons as an example of this, not as a mark of shame, but because their class is honestly exactly everything it needs to be. Their damage is good, the crit buff they bring to raids is stellar, and their class mechanics demand attention for them to operate at their peak, but a single missed chain doesn't necessarily grind them to a screeching halt - they have a "second chance" with their rotation, as it were.

So when you related this to what I call the Black Mage's "Silver Medal Damage" (still good), and the whole package loses much of its appeal, and not simply for me.

So what I want for Black Mage is to straight up do as much damage as melee to offset the inherent complications and punishment we all labor under the perpetual shadow of, or I want the class to be easier to play.

My ideal change is this: Blizzard IV behaves like everything else in our goddamn toolkit. Specifically, it doesn't cancel midcast if astral ice or enochian fall off. That's inconsistent with how re-application of astral fire or ice work. We've all seen astral fire III fall off completely, only to be refreshed in full by a fire I. The server errs in our favor.

When I first realized that Blizzard IV behaved in the opposite way, I wanted to punch a hole in my monitor. That nerd rage is still with me now.