I'm having a hard time understanding how people enjoy the BLM...

[Shurrikhan]

Distinct, sure, but I wouldn't call it coherent. BLM has traditionally been a class that selects spells to hit elemental weaknesses and otherwise disables opponents, but in XIV you spam fire on Ifrit because you have nothing better to cast on him and almost everything worth fighting is immune to your crowd control / enfeebling spells.

Which may be fundamentally insane, but is nonetheless internally organized through and through according to a given principle: evocation. Explain it how you will—feeding one's mana pool by releasing vacant, unheated matter, while spending one's own internal energy to create immense heat around the target, or whatever other idea—but it's consistent throughout the spell system. It might not be the most fun take on an internal system ever, or make use of all that BLMs skills, even in just this game, could have going for it, but it is coherent.

Exactly. Which is why it's more THM then a BLM.

? The only other example of THM we have is also from XIV, in which it was a sort of Shadow Priest-ish spiritualist, sacrificing its own health for a heal and HoT, applying on-hit-taken defensive buffs, and having really rather strong Poison/Umbral/Astral abilities in the form of Scourge, Banish, Bio, Dia, etc. Do you mean simply that it didn't evolve much, or still feels 90% how it already did? I would argue it didn't have to, even while providing as much new tips and tricks as the other jobs. Its niche didn't adjust much, but it's hard to do that to a pure caster class, and they do explain their take on the ancient magic systems that advance you to Flare and Freeze (and eventually Fire IV and Blizzard IV) in a way that, at least to me, worked, even if not... wholly capitalized on (and I don't know how that would be done).

What would those advancements need to entail to actually feel like a BLM to you?

To be clear, I think BLM could be better. I think it could encompass many more playstyles, even without the need for specializations, with varying difficulties and pay-offs (such that, a perfect player would stand out from others when using the hardest, optimal playstyle, but not by any huge amount, but with enough payoff that a fairly skilled player would be unlikely ever to fall more than a little behind the easier playstyles when having some extra troubles while learning a fight due to the added difficulties of the hardest playstyle). I think it could cover a larger aesthetic and leniency range, attracting more players to the job. But I don't want to see things just tossed in, breaking up its concepts or gameflow, just because those things existed in other, totally separate iterations.

To briefly go back to my original reply as to Frizze's list of abilities, I don't think anything that grand (as Break, Comet, Warp, etc.) should exist at the same layer or access as your more typical, mundane, or rotational spells. I could understand *some* of them making their way into a customizable LB system or the like, or if a new personal (PvE) LB system came about, but otherwise even those that aren't already taken or fall outside of the BLM range of elements don't seem like they'd have any place in the game.

[seekified]

I think some leeway must be given when adapting something so thoroughly steeped in lore precedent as Black Mages to an MMO environment. The decision to functionally get rid of resistances as a gameplay component in 2.0 was probably not one taken lightly, but that decision alone has allowed the game to cater to a much wider audience, one that isn't interested in finding out the resistance tables of every mob they'll be fighting and adjusting accordingly. Granted, a Scan ability could take care of that - but again, the type of players who probably pay for 75% of what we see in game don't have the patience or inclination to care. Thus, I feel that the 3.0 BLM (or 3.2, rather) is as fluid and lore-compliant as can be.

I will also say (at risk of sounding very arrogant) that the players who thought that the 2.x BLM was perfect are the lazy types who like seeing big numbers for not very much input. It's been said several times (though not backed up by statistics) that BLMs were much more prone to only leveling that one job than players of other jobs who usually branch out more.

[Frizze]

Honestly your list just looks like someone trying to put every super-powerful spell from the Final Fantasy franchise with little regard of balancing or consistency into a single class. I would've rated 0/10 but Osmose and Scourge sound like neat ideas if changed to better fit FF14's BLM. So you get a 2/10. Also having all these OP abilities would just make them feel not impressive if everybody was using them. Also the fact that you don't care about balance until you use the spell speaks greatly about how little you thought this through.

I made that list in response to people who would like to see more "classic" black mage spells but specifically named the only one that i can think of a good lore reason not to have. Balance wasnt part of the equation, because if the devs were really going to take this idea theyd do their version of balance on it regardless of what i have to say. Also, i added that line as a joke because i read my list back before posting and saw that it was kinda top-heavy(which of course it was, all the weaker spells are for the most part already in the game on one class or other). I always found it a little odd that the class that specializes(historically) in elemental spells gave up half their elements to WHM, but thats beside the point. The only extra comment ill make on the list is about Osmose - stealing someone elses mana in PvP could be useful, even if you dont need it for yourself.

[Khalithar]

Snip

Yeah it kind of branched off from my original point from my post. But to clarify, I'm not really asking for any of the classic spells specifically. My specific request is to be more traditional final fantasy in a different aspect, specifically that in an older final fantasy once your black mage learned Fire 2 there was a good chance you were never going to cast Fire 1 again, as you leveled up you sort of "graduated" out of using those weaker spells and focused on the stronger spells in your arsenal. Which brings me back to why I wanted Enochian to become a passive once you get it and the whole thing comes together at 60 once you learned Fire IV.

In my personal dream rotation at 60+ and beyond, Fire IV and Blizzard IV would grant full stacks of the Astral Fire/Umbral Ice respectively with Thunder IV (which I'm pretty sure we can assume we're getting at some point) being a heavy hitting lightning spell that also applies the DoT, thereby removing the need to go back and cast Fire1/Fire3/Blizzard1/Blizzard3/Thunder1-3 since maintaining Enochian would no longer be an issue if it was a passive. In my opinion, at 60+ we shouldn't need to cast Fire 1/3 and Blizzard 1/3 once we've reached that point, from a gameplay perspective (i.e. being more like a traditional final fantasy) and a lore perspective (where we've fully learned the secrets of that ancient tome the 50-60 job quests focus on). My point about extra spells being needed comes from the fact that (obviously) we would need more spells to cast than Fire IV/BlizzardIV/Thunder IV so I just mentioned things like Ultima/Flare. Sorry I didn't convey those points properly.

[RLofOBFL]

Even when a BLM messes up they can still maintain crazy damage overall, which is why they currently CAN do the most damage, the class itself is high risk: reward. If you play perfect/lucky procs you're highest dps, play well you're second highest to MNK.

I just tested this, without ENO, you can still do as much damage as a BRD that plays extremely well at your same ilvl, the risk isn't that bad for the reward potential of massive damage.

Even if you go into a fight new & spam 50 rotation with Ley Lines & Sharpcast added, you'll STILL do good damage so if you're uncomfortable with the fight you can do just that & experiment with when to use Eno, if you mess up oh well no big deal unless you're trying to somehow one shot a progression fight like Ex trials or Alex savage with no knowledge of it.

[randysquirrel]

Just my opinion, but I mained blm all through 2.0 and continued with it thru 3.0.
2.0 blm was incredibly easy, a rotation, if you can even call it that, of casting only f1 looking for procs, I didn't find challenging. I agree the skill ceiling has risen with 3.0, but then it has for all classes, maybe just more noticeably with BLM (maybe BRD also)

I understand BLM might be a bit tougher on progression, but again, that is all part of learning a new fight. Not just the moves the boss employs, but the timings, and how to fit my opener or tweak my rotation to fit that fight. I use a completely different opener in A5/6/7/8, you cant really just stick to one set pattern and expect it to fit every fight. But imo that is the challenge of BLM. In a new fight, I'll be learning the boss moves and how to fit my rotation around them, but then again the rest of my team will be doing something similar, learning the boss moves, but also when to get off shields and group heals, songs or whatever else

[CBellz]

Here's why I think lv. 60 BLM is an example of good class design - it's challenging but provides you with all the tools needed to succeed. An optimally played BLM will have the same uptime on enochian that a DRG will on BotD or a MNK will on GL3, that is to say 100% or near it outside of forced downtime. An incredible BLM will be able to maintain enochian without losing any casts in almost any fight.

[MagiusNecros]

What would those advancements need to entail to actually feel like a BLM to you?

BLM's in FF games have always been about exploiting elemental weaknesses early on and then later getting high tier damaging spells where if an elemental weakness could not be exploited they had a fallback option on a high damaging spell that doesn't care about resistances. Here they have scrapped elemental strengths and weaknesses and relegated an idea of MP management between 2 stances when it was just Thamaturge and simply continued down the Fire and Ice swapping mechanics throughout it's life time. Ultimately it's more a Pyromancer then a Black Mage IMO. Not even counting how 60% of it's spell list was carted off to SMN/SCH/WHM just so those classes had something to do. Furthermore all the BLM's CC options are obsolete, as well as the pedantic decision to hide BLM spells like Drain and Breakga unto NPC's.

Plus I think locking the actual high tier spells to LB only is a massive insult considering BLM's boasted one of the highest MP pools in every FF game ever to pull off their huge spells. Among those Meteor and Flare. Flare always took a great chunk but here with over 11k MP Flare only costs 884. Expends it all anyway and doesn't even give a potency scaling bonus based on the amount of MP used.

I just wish BLM was more then just "fire till low, ice till high". Class is ridiculously easy to play and you can always just spam Fire 1 and still do decent DPS without even trying.

[FunkyBunch]

I just wish BLM was more then just "fire till low, ice till high".

There should be some kind of elemental rotation that increases damage output. FIRE-BLIZZ-THUNDER or something and it replaces the AF and UI buff/timer system.

[randysquirrel]

Class is ridiculously easy to play and you can always just spam Fire 1 and still do decent DPS without even trying.

Agree with the rest of your post, but this just isn't true.