So with all of this consolidation Why do we still have 4 different Fires?

[Eloah]

The AOE ones should be renamed with the -ga suffix

If you look at Ruin Mastery it says, "Grants a 15% chance that Ruin and Ruin III are upgraded to Ruin IV after a pet uses spell or weaponskill." What stopped them from making Fire change to Fire III in the event you got a Firestarter proc?

If it were up to me? I'd consolidate all the fire ranks except for 2 into one spell that scaled/improved with level. Cast time would stay at the default Fire I cast time. Fire II would be renamed (maybe Blaze?). The new consolidated Fire spell would become Fire IV automatically when its proper conditions were met.

Thank you to those people who understood the reasoning for this post, to the majority of the rest of the comments, like really? I guess 1+1=3 doesn't it.

[Ferth]

Thank you to those people who understood the reasoning for this post, to the majority of the rest of the comments, like really? I guess 1+1=3 doesn't it.

There are strategic reasons to not use fire 3 at every opportunity or right when a proc happens.

It seems a bit unfair that you ask a question you know the answer to and then tell people the answer that you already acknowledge as being the answer can't be the answer we give.

The problem with BLM in Heavensward was not an overabundance of abilities. It was too many restrictive timers to keep track of. Keeping Enochian on long enough for the natural recast to refresh takes an ability to juggle a lot of timers in your head, especially if a fight requires any movement that is not going to be expected and planned for 100% of the time. This created a large gap in ability for the players who were capable of this and the players who weren't. The changes to BLM in Stormblood are in keeping with the mindset of reducing the things you need to keep track of in hopes of raising the minimum an average player can do.

I suppose you could argue that reducing the number of fire spells would do that, but it wouldn't make the job easier unless it was also accompanied with the Enochian changes.

You say "Don't say they do different things!" But that is exactly what they do. For whm Stone 2 is a direct functional upgrade from Stone 1. Once you have 2 there is no reason whatsoever to use one. Ergo replacing 1 with 2 at the appropriate level makes sense.

Fire 2 is a functionally different spell than Fire 1. Replacing Fire 1 with Fire 2 would make no sense unless they change the function of Fire 2. Then what? Add a new spell to fill the function gap you just created? Why? a misguided sense of semantics? It's extra work for no purpose.

But hey, why not replace Fire 1 with Fire 3? Again, they serve different functions, not even considering the different resource costs or potencies they both react differently with core BLM mechanics, Fire 1 gives you one stack of astral fire or removes all stacks of umbral ice. Fire 3 removes all stacks of umbral ice if you have them AND gives you THREE stacks of astral fire. So unless they want to change core mechanics or add more abilities to accommodate this pointless change there is no reason to replace 1 with 3.

Let's jump over to SMN since it is seeing some sweeping changes to core abilities. Right now they have three/four dots they can stack on an enemy all with different durations. They also have a fair amount of oGCD abilities they can use between spells and a low potency spell they can spam in between keeping dots up. To expand the abilities for this class they either need to keep adding dots, keep adding things to do between dots or change something else.

What they opted to do is reduce the number of dots to manage by 1, but give them increasing durations and overall potencies. And then also increase the potency of one of their filler spells to accommodate. Regardless of the salt that is readily available in SMN threads, the core mechanics of SMN haven't changed much from the current "apply dots, cast filler spells, reapply dots." It's just the dots will be slightly easier to manage and the filler spells have had some balancing tweaks done.

So you are asking why they aren't completely reworking all the BLM spells by either neutering BLM functionality or creating a bunch of new abilities to do what these abilities already do? I suppose I'd have to counter with why the heck would they?

[Fynlar]

The only sort of consolidation I would have done with regard to BLM is to just replace Fire/Blizzard 1 with Fire/Blizzard 4 while Enochian is up, and actually allow those spells to affect Astral/Umbral like their tier 1 counterparts would.

Yes, it would simplify the rotation and make BLM more powerful on account of never having to use Fire 1 just to maintain Astral during Enochian, but that's really about all you could do that I can think of to consolidate the spells without drastically changing their effects.

[alimdia]

The only sort of consolidation I would have done with regard to BLM is to just replace Fire/Blizzard 1 with Fire/Blizzard 4 while Enochian is up, and actually allow those spells to affect Astral/Umbral like their tier 1 counterparts would.

You have to remember that Enochian is now always up, it has no timer, it's active as long as you have AF/UI, making fire 4 give AF means you never drop enochian, you're devolving BLM to the level 50 rotation with 1 extra button to hit (enochian) once in an entire battle.

[eschaton]

Good point OP, it's almost as if his team isn't working as a team at all. It would explain the many inconsistencies between the latest changes, and types of content at at.

[Fynlar]

You have to remember that Enochian is now always up, it has no timer, it's active as long as you have AF/UI, making fire 4 give AF means you never drop enochian, you're devolving BLM to the level 50 rotation with 1 extra button to hit (enochian) once in an entire battle.

Admittedly, I have not looked into the new SB stuff so I wouldn't have known this @_@

As for devolving, well, that's kind of what happens when you consolidate skills.