BLM QOL suggestions to make Enochian less punishing

[Dralonis]

Yeah, condensing the buttons slightly with between the leylines and leylines. I sorta would like them to be less dependent on Spell Speed though Imo. considering that my main, RDM, does not need a single piece of spell speed but I share gear with it for BLM so I can't really play both with good stats. It's weird because BLM will feel much more polished and smooth probably mid expansion like it was in HW once you had a solid amount of SS.

[Wolf_Gang]

Just recast Enochian if falls. Unless you literally whiff your first Enochian chain, it should be off CD for immediate re-use.

[Acidblood]

They nerfed spell speed in stormblood so to achieve speed equivalent to 1200 in HW you need about 1800-1900 in SB. The thing though is that you have now 4 free casts every minutes which makes Enochian keeping almost a nobrainer.
Practice on dummy how much Fire IV you can cast in between (you can simulate step stuttering or have buddy next to you for AM for testing) until you get used to it. It can be painful at start but it's a matter of adapting to changes, in fact at 1800 speed it's even more fluid than HW Black Mage.

So, stack the hell out of Spell Speed then... and I got pretty good at stutter stepping during HW... I'll give it try (and keep practicing), but those aren't really the issue... the issue is that (using my current timings) AF = 13s, Fire = 2.35s, Fire IV = 2.63s (edit: wrong cast time :/), so 13 - (2.63 * 3) - 2.35 = 2.76s, so I can fit that rotation in with a good 2 seconds to spare, except if the Fire cast gets interrupted (which can happen due to all the reasons previously listed), and when that happens it can be hard to recover (especially with lag, animation going off but not actually 'hitting', etc.).

Granted all that could (and did) happen back in 3.X as well, but there are two massive differences now:
1. In 3.X dropping you stacks meant dropping only your stacks, Swift > Fire III / Blizzard III (or Firestarter) and you were back in business. Now dropping your stacks means dropping EVERYTHING.
2. In 3.X dropping your stacks for half a second wasn't an issue; e.g. 1 second left on AF > start casting Blizzard III > AF drops > Blizzard III hits > UI. Now that half second can be the difference between continuing your rotation and having to start over.

Edit: Oh, and I would agree about the 4 instant casts, except that 3 of them have to be back to back, which practically only leaves you with 2 windows (one big, one small) per minute where you can pre-plan movement (which assumes good knowledge of the fight).

They already made Enochian easier to maintain, and less punishing... Any easier and they may as well just make it 100% uptime with no chance of falling off.

How is it 'less punishing'?
3.X - Lose 5% damage and access to Fire IV
4.X - Lose 10% damage and access to Fire IV, Umbral Hearts and Foul build up

As for easier to maintain, that's debatable, especially if you are trying to maximise your potential DPS.

[Acidblood]

Honestly Enochian should be removed as an ability and should be remade as a trait for Astral Fire/Umbral Ice.
Transpose's cooldown should be slightly reduced.
Not really related to Enochian but a QoL for BLM regardless, Leylines should automatically change as Between the Lines when Leylines is active.

Good point, pressing Enochian does feel like little more than busy work now... and they really could do a lot more if they actually cared about reducing button bloat.
Aetherial Manipulation would be another one; making it a straight up forward teleport would make it infinitely more useful in a lot more situations than the current version.

[RyeMinx]

*snip*
AF = 13s, Fire = 2.35s, Fire IV = 3.29s, so 13 - (3.29 * 3) - 2.35 = 0.78s
*snip*

You did some math here wrong... Fire 4s base cast is 2.8s.... so how do you have it as 3.29s?

My cast speed at ~1700 SpS is 2.3s for Fire and 2.57s for Fire 4. Do the math, 4 of those spells is 10.01s. Plenty of time for wiggle room. I believe you read the cast time for Fire 3, which does have a longer cast time, but we don't use it except for leaving UI, which means it's cast time is cut in half.

Also, when it comes to how punishing it is too lose, 3.X was way worse. Eno had a 60s cooldown, so if you messed up your 1st rotation, you lost it for 20-40s. Now if you lose it, at most it can be down for is 17s.

When it comes to keeping eno up, it's also way easier to keep up now. In 3.X, you HAD to press B3(or transpose I guess) and B4. In 4.X, we now only have to press 1 button, whether that be transpose or B3.

We don't need anymore eno changes. Only thing I would want is a change to umbral hearts, they feel useless and just tacked on to make us use B4, and we dont even need to use it all the time.

[Kabooa]

Swiftcast, Triplecast, cutting AF phase early, transpose..

Plenty of tools to deal with it.

[Lyrai_Celestine]

Just recast Enochian if falls. Unless you literally whiff your first Enochian chain, it should be off CD for immediate re-use.

Oh boy. Whenever I whiff my Enochian chain, I cringe. Like a fish out of water. I know I have a major DPS loss if this is the case. xD
But that was deserving I guess, as punishment for poor AF/UI management.

[Acidblood]

You did some math here wrong... Fire 4s base cast is 2.8s.... so how do you have it as 3.29s?

My cast speed at ~1700 SpS is 2.3s for Fire and 2.57s for Fire 4. Do the math, 4 of those spells is 10.01s. Plenty of time for wiggle room. I believe you read the cast time for Fire 3, which does have a longer cast time, but we don't use it except for leaving UI, which means it's cast time is cut in half.

Also, when it comes to how punishing it is too lose, 3.X was way worse. Eno had a 60s cooldown, so if you messed up your 1st rotation, you lost it for 20-40s. Now if you lose it, at most it can be down for is 17s.

When it comes to keeping eno up, it's also way easier to keep up now. In 3.X, you HAD to press B3(or transpose I guess) and B4. In 4.X, we now only have to press 1 button, whether that be transpose or B3.

We don't need anymore eno changes. Only thing I would want is a change to umbral hearts, they feel useless and just tacked on to make us use B4, and we dont even need to use it all the time.

Thanks for the correction, I did indeed accidentally read the Fire III tooltip by mistake :/
Which almost makes it worse, as that gives me a 2.76s margin (assuming no lag), but somehow that rarely feels like enough; guess I just have to keep practicing (and un-learning old habits)...

Also, I consider what is lost, more so than the potential lock-out, to be the bigger punishment (at least in terms of gameplay feel, if not overall DPS).

And how are Umbral Hearts useless? Yes, they feel a little tacked on, but they at least allow for longer Fire phase up-time, and it is often a case of waiting for MP while in UI anyway, so why not cast Blizzard IV (regardless of it's strict 'need')?

Edit: As for not needing any more Eno changes... it depends what your objective is; if BLM is be a class that is severally, and potentially frequently, punished for small mistakes in timing, then no; but if you look at the number of classes with next to zero punishment short of death, then BLM is definitely an outliner.

[RyeMinx]

*snip*

I don't see why you thinking losing Eno is more harsh now than before.

In 3.X:
Did you lose Eno early in the rotation?
-Yes. Fire 1 spam for a while. Like a while...
-No, later in. Reactivate Eno, go back into UI, start rotation over.

Do you have more than 6s before you need to refresh eno with B4?
-Yes. Refresh it.
-No. Lose eno, cry, hope it isn't off cooldown soon. Fire 1 spam.


In 4.X:
Did you lose Eno early in your rotation?
-Yes. Fire 1 spam for a few seconds and get ready to start over.
-No, later in. B3 and reactivate eno, start rotation over.

Do you have more than 3s before you need to refresh eno with B3/F1?
-Yes. Use Fire 1 or Blizzard 3.
-No. Transpose. Don't need to cry.


It was WAY more punishing in 3.X. If you messed up once, for whatever reason, you could be out eno for 30s. In 4.X, we have transpose for dire situations, if you somehow couldn't press it in time, Eno will most likely be ready anyway.

[LunarEmerald]

It being punishing and easy to screw it up is why black mage is allowed to have such high dps. If you want to make it easier to play then you must lower the dps as a sacrifice. You can't have your cake and eat it too.