BLM QOL suggestions to make Enochian less punishing

[Acidblood]

*snip*

Thanks for the advice, I do definitely have some learning, and un-learning, to do with BLM... for the moment though, I'm levelling SAM, and strangely it feels similar to BLM, but with absolutely zero punishment (outside of not being 'optimal' of course).

I'll probably go back to BLM at some point, as I love to idea (and style) of the job, and do enjoy the challenge of getting the most out of it in movement heavy fights; it's just that it's never felt more punishing for small mistakes than it currently does, and that has tipped my scale from 'fun challenge' to 'not fun'.

[Acidblood]

*snip*

Thanks for the tips, but I'm actually not that into savage (or perfectly timed / scripted fights) and have far more fun attempting to play optimally in less known situations (PUG dungeons, 24-mans, etc.). Also, as you mentioned, yes, they would have to be very careful not create side effects with any changes they may make.

*snip*

Preface: I don't want optimal BLM gameplay to change, just for it to be not such a steep and thorny road getting there

That said, I agree with baking Enochian into AF / UI, as apart from making the warm-up smoother, it would basically mean 0 Enochian cooldown; and dropping any Umbral Hearts and Foul build-up with your stacks would be, IMO, punishment enough.

Can't say I agree with making leylines into a buff though (just seems a bit boring), and more especially not now that we have Between the Lines.

[Trespar]

It's an interesting idea to essentially eliminate Enochian as a skill.

One has to wonder if the 30 second cooldown is actually meaningful enough to keep, especially since in most cases where you'll drop your Enochian(unless you're really bad), the cooldown doesn't even matter because Enochian will be back up already.

Though I don't think BLM suffers from skill bloat, I do believe that eliminating pointless skills is always a good thing.

[Ferrinus]

I'd be perfectly fine with Enochian just being built in to AF/UI such that it was impossible to have one without the other - it'd make certain mistakes less punishing, but frankly the only way to make those mistakes as it stands is either on purpose or through a straight up typographical error.

I'd still expect to see F4 and B4 on the same button, though, and I'd still like to see Transpose's cooldown back down to 10s.

A really radical change would be to consolidate F1 and F3, as well as B1 and B4, so that they worked as they do in pvp. You could make their potencies and cast times vary based on your current state and active procs (the F3 button would become the Firestarter button) and change very little.

[Shiroe]

my issues with enochian is, that it drops off, when you cast fire 1 or 2 under ice astral...

[Gwaeron89]

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.

Nah, its because blm brings nothing but its dps on the table and its not even that good compared to sam anyway. Being hard or easy to play means nothing in terms of class balance.

Enochian in its current form should just be merged with astral and umbral as passive skill or something. It provides nothing but button bloat outside of these anyway. And i'd be happy if they just do something about Blizzard 4, its dps loss to use it currently but without using it there's not enough time staying in astral for foul to refresh during umbral which leaves you to the mercy of mana tick gods with nothing else to cast.

[Makrar]

Yeah i agree with most of these. for me I'd like to see the following,

Fire IV and Blizzard IV should merge into the same button like in PVP.

Enochian to be removed (damage increase baked in) and Foul timer/Umbral Hearts are now tied to Astral Fire/Umbral Ice alone.

Umbral Hearts effect strengthened.

Transpose cooldown reduced by 2 seconds to 10 seconds.

Pruning wise i think we could stand to lose Scathe, Blizzard II and Freeze and i doubt many would notice.

[Aysen]

Could also have enocian refresh ui/af. Solves all the problems and is probably an easy change for the devs. Enocian as a spell has a point. Mechanics are the same. Gives us a new oh shit button. Makes it easier to weave in thunder procs.

[Ferrinus]

Ooh, Enochian being able to refresh astral/umbral when reactivated would be cool.

[Mycow8me]

Me and another guy made threads about scathe being mostly useless but one way to make scathe very useful would be to add a few tics to umbral or astral when dodging. Like for example you stop casting to dodge something or move while at 4 tics left on astral... Pop a scathe in while moving. By the time your OGCD clears your back at 4 tics again or maybe a few higher to accommodate no loss at all for rotation.

We shouldn't have to practice stutter stepping or moving at the very last actual second to be able to still get the cast off. There should be other options in a motion heavy game. Scathe could easily fit the bill as an instant OGCD to give us back a few tics and continue our rotation like nothing ever happened other than needing to move.