Black Mage

[Kabooa]

TL;DR: Make Scathe, Freeze and Blizzard II killy, and replace Sleep with a self buff.

I don't see those changes affecting the current status of Freeze and Blizzard 2.

For those two, I'd suggest this.

Blizzard 2: Enemies hit by this spell are inflicted with Shatter. They will take additional damage from the first Damaging spell that hits them, at a reduced rate when that spell is an ally's.

Freeze: Turned into an ability.
Duration: 15 seconds
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Radius: 10y
Effect: Enemies within the area effect are afflicted with Heavy and Shatter for as long as they remain inside.

Black Mages gain a Caster friendly boost as well as a personal damage increase. Blizzard 2 and Freeze both gain a definitive spot in the spell arsenal.

[EllieShadeflare]

I don't see those changes affecting the current status of Freeze and Blizzard 2.

For those two, I'd suggest this.

Blizzard 2: Enemies hit by this spell are inflicted with Shatter. They will take additional damage from the first Damaging spell that hits them, at a reduced rate when that spell is an ally's.

Freeze: Turned into an ability.
Duration: 15 seconds
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Radius: 10y
Effect: Enemies within the area effect are afflicted with Heavy and Shatter for as long as they remain inside.

Black Mages gain a Caster friendly boost as well as a personal damage increase. Blizzard 2 and Freeze both gain a definitive spot in the spell arsenal.

You didn't read the full proposal for the two skills? Freeze would become the Umbral Ice "Fire II/Flare," and would build to Umbral Ice II/III while still providing good AoE coverage. After all, in the ideal situation of using it, Flare would wreck your opportunity of having Umbral Ice III ready for Blizzard IV then Fire III, since you'd be forced to Transpose into UI.

In all fairness however, the Shatter idea sounds nice as a trait for Blizzard II once it gets obsolete, but Bind is already fine for most AoE situations for the two of them. That said, if only Blizzard II had more of a point than--

My problem is that B2 is a Point-Blank-AoE, so unless you change it to be a targeted AoE you'd be losing uptime running in and out of trash mobs trying to hit them and avoid AoEs.

Not considering the fact that you B2 is inferior to F2 in a nearly all PvE situations.

Okay, THIS. All of THIS.

[Kabooa]

You didn't read the full proposal for the two skills? Freeze would become the Umbral Ice "Fire II/Flare," and would build to Umbral Ice II/III while still providing good AoE coverage. After all, in the ideal situation of using it, Flare would wreck your opportunity of having Umbral Ice III ready for Blizzard IV then Fire III, since you'd be forced to Transpose into UI.

The UI3 might make it worthwhile, but I'm too lazy to do the math. Assuming it stayed 3.whatever cast speed, I think that might have it be slightly better than just prioritizing B4/T4 and then going straight into AF3.

Though, if the math showed it coming out as neutral or better, the other issue it presents is that it might simply be better to just stay in UI3 for Freeze Spam. That's the primary reason B2 got nerfed, because at 100 potency, the quicker cast, infinite spam B2 outpaced F2.

Strictly speaking, while Ice phase not having high damage options is pretty meh, I'd rather Fire be grossly higher than Ice, and Ice serving to set up / buff that phase.

[EllieShadeflare]

Though, if the math showed it coming out as neutral or better, the other issue it presents is that it might simply be better to just stay in UI3 for Freeze Spam. That's the primary reason B2 got nerfed, because at 100 potency, the quicker cast, infinite spam B2 outpaced F2.

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Even by buffing the potency of Freeze to be 260 like Flare, it would never be as powerful as Flare for one simple reason: Astral Fire III. Certainly, Blizzard II was in a spot where it was hitting harder than Fire II (despite Fire II having 180 potency when you apply Astral Fire III) because of its sheer speed. Flare and Freeze already have the same cast speed, and the difference between their full practical potencies is quite vast. I don't think it's a problem to raise Freeze's potency to make it viable in a rotation.