Black Mage

[Llugen]

In my opinion, an "unthoughtful" fix would be a flat potency increase with no acknowledgement of movement and buff/burst windows. The job should have a punishment for movement, but right now that punishment is RIDICULOUSLY massive. Call be a broken record, but these things really need to be addressed.

For ease, I'll post my concise list of changes I'd like to see again:

-Fire IV/Blizzard IV back to 280 potency
-Thunder III timer extended to 30 seconds
-Application of Thunder refreshes Astral/Umbral timer
-Thundercloud/Firestarter proc timers extended to 30 seconds
-Fire/Blizzard made instant cast under Enhanced Enochian (lv 70)
-Foul potency increase to 700 diminishing (currently 650 diminishing), and DOUBLE potency when hitting only one target (OR, instead of double potency, using Enochian grants a Polyglot no matter where the timer is)
-Flare damage diminishing should be reworked so it is slightly stronger than it is currently. maybe 10 20 30 40 50+ instead of 15 30 45 60 75+.
-Aetherial Manipulation reduced to 15s (or even 10)
-Convert reduced to 60 seconds, OR remains 180s, grants full MP bar, refreshes Astral Fire, grants three Umbral Hearts, grants Firestarter, grants Thundercloud.
-Sharpcast no longer works with Scathe (please for the love of god)


That's all stuff they could do VERY easily. Here are a few more things:


Freeze overhaul (suggested by Eloah):
-Lv. 35 Freeze, potency 150, now a targeted spell like Fire II or Flare, immediately grants a full stack of Umbral Ice
-Lv. 50 Sub-Zero, when your MP drops to zero (after Flare) grants a Sub-Zero proc (30s duration), allowing for the next Freeze to be cast for no MP (still immediately grants full stack of Umbral Ice)
-Lv. 68 Enhanced Umbral Heart, Successful use of a Sub-Zero proc grants three Umbral Hearts

Lv. 60 Thundersting: When Thundercloud is applied to a target, any remaining DoT potency is added to the initial Thundercloud hit OR any Thunder DoT becomes additive up to 60 seconds, so refreshing Thunder now becomes adding onto the already ticking timer.

Lv. 68 Thunderstorm: Automatically grants Thundercloud after a certain amount of damage is dealt to a target with a Thunder DoT (or maybe a certain number of GCDs or specifically Fire IVs)
Lv. 68 Firestorm: Automatically grants Firestarter with successful consumption of three Umbral Hearts in succession (so not if Flare uses all three at the same time)
Lv. 68 Enhanced Umbral Heart: For each Umbral Heart consumed by a fire spell, +5% damage to the initial hit of the spell (so +15% damage to a Flare that uses all 3).

Lv. 70 Enhanced Enochian: For every Firestarter/Thundercloud proc obtained (not used, just obtained) adds 5 seconds to the Polyglot timer.




All of this is stuff they could do if they decide they DON'T want to give BLM "utility". Here's a list of what I might do utility wise:

-Blizzard IV: +10% magic vulnerability up for ~45 seconds.
-Aetherial Surge: 180s recast buff that removes a placed Ley Lines and spreads it out to the entire party as a speed buff for the remaining duration of the consumed Ley Lines.
-Shadowpact: 180s recast Raise off-gcd that gives pre-raise or damage increase after use or tether blah blah, refer to the Raise thread about this suggestion
-Aetherial Force: All players within range of a BLM under the effect of Enhanced Enochian receive passive +2% speed (or crit or direct hit or whatever) OR a BLM under Enhanced Enochian receives a damage bonus of +2% for every party member within range of it.
-Mana Channeling: 120s recast tether to one target that restores target's MP over 5-8 seconds.
-Aetherial Syphon: 120s Tethers one player giving 10%/5% damage increase (like Dragon Sight), drains target's MP by 10% every tick and gives BLM 10% MP back every server tick (including during Astral Fire). Expires when the target's MP reaches zero (or after 20s duration)
-Meltdown (suggestion made by someone a while back): When Fire IV hits a target, target takes increased damage +1%, stackable up to 3%. Effect is removed when target is hit with an Ice spell.


....Sorry my list is no longer concise. The top list I can definitely see them doing, the middle list would be great, and the bottom list is just for brainstorming. The bottom line is that unless they significantly buff BLM's damage BOTH single target and AoE, it will STILL be smarter to take SMN overall. To justify the significant damage loss while doing mechanics, BLM should be the strongest damage in the game, above even SAM.

[Bernkastelx]

I wouldn't expect more than simple potency increases looking at their track record. We will be lucky if they decide to do something about blizzard iv.

[Llugen]

I wouldn't expect more than simple potency increases looking at their track record. We will be lucky if they decide to do something about blizzard iv.

I think it was Remedi that pointed out that there IS a precedent of "overhaul" changes on skills mid-expansion, they cited Shield Swipe specifically in 2.4, which is true. I think there are a few other examples, I suppose you could call the Tri-Bind overhaul pretty big (and Shake It Off).

[Shiroe]

not only is BLM's single target damage in desperate need of help, its AoE damage is as well. To recap what I said some 20 pages back, SMN is about burst damage, AoE included, and BLM is about "sustained" damage. Thing is, sustained damage is useless if everything is already dead within the "burst". Please please please devs, read what we are saying.

yes, this too^

blm aoe is sometimes a pain, you precast a lot to get it ready, but cant hold on to the precasts (the window of full burst is limited)... and where blm sustained aoe could be good, there are no fights at ever need sustained aoe... (maybe fractal hard will be the only xD)

[Remedi]

-Fire IV/Blizzard IV back to 280 potency

I think that making them 2.5 secs cast would be a better choice than a potency increase (that's also one of the reason why I would prefer for enochian to upgrade f1 and b1 to f4 and b4)


(also make scathe have a canche to proc thundercloud and/or firestarter instead of the actual proc and maybe cost 0 MP)

[Llugen]

Personally, I'm ready to give up Scathe. Like I said in the other thread, Scathe doesn't need to be used at level 70, we are powerful enough to warrant not needing it anymore. I wouldn't be opposed to it costing zero MP or having a chance to proc Thundercloud/Firestarter, but that just adds to RNG factor and it would be much less stress on the Astral/Umbral timer if they just made Fire/Blizzard instant cast under Enhanced Enochian (and then you can STILL get your Firestarter proc if you're lucky).

[zuzu-bq]

Nothing really confirmed but players have noticed BLM spells to have something close to 2s base cast on Yoshida's Neo Exdeath replay. Might also be a replay bug. But we have this new small info to discuss around.

[Tzain]

yes, this too^

blm aoe is sometimes a pain, you precast a lot to get it ready, but cant hold on to the precasts (the window of full burst is limited)... and where blm sustained aoe could be good, there are no fights at ever need sustained aoe... (maybe fractal hard will be the only xD)

First as a side note, the idea that a DOT heavy Pet class would be 'burst damage' sort of hurts my old school mmo brain.
Second, AE damage is basically useless since the things you're trying to hit that you actually care about killing only have a single target. If you could target multiple spots on a primal and AE all of them at once then AE might have a use.
Third, the very last thing the devs want is to add MORE AoE damage to the game. Players are already going out of their way to break encounters (albeit 'trash' encounters) using AE damage abilities, the entire idea of a 'mega pull' is based on this. And I can't imagine a single developer or content designer watches a tank go for a wall to wall pull and thinks "Yeah, that's exactly what I envisioned happening!"

In my opinion, an "unthoughtful" fix would be a flat potency increase with no acknowledgement of movement and buff/burst windows. The job should have a punishment for movement, but right now that punishment is RIDICULOUSLY massive. Call be a broken record, but these things really need to be addressed.

As usual Llugen, your ideas to limit the double/triple/quadruple punishment of movment are well thought out and meticulously planned.

So I am going to respond with an idea that is ill conceived and off the top of my head. You know, for traditions sake....

What if you got rid of the Astral/Umbral timer?

[Llugen]

I won't disagree with your statement because it's true but the "logic" of it is bad. Whether or not the devs "intend" for wall to wall pulls is irrelevant. If it is possible to pull from wall to wall, you bet your bottom dollar that players are going to do it. With this in mind, either devs need to make walls or they need to adjust BLM's aoe damage, because if they don't, players will just take SMN. It's pretty much that simple.

SMN's burst damage comes mostly from aetherflow granting bane and two painflares, then of course deathflare and shadowflare and the pet aoes, and then the Tri-Binds that you can squeeze into DWT. It is a "DoT class" in that the bursts are reliant on the DoTs being up (Fester, Bane, and in turn successful landing of those things grants DWT/Bahamut), but the damage on the job no longer comes mostly from the DoTs.


Also I mean yeah sure, if you want to remove the timer that could be neat, but then there's no "punishment" to the foul timer requiring Astral/Umbral if it's just indefinite. But I'm game, I guess.

[Remedi]

Personally, I'm ready to give up Scathe. Like I said in the other thread, Scathe doesn't need to be used at level 70, we are powerful enough to warrant not needing it anymore. I wouldn't be opposed to it costing zero MP or having a chance to proc Thundercloud/Firestarter, but that just adds to RNG factor and it would be much less stress on the Astral/Umbral timer if they just made Fire/Blizzard instant cast under Enhanced Enochian (and then you can STILL get your Firestarter proc if you're lucky).

I'd rather give up on fire 1 and blizzard 1 than scathe, they had their purpose and now we are moving away and the need to refresh AF with fire1 is, while interesting on paper, a liability to us, scathe on the other hand could be improved to be more effective