How do you feel about the BLM 4.2 adjustments?

[Meow9000]

BLM: Fire IV potency will be increased, Thundercloud & Firestarter durations will increase by about 6s, Aetherial Manipulation's recast time will be reduced to 10s (yes, to 10s, not by), and Transpose recast time will be reduced to 8s.

How do you think this will affect the job? The only thing that really feels like it'll make a difference is a longer thundercloud timer

[zuzu-bq]

It will increase disparity between BLM players that know how to handle Thunder procs well plus a possible opener change to better fit that in Trick Attack, while also letting BLMs to use of a unintended rotation that is already present in the game with more ease. None of the design issues of the job were adressed, the job will have more complex nuances for skilled BLMs to abuse, gearing might become more complex because of high Spell Speed from new gear interacting with Polyglot timer. It's pretty much everything SE said they wanted to avoid on Stormblood over months of Live Letters.

Outside than that, job won't really even change drastically. Firestarter time change seems to just be more handholding for players that drop Enochian. We might use a few less hardcast Thunder per encounter. And we need to know the exact number of Fire IV potency buff to even know if BLM's DPS will be still low, or not.

[AiharaMizuki]

Seems like their goal with these changes are to not punish BLMs for having to move as heavily. I mean, it's okay. I don't think these changes is enough to push BLM close to or even equal to SMN but then again, the battle system adjustments are subject to change until 4.2 is officially out so will have to wait and see if there are more changes (they didn't even say anything about DRK other than "overall DPS will increase" or something)

[Shiroe]

with smn (slight single target) and mnk buff too,.. seems after discussing it in the other thread => Blm F4 & B4 would both need a increase too 320 (!) to still be valid in all comps and meta.., but we're more likely only getting 280 (or max 300), which is way not enough to compete with smn and mnk, both with utility too

but even if at first happy with the proc timer increase and aethermanipulation CD reduction (helping for mobility, unless future fights are even more movement intens)..., fear afterall the potency increase will be the breaking point and not be enough afterall

should just flat out increase the enochian buff to 15(-20)%, but even that would probably not be enough.. or just barley

[Dzian]

I was kinda hoping to see enochain tweaked to reset astral / umbral timers to full when used.

Would have helped with maintenance and maybe even allowed a slightly heavier fire4 burst as you could use enochain instead of fire1.

My annoyance though is if I drop to umbral do foul and thunder have to dodge and then find I got 2 seconds on umbral which isn't really enough time to cast anything so forces a transpose. Allowing enochain to extend that umbral would be golden

[Shiroe]

to be valid as "raw dps /no utility" blm need more than a OVERALL dps increase of 10%.. (more like overall 12-15%) .. need a significant F4 buff for that..

(at first thought 280 would be enough.., but thats waaay to low even if B4 got buffed too, check out the Blm thread last few discussions and calculations from the other posters there)

[Zzzlol94]

Until Fire IV potencies are revealed, the other buffs are barely anything. Aetherial to 10 seconds doesn't fix the movement problems, as most mechanics require too much accuracy to use it, and it should've been reduced to 3 seconds to be useful in very high movement situations. In O1-4S, there are possibly only 2 mechanics where a 10 second CD would help. Then there are more mechanics where a 3 second cooldown would be needed. It doesn't even fix BLM in Ultimate unless Fire IV is 300 potency or more. Triplecast should've been reduced to 30s or Fire should've been an instant cast whilst in Enochian.

Firestarter at 18 seconds. Why... Already now at 12 seconds, it lasts through the entire Astral Fire timer, so it's a completely pointless buff as it literally doesn't improve anything. Thundercloud is a better option as it makes the 3.0 rotation even more viable. If you get a proc after casting the Fire III from Umbral Ice, you can essentially save it until the next Umbral Ice rotation and never have to hardcast Thunder III or having to wait for MP ticks or getting only 4 Fire IV. As with the Fire IV buff, depending on how much it is, using Thundercloud procs is not as much of a DPS increase, so saving it until Umbral Ice is much more important. It doesn't fix anything for the 4.0 rotation, as you still can only use one Thundercloud proc outside of Ley Lines.

I think this buff proves even more that SE has absolutely no idea how to balance the game. Depending on how much of a buff BLM gets, if Fire IV is 280 potency, BLM and SAM are even whilst SMN is still uncontested at the top whilst having more utility.

SE really needs to nerf SMN, and since YoshiP even said they might buff SMNs single-target DPS just shows they don't know how potent SMN is. Just that they said to buff SMN is bad enough, it should be nerfed. Ruin II should be nerfed to 70 potency, the 30 potency difference between Ruin III and II doesn't punish movement nearly enough. Bio/Miasma III should also have removed 5-10 per tick. SMN has the most amount of movement options, more consistent DPS than any job and as much utility as RDM. If they'll continue with the heavy movement fights and make the next Ultimate a complete nightmare for BLM, SMN needs a nerf to counteract their high movement options. Same with BRD and MCH needing a nerf while giving Hot Shot/Straight Shot a piercing debuff, so DRG isn't required to not lose significant DPS. And seriously, just remove the raise from SMN and RDM, or make them out of combat only. They only have uses at end-game, especially RDMs since it's literally one of the last skills they get. It will balance the game and require people to git gud and not die.

[Marianno]

I feel deceived (lack of a better word). I had my hopes up that the devs would take a long hard look at the class and make fundamental changes to help the job aside from potency increases. Potency increases are good but personally, to go further and reduce the stress on other skills (transpose/AM) were also good but not enough. I do not think BLM struggled severely in movement areas. I do not raid hardcore but even in the normal dungeons or other raid dungeons (barring savage or ultimate) I do not think movement was an issue. BLM is suppose to optimize fights to know when and when-not to move. I wanted to try raiding in the 4.x series but with the way my favorite job is currently, I refuse to hinder other people. So I sit to the side and stay casual. Perhaps the numbers are significant or maybe that’s me being optimistic. I really think SE were thoughtful but not thoughtful enough in the changes. I suspect that SMN will still be loads better.

I was sort of expecting changes to umbral hearts. Maybe make them more potent or something along that line. Perhaps giving BLM a magic vulnerability would be great for B4 and make it useful. Changes to increase the proc duration was a slight step in the right direction in my opinion but not enough. I suspect the maybe SE does not know how SMN even plays (how potent the job is). I was expecting maybe some kind of cast time reduction further perhaps on B4/F4 but also F3/B3. Why do those spells still take 3.31 seconds (correct me if I am remembering this wrong) at base to cast? This is mind boggling to me. I have more gripes than optimissism but I do not know the numbers that were buffed and by how much. I will reserve complete judgement and assessment until I have access to see the numbers and test things out for myself. Until then, I still feel that It is unknown to SE how potent SMN is or they simply cannot figure out what to do to help BLM properly. I suspect that the 3.0 rotation might be better this time around yet again (correct me if I am wrong in my assessment).

[Shiroe]

would prefer a high blm buff over a smn nerf..

like the mobility tweaks, the proc tweak helps.., often ended up losing a proc cause it didnt hold till the next ice astral.., and with an extend timet, it also means we can wait for the last Thunder to tick longer..

but when it comes to patch buffs, SE somehow tends to give Blm always the absolute minimum possible (actually ends up not being enough;.. while other classes get over the top buffs,.. maybe SE just looks at the amount of players on a class, less players means higher buffs to get more players on the class...., if a class already has a high base, they only get "lower / minimum" buffs, so the player base stays balanced??)

as for rez, rdm need it imo unchanged... (but make embolden buff magic too)

[zuzu-bq]

Firestarter at 18 seconds. Why...

People are bad and drop enochian, this seems to be a change just to help them.

SE really needs to nerf SMN

Yeah nerf the only good Mage. So everyone plays MCH and MNK instead. Easy fix right.