Black Mage Job Changes Wishlist for 4.25 or 4.3

[EllieShadeflare]

AF/UI- I dont see skipping F1 in the rotation as a problem since we have been asking for F4 AF refresh for awhile!

Some players have, but doing this would cause the job to become braindead, like the ARR version. Both Heavensward and Stormblood have been adamant about removing some degree of braindeadedness from most classes, while also removing a lot of the issues with the others.

They may as well make Enochian a static timer, and make Blizzard IV refresh said timer under your suggestion.

Umbral hearts: we mostly go into fire phase with a firestarter proc anyway which would allow the F4s to get the buff. Regardless, 5% buff to F3 under 3 stacks of astral and enochian is still strong. Dont forget that umbral hearts are spent on flare as well! I think it would be a good way to entice players to use the mechanic as the devs intended instead of skipping B4 under certain circumstances.

Honestly, I haven't really seen anyone really skip Blizzard IV and its Umbral Hearts ever since the cast time buff. It's usually a bit of a DPS loss, since you'd be losing out on at least two Fire IV casts if you try that. That said, Umbral Hearts should have some level of "helping" to the spells. So long as they only affect spells during Astral Fire, and maintain the ability to reduce the costs by half, it'll be fine.

The suggested 300 potency on F4 and B4 would go a long way to alleviate this issue too!

Please dear Hydaelyn no. There's a lot of people who are trying to advocate for this, and it's honestly the scariest suggestion I've seen because it shows an utter lack of regard for balance (which is funny, because everyone complaining about Warrior's new version of Inner Release + Fell Cleave are essentially stating we should have THAT as a rotation).

Essentially? the practical potency of Fire IV (594) would be a mere 64 less than a fully buffed Fell Cleave (660), minus the confirmed Direct Crits. Combine this with the previous ideas to give Umbral Hearts the ability to buff Fire spells by 5%, then you get a whopping 623. As it already stands, Black Mage is already dealing 555 potency per Fire IV, which is 5 more potency than Verflare... and only about 100 potency less than the base potency of Foul (but just 160 less than a similarly buffed Foul). Honestly, a much more valuable buff would probably making Fire IV GCD, and not require 2.8~ seconds.

Manaward: I dont see the nullification of knockback and 5% shield in a radius from the BLM as overpowered when you have raidwide defensive and offensive buffs on nearly every other class, and the ability has a 2 minute cooldown. It would add some sorely needed utility and synergy to allow BLM to compete for a spot.

BLM already can get a nullification to knockback, though. It's called Surecast, and it's a really useful ability.

[HaroldSaxon]

More standard Ellie drivel...

Honestly, I haven't really seen anyone really skip Blizzard IV and its Umbral Hearts ever since the cast time buff. It's usually a bit of a DPS loss, since you'd be losing out on at least two Fire IV casts if you try that. That said, Umbral Hearts should have some level of "helping" to the spells. So long as they only affect spells during Astral Fire, and maintain the ability to reduce the costs by half, it'll be fine.

That is incorrect. In certain situations its optimal to skip because you only lose one Fire IV cast. You should read up on it.

Please dear Hydaelyn no. There's a lot of people who are trying to advocate for this, and it's honestly the scariest suggestion I've seen because it shows an utter lack of regard for balance (which is funny, because everyone complaining about Warrior's new version of Inner Release + Fell Cleave are essentially stating we should have THAT as a rotation).

Essentially? the practical potency of Fire IV (594) would be a mere 64 less than a fully buffed Fell Cleave (660), minus the confirmed Direct Crits. Combine this with the previous ideas to give Umbral Hearts the ability to buff Fire spells by 5%, then you get a whopping 623. As it already stands, Black Mage is already dealing 555 potency per Fire IV, which is 5 more potency than Verflare... and only about 100 potency less than the base potency of Foul (but just 160 less than a similarly buffed Foul). Honestly, a much more valuable buff would probably making Fire IV GCD, and not require 2.8~ seconds.

While you are correct that the combination of this + the Umbral hearts idea is probably too much, you really are not objective when looking at the classes design and evaluating what it needs and what it doesn't. Please stop peddling your awful idea of reducing the cast time of F4 further? Its completely against the classes identity. If you want GCD length cast times, play RDM or SMN. A potency increase is far more consistent with BLM than a cast time decrease.

Furthermore, comparing spell potency between RDM and BLM is an awful idea because RDM has a lot more OGCD damage.

BLM already can get a nullification to knockback, though. It's called Surecast, and it's a really useful ability.

I don't think you read the guys idea.

[EllieShadeflare]

More standard Ellie drivel...

Honestly, I'm quite used to this kind of maturity from you, Harold, since you are such an intellectual heavyweight and are clearly quite superior in your logic.

That is incorrect. In certain situations its optimal to skip because you only lose one Fire IV cast. You should read up on it.

My mistake on the number of Fire IVs then. I was going to argue against the number of Fire IVs before testing it myself. However, between the PPC of using Blizzard IV and also having the sixth Fire IV, I'd argue it's much more valuable to have it than not having it, unless you REALLY can't fit in the casts.

That said, if we really wanted to incentivise Blizzard IV, make each Umbral Heart make a Fire spell in Astral Fire free, rather than just negate the cost difference. Not sure why the devs didn't do that in the first place.

While you are correct that the combination of this + the Umbral hearts idea is probably too much, you really are not objective when looking at the classes design and evaluating what it needs and what it doesn't.

Looking at the design of the job and how its abilities function is somehow not objective but only looking at the design of one of the abilities is? Huh, I suppose class/character balance has really degenerated in quality if all we do is look at an ability in a partial vacuum rather than how it the class's gameplay as a whole.

Please stop peddling your awful idea of reducing the cast time of F4 further? Its completely against the classes identity. If you want GCD length cast times, play RDM or SMN. A potency increase is far more consistent with BLM than a cast time decrease.

I'm sorry, but I can prove you objectively wrong here, beyond what the team already did, and mostly by going over the design of Black Mage as it currently stands.

In Heavensward, the 3s cast time for Fire IV was fine and even justified because Enochian was a set timer that degenerated its max duration each time you casted Blizzard IV. At the time, Fire IV was a powerful ability with its main downside being the fact that you could lose Astral Fire and with it, losing Fire IV and no other downside.

In Stormblood, however, with Enochian's timer now being the same as AF/UI's timer, the longer cast times is now too harsh a punishment, which is why BLM's damage objectively dropped between HW and SB (because we couldn't actually make use of Umbral Hearts in any shape or form) unless you used the ARR rotation. It doesn't make much sense to have a spell that simultaneously doesn't refresh Astral Fire/Umbral Ice but also takes much longer to cast than other spells.

Besides, even if Fire IV is at GCD, we'd still be far less mobile than Summoner and Red Mage, between Summoner's higher reliance on DoTs, Dreadwyrm Trance's removal of cast time, and oGCDs and Dual Cast for Red Mage. Our only forms of mobility BLM has are Aetherial Manipulation (which is definitely useful but not truly mobile) and Triplecast and or Swiftcast... which is definitely not nearly as much as SMN or RDM. At best? We'd only match or be slightly slower than the other casters.

My problem isn't simply that BLM isn't mobile, though. I'm fine with BLM being static and turrety. My problem is that the cast time is too hefty a punishment when you consider that you can lose a significant amount of damage by being forced to Transpose, or lose Enochian. More so than what you'd lose compared to Heavensward, especially when the change was supposedly made to make Black Mage flow better. Fire IV's cast time would still require some skill to keep AF/UI, without forcing the whole rotation to be Fire IV.

Furthermore, comparing spell potency between RDM and BLM is an awful idea because RDM has a lot more OGCD damage.

Honestly? I find it kinda funny how you considered the comparison to Fell Cleave much more valid than the comparison to Verflare/Verholy, nor did you cry foul on Foul.
So, nice job throwing your credibility out the window. I compared Fire IV to Verflare/Verholy because of their raw potencies, and pointing out that Fire IV's potency is comparable to a burst phase finisher. Thanks for missing the point!

I don't think you read the guys idea.

I did. I just disagreed with the knockback nullification part. That's all.

[HaroldSaxon]

My mistake on the number of Fire IVs then. I was going to argue against the number of Fire IVs before testing it myself. However, between the PPC of using Blizzard IV and also having the sixth Fire IV, I'd argue it's much more valuable to have it than not having it, unless you REALLY can't fit in the casts.

Actually, it depends. If skipping the Blizzard IV allows you to have more Fire IV's over the course of the phase/fight, its a gain.

That said, if we really wanted to incentivise Blizzard IV, make each Umbral Heart make a Fire spell in Astral Fire free, rather than just negate the cost difference. Not sure why the devs didn't do that in the first place.

The issue with that would be our rotation would change as we would be able to fit more F4's in. You would need to adjust the mana costs and/or mana pool again

Looking at the design of the job and how its abilities function is somehow not objective but only looking at the design of one of the abilities is? Huh, I suppose class/character balance has really degenerated in quality if all we do is look at an ability in a partial vacuum rather than how it the class's gameplay as a whole.

I'm sorry, but I can prove you objectively wrong here, beyond what the team already did, and mostly by going over the design of Black Mage as it currently stands.

In Heavensward, the 3s cast time for Fire IV was fine and even justified because Enochian was a set timer that degenerated its max duration each time you casted Blizzard IV. At the time, Fire IV was a powerful ability with its main downside being the fact that you could lose Astral Fire and with it, losing Fire IV and no other downside.

In Stormblood, however, with Enochian's timer now being the same as AF/UI's timer, the longer cast times is now too harsh a punishment, which is why BLM's damage objectively dropped between HW and SB (because we couldn't actually make use of Umbral Hearts in any shape or form) unless you used the ARR rotation. It doesn't make much sense to have a spell that simultaneously doesn't refresh Astral Fire/Umbral Ice but also takes much longer to cast than other spells.

Besides, even if Fire IV is at GCD, we'd still be far less mobile than Summoner and Red Mage, between Summoner's higher reliance on DoTs, Dreadwyrm Trance's removal of cast time, and oGCDs and Dual Cast for Red Mage. Our only forms of mobility BLM has are Aetherial Manipulation (which is definitely useful but not truly mobile) and Triplecast and or Swiftcast... which is definitely not nearly as much as SMN or RDM. At best? We'd only match or be slightly slower than the other casters.

My problem isn't simply that BLM isn't mobile, though. I'm fine with BLM being static and turrety. My problem is that the cast time is too hefty a punishment when you consider that you can lose a significant amount of damage by being forced to Transpose, or lose Enochian. More so than what you'd lose compared to Heavensward, especially when the change was supposedly made to make Black Mage flow better. Fire IV's cast time would still require some skill to keep AF/UI, without forcing the whole rotation to be Fire IV.

You are completely wrong here. Each class has a specific uniqueness to it. Black Mages is longer cast times, minimal movement, selfish DPS and no OGCD's with damage. Reducing Fire IV's cast time to the GCD would flat out remove one of the things that make it unique compared to other classes.

Enochian's seperate timer in HW makes absolutely no difference and is completely irrelevent. The longer cast times are not too harsh a punishment, if you aren't able to handle them I suggest you practice and get better. The main reason Black Mage's damage dropped between HW and SB was the reduction in potency of Fire 4 and the removal of Raging Strikes. Furthermore, we lost a fair bit of Critical Hit Rate and Cast time due to the scaling of stats at level 70 - as we do at the start of the expansion.

Mobility is not Black Mages issue. It is not too hefty a punishment. In video games, you are meant to practice to get better. There isn't any significant skill needed to keep up AF/UI currently.

Honestly? I find it kinda funny how you considered the comparison to Fell Cleave much more valid than the comparison to Verflare/Verholy, nor did you cry foul on Foul.


So, nice job throwing your credibility out the window. I compared Fire IV to Verflare/Verholy because of their raw potencies, and pointing out that Fire IV's potency is comparable to a burst phase finisher. Thanks for missing the point!

I ignored the comparison to Fell Cleave because it really wasn't relevant to the discussion. The Foul one while being more relevant completely ignores what its use is - its AOE and it is a 0 mana cost spell. If you had played BLM to any decent level you would have realized that.

Again, you don't know what you are talking about. Comparing potencies between classes is not accurate at all because different classes scale differently off scaling. Different classes fill different roles, and different classes have different kits.

I did. I just disagreed with the knockback nullification part. That's all.

You said Black Mage already has a way of nullifying knockbacks. You missed the part where he suggested it be raid wide. So again, a swing and a miss.

[EllieShadeflare]

The issue with that would be our rotation would change as we would be able to fit more F4's in. You would need to adjust the mana costs and/or mana pool again

BLM's MP wasn't adjusted due to the addition of the Umbral Hearts, and honestly? It'd be fine to have more Fire IVs/extended Astral Fire phase if it means it comes as a reward for choosing to use Blizzard IV, rather than a minimal reward of one more Fire IV. My main thing would be to address the concern of Umbral Hearts not providing a reward which is one of the most common complaints given by the players.

You are completely wrong here. Each class has a specific uniqueness to it. Black Mages is longer cast times, minimal movement, selfish DPS and no OGCD's with damage. Reducing Fire IV's cast time to the GCD would flat out remove one of the things that make it unique compared to other classes.

Not... really? Under my suggestion, we'd still have to turret to be at all viable, since we still have to cast to keep our mechanics in check, Ley Lines still requires us to stay in place, and Thundercloud/Firestarter are "pseudo" OGCDs that have an GCD recast time.

Black Mage's new identity is a consistent turret that needs to make sure it doesn't lose its build up to Foul nor its bread and butter. The longer cast does not fit this new identity, and in fact seems to clash with this well oiled machine. BLM would simply feel a lot more streamlined rather than clunky, and trust me, I am not the only one who has made the complaint of BLM's clunkiness.

Enochian's seperate timer in HW makes absolutely no difference and is completely irrelevent.

In a vacuum, it doesn't. Outside of a vacuum, the separate timer allowed for players to much more easily recover from a loss of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice, while not losing the advantages of Enochian. In addition, you could actually fit Thunderclouds into your rotation much more comfortably (each Thundercloud serving as a DPS boost) and even use Sharpcast Firestarter much less awkwardly.

Now? Because Fire IV wastes much more time to cast (Assuming no Leylines and base SpS, giving only 4.6s of leeway for 3 casts, and 1.8s for 4.), it's much easier to drop Enochian, and the only recovery is arguably the lower recast of Enochian, or taking a massive drop in DPS by Transposing.

The longer cast times are not too harsh a punishment, if you aren't able to handle them I suggest you practice and get better. The main reason Black Mage's damage dropped between HW and SB was the reduction in potency of Fire 4 and the removal of Raging Strikes. Furthermore, we lost a fair bit of Critical Hit Rate and Cast time due to the scaling of stats at level 70 - as we do at the start of the expansion.

Right, this IS true. However, Foul, the addition of Direct Hit and the increase of Enochian's buff made up for the lack of Raging Strikes and the Fire IVs were mitigated by the ability to cast more of them... which we couldn't do.

Again, I'm not the only player who complains about the clunkiness of the toolset, which is only rectified by spell speed, and we all know about how much diminishing returns occur with Spell Speed. Fire IV's longer cast time doesn't work very well in the modern FFXIV.

Mobility is not Black Mages issue. It is not too hefty a punishment. In video games, you are meant to practice to get better. There isn't any significant skill needed to keep up AF/UI currently.

...Somehow, I find it funny how you accuse me of not reading what others are saying when you refuse to read what I did. I already stated mobility isn't the main issue, but it's the fact that Fire IV doesn't work well in BLM's current mindset.

I ignored the comparison to Fell Cleave because it really wasn't relevant to the discussion.

And explanation to this and Foul in three, two...

The Foul one while being more relevant completely ignores what its use is - its AOE and it is a 0 mana cost spell. If you had played BLM to any decent level you would have realized that.

One. Your point would be valid, if you didn't try to apply the most literal look at any ability possible. My comparison is to compare a "build up or get to use occasionally" potency skill with a "bread and butter" spell. That is to say, I'm basically stating "It's kinda

And you're wrong for saying that Foul is just an AoE. It's good as an AoE, sure, but it's mainly our form of a finisher (sorta). With that said, I'm just gonna throw this again, because you have this really bad habit of trying to disregard opinions that disagree with you by calling them bad.



And if you wanna know why the ad hominem makes you look bad, well...



And I understand it's a pretty hard thing to not do, I've done it quite a bit myself, and I'm trying to wean myself off of that ugly tactic.

Again, you don't know what you are talking about. Comparing potencies between classes is not accurate at all because different classes scale differently off scaling. Different classes fill different roles, and different classes have different kits.

The only valid point you have is the different kits. However, direct comparisons between potency are indeed valid. Without gear that provides stats (and using the Chicken Knife and the Weathered Scepter on Black Mage as a control for a perfectly no-stat weapon), same potency spells represent similar numbers (In this case, the 100 potency of Scatter, and the 100 potency of Scathe)



"You driveling idiot," you say, "That's not an actual gauge!" And you'd be right.

Which is why I will showcase that this is also the same for equivalent gear as well. Unfortunately, the weapons are all different stats unlike the armour pieces... so, we're again using the Weathered Scepter and Chicken Knife, using Scathe and Scatter again.



I cut out a conversation and an accidental cast of Fire II and reflect the actual information. But the information is simple. Within roles, stats scale similarly between jobs and the damage calculations between said jobs appear to be identical. So yes, potency comparisons are indeed valid. Fell Cleave may not be a fair comparison, mostly so much as it's an issue of comparing physical vs magical resistance but comparing Verflare and Fire IV is a fair comparison in terms of direct potency.

My statement is that Fire IV is comparable in potency to what would be an oGCD, a build up attack, or a finisher.

You said Black Mage already has a way of nullifying knockbacks. You missed the part where he suggested it be raid wide. So again, a swing and a miss.

Fair enough, I guess. Maybe as a raidwide thing it might be fine, but just on its own it seems to be less useful.

[HaroldSaxon]

BLM's MP wasn't adjusted due to the addition of the Umbral Hearts, and honestly? It'd be fine to have more Fire IVs/extended Astral Fire phase if it means it comes as a reward for choosing to use Blizzard IV, rather than a minimal reward of one more Fire IV. My main thing would be to address the concern of Umbral Hearts not providing a reward which is one of the most common complaints given by the players.

So wait, you've first gone from "Skipping B4 is a DPS loss", and now you are in the camp of "B4 needs to be made so powerful that we get 9 Fire spells in our rotation now instead of 7, and completely change our rotation.

Not... really? Under my suggestion, we'd still have to turret to be at all viable, since we still have to cast to keep our mechanics in check, Ley Lines still requires us to stay in place, and Thundercloud/Firestarter are "pseudo" OGCDs that have an GCD recast time.

Black Mage's new identity is a consistent turret that needs to make sure it doesn't lose its build up to Foul nor its bread and butter. The longer cast does not fit this new identity, and in fact seems to clash with this well oiled machine. BLM would simply feel a lot more streamlined rather than clunky, and trust me, I am not the only one who has made the complaint of BLM's clunkiness.

You are making things up now.

In a vacuum, it doesn't. Outside of a vacuum, the separate timer allowed for players to much more easily recover from a loss of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice, while not losing the advantages of Enochian. In addition, you could actually fit Thunderclouds into your rotation much more comfortably (each Thundercloud serving as a DPS boost) and even use Sharpcast Firestarter much less awkwardly.

Now? Because Fire IV wastes much more time to cast (Assuming no Leylines and base SpS, giving only 4.6s of leeway for 3 casts, and 1.8s for 4.), it's much easier to drop Enochian, and the only recovery is arguably the lower recast of Enochian, or taking a massive drop in DPS by Transposing.

What on earth are you going on about? If you lost enochian (which good players rarely did) you would need to wait up to one minute to get it back. You could lose Enochian and not Astral Fire. Now, Enochian is just an extension of Astral Fire and the recast of the spell has been reduced. Black Mage in its current form is much easier that HW Black Mage - sure we have more casts in our fire rotation, but we still have PLENTY of time and PLENTY of movement skills to manage it with.

Right, this IS true. However, Foul, the addition of Direct Hit and the increase of Enochian's buff made up for the lack of Raging Strikes and the Fire IVs were mitigated by the ability to cast more of them... which we couldn't do.

Foul did not make up for the lack of Raging Strikes. Casting more Fire IV's doesn't make up for the potency loss if you then look at how the class went from being a poor caster to an awful DPS class. Direct hit? Every class got direct hit and we shouldn't be prioritizing that stat anyway

Again, I'm not the only player who complains about the clunkiness of the toolset, which is only rectified by spell speed, and we all know about how much diminishing returns occur with Spell Speed. Fire IV's longer cast time doesn't work very well in the modern FFXIV.

I'm not disagreeing that the toolkit can be clunky, but its absolutely not spellspeed dependent and there are not diminishing returns that occur with spellspeed that are currently reachable. Fire IV's longer cast time is fine. Stop making things up.

...Somehow, I find it funny how you accuse me of not reading what others are saying when you refuse to read what I did. I already stated mobility isn't the main issue, but it's the fact that Fire IV doesn't work well in BLM's current mindset.

And yet you complain about us being immobile. You are flip flopping more than a politician here.

And explanation to this and Foul in three, two...

One. Your point would be valid, if you didn't try to apply the most literal look at any ability possible. My comparison is to compare a "build up or get to use occasionally" potency skill with a "bread and butter" spell. That is to say, I'm basically stating "It's kinda

And you're wrong for saying that Foul is just an AoE. It's good as an AoE, sure, but it's mainly our form of a finisher (sorta). With that said, I'm just gonna throw this again, because you have this really bad habit of trying to disregard opinions that disagree with you by calling them bad.

I didn't just say Foul was an AOE. I said it can be used as an AOE. It is not a finishing spell. It is used in two situations - 1) at the start or end of Umbral Ice due to its 0 mana cost, 2) In AOE scenarios. Go play Black Mage in Savage and above content and optimize your rotation and you will see that.

And if you wanna know why the ad hominem makes you look bad, well...

And I understand it's a pretty hard thing to not do, I've done it quite a bit myself, and I'm trying to wean myself off of that ugly tactic.

Irony.

The only valid point you have is the different kits. However, direct comparisons between potency are indeed valid. Without gear that provides stats (and using the Chicken Knife and the Weathered Scepter on Black Mage as a control for a perfectly no-stat weapon), same potency spells represent similar numbers (In this case, the 100 potency of Scatter, and the 100 potency of Scathe)


"You driveling idiot," you say, "That's not an actual gauge!" And you'd be right.

Which is why I will showcase that this is also the same for equivalent gear as well. Unfortunately, the weapons are all different stats unlike the armour pieces... so, we're again using the Weathered Scepter and Chicken Knife, using Scathe and Scatter again.

Direct comparisons between potency of classes are not valid at all. Black Mage had one of the highest PPS rotations in 4.0. It was one of the DPS roles with the lowest DPS. Because comparisons between classes based on potency is not valid.

I cut out a conversation and an accidental cast of Fire II and reflect the actual information. But the information is simple. Within roles, stats scale similarly between jobs and the damage calculations between said jobs appear to be identical. So yes, potency comparisons are indeed valid. Fell Cleave may not be a fair comparison, mostly so much as it's an issue of comparing physical vs magical resistance but comparing Verflare and Fire IV is a fair comparison in terms of direct potency.

My statement is that Fire IV is comparable in potency to what would be an oGCD, a build up attack, or a finisher.

No, they do not. Go check out the Theorycrafting spreadsheets on Theoryjerks and stop making stuff up

Fair enough, I guess. Maybe as a raidwide thing it might be fine, but just on its own it seems to be less useful.

The discussion was on raidwide.

[EllieShadeflare]

...You know, thanks for making my point for me, Harold, on why you're so toxic to argue or discuss with.

I conceded your point that all Blizzard IV did was just add another Fire IV (which is why I chose to instead increase the reward of Blizzard IV). The fact that you chose to ignore Hanlon's Razor and decided to go for the malicious answer instead of thinking anything else. I would consider Hanlon's razor for you if my point wasn't already consistent to my first response to you.

My mistake on the number of Fire IVs then. I was going to argue against the number of Fire IVs before testing it myself. However, between the PPC of using Blizzard IV and also having the sixth Fire IV, I'd argue it's much more valuable to have it than not having it, unless you REALLY can't fit in the casts.

That said, if we really wanted to incentivise Blizzard IV, make each Umbral Heart make a Fire spell in Astral Fire free, rather than just negate the cost difference. Not sure why the devs didn't do that in the first place.

You made a point to be intellectually dishonest, and made a point to ignore the first response to you that I had made.

Also, we can't get 7 Fire IVs in a normal rotation. Only 6 and that's only if you get a Fire in there to extend Astral Fire.

I didn't flip flop regarding mobility, I've stayed consistent, but perhaps I didn't convey it well (which to be fair, may be a thing because of my autism) but my point was more of the "cast time". I used mobility as one example of the issue with the longer cast time but the other issue with the cast time is that because it is longer AND doesn't refresh Astral Fire, mistiming the casts (which WILL happen to ANYONE at ANY POINT, don't give your "no good player would ever do this" crap) can lose Foul, Enochian and Fire IV, where as the only loss for losing Astral Fire and Umbral Ice during Enochian in Heavensward was... losing Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. In theory and at maximum optimization (part of which has to do with dealing with Spell Speed which has been objectively proven to have diminishing returns (which has less to do with lower and lower speed gained per SpS intervel and more to do with losing out on other important stats to our toolset, in particular, Crit and Direct Hit), yes, BLM's rotation is EASIER, especially since there's no degenerating duration refreshes. However, in actual practice, it is far less forgiving than the Heavensward incarnation, with the only flaw that was solved was HW's lack of refreshing it easily between phases.

Also, I want to point out something that I had already stated to Kabooa, just because you can do it easily, doesn't mean everyone else can. Just because you can "git gud" at something and ignore the problems with a thing doesn't mean the problems go away. This would be like saying that Sonic 06 is a good game if you ignore the game breaking glitches and bugs, if you wanted an analogy.

However, I think we can safely ignore everything you have to say about potency though, because you don't understand potency, which I will demonstrate with a few points.

1, and this is hilarious because this is "evidence" that you presented to try and prove your faulty points: The Theoryjerks table does not show a change in stat scaling based on class, despite your statements.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=228659379

2,

Direct comparisons between potency of classes are not valid at all. Black Mage had one of the highest PPS rotations in 4.0. It was one of the DPS roles with the lowest DPS. Because comparisons between classes based on potency is not valid.

Is objectively false in every portion of it.

Regarding the high PPS with lowest DPS, this is false based on the data from the top 100 DPSes against Susano before the 4.05 adjustments,

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...0_of_each_job/

AST: 1276-1931 DPS
WHM: 1407-2424 DPS
SCH: 1624-2208 DPS

PLD: 2611-3200 DPS
WAR: 2434-3198 DPS
DRK: 2347-2896 DPS

DRG: 3466-4018 DPS
MNK: 3693-4446 DPS
SAM: 4096-5002 DPS
NIN: 3645-4350 DPS

MCH: 3083-3660 DPS
BRD: 3419-4451 DPS

BLM: 3299-4295 DPS
SMN: 3344-3922 DPS
RDM: 3701-4200 DPS

Black Mage's PPS was decent and its DPS was decent (in fact, being slightly above average at 4260). It wasn't DEDICATED SELFISH DPS levels of acceptability, but it was adequate. It has greater deviancy than the other two Casters, but that's easily written off as a high skill floor (or competency required to play a class at a high level). Dragoon and Machinist, however, both had lower top DPS than Black Mage, and BLM was still number one in the caster role, with its numbers slightly higher than Red Mage.

3. You can objectively prove for yourself that with equivalent gear, equivalent potency does in fact lead to equivalent between classes of the same role. Same role being Bard vs Machinist in Ranged, Monk vs. Samurai in Melee (not sure if Ninja or Dragoon would be identical due to using different sets of armour from Monk and Samura), Warrior vs. Paladin vs. Dark Knight, Astrologian vs White Mage vs Scholar, and lastly Black Mage vs. Summoner vs. Red Mage as casters. Wear your armour/gear, put on your Soul Crystal and use weapons with equivalent stats (I used the Weathered Scepter and the Chicken Knife as my control) to prove this to yourself. There is no difference in stat scaling between the classes. It's all a matter of what benefits their toolset more, with Bard and Monk wanting Crit due to how those affect their mechanics (Repertoire and Chakras, respectively) and nearly everyone wanting Direct Hit and Determination for being a more frequent mini-crit and flat damage respectively. The only variations you'll find between same potency will involve natural randomization and buffs.

This is because Potency is designed to be a flat, comparable number to use for balancing. What kind of a balancing catastrophe would you have if the baseline number varied for EVERY CLASS!?

And 4. No. Seriously. WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT OF GIVING A SPECIFIC NUMBER IN YOUR SKILLS IF IT COULDN'T BE COMPARED TO OTHER SKILLS IN TERMS OF POWER OR BE BALANCED AGAINST OTHER CLASSES? For all of your statements that I'm delusional and don't know what I'm talking about, you seem to be ignoring basic logic.

My point was to throw a number to showcase what kind of actual power the class had to its disposal. But in your dishonest and quite malicious attempt to smear me, you threw out logic just to do so. Heck, it didn't even seem like you read through Kabooa's responses where surprise surprise, because Kabooa actually tried to discuss things on an honest level, it was easier to follow their logic and *gasp!* change my mind on certain issues!

I'd rather not hold a grudge against you, and I have actively tried to avoid insults and snide remarks, but I made sure to call you out on where I thought you had come from malice. I have a feeling you're not coming from a place to change my mind, but rather a place to shut me up, and I find that quite disgusting.