[BLM Suggestion] Raise spell using Foul stack.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't see Summoner losing their potencies for having raise.

And my point wasn't about raise. It was about solving the inherent issue of Black Mage being GCD locked.

Also you're over exaggerating.

Why is Black Mage being GCD locked an issue in the first place? Unless someone wildly misuses their resource recovery skills -- after or near a death, at that -- every job in this game is GCD locked.

To put it another way, though, I really don't want what amounts to proper pet casting (your suggested unique simultaneous casting) as BLM's gimmick. It doesn't seem in any way more fun, specifically avoids the decision-making faced even by oGCDs, and if anyone deserves that, it ought to be the jobs specifically made clunky from the lack of it... i.e. the pet classes.

[EllieShadeflare]

Why is Black Mage being GCD locked an issue in the first place? Unless someone wildly misuses their resource recovery skills -- after or near a death, at that -- every job in this game is GCD locked.

Objectively wrong that other classes have the same lock.

Look at any other DPS in Stormblood right now. Red Mage, Monk, Machinist, Samurai, and ESPECIALLY Bard, Summoner, Ninja and Dragoon. Each of the classes I have listed have a reliance on oGCD damage as part of their rotations, though Bard (through Repertoire), Dragoon (for their Life of the Dragon), Summoner (for their Aethertrail), and Ninja (do I really need to explain Ninja?) DEPEND on their oGCDs.

That said, I don't actually have a problem with being stuck on the GCD. Quite contrary, I'd rather Black Mage keeps that identity, but continue to expand on it.

That said, regarding Kabooa's points toward me.

A.) Citing old numbers is nothing but valid. This was a place Black Mage was before it was firmly decided to be pure DPS in HW, considering we had a handful of garbage support spells (Freeze, Sleep, Ennervate) and a decent defensive raid support (Apocatastasis). These skills remained in HW, but were massively de-emphasized by our new mechanics and rotation. Not to mention, YoshiP has specifially cited Raise as the reason would be lower damage than any other Caster. Summoner has a massive skill ceiling, but its skill floor is so high that to the average player, its DPS is damn low.

also on a possibly related note, did you not notice a massive series of nerfs to Summoner? Their dot game is technically unchanged, but Ruin III was nerfed all the way down to 130 after in HW being 200. This coincided with Aetherpact and the decision to make the final numbers for Red Mage so low.

B.) Black Mage's options need to consider its GCD lock, and be built to compliment that, not circumvent it.

[Kabooa]

Why is Black Mage being GCD locked an issue in the first place? Unless someone wildly misuses their resource recovery skills -- after or near a death, at that -- every job in this game is GCD locked.

I should have clarified: The inherent problem of animation lock delaying Cast Time GCDs.

Paladins get around this by having 1.5 casts on 2.5 GCDs
Every weaponskill class gets around this by weaponskills being instant
Red mage gets around this by dualcast
Summoner has Ruin2/Ruin 4
Every healer has an instant cast appropriate heal/damage spell

Black Mage relies on -procs- or phase transitions. Neither of which can be done on demand without in some way hurting you, either through a badly timed Sharpcast/Swift, or cutting a phase early.

[Kurando]

BLM does have an insta-cast in the form of Scathe, which is essentially their Ruin II. Not to mention having access to Swift and Triple cast, potentially giving BLM four insta-cast spells in a row. With that and the other possible processes, BLM does actually have quite a few opportunities to get around animation lock, but it could do with a slight tweak.

[Kabooa]

That said, regarding Kabooa's points toward me.
[/S]

B.) Black Mage's options need to consider its GCD lock, and be built to compliment that, not circumvent it.

Which were not related to Raise. They were related to the massive Potency dump that is Bahamut, while maintaining the other massive steroid that is Dreadwyrm Trance. Ruin 3 might have dumped from 200, but it also wasn't used on every cast. It was utilized to dump MP outside Dreadwyrm and used within it.

The data we have shows Summoner doing better the lower percentile we go, so clearly it's not a cut-and-dried "Bad Blackmages are better than Bad summoners". Skill floor tanks pretty evenly on both.

If there's a choice between doing anything for the party and casting Fire 4, I'm going to cast Fire 4. Having our options based on GCD just means they will not get used outside very specific instances in UI.

[Kabooa]

BLM does have an insta-cast in the form of Scathe, which is essentially their Ruin II. Not to mention having access to Swift and Triple cast, potentially giving BLM four insta-cast spells in a row. With that and the other possible processes, BLM does actually have quite a few opportunities to get around animation lock, but it could do with a slight tweak.

Scathe is worthless.

Swift, Triple, and Sharpcast are our uptime skills. Using them to throw up an addle is frankly worse than just taking the .5 lock to apply it.

[EllieShadeflare]

Which were not related to Raise. They were related to the massive Potency dump that is Bahamut, while maintaining the other massive steroid that is Dreadwyrm Trance. Ruin 3 might have dumped from 200, but it also wasn't used on every cast. It was utilized to dump MP outside Dreadwyrm and used within it.

I used Ruin III as a specific example (and Ruin III had been reduced to 150 from 200 back in 4.0 until it was reworked into its 130 potency form), but Summoners already had Dreadwyrm Trance prior to SB. Bahamut is MAYBE the source, but Summoner also got more directly support related effects on their pets and Devotion. And again, YoshiP did state that the reason Red Mage was so low in its damage was due to its damage.

The data we have shows Summoner doing better the lower percentile we go, so clearly it's not a cut-and-dried "Bad Blackmages are better than Bad summoners". Skill floor tanks pretty evenly on both.

Depends on the variety of "bad" we're talking. If the Black Mage doesn't know how to dodge, then certainly they're going to do bad. If the Summoner doesn't know how to properly weave their spells, then they're going to do bad. They're different varieties of difficulties, but Black Mage's is more of a "breaking tunnel vision" than a hard rotation whereas Summoner just has a higher skill floor rotation but can easily keep their awareness.

If there's a choice between doing anything for the party and casting Fire 4, I'm going to cast Fire 4. Having our options based on GCD just means they will not get used outside very specific instances in UI.

Right, which is why we would link support effects to our spells which we're already casting than to add new oGCDs or GCDs to do that with.

[Kabooa]

Right, which is why we would link support effects to our spells which we're already casting than to add new oGCDs or GCDs to do that with.

Wouldn't that be grand.

"Party buster incoming"

"I'm in Fire phase, that's a damn shame."

[EllieShadeflare]

Wouldn't that be grand.

"Party buster incoming"

"I'm in Fire phase, that's a damn shame."

"...wait, why am I the one who's responsible? Don't we have a Paladin, a Warrior, a Scholar and a White Mage?"

Either way, support effects are still pretty unlikely in my opinion, no matter how they do it. Let the Black Mage explode things, tbh.

[Kurando]

snip

Perhaps they are worthless, but to declare otherwise that BLM has no real insta-casts is a lie which was my point. Scathe is no different to Ruin II, the only difference being the latter has the change to process, in which case Scathe could do with something similar to make it more use worthy.

It's easy to say something is part of uptime skills, but unless the BLM is very lucky and doesn't get targeted by anything and it's quite likely their rotation could go out of the window. You may have little point at that stage to Swift or Triplecast your spells (use Scathe and other processes) to keep up the attacks whilst dodging to the mechs.