Jobs: unconnected and now feeling flat

[Sigma-Astra]

Here is the thing, remember how I was talking about players that would take traits that would more suit their play style? This is case in point. Yes you might not have an issue with the mobility of the BLM, but I certainly am. I just did the ghost barque dungeon and even with having all my shire gear with as much spell speed I could squeeze in at around 900+ I still had trouble getting between mechanics to get off spells. Supposedly at 2222 spell speed the casts are so much faster, but that requries you have crafting at a level that can socket new slots, and I haven't gotten that far yet.

I wasn't perfect at the Sirensong Dungeon upon first release either, it's okay, no one is. It just takes practice, but you also have to be willing to put in the work as well and not rely on shortcuts or "training wheels" as you called them, to get there. Black Mage is all about timing and placement of oneself, that's the end result of it. You need to be able to know how mechanics work and to be able to react quickly to minimize the DPS loss of moving. But again, that's with any particular job. Maining or learning an alt job requires you to know your job intuitively because aside from having fun with it as should always be the case when you play a job, you shouldn't be just putting in the bare minimum effort and expecting other people to carry your weight along in a dungeon. I was just in my Augmented Shire gear as well with an anima relic around the launch of SB, however, you don't necessarily need your crafting at a level that can overmeld. I don't overmeld, too expensive for my tastes, but I did at least meld V's (spellspeed & crit) to my gear back in Heavensward using the standard materia melders and paying the flat fees. You don't need your own crafters to meld your gear anymore. If you're having trouble getting spells off between mechanics, that just means that you need more practice on a training dummy, not a special trait that extends the timers for you. There's nothing wrong with practicing your job more so that you can better understand it.

But your whole comment is case in point for what I was saying with the hypothetical situations above. Players are more likely to take the things that benefit THEIR play style over the meta. You obviously know the ins and outs of the black mage, and know the fights I assume to do what you are talking about; but I simply don't and am not worried about being top damage more then I am simply mastering the single and aoe target rotations as well as the play style of the black mage in general. So for me, increasing mobility and the timers would be more important then say having something that augmented the damage or way the black mage does damage, such as a trait that makes spells free for a certain time. For you, who has apparent higher mastery of the job, you probably would gain more by taking a different trait. THIS is the type of thing I have been trying to say, and your post is case in point of it.

If you're playing Black Mage, you should be worried about doing enough damage as that's the whole point of the DPS class: to do large bursts of single target damage with secondary bursts in AoE damage. That's not a meta, that's just how the class is and what it's for. I'm by no means, a master of the class since I still make dumb mistakes, we all do, and it's not the end of the world if we do. If you're really concerned about mastering the single and aoe rotations, then you need to practice and maybe look at a few guides or ask tips from other players. An extended timer or trait that allows free spells isn't going to help you get better naturally because you'll start to rely on them like a crutch. And they've already extended the timer since SB, it used to be a looooooot shorter in HW. The only reason that I know as much as I do is because I sincerely love the class, I've been maining it for 5 years and I've practiced, learned parts of fights that allow me to skirt by for that extra damage, etc....all of that little stuff. If you're having problems with the job and it's rotations, maybe I can help you out?

If people rely too much on specialized traits to help them get better at a job, then they'll keep going for the path of least resistance all of the time when something gets too hard. I think bard and dragoon are balls harder compared to BLM. BRD for the large amounts of abilities and procs that need to be watched out for and DRG for the positionals and different rotation combos (which can also get screwed up by moving), but, I just keep trying to practice on training dummies. I honestly don't think that we have the type of game that...necessarily needs these types of things, mostly because at the end of the day people have the tendency and will figure out which traits would be better for endgame.

We have a nightmare with balancing jobs already, not sure if we need the nightmare of balancing specialized stats or builds too.