Black magic...kinda sucks

[Malkria]

Wait...

11 hours.

Because I realized what actually was going on beyond the mentality of BLM being a 'turret'. If you had a mechanic where the BLM simply did more damage the longer it stayed in an area vs the current cast times, the effect would still be a turret game style. But the point is to keep up the cycle of switching between fire and ice on a timer, that isn't a turret based job it's a momentum based job. Further highlighted that any interruption is a DPS loss. If the mechanics as a whole rooted the BLM in one spot it would be a true turret DPS playstyle, but the actual mechanic is draining your MP on heavy hitting spells and switching stances to refill for another barrage. Ergo, momentum.

Really kind of goes with the whole "Need to know what's coming and when" for Black Mage. Know when these aoes and stacks are going to happen and plan ahead, including softlocking the party member you want to hop to during the casting animation beforehand.

Except this can be a problem for two reasons. You still need to keep track of said target to know when moving would actually get you out of danger, and it assumes that said person doesn't screw up themselves. Because if they do, then you now have two people who either the healer has to focus on getting back up or getting off the floor. This against the NIN's shadowstep which is essentially 'blink' in every other game for the magic user. Tying it to another party member not only increases it's risk to use, but complicates what would be a simple blink spell in any other game.

It's adorable that you keep threatening that you can get me banned, but don't (you can't).

Actually all I 'threatened' was that I could report you, and make a good case for why when your statements have been that I need to provide personal DPS proof (via parser) to provide an argument. Except the longer you kept accusing me of having no experience with the job, the more I actually gained. You don't need to get to savage level to see the issues with the job since the difference between cutting edge content and older content is essentially how much margin of error you get for screw ups. Ergo demanding parser data, which you yourself said is against the rules to harass other players over, could be argued as something even in the forums that could get you banned. YOU started that fight, and I honestly have nothing to lose. In fact, I personally don't believe the moderators can do anything, but we can always test it. But that to me would be like handing someone a gun you think is empty and insisting they pull the trigger with it pointed at you. You could be right and nothing happen, or you could end up banned. I however assume no risk...so why are you pushing this?

You don't need to parse to know that BLM has the highest dps. I can grab agro from the tank without any hassle while we have a samurai who has ilvl 370 full savage raid gear while i have ilvl 355 eureka gear. (unless i use diversion etc ofc, it is essential not to be a d*ck as a BLM) :3

And don't threaten people. It is a sign of toxicity and people can report toxic people as well. Be good, be good at your job and play the game because it is fun! Don't think too much about who has the highest dps. Just enjoy. And if you don't, please, don't talk about it.

First off I am not 'threatening' anyone, I mearly pointed out the facts. If you feel threatened by someone pointing out that demanding parser data could be seen as the same sort of harrasment that WILL get you banned in game...then simply don't do it. I also said I wasn't going to bother since to me unless you actually got banned in game reporting players on forums when you could just not read their posts is much easier and simple, and being banned from the forum to me comes across as a slap on the wrist.

As for threat, yes this is a decent way to tell DPS in a general sense. But as a WHM I have ripped aggro off tanks quite a bit. How good a tank is at keeping aggro varies a lot between them, and therefore isn't proof positive if you can take a mob's attention off them.

Malkria, lets pretend the last 15 pages hadnt happened for a minute. You were liking the class, but as you got into higher level content some of the mechanics that veteran BLMs have been used to/dealing with for a couple years now started to get in the way of your fun. Because of this, you feel the class is poorly designed for the setting of the combat system in this particular game. You could make similar arguments for a couple more classes(playing ninja with a poor connection is painful, getting top tier results from several of the classes requires really clunky feeling play). But hey, Im sure almost everyone here could name a couple quality of life improvements theyd like to see for the class(pretty much every class has some of these theyd like afterall). So even if we all "agreed" with you, whats your end game? A complete re-design would take months(theyd probly only be willing/able to implement something like that during an expansion patch) and might alienate the people who enjoy the class now - it feels different then a lot of the other classes and some of us like that. And even then, a re-design isnt guaranteed to be any better. So before this conversation turned, what were you hoping to get out of it? Im genuinely curious.

Sidenote: And did you really think the conversation wouldnt turn against you? The first thing you said was "Your class...kinda sucks", and that post had a couple factual errors that people have since corrected you on. Thats kinda a negative place to start from.

No I said "Black magic...kinda sucks". As for endgame, the ball has to start somewhere and I am willing to bet that with the job being 'dumbed down' in Stormblood there was a lot of bemoaning it despite the fact the job became easier to play for more people, correct? Furthermore the more I look across the web the more people have pointed out that BLM in fact really DOES need some serious reworks. For example all the AoE spells that are either redundant and/or under powered by the endgame such as the fire 2 and blizzard 2 and freeze. In fact you could simply make those 'neutral' spells such as giving lightning more of a presence as an AoE element to not only make the BLM feel more diverse as a caster but make AoE more effective. Maybe even add a haste ability proc to the lighting to allow the BLM to cast more frequently.

But even then, it doesn't change the fact that as has been pointed out that ANY misstep on the BLM's part is a massive DPS loss, which in turn highlights the counter argument that has been running in a lot of people's posts. If the BLM is strongest when you know the fight, then it is the counter point to RDM in that it is weakest in progression. Because until you know a fight to plan for it, then a BLM would naturally have greater difficulties keeping it's 'highest DPS' card in play. If the RDM's problem is that it isn't as useful once you learn the fights and it's utility becomes less useful, the opposite argument can be made for BLM.

To me the major issue is that the job is in the end all about momentum and keeping up the stream of DPS, and while I am all for the turret playstyle and even rewarding it the way the job is set up currently has more then a few noticeable flaws. The redundant spells that are next to ignored by end game, the movement that relies on keeping track of a party member and that they don't screw up or move out of range, the fact that the job loses so much DPS at the slightest hiccup, and a timer that keeps you watching it a lot more then the fight. All that combined leaves a lot of room for improvement and while it doesn't inherently need a complete rework as I play with it more, it DOES need a fair bit of retooling.

[Popotato]

No I said "Black magic...kinda sucks". As for endgame, the ball has to start somewhere and I am willing to bet that with the job being 'dumbed down' in Stormblood there was a lot of bemoaning it despite the fact the job became easier to play for more people, correct? Furthermore the more I look across the web the more people have pointed out that BLM in fact really DOES need some serious reworks. For example all the AoE spells that are either redundant and/or under powered by the endgame such as the fire 2 and blizzard 2 and freeze. In fact you could simply make those 'neutral' spells such as giving lightning more of a presence as an AoE element to not only make the BLM feel more diverse as a caster but make AoE more effective. Maybe even add a haste ability proc to the lighting to allow the BLM to cast more frequently.

That is definitely a good guess since a lot of jobs did get backlash, but oddly enough, BLM was actually pretty well received going into SB despite being dumbed down. There were definitely a few naysayers about the job, but BLM got so many great abilities going into Stormblood that people were initially excited. Then it became evident that BLM was really undertuned and that's when the complaints came in, and now it's been buffed to a good spot.

Once again, you just say there's a lot of people without actually showing these people. You don't take our word for things we can't prove, you can't expect us to just take your word for it either. Since your opinion is in the minority, the burden of proof is on you to show us these people. Until you show recent threads of high level BLM players taking issue with the current state of BLM, I can only reserve my judgement.

BLM, just like every other job, definitely has useless spells. Granted, having spells that are rarely, if not never used definitely isn't ideal, but the good thing about those spells is that there's a very clear solution to them. Don't use them. It would definitely be nice to find a way to re-purpose those spells into something more useful and exciting, but if they're not useful, it doesn't impact the job's playstyle at all. So in saying that, re-purposing those spells doesn't fall under a "serious rework" because that would imply a change to BLM's core rotation. If they're not in the rotation outside of low level to begin with, then a core part of BLM isn't being changed at all.

But even then, it doesn't change the fact that as has been pointed out that ANY misstep on the BLM's part is a massive DPS loss, which in turn highlights the counter argument that has been running in a lot of people's posts. If the BLM is strongest when you know the fight, then it is the counter point to RDM in that it is weakest in progression. Because until you know a fight to plan for it, then a BLM would naturally have greater difficulties keeping it's 'highest DPS' card in play. If the RDM's problem is that it isn't as useful once you learn the fights and it's utility becomes less useful, the opposite argument can be made for BLM.

It's been emphasised already by previous comments, such as my own that you chose to ignore, that this isn't true at all.

To me the major issue is that the job is in the end all about momentum and keeping up the stream of DPS, and while I am all for the turret playstyle and even rewarding it the way the job is set up currently has more then a few noticeable flaws. The redundant spells that are next to ignored by end game, the movement that relies on keeping track of a party member and that they don't screw up or move out of range, the fact that the job loses so much DPS at the slightest hiccup, and a timer that keeps you watching it a lot more then the fight. All that combined leaves a lot of room for improvement and while it doesn't inherently need a complete rework as I play with it more, it DOES need a fair bit of retooling.

I've already talked about redundant spells above.

Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines, the movement options you are referring to, are just part of BLM's options for mobility. You aren't taking into consideration Triplecast, Swiftcast, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter procs, even Scathe, all of which are mobility options which allow for completely free movement. Furthermore, AM hypothetically can be really limiting, but that's only hypothetically. In practice, AM is rarely unusable. Of the 7 other party members, you would be really hard pressed to not find at least one person standing at the place you want to be. Also, I can't think of a single fight that forces you to be so spread out from other members that there's no one you can jump to with AM. If there does end up being a fight like that, AM might have limited uses, but even then, you have a plethora of other movement options.

Once again, the job isn't very punishing for mistakes.

I know you're tired of hearing this but in this case it's so evident, constantly looking at the timer is just a product of inexperience. With any job you play, the more experience you have with the job, the less you'll be looking at timers, gauges and hotbars. This is very much true with BLM, because the rotation is so static you can play the job without even looking at the timers.

[Malkria]

BLM, just like every other job, definitely has useless spells. Granted, having spells that are rarely, if not never used definitely isn't ideal, but the good thing about those spells is that there's a very clear solution to them. Don't use them. It would definitely be nice to find a way to re-purpose those spells into something more useful and exciting, but if they're not useful, it doesn't impact the job's playstyle at all. So in saying that, re-purposing those spells doesn't fall under a "serious rework" because that would imply a change to BLM's core rotation. If they're not in the rotation outside of low level to begin with, then a core part of BLM isn't being changed at all.

That is a fallacy, because the abilities that are not being used are not in the 'ideal rotation' does not mean that the BLM doesn't need a rework. with three useless abilities and two that are highly situational that puts it far ahead of other jobs who might have at worst one or two highly situational abilities. Especially when said abilities could be reworked to make the job both more interesting to play, and ease some off the need to 'memorize a fight' by having either more movement spells or utility in the BLM kit.

Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines, the movement options you are referring to, are just part of BLM's options for mobility. You aren't taking into consideration Triplecast, Swiftcast, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter procs, even Scathe, all of which are mobility options which allow for completely free movement.

Except they are NOT free movement. Again, thundercloud is a RNG proc and while you can push firestarter with a sharpcast you either need to have anticipated the need to have it beforehand or use both it and switft/triple cast to push it so you can move. BEFORE you can actually move. Free movement is just that, FREE. You are talking about moving during GCD and/or using instant casts to move, which in turn wouldn't be as much of an issue except that you both have to either rely on random chance and/or a combo of abilities to move without worrying about your DPS coming to a screeching halt.

Of the 7 other party members, you would be really hard pressed to not find at least one person standing at the place you want to be. Also, I can't think of a single fight that forces you to be so spread out from other members that there's no one you can jump to with AM. If there does end up being a fight like that, AM might have limited uses, but even then, you have a plethora of other movement options.

Except again you have to find, select, and THEN use AM. Which again could mean TWO people get damaged in a mechanic if you happen to pick the wrong person vs just yourself if you screw up something like the shadowstep. Again, it's a needlessly made complication to an otherwise simple blink spell.

Once again, the job isn't very punishing for mistakes.

Except you and others keep telling me that the job works best when you know the fight. It's simple logic at that point, because if it works best when you know the fight it works at it's worst when you don't Which means in progressive situations the BLM then becomes more of a hindrance with no utility and no way to support the team outside of DPS; which again will take a hit since you won't know the optimal way to setup and use your abilities. You can't have it both ways if you continue to insist that the BLM is all about knowing the fight.

I know you're tired of hearing this but in this case it's so evident, constantly looking at the timer is just a product of inexperience. With any job you play, the more experience you have with the job, the less you'll be looking at timers, gauges and hotbars. This is very much true with BLM, because the rotation is so static you can play the job without even looking at the timers.

You can claim that, but frankly I don't know any healer who doesn't still have to watch out for the refresh timers on hots or if shields are still up; let alone if the tank needs healing or support vs getting another damage spell in. Furthermore in every guide i've seen so far has cited keeping an eye on the timer. So if you have internalized the timer so much fine but apparently watching the timer is still very much a thing.




As a side note, if you need me to dig up every single recent or relevant post on the BLM to understand that a good number of people find issue with the job in various ways...well I would point out to you that a lot of my 'reference material' in this regard is front page of google searches. Plenty of people other then me have said the same things, and some of what I am saying now is coming from them. Yes the job is playable, yes it it top DPS, but no that doesn't mean that it doesn't need a fair bit of work when it has the most useless abilities and one of the simplistic rotations of any the jobs; when you have a dev saying that all the jobs need to have depth and interesting gameplay.

[GunksFoy]

Snip

I thought chopping up posts was just attention seeking?

Ad hominem aside -


Could those skills use a rework, sure. Most black mages would like to see them made useful, myself included, but they do not NEED reworked. BLM is just fine where it is. And they definitely don't need to be movement based or part of the main rotation, we already have a good rotation and good movement for a job that's meant to stand still.

Once again, part of knowing the fight. However, swiftcast and triplecast are very easy to use. When progging, you need to hold them a bit and use them as necessary, and as you progress further you will know when and how to use them best for DPS and movement. Just like Dragoon with Geirskogul, popping life of the dragon right as an AoE comes out means potentailly losing a Nastrond, or Monk with Tornado Kick, potentially not having GL3 for a DPS check. EVERY job needs to know the fight to do peak DPS, and good black mages make it work.

Macros. I have AM macro'd to allow me to get out of danger in nearly every situation with little to no issue. You can also just use <mo> and select a healer, because a healer will always be in safe spot (typically). And if you're in static, you can choose a specific person, bard perhaps, to teleport to as they are very mobile. Many options, not that hard.

It works BEST when you know the fight, but a good black mage will make do with whatever they need. And she said black mage isn't punishing for mistakes because the rotation is VERY easy to get back to. Unless you fuck up twice and lose Enochian twice within ~17s, you will never really be out of your rotation except maybe losing an almost-finished foul. Dragoon, should you happen to lose BotD at a bad time, could lose potentially 60s of rotation build up. Summoner could lose nearly 2 minutes of work. There are less punishing jobs like Red Mage, but certainly more punishing ones as well. You need to know the JOB to be good, knowing the fight just allows to be great.

And she's mostly right here. You still need to keep an eye on the timer in the event of downtime or an incoming boss jump, but for the most part you will not be looking at the timer. I only ever look at my own gauge when an AoE or something is going out. And most jobs can ignore the gauge for the most part as it's just part of the rotation, unless they're moving or during downtime.

EDIT: you edited another point in right after I posted this. To that point, as we have all said, there are issues. Like the useless spells. But BLM is in a great spot for DPS (thought i could agree to a ~2% further increase to push us out ahead of Summoner and their rDPS) and for it's rotation. The rotation flows almost perfectly. Foul almost always lands during your UI rotation, 6 F4s is easy to attain, plenty of time to do 3x F4 and 1x F1. Black Mage doesn't NEED anything, but it could use a few QoL changes. Like the ones coming next week. The problem everyone has with you, is that you want the entire job scrapped and rebuilt, and nobody else wants that.

[Popotato]

Gonna keep this kinda short heopfully because I'm low on time. EDIT: It wasn't short at all lol

That is a fallacy, because the abilities that are not being used are not in the 'ideal rotation' does not mean that the BLM doesn't need a rework. with three useless abilities and two that are highly situational that puts it far ahead of other jobs who might have at worst one or two highly situational abilities. Especially when said abilities could be reworked to make the job both more interesting to play, and ease some off the need to 'memorize a fight' by having either more movement spells or utility in the BLM kit.

In the same vein, just because it has useless skills doesn't mean it needs a rework either.The second half is purely hypothetical. It could be better, but what more does BLM need right now? It would especially be hard to add those onto low level AoE skills. If you can propose something intuitive and interesting I'd be all for it.

Except they are NOT free movement. Again, thundercloud is a RNG proc and while you can push firestarter with a sharpcast you either need to have anticipated the need to have it beforehand or use both it and switft/triple cast to push it so you can move. BEFORE you can actually move. Free movement is just that, FREE. You are talking about moving during GCD and/or using instant casts to move, which in turn wouldn't be as much of an issue except that you both have to either rely on random chance and/or a combo of abilities to move without worrying about your DPS coming to a screeching halt.

It might be better to refer to Firestarter and Thundercloud collectively as "Sharpcast" then. Every 60s you get a guaranteed proc GCD of free movement, that can be held for 18s.

Except again you have to find, select, and THEN use AM. Which again could mean TWO people get damaged in a mechanic if you happen to pick the wrong person vs just yourself if you screw up something like the shadowstep. Again, it's a needlessly made complication to an otherwise simple blink spell.

Once again, this is pretty hypothetical. Looking at the spell, it COULD happen, but it rarely does. Good usage is effective. Bad usage is costly. This is just like any other blink. The alternative type of blink that still considers BLM's range would be a system like Shukuchi, which is very finicky especially on controller, or like Elusive Jump, which is once again finicky. There's of course dashing to the targeted enemy, but that compromises the range that BLM has, and it doesn't make much sense either considering the jobs with that kind of blink are typically melee DPS trying to keep uptime.

Except you and others keep telling me that the job works best when you know the fight. It's simple logic at that point, because if it works best when you know the fight it works at it's worst when you don't Which means in progressive situations the BLM then becomes more of a hindrance with no utility and no way to support the team outside of DPS; which again will take a hit since you won't know the optimal way to setup and use your abilities. You can't have it both ways if you continue to insist that the BLM is all about knowing the fight.

This is to get the most out of the job. If a BLM drops his timer, he can just recast Enochian and just pick up where he left of having taken a small hit to DPS. The challenge with BLM is not letting this happen to maximise damage.

You can claim that, but frankly I don't know any healer who doesn't still have to watch out for the refresh timers on hots or if shields are still up; let alone if the tank needs healing or support vs getting another damage spell in. Furthermore in every guide i've seen so far has cited keeping an eye on the timer. So if you have internalized the timer so much fine but apparently watching the timer is still very much a thing.

Those are necessary things to keep track of, but no healer has their eyes glued to a tank's health bar looking at their Regen slowly tick down. It's just a glance to check the duration. Same thing with BLM and any job really (besides WHM). The better you get at a job, the less you need to look at the timer. It's not like BLM requires an absurd amount of time looking at the gauge in relation to other jobs. I won't deny that the gauge itself is more integral to BLM than some other jobs like PLD and WHM though.

As a side note, if you need me to dig up every single recent or relevant post on the BLM to understand that a good number of people find issue with the job in various ways...well I would point out to you that a lot of my 'reference material' in this regard is front page of google searches. Plenty of people other then me have said the same things, and some of what I am saying now is coming from them. Yes the job is playable, yes it it top DPS, but no that doesn't mean that it doesn't need a fair bit of work when it has the most useless abilities and one of the simplistic rotations of any the jobs; when you have a dev saying that all the jobs need to have depth and interesting gameplay.

I'm just saying that those people should be decently experienced BLM player, that made threads recently. Not popularity polls conducted during ARR.

[Malkria]

Gonna keep this kinda short heopfully because I'm low on time. EDIT: It wasn't short at all lol

In the same vein, just because it has useless skills doesn't mean it needs a rework either.The second half is purely hypothetical. It could be better, but what more does BLM need right now? It would especially be hard to add those onto low level AoE skills. If you can propose something intuitive and interesting I'd be all for it.

Well for one lightining is supposed to be a major aspect of the thurmaturge and thus BLM, so simply removing all the redundant fire and ice aoe and simply have an aoe lighing spell that gets stronger as you level could be good. Furthermore you could have a mechanic that could work with ice spells to make ice spells aoe. Or in short you could have it where you use the lightning spell to 'mark' targets while doing damage and then use ice spells to 'flechette' the damage much like a standard aoe, which then leaves fire for single target damage as it primarily is now. This way you have diversity of play without to major a rework, and much better aoe capability on the BLM then it currently has.

Furthermore you could also have an ability that can be used off GCD to 'bank' damage in a similar fashion to teh MCH's wyldfire. But in this case simply lets you keep casting and do no damage, with no bonus damage. Basically simply lets you keep up dps during boss invulnerability phases, keep up the timer a little easier, and also would have the utility to be able to with coordination get a big kick off on damage once you can do it again. It also could be used for a big opener perhaps on bosses.

It might be better to refer to Firestarter and Thundercloud collectively as "Sharpcast" then. Every 60s you get a guaranteed proc GCD of free movement, that can be held for 18s.

Which highlights the issue right there. 40 seconds where at worst case you DON'T have that movement option, which from the guides I have read you basically want to use sharp cast as often as possible so therefore will be quite frequent you will not have that guarantee of movement. So while it is an option, it is by no means reliable and thus can't really be counted as 'free movement'.

Once again, this is pretty hypothetical. Looking at the spell, it COULD happen, but it rarely does.

If it 'rarely does' it isn't hypothetical. If everything goes smoothly then yes it works fine. But the point is that if it doesn't then it isn't just one person who is going to pay the price. It really isn't a good feeling to get killed by a movement ability because someone else messed up.

This is to get the most out of the job. If a BLM drops his timer, he can just recast Enochian and just pick up where he left of having taken a small hit to DPS. The challenge with BLM is not letting this happen to maximize damage.

Not always, and depending on how events go you could very well find yourself where both instant cast abilities are down, and where lag kept transpose from going off. Depending on where enochian is on CD you could have quite a bit of time where the BLM can't put out nearly the kind of DPS it should be.

I won't deny that the gauge itself is more integral to BLM than some other jobs like PLD and WHM though.

The closest I would put it to would be the MCH, but even then you have a fair amount of leeway and it doesn't just 'drop off' as the heat comes off. Again I personally feel it should be when the timer falls off you should start loosing orbs, but one every three seconds at that point rather then all at once. It would give some leeway without being a brick wall.

I'm just saying that those people should be decently experienced BLM player, that made threads recently. Not popularity polls conducted during ARR.

That was the only poll I could find, but you can find quite a few threads just going back a few pages on this forum alone. What they feel the issue varies, but a lot of it either comes down to how the BLM plays, the mobility, or how simplistic the playstyle is. Which the more I think on it I feel I agree that the BLM should be a little deeper. Hence the thought of making ice and lightning be the AoE side of things and ice and fire for single target as it is now. I feel it would add much needed depth while also feeling pretty natural as the BLM does feel up to when you are trying to beat a timer while casting spells that don't reset it.

If your point is that the BLM is currently functional, I will agree. It 100% is functional. But that being said doesn't mean there isn't significant room for improvement to how the job plays. I also strongly feel that the job is more about momentum then about being a turret, and just because the cast times don't encourage movement hat doesn't mean that the job shouldn't have better mobility to call upon in some fashion. Finally the biggest issue I feel is how badly you hit a brick wall should the timer run out, and yes an 'experienced player won' have that happen often' but that doesn't mean it won't happen nor does it not feel overly punishing if it does. You and others can claim all you want that 'experienced players won't have these issues', but that negates the fact that they will be a turnoff for newer players as well as glossing over the fact that mistakes happen. If that wasn't the case, then we wouldn't have in-combat raising for example.

[zuzu-bq]

To me the major issue is that the job is in the end all about momentum and keeping up the stream of DPS, and while I am all for the turret playstyle and even rewarding it the way the job is set up currently has more then a few noticeable flaws. The redundant spells that are next to ignored by end game, the movement that relies on keeping track of a party member and that they don't screw up or move out of range, the fact that the job loses so much DPS at the slightest hiccup, and a timer that keeps you watching it a lot more then the fight. All that combined leaves a lot of room for improvement and while it doesn't inherently need a complete rework as I play with it more, it DOES need a fair bit of retooling.

So, to you the issue is that you don't like how it plays? Gotcha.