Black magic...kinda sucks

[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.