Quote Originally Posted by Lumadurin View Post
...and replacing it!
You know how Fire I has a fixed chance to proc Firestarter (free Fire III swiftcast)? And how Thundercloud (free swiftcast of Thunder that is also front-loaded with the total DoT potency) has a fixed chance to proc on each DoT tick?
What if instead, Fire I (and maybe Flare so that the AoE rotation follows the same rules) always generated a resource that could be spent on either a instant cast of (front-loaded)Thunder OR Fire III?
And say you could store up to maybe... two or three of these resources?

This would make BLM's movement/damaging capabilities more predictable and feed into the idea that the class becomes exponentially stronger once you learn the fight, while also granting it more flexibility in fights the user is less familiar with. You could either spend the resource on Thunder procs (at the appropriate point in your rotation) to boost your DPS, or you could spend the resource on Fire III casts if you get targeted by a mechanic mid-Astral Fire.
In a sense it'd be like lowering the skill floor but also raising the skill ceiling, since your snap-mobility is less dependent on getting good RNG.

This would also mean you no longer "waste" procs if you're unable to use them (multiple Thundercloud procs in rapid succession) or don't need them (Firestarter procs when you don't need the movement).
Although perhaps Fire III would then need to be unable to consume this resource in Umbral Ice so you can actually stockpile this resource.
I like this idea. Though...it does need to be hammered out in places. If you remove Sharpcast, you're essentially going to have to reconsider how procs work. We already have a gauge that tells us our Umbral Ice for Fire IVs, so perhaps we could have Astral Fire for free Firestarter Procs? You'd still be using them of course, and I think that this should be a trait for Shadowbringers.

It brings in a type of heavy resource management that BLM already has, but it still maintains simplicity since you could only store three. This way, if you're stuck in a mechanic, you're not having to blow Triple Cast or Swiftcast at the wrong time just because you need to move(or lose DPS). It also doesn't necessarily lower the Skill Floor, it lowers the Skill Ceiling. Being able to stack up three and then use one to reset Astral Fire would mean we'd be replacing Fire I with Fire IIIs more; now, my only issue that comes with this thought is BLM's balance in DPS. With more Fire IIIs, that's typically a big potency boost that would put it at the absolute top, probably even causing aggro issues compared to current rotations. There'd have to be a change somewhere to compensate...