Dispensers of fiery explosions, light me up... with your ideas for BLM in 5.0

[Lauront]

As per the title, since 5.0 is around the corner, post your ideas and wishes for BLM. They can be as detailed or succinct as you like, and as cautious or bold as you like, as I'm mostly posting this since it's fun to see people's ideas and wishes for the job.

[Lauront]

Decided to revise mine to a more abstract wishlist, in regards to areas I'd like to see the devs introduce some changes.

• Ability/spell/trait consolidation as far as possible
• New spells to include classics like Comet, Dark, Burst and some FFXIV additions, like Entropic Flame, or perhaps Demi-Ultima. I would most enjoy the integration of more Darkness oriented spells and perhaps a Void magic phase to accompany the UI/AF one, when charged up enough, enabling some of the most potent spells in the job's arsenal.
• Some embellishment to the rotation - it's in a good place now, but I think 5.0 is a good opportunity to add a bit more, especially since the devs are taking a step back to review the battle system
• Re-purposing of Scathe to extend AF/UI
• Re-purposing of Freeze, and Blizzard/Fire II to be more useful or cut for better spells, and a buff to Convert to make it more impactful (as an aside, I'd love to see it become Osmose)
• A tether-style buff which the BLM can deploy in Umbral to accelerate a targeted ally's MP regen and gain a SPS buff in return
• A power-up form, maybe with the red eye visual effect
• Reduction to Manaward's recast timer to 60s and a damage reflection element for Manaward
• Aetherial Manipulation to become a blink (dash forward) type teleport
• PVP rework - the job was built around spammable Sleep for kiting, which is now gone, so it needs a rethink. Within the confines of the current PVP paradigm, I'd see the following as good: an HP boost to 13k for casters as a whole; including a 2 sec Heavy effect for TC procs (changes to a 2 sec Bind if used within 10 secs of using Convert); changing Aetherial Manipulation as noted before; and maybe allowing Convert to turn Swiftcast into Triplecast, possibly with a damage penalty if needed. Having Convert proc TC if used below a certain HP threshold would be good too. A way to keep AF/UI up if you run dry of targets, as occurs in Frontlines, can be added to all that.

I think the approach suggested here would be a pretty good way forward with the base rotation.

An example of a new ability set below (second take on it - subsequent posts in the thread related to an earlier version):

Revised list, based on feedback in the thread, and particularly Kalise, Llugen and Grimoire-M. Numbers are mostly indicative more than anything.

• Level 60 Trait: Volatile Aether: After using Sharpcast or Comet, you gain the Volatile Aether effect on self for 30 seconds. In addition, for each Umbral Heart held, Fire II gains a 10% bonus to crit chance and crit damage and 1% chance to make the next Flare instant and cost zero MP; for each Astral Heart held, Blizzard II gets a 10% reduction to cast time, a 10% increase to Potency and 3% chance to make the next Freeze instant, cost 0 MP and double its potency.
Granted by Sharpcast so as to make it available at 60 – the lowered CD on Osmose should allow for its usage in between bosses. Its more natural pairing will later become Comet. The percentages are low given that they the spells will hit multiple targets. Once Comet is available, Sharpcast can be used to extend it and be coupled with any Firestarter procs.

• Level 71 Trait: Static Aether: Causes Fire IV to generate an Astral Heart. Flare will generate an Astral Heart provided it does not consume an Umbral Heart. Up to 3 Astral Hearts can be held at any one time. Astral Heart causes your next Thunder spell to be cast as though it was a Fire spell under the effect of Astral Fire III.

• Level 73 Spell: Comet: Deals fire or ice damage depending on whether Astral Fire or Umbral Ice worth 120 potency per stack and granting an Astral Heart or Umbral Heart for each stack. Leaves a surface applying a Burn effect called Frostburn with a 25 Potency per tick for 15 seconds. This will react violently with Flare or Freeze, and explode for its full remaining potency if either is used whilst it is up, removing the effect.
o Additional Effect: Increases target's magic damage taken by 15% for 20 seconds.
o MP Cost: 10% of maximum MP
o Cast Time: 2.8 seconds
o Recast Time: 60 seconds
o Range: 25y
o Radius: 5y

The animation would be similar to the Firesphere and Blizzardsphere used by the Ascian Prime, only it would instead be Comet crashing down, and then affecting the surface with the same swirl of ice and fire. It would be the major trigger for Volatile Aether during AOE and serve as one of the early opener spells in the single target rotation.

• Level 75 Spell: Burst: Deals lightning damage to a target with a potency of 250 on the main target.
o Can only be used under the effect of Enochian.
o Additional Effect: Potency increases to 300 on the main target if Thunder III or IV is present on them. Spreads as a shockwave to targets within 8y of the main target afflicted by Thunder IV and deals damage with a potency of 80 to these.
o Additional Effect: 20% chance to grant Thundercloud.
o MP Cost: 40% of maximum MP
o Cast Time: 2.8 seconds
o Range: 25y
o Radius: 5y

The animation would be a lightning bolt striking the ground and then releasing a pulsing shockwave.


• Level 77 Trait: Mana Fiend: Mana Shift becomes Chain Osmose.
o Chain Osmose. Channels 10% of your mana to target party member over 10 seconds. If used in conjunction with Mana Surge, this increases to 25%, but the cost to you remains unchanged. Grants a 15% reduction in spell cast and recast time to you and a 5% bonus to damage and healing on your target.
o MP Cost: 0
o Cast Time: Instant
o Recast Time: 80 seconds
o Range: 25y
o Radius: 5y

I expect role actions will be baked into each job in some way or other. Optimal usage would be to utilise it during Umbral Ice, just before starting to spam Burst, and after Osmose, to reduce the effects of the mana drain and offer more mana. This grants BLM some minor utility. Syphon also works as a name for this.


• Level 80 Ability: Paragon’s Might:
o Can only be used under the effect of Enochian.
o Resets the recast timer of Comet.
o Additional Effect: For the duration, Polyglot changes to Xenoglot, which change Foul to Demi Ultima. Any Xenoglot shards generated during Paragon’s Might remain after it finishes and are consumed upon use.
o Additional Effect: Foul becomes Demi Ultima. The spell inherits all of Foul’s traits, but becomes single target, and deals 750 potency worth of unaspected damage. The spell reacts to Volatile Aether, dealing an additional 100 potency.
o Additional Effect: The duration of Ley Lines is extended by 10 seconds and the duration of Chain Osmose (excluding the mana drain) by 5 seconds.
o Duration: 40 seconds
o Cast Time: Instant
o Recast Time: 180 seconds


I've left the title somewhat abstract, but if 5.0 does see an alignment with Zodiark in some fashion, I'd love for the BLM to research into the Ascian Prime form and come up weith an imitation that augments the amount of aether they can sustainably draw on. My preferred animation for this would be the dark aura the Ascians get and Zodiark's symbol over the face. Another interpretation could be something like Vivi's face but that could come as a glamour anyway, as it would require a hat to effectively pull off. think there’s enough new spells elsewhere to keep this one limited in use but very powerful.


Existing ability changes:


• Shock (Replaces Scathe): Deals Lightning damage with a potency of 100.
o Additional Effect: Increases the duration of Astral Fire or Umbral Ice by 6 seconds, to a maximum of 13s.
Additional Effect: Consumes Thunder on each target, increasing the Lightning damage potency to 150 plus the remaining damage over time amount on that target. Potency rises to 175 if the target is below 10% of HP.
o MP Cost: 0
o Cast Time: Instant
o Recast Time: 2.5 seconds
o Range: 25y
o Radius: 5y
• Mana Shell (New level 50 trait): Manaward becomes Mana Shell. Absorbs 40% HP in damage and reflects up to the damage absorbed up to its cap back at the target. Recast time reduction to 60 seconds.
• Osmose (Replaces Convert): Recast time revised to 90 seconds and returns 40% mana. Osmose also grants the status Mana Surge, increasing the effectiveness of mana regeneration of your next Umbral Ice phase by 5%, after which the effect is consumed.
• Sharpcast: Synergy with Scathe removed due to changes to the spell. Now also allows Firestarter to apply to Flare and enables Freeze to gain 3 Umbral Hearts.
• Enochian: Changed to a trait, activated once under Astral Fire or Umbral Ice at 3 stacks and falls off if Astral Fire or Umbral Ice fall off entirely.
• Enhanced Enochian: Gains the following additional effects: Fire I and Blizzard I become instant. Fire I no longer consumes Umbral Hearts.
• Fire IV and Blizzard IV: Rolled into a single spell, both gained at 58.
• Between the Lines: Ley Lines now becomes Between the Lines once it has been cast.
• Enhanced Umbral Hearts: Changed to also apply to Freeze.
• Freeze: Becomes instant and costs zero MP when your MP falls to zero, whilst potency rises to 150. It changes from a ground place target to functioning like its PVP iteration, i.e. focused on the target.

Visually, I would like to see this represented with a spell effect like this.

• Flare/Foul/Freeze: adds dying doesn’t cancel the cast.
• Aetheric Manipulation: Changed so that you dash forward by the same distance.
• Thunder Mastery II: Changed so that Thunder III and IV become instant when shifting to Umbral Ice and at or below 15% MP. Also adds the change that spells used under Thundercloud do not consume (but benefit from) Astral Hearts. Thunder III: Duration changed to 30 seconds.
• Blizzard II: Becomes castable at range like Fire II, with the same range and radius.

These have largely been consolidated and could be implemented through separate traits, though I’ve lumped them together to keep it easier to see the full array of changes to each. I’d like to fit Entropic Flame in there somewhere, but maybe it’s best reserved for 6.0, maybe as a successor to Flare, or perhaps for a job more focused on Void magic, if BLM doesn't go that route. There is probably room to consolidate B2 and F2 as well.


Indicative revised opener:

B3>Comet>T3>F3>LL>Paragon's Might>F4x4>F3>F4x1>Osmose>F4x2>ShC>F1>Comet>Flare>B3>T3>Demi-Ultima>B4>Chain Osmose>Burstx3>B3>Demi-Ultima>F3


Regular rotation: F4x3>F1>B3>T3>B4>Burstx3>B4>Foul>F3>Comet>F4x2>F1>F4x3

Any suggestions for improvement/refinement would be appreciated.

[Kalise]

Some more reason to be in Astral Ice would be neat. Like maybe a Flare type spell that would use up a bunch of mana even in Ice to deal a butt load of damage (Comparable to Fire skills) that requires a resource (Like Umbral Hearts) generated during Astral Fire phases.

Scathe to become not just a meme and be something actually useful. Like maybe a spell to use on the move and maintain Astral stacks (I.e. Make its damage not suck and let it refresh Astral timers)

I'd kind of like to be able to move Ley Lines to my location too. Like, maybe let Aetherial Manipulation cast without a target (Or targeting self) teleport you to your Ley Lines and make Between the Lines move your Ley Lines to your location. Mostly because I'm bad and I keep putting down my Ley Lines and then being targeted by a persistent AoE that means I can no longer stand where my Ley Lines are... ;_;

[Lauront]

I'll post what I liked a bit later, when I get home, as it covers the ice thing a bit in fact. Anyway, I'm thinking along the same lines on those points.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd like to see Enochian revamped. I'd like to not see it a 30-second ability to be dropped during long raid stuns or the like, and would like to see it have 3 forms, for Lightning, Fire, or Ice. That, or make Enochian (literally, Heavensspeak) a trait accessed only through really milking Thunderspeaker, Icespeaker (Icebringer?), Firespeaker (Firebreather?).

Shrink the UI ticks but proportionately increase their frequency. Make the first tick, enough to afford all but T3, always instant.

Revamp the AF/UI slightly for a more intuitive and straightforward system. Boost most Ice spell potencies to that of their Fire analog.

Add a Shatter mechanic to ice. We're talking some seriously juicy crit preparation during inherent CC.
Add a Polarity mechanic to lightning. Yet more potential CC plus huge potential mobility.

Consolidate what can be consolidated without control loss (B4<>F4, LL<>BtL).
Either make real use of Scathe or just remove it.

[Ramesses]

Water spell... particularly the Water IV spell that Famfrit uses in the Return to Ivalice raids.

It was quite a powerful spell for BLMs in FFXI but in FFXIV 1.0, I believe water based spells (particularly the Fluid aura spell) became a WHM thing.

When I get back to my main computer, I'll list out a few more elements of BLM-ing I'd like to see in 5.0

[Lauront]

Added mine.

As for Water, yeah I think they'll stick to WHM for that, as well as RDM.

[Shurrikhan]

Aetherial Manipulation converts to Aetherial Shift. The spell is no longer a tether and is instead placed on the ground, like Shukuchi, with a range of 30y.

Unpopular opinion no doubt, but I would hate this.

So much of the fun of playing with or as a BLM among friends or even just decently competent people is the feeling of interplay by which they are your damage, and you are their support, or vice versa. Yeah, you're going to stretch to where they need to AM between melee GCDs, or have the ranged float to wherever they're gonna need to go.

Making a job so costlessly independent when they're already so iconically and practically strong guts more than its worth. I like that dependency as a BLM. I like playing around it when with a BLM. It's fun to manage. And the game needs more of that 'burden of knowledge' gameplay, not less.

Convert becomes Osmosis. Extends the number of Polyglot shards to two. Grants 3 stacks of Umbral Hearts.

Why? Convert adds more to gameplay than a second Foul would. We can already double-cast it by timing it correctly, which actually feels like we've accomplished something. Allowing us to bank a second stack freely, so that optimization is potentially twice as difficult and always only half as frequent, only detracts from that. Simply tossing more power on to things does not make them fun. Honestly, there'd be more good to be had by just shortening the Convert CD than from this.

[Lauront]

It's meant to interact with the final ability and the level 79. Anyway made an alteration to it which better reflects that.

As for AM, I'm aware some people like it, which is fair enough. I'm not one of those. There's generally good reason with BLM to be aware of surroundings/be proximate to the healer etc. even without such an artificial dependence, not to mention mechanics like Mana Shift. Not saying I don't like such other player oriented mechanisms but I'd prefer a proper teleport all the same.

[Kabooa]

I honestly don't like the direction of any of this. Too much is being crammed into Shock Strike and Osmosis.

Demi Ultima is ignored outside Paragon where it would be spammed as much as possible, but requires all our instant casts to do so.

Freeze has its own problems. You bring freeze back only to invalidate Thunder 4, and shove Fire 2 even further into the recesses of pointless.

Ground targets in this game are horrible, especially on Black Mage. Aetherial Manipulation is far superior for the game's design scheme than Shukuchi.