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

[Lauront]

Still, if you're reworking it, why keep it? And like you say, there's other ways of achieving the same effect. Incidentally, in PVP where it is used for its CC, it is targeted anyway.

[Shurrikhan]

It's a matter of personal preference, I guess. A dash forward (like WoW's Blink) would interest me even more than a Shukuchi style reform. At the same time, it's not a huge deal.

I could go for that if it also came with a time-reverse as per Arcane specialization's Displacement skill, but I feel like either of those would better belong to some manner of actual time mage, especially seeing as we already have Ley Lines.

If anything, I'd rather just see Ley Lines widened a little and turn the Attack Speed buff into an in-all-senses Speed buff, so that it gives further stutter-casting capability within its area.

Further, a gamewide-change could allow all movement skills a bit of extension/contraction using the movement controls during its animation. (This would allow dashes to point or target to go a little further or go behind the chosen ally or enemy, etc., offering far more ease via control, especially useful between BtL and AM both.)

[Lauront]

I mean it's already in BLM's territory given how BtL works and I am doubtful that they'll ever add time mage, as AST has absorbed some of its elements. I think that would be a cool mechanic. I don't think it's treading too much into time mage territory anyway, as it could be tied to aetheric currents/signatures instead.

WoW had some kind of mechanic for mage that reset your position and buffs to what it was at the end of the buff, and there I think you have something more clearly in the time mage territory.

I had thought a SKS/SPS buff for LL would work nicely but they can create problems for some jobs, which aim at specific SKS levels.

As for a dash mechanic, I am guessing you mean something like BDO's movement system.

[Makrar]

I mostly like the current iteration. the changes i would like to see are something along the following

Spell Speed reduces Polygot timer

Fire 2 Removed (rest get renamed down 1 level)

Lay Lines and Into the Laylines merged into one button

Layline effect moderately increased

Enochian is now a trait that activates upon gaining Astral Fire/Umbral Ice

Convert mana increase effect increased massively

Scathe redesigned, now an AOE spell like the current Fire II but tuned to not suck (Big buff)

Umbral Hearts now longer reduce mana cost but increase fire spell damage by X% (no longer works on Flare)

Flare Potency drop off removed or massively reduced

Single Cast added at a low level

Double cast trait added at mid level (upgrades single cast)

Triple Cast trait added (In place of Triplecast)

Blizzard 2 Removed

Fire 4 and Blizzard 4 (now technically 3) merged into one button

Umbral ice to remove all mana costs from spells. Mana regeneration reduced slightly

Casting Flare dramatically increases the next Potency of the next freeze you cast and causes freeze to generate one umbral heart per target hit

Firestarter stacks one additional time (2 max)



The aim of these changes is to tidy up the gameplay and provide a QoL buff to lower level BLM.

Cutting dead weight abilities and merging actions where sensible frees up scope for additional abilities to be added

Increasing Laylines and Convert effectiveness is to edge BLM a bit closer into having good DPS cooldowns.

[Numenor1379]

One idea I saw a few months ago delt partially with the LL while moving issue.

Namely a skill called "Outside the Lines": Instantly moves your LL to your current position.

[Orbus]

Call me weird but I want old enochian back.
I hate having it tied to the astral and umbral phases.

For a more realistic idea, I think they need a new spell(s) to take the single target rotation spotlight.
Fire/Ice 4 have done fine, and while SB altered the order of spells from HW with enochian being tied to the phases and the addition of foul, at the end of the day your goal is to pump out as many Fire 4's as possible and its grown somewhat stale.
With BLM being so hyper focused around Fire 4 though I'm not sure how this could be done.
Then again, the Fire 4 rotation was so vastly different from the ARR rotation that you basically had to learn how to play BLM again, quite a shocker back in HW.

[Kalise]

For a more realistic idea, I think they need a new spell(s) to take the single target rotation spotlight.
Fire/Ice 4 have done fine, and while SB altered the order of spells from HW with enochian being tied to the phases and the addition of foul, at the end of the day your goal is to pump out as many Fire 4's as possible and its grown somewhat stale.
With BLM being so hyper focused around Fire 4 though I'm not sure how this could be done.

The most straightforward solution would be to let Fire I or IV build up some form of Umbral Heart style resource to allow for a competitive Ice spell to exist, rather than tying literally all of BLM's damage to Astral Fire which will always come with the connotation of "Spam the highest potency Fire spell" and having Ice phases be "Just set up for Fire spam in as few casts as possible". Alternatively, if for some reason having actually damaging Ice spells is an issue, it could be a direct damage Lightning spell that is set up by Fire.

That way you'd at least dump this extra resource on this (Now) potent spell during Ice phases in addition to setting up for Fire IV spam.

If you additionally made it so that it was Fire I/III that built up these "Astral Hearts" then you'd also make it so that during Fire phases you wouldn't necessarily always want to just mash your Fire IV button with a single Fire I to refresh the timer (Also, would care about Fire III procs more) and instead would want to weave in a couple more Fire I's and maybe Fire III's if you get procs in order to generate the resources to use this new spell.

Just, it'll look pretty silly with the potency such a skill would need to compete with Fire IV given the 1.8x multiplier from triple stack Astral Fire (Which equates to about a 588 potency spell with AF and Maim and Magick traits)

[Seraphor]

I'd rather have a 'useful' thunder spell in the Freeze/Flare tier that we can use in UI, than another umbral heart mechanic for fire instead of ice.

[Kalise]

I'd rather have a 'useful' thunder spell in the Freeze/Flare tier that we can use in UI, than another umbral heart mechanic for fire instead of ice.

Meanwhile, I'd prefer a more substantial "Rotation" for UI, other than just Blizzard IV and maybe Thunder III if I actually care enough about it (Since at low enough SkS just Blizzard IV > Fire III is enough time to fully regen MP and go back to spamming Fire IV which is higher potency than Thunder III outside of Thundercloud procs)

If you add a second Thunder spell to use in UI, then all that means is merely a single extra GCD you spend to apply this one spell in addition to your Blizzard IV and maybe Thunder III again, if you care about it due to SkS (Thus mana MP needs) or Thundercloud procs.

Which isn't exactly a particularly exciting new twist to the ST rotation, which currently pushes UI to be near useless to the point where you could literally delete the entire job Gauge and just make Blizzard IV restore your entire MP bar and you'd barely even notice.

[Orbus]

Right right, Fire 4's potency is so high I think it's impossible to outright replace as the main damage spell.
Maybe a thunder spell that refreshes the current thunder dot on a target while increasing its damage each use up to a cap but has a short (six second?) duration you have weave between other spells to keep it at maximum effect?
Not being tied to the astral or umbral phases it would also be meaningful to maintain when switching to ice.

Well it's just a thought.