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

[Leidiriv]

What if BLM got Burst as an AoE Thunder spell (requiring Thundercloud), that applied a Thunder DoT that also ticks every time you hit the target with another spell?

[Acidblood]

Not sure about additions for 5.0, but some changes I would love to see...

Enochian - Now a passive buff that grants +15% spell speed (so sick of needing to stack spell speed on gear just to make BLM feel playable, 250ms+ ping :/ )
Lay lines - Now grants +10% damage and +5% crit hit chance, duration reduced to 20s, cooldown reduced to 60s.
Scathe - Adds 3s to AF/UI timer, up to a maximum of 13s (basically a movement tool).
Aetherial Manipulation - Now works with or without a target, without a target it moves the BLM forward 15 yalms (i.e. a forward version of DRGs Elusive Jump). Reduces Enmity by 20%.
Freeze - Instant cast if on 0 MP. Now grants 3 stacks of UI and makes the next Blizzard IV instant cast and cost 0 MP.
Double Cast - BLM alternative to Swiftcast, given in the mid 30s.
Mana Shift - Now BLM exclusive, lowered cooldown to 60s. Reduces Enmity by 30%. (Basically BLM utility; assuming the removal of cross role system).

[Lauront]

Aetherial Manipulation - Now works with or without a target, without a target it moves the BLM forward 15 yalms (i.e. a forward version of DRGs Elusive Jump). Reduces Enmity by 20%.

I like this.

What if BLM got Burst as an AoE Thunder spell (requiring Thundercloud), that applied a Thunder DoT that also ticks every time you hit the target with another spell?

Not a bad idea at all, actually. Fits right in with BLM's direct damage style, too, as the DOT is then reliant on the frontloaded spells making it hit. I might incorporate this into Shock Burst on my list.

[Archwizard]

Scathe - Adds 3s to AF/UI timer, up to a maximum of 13s (basically a movement tool).
Aetherial Manipulation - Now works with or without a target, without a target it moves the BLM forward 15 yalms (i.e. a forward version of DRGs Elusive Jump). Reduces Enmity by 20%.
Freeze - Instant cast if on 0 MP. Now grants 3 stacks of UI.

I like these a lot, though I find most of the rest a little extraneous.

Scathe especially, since it's presently fairly useless as a movement tool. The worst thing about BLM to me is the sharp timing required of Enochian, and anything to alleviate that would be amazing.
I think it would be interesting if that was Scathe's base effect at level 15, and then around 80-ish you got a trait to either make Scathe fully refresh AF/UI or just make Fire 1/Blizz 1 instant if cast with less than ~4 sec left on the timer.

Freeze though, could be interesting if it was one stack of UI for every target hit just so it doesn't become our go-to single-target transition spell. Flare's great for dumping MP and all, but I'd much rather keep our AoEs in our AoE rotation.

What if BLM got Burst as an AoE Thunder spell (requiring Thundercloud), that applied a Thunder DoT that also ticks every time you hit the target with another spell?

Wouldn't that just lead to people saving Sharpcast exclusively for Burst?

Actually it's interesting, I could see Burst being sort of like the Fire 4/Blizzard 4 equivalent to Thunder spells, where you tap it every time Thundercloud came up if you didn't need the DoT refresh... but the trouble there is that Sharpcast aside, it would be heavily dictated by RNG, not to mention fulfilling a role that honestly doesn't need to be fulfilled (since Fire spam already takes enough of our attention).
Honestly, it's just difficult to imagine the need for a Burst spell in general without just outright replacing Thunder 3/4, unless it somehow connects Thunder 3/4 to Enochian.

[Jaywalker]

Flame Deluge. A level 80 LB option where you unleash Bahamut-style streams of fire on your enemy, cackling madly as the world explodes.

Quintuple Cast. Successor to Swiftcast and Triple cast, add two more insta-casts. Bombard your enemies with five absurdly powerful spells without pause.

XD I'm mostly joking on these, but honestly having one spell you can cast while moving would be nice. We did that whole archer thing where you can literally fire continuously while running in circles around your enemies. It's only fair to say we learned something from that.

[nand]

I'm nowhere near max level yet so take my words with a grain of salt, but I would like it if we could stack two charges of our procs. That would allow us some more flexibility in decision-making. It would either translate to a slight DPS increase since we greatly reduce the risk of clipping procs; but at the same time it would also allow us to "bank" one more proc in order to increase burst mobility and/or burst DPS slightly.

[Llugen]

This OP is a huge overhaul and I don't dislike it, especially since now we are basically looking at the job and what they will do with it come 5.0, but the way the class currently works is "fine" in my opinion save for a few things:

-clipping nature due to few instant cast GCDs
-Clunkiness of AoE rotation
-Convert

and as they relate to the above two stipulations:

-uselessness of Freeze/Sleep/Fire II
-mobility and off-GCD usage


Most of this would be easily solved with three simple changes, ideas that I already posted elsewhere and again in the context of 4.X not expansion talk, since this was over a year ago:

Changes to Freeze:
Deep Freeze Lv 40: Freeze grants a full stack of Umbral Ice (even out of Astral Fire, just like Blizzard III)
Sub-Zero Lv 50: Upon hitting zero MP, your next cast of Freeze costs zero MP (and could be instant cast, I guess if they really want)
Enhanced Deep Freeze Lv 68: Casting Freeze under Enochian grants one Umbral Heart

Changes to Enhanced Enochian:
Enhanced Enochian Lv 70:
-Successful usage of three Umbral Hearts without refreshing Astral Fire grants Firestarter
-Fire I and Blizzard I cast reduced to instant
-Thunder III refreshes respective Astral/Umbral timer
-Convert grants three Umbral Hearts full MP bar and Firestarter (and thundercloud because why not, especially if you now have twice as long of an astral phase because of it)

Changes to Thunder:
Thunder Mastery II Lv 60: Thunder III DoT increased to 30 seconds
Thunder Ready Lv 64: Entering Umbral Ice at 15% MP or less grants Thundercloud (So, after a full Astral phase single target with Blizzard III)
Thundersting Lv 64: When Thundercloud is used, remaining DoT ticks of Thunder III or IV on a target are added to the initial potency of Thundercloud
OR
Thunderstorm Lv 64: When Thundercloud is used, DoT ticks are added to the existing timer rather than refreshing it, up to 60 seconds.


This solves the following problems:

-Plenty of reliable instant cast GCDs to use for weaving buffs/debuffs/movement/aetherial manipulation
-No longer needing to wait on MP tick during AOE rotation and speeds up the recharge (after last flare you go straight into casting freeze granting Umbral Ice III, hardcasting Fire III to return to Astral is now fast cast since Umbral Ice III and at level 68 no need to cast Blizzard IV for double Flare since you get the Umbral Heart from using Freeze) and... Fire II is still kinda useless but that's ok
-Thundercloud is exciting again instead of frustrating (currently refreshing Thunder is a waste unless 6 seconds or lower and it delays your astral timer possibly causing you to lose a Fire IV), it becomes pretty substantially higher value to use at 914 total potency at level 60 and 957 total potency at level 70 (note that any time they increase the potency of Fire IV without increasing the potency of other things, the value of other things becomes less important than the value of Fire IV) and potency is almost never lost, enabling the player to use it for weaving and movement at their discretion and feel GOOD about it... ugh.
-Back before the potency increase of Fire IV to 280 and subsequently 300, the Firestarter suggestion(s) allowed for the Astral rotation to become F4 x4 > Firestarter > F4 x3 rather than F4 x3 > F1 > F4 x3, giving the added potency of an additional Fire IV per phase AND the added potency of Firestarter being used to refresh instead of dinky little Fire I (which I can't even believe we still use as part of our MAIN ROTATION at level SEVENTY, but I digress). In my opinion this would have been a far more effective way to give BLM more potency rather than just bandaid placing it on Fire IV making everything movement/clipping wise even more punishing.
-allowing Fire I/Blizzard I to be instant cast while moving would at least let you do moments of insanely massive movement (Pantokrator 2) without sacrificing literally your entire damage output, though still be less effective of course than if you were standing still.
-Convert just needs love. Simple as that.

On top of all these additional procs they could very easily add procs to the gauge in a similar fashion to BRD getting procs from their RNG DoT ticks, allowing for up to 3 umbral hearts, 3 firestarters, and 3 thunderclouds, displayed on the gauge. Stackable procs is something that has been asked for since 2.0 proper.


What I would recommend for SE to do with sleep would be to reorganize how dungeons are designed so rather than 2 big pulls and a boss three times, have the bosses not actually spawn until the monsters before them are dead and return CC to relevance. That way players can't abuse sleep by locking the mobs all out of the boss room, since the boss won't appear until the mobs are dead, but it can still be used on monsters to help CC.

[Kalise]

Hmm... Some consideration has lead me to put together the following list of changes I'd like to see:

Enochian
* Is now a Trait
* Description is now "While under the effects of Astral Fire III or Umbral Ice III gain Enochian, increasing magic damage by 5% and allowing the casting of Fire IV and Blizzard IV"

Scathe
* Additional Effect chance increased to 100% while under the effects of Enochian
* Now deals Fire damage and refreshes Astral Fire duration while under the effects of Astral Fire
* Now deals Ice damage and refreshes Umbral Ice duration while under the effects of Umbral Ice
* Specifically states it does not consume Umbral Hearts

Thunder
* Is now oGCD

Thundercloud
* Now guaranteed proc when using Blizzard III while under 25% MP
* Causes next Thunder spell to not consume an Astral Heart

*New* Fire Power
* Trait
* Causes Fire IV to generate an Astral Heart
* Up to 3 Astral Hearts can be held at any one time
* Astral Heart causes your next Lightning Aspected spell to be cast as though it was a Fire spell under the effect of Astral Fire III

*New* Burst
* Lightning Aspected Spell
* High MP cost with Potency of 300
* Cast time of 2.8 with 2.5 recast
* 20% chance to proc Thundercloud

[Lauront]

*snip*

I went in with the idea that I wouldn't mind seeing an embellishment of the rotation, and I've been craving some kind of power-up form.

Still, I think there's parts of it that are a bit dense (partly because they're focused on those areas you mention but address them through 70-80), and I think we're broadly agreed on where BLM could stand to improve, so I like a lot of the changes you mention and I may redistribute some of it ability-wise. I'm very much in favour of stackable procs and the instant Fire/Blizzard I.

I'm curious to see what the devs will showcase in May (?) and whether they will see similar areas for improvement to what you mentioned.

Hmm... Some consideration has lead me to put together the following list of changes I'd like to see:

Enochian
* Is now a Trait
* Description is now "While under the effects of Astral Fire III or Umbral Ice III gain Enochian, increasing magic damage by 5% and allowing the casting of Fire IV and Blizzard IV"

I like this, for the reason that it removes Enochian from the castable spell list. In addition to consolidation like putting B4 and F4 into one spell, it'd leave more room for new spells.

Scathe
* Additional Effect chance increased to 100% while under the effects of Enochian
* Now deals Fire damage and refreshes Astral Fire duration while under the effects of Astral Fire
* Now deals Ice damage and refreshes Umbral Ice duration while under the effects of Umbral Ice
* Specifically states it does not consume Umbral Hearts

Yes, that's a pretty important point, that it does not consume UHs. Could make for an alternative to an instant B1/F1, and maybe even serve to remove them rotationally, so that you use this for extending on the move, again creating more room for spells (i.e. F1 becomes F3, B1 becomes B3 and Scathe replaces their refresh functionality.) I'd like this in conjunction with the Enochian mechanic Llugen proposed.]

The Astral Heart mechanic is not bad at all. It may serve as a better limiting factor on when Burst can be used than a simple recast timer. Food for thought I guess.

[Kabooa]

Hmm... Some consideration has lead me to put together the following list of changes I'd like to see:

Enochian

Scathe

Thunder
* Is now oGCD

Thundercloud
[/B]

*New* Fire Power[/B]

*New* Burst

Scathe replaces Fire 1

Thunder as an OGCD removes any thought from using it.

Firepower is just a huge damage buff (TCloud T3 is -710- potency)

Burst just looks like it alternates with F4, ensuring you finish AF with F4 for the guaranteed TCloud to get use of an Astral heart.

Too Thunder centric, with Thunder being an OGCD and removing any weight and consideration it had prior.

Tentative rotation looks like it's F4 F4 B B Scathe F4 F4, peppering in any thunderclouds with Scathe, then using the guaranteed Tcloud with an Astral heart.