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

[Genis_Elric]

I'll concede the point on MCH. I'm ill experienced on it and from what I hear it does need some adjustment. As for MNK, Tanks, and Healers; I think those things make the jobs far more interesting and fun to play. Honestly, I miss the old cleric stance dance as healer. BLMs should have more to the job than 'use F4 as much as possible.'

I like the idea of multiple uses for polyglot because it adds variety. You could use the dot/ single target in raids and bosses and use the AOE more in dungeons. You could even make the dot have a long CD so you could use it every 3rd or 4th polyglot. I just want more variety in what the job has. I'm open to any ideas that grant that, this was just my idea.

[Orbus]

Although I've seen some say that BLM is fine without changing things up, I would like a little more variety than using fire4 80% of the time.
BLM doesn't really have a "rotation" though, more of a priority system, and fire4 is the strongest spammable spell which is why it almost always has priority.
So making something else worth using over fire4 all of the time means that, mechanically, it has to have a similar effectiveness in terms of damage done, or alternatively, be the preferred option to use when both are available despite not doing as much damage as fire4.
(can cast while moving, causes a weakness, powers up something else, etc)

Problem with giving these new things to a polyglot charge is that it already has a good use, Foul being the BLM's most powerful spell single target or AoE, and it's not spammable.

[Zerathor]

Although I've seen some say that BLM is fine without changing things up, I would like a little more variety than using fire4 80% of the time.
BLM doesn't really have a "rotation" though, more of a priority system, and fire4 is the strongest spammable spell which is why it almost always has priority.

When played properly, BLM rotation more closely resembles an actual 'rotation' more so than most jobs in the game. It's simple, it loops perfectly, it's predictable, and not very difficult to memorize. Probably THE easiest to memorize. The challenging factor of blm comes from maintaining uptime with that rotation, in environments that do not want you to stand still. And that's pretty fun imo. You're either heavily rewarded or heavily punished for how you perform in each fight. I don't want them to change from this formula.

If I wanted a slightly more complex rotation with less punishment for moving around, I'd just play summoner more often.

[Kalise]

When played properly, BLM rotation more closely resembles an actual 'rotation' more so than most jobs in the game. It's simple, it loops perfectly, it's predictable, and not very difficult to memorize. Probably THE easiest to memorize. The challenging factor of blm comes from maintaining uptime with that rotation, in environments that do not want you to stand still. And that's pretty fun imo. You're either heavily rewarded or heavily punished for how you perform in each fight. I don't want them to change from this formula.

If I wanted a slightly more complex rotation with less punishment for moving around, I'd just play summoner more often.

Though, to be fair, there's a ton of design space while still keeping the essence for BLM the same.

Since really, all that's necessary is keeping AF and UI while using primarily hard casts.

AF and UI is what creates this organic "Rotation" because it's all about - Go into AF and spend MP. Go into UI to regain MP. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

While being primarily based around hard casts puts much of the difficulty onto positioning as opposed to complex rotations and/or oGCD weaving.

So long as these thing remain constant in some fashion, BLM will always retain a similar feel to it.

[Lauront]

I don't think that.

I think we're just getting new levels of the same rotation with +10 potency.

At best, maybe we have a new skill to fill in the role of F1 as "AF Refresh".

Otherwise, I think that other new abilities might take on the form of new Lightning or Ice aspected ones that we will never care about because it doesn't fit into the Fire IV spam rotation.

Geez, talk about a nightmare. I hope they have something better than that planned.

[Archwizard]

Alrighty kids, unpopular opinion time:

I actually don't mind Sleep.

Don't get me wrong, I get that it's completely useless in a raid environment, but that's primarily because XIV just isn't really a game that's conducive to the use of crowd control. There have been multiple times where the ability to single enemies out has completely saved me while I was doing overworld content (particularly the THM/BLM quests), especially when I didn't have a pocket healer. And ultimately, not everything in the game is raiding, nor do things that don't affect raids in the first place need to be balanced around their raid effectiveness.

Is it niche? Sure. Would I prefer if there was a use for CC in raids? Absolutely! Would I die inside if it was removed? Probably not. But is it useless as-is? ... That really depends on context.

[Archwizard]

F1/B1: Trait up to F4/B4

B2: Either trait up to FRZ or get rid of it altogether.

FRZ: Either grant 1 Umbral heart and make it target instead of ground placement, or make it a ground placement dot like shadow flare.

F2: Just get rid of it, BLM's AOE rotation is probably the most fun part of the job and it doesn't need F2

Scathe: Make it deal aspected damage of fire/ice while in AF/UI respectively and refresh the enochian timer. This might even give a reason to sharp scathe if it would get a potency boost with it.

Convert: I've got a few ideas but I'm sure they're not the best. At the very least, reduce the CD substantially..

B1/F1: These actually are useful for refreshing AF/UI quickly (even if we optimally don't ever want to refresh UI), so I'd just be happy to see them traited to cast a little faster and/or for a chance at zero cost as level improves.

B2/F2: Agree to have them trait up to Freeze and Flare respectively. F2's pretty bad once you reach Flare, but Flare comes at 50 so it at least has a use until then.

Freeze: Bearing in mind we get Freeze at 35 and don't get Umbral Hearts until 58 or reduced Flare costs on UH until 68. It would be a simple matter to trait Hearts onto it at 68 but until then, maybe just have it add one UI stack for every target hit to facilitate B4?
As for "target vs ground placement", you can just macro it right now to instantly center itself on your target when you hit the button. I can understand the reasons to have it be ground-targeted as it is now given its root effect.

Scathe: One suggestion I've seen around here is having it extend the active AF/UI by a limited period of time (ie 6 sec, up to its 13 sec cap), which would make it useful purely for movement-heavy phases. I would go further to have it gain a chance to refresh any Thunder DoTs on the target (tied to its chance at bonus damage?), or perhaps just straight-up proc Thundercloud when Sharpcast instead (which could be interesting in openers...), all so you can keep everything rolling while on the move.
The only reason to give it a Fire/Ice aspect and fully refresh Enochian outright would be to replace F1 during F4 spam, which... agree to disagree about whether that should be its place.

Convert: Something I've been thinking about, since using it to regain MP is basically pointless to the BLM, what if it was changed to restore MP to allies?
Consume, say, 30% of the BLM's HP to give 10-15% MP to allies in 15y, for instance? If we trade off survivability for a bit of utility, it could mean sparing our damage...

Polyglot: Perhaps an alternative use for Polyglot could be to instantly apply a vulnerability debuff to the target. That way you could gain a bit of utility but can choose whether to trade your damage to inflict it, OR hold Poly until Enochian is just about to add a second charge, debuff the target, then hit Foul while the curse is still up.

[Friske]

If the New abilities quote from Yoshida is true, then I'm very excited. Playing the same rotation can get quite stale, and a new twist will make things very interesting. New abilities don't necessarily lead to a more complex rotation, but they usually do have a good correlation, and as evidence we can point to what they did to Bard for Stormblood. They do also have some leeway, in that our job has some veeeery niche if not useless abilities in the form of sleep, blizzard 2 and freeze, which can either be axed, replaced or reworked.

From one of his interviews, a question was asked, or merely an idea was shared, whereby the interviewer was excited to see the eye of Blackmages in the cutscenes flash red in the night, and how that was very symbolic of Blackmage in general. Yoshida responded by showing his interest in that fantasy, and perhaps that could be part of a new ability in the future? Similar in which to Warrior's super state, inner release. Part of the theme for this expansion will be exploring the idea of what it means to be a Warrior of Darkness, and the battle of Dark vs Light will probably be more distinct and prevalent than in any FF14 story told thus far. With that being said, I feel like there's a strong possibility of more 'void-like' magicks coming, and Stormblood's Foul spell was more evidence of that. It was a taste of what further endgame Blackmage spells are going to be like - enormously powerful, impactful and possibly mechanic related (involves polyglot).

From what we've got from Stormblood, the theme was adding very simple abilities that while mechanically basic, seem powerful: flexibility, movement and more variety in BLM's AOE/single target damage rotation. This could be what you call minor interesting additions to the job. In addition to enochian being simplified, the rotation was more or less similar if not easier than Heavensward's rotation back at launch.
For Heavensward, the theme was completely revamping the idea of the Blackmage's rotation, by adding on a new complex layer via the Enochian mechanic which correlates to urgency and precision, while leylines and sharpcast add greater depth and consistency to the rotation and playstyle. This could be what you call a major addition to the job.
Considering Yoshi's stance on keeping job rotations simpler to allow greater depth in battle mechanics, I feel like what will be added in Shadowbringers will probably be some small yet cool additions, but like with Stormblood, they probably won't make our rotation that much more complex. A core new spell we learn at lvl80 also might be a key-player in the BLM's rotation. Evidence of which can be pointed at Foul, Flare and Fire 4, the major spells we learn at the end of each expansion, with Flare being the key component of our AOE, Foul being used frequently in both AOE and single target, and Fire 4 which is our key damage spell. We've also got a good theme of what you call damage boosting abilities that focus on giving depth and mobility options as well as consistency for Blackmage. Could they greatly enhance the focus of turreting via more mechanics related to leylines? Are there any more pathways in which we can be indirectly improved that don't simply involve stronger spells? Can there be more abilities that enhance mobility?

Yoshi is known to respond fairly well to feedback during segments like Yoshi's room at Fanfest, evidence of which can be pointed at the power adjustment for BLM in the distant past, and WHM/MCH more recently. Some of the BLM feedback involves concerns about monster AOEs forcing them to interrupt their rotation and/or move out of Leylines, which Yoshida apologises for. It's a stretch, but perhaps we'll see maybe 1 more mobility related ability, and/or a change in a BLM's structure which allows more movement. If it's an ability, it could allow BLMs to move in and out of regular AOEs more conveniently, and with less GCD interruption. If anything, I feel like the delay from Between the Lines can be shortened even greater.
Either way I'm really excited to see what they've got come May.

[Kalise]

Alrighty kids, unpopular opinion time:

I actually don't mind Sleep.

I quite like it myself too.

Nice in the overworld (If they ever make it relevant again). Can also be useful in dungeons when the tank is an utter failure things go awry.

Sure it's useless in Trials Raids but eh... Maybe they might make CC relevant again in the future? At least as a way that maybe a BLM/WHM could cheese some trash pulls or something.

Also, it has some very niche usage as an interrupt for certain enemy skills - Given mages lack of a Silence/Stun role action.

I can understand the reasons to have it be ground-targeted as it is now given its root effect.

But why? Both Tri-Bind and Tether are AoE binds and neither of them are ground targeted.

Convert: Something I've been thinking about, since using it to regain MP is basically pointless to the BLM, what if it was changed to restore MP to allies?

Actually, MP regain for BLM isn't pointless. Since it can literally extend your Astral Fire phase by letting you cast a couple more Fire IV's.

In practice it's pointless because in order to cast any more Fire IV's in the current rotation, you need to extend Astral Fire a second time, which means you need a Fire I (Or Fire III if you got a lucky proc earlier) which eats up your MP and thus reduces the worth of using the cooldown.

But yeah, it should actually be a DPS gain to use it during AF when you have a Fire III proc (As opposed to holding that proc for the eventual shift back from UI where it has less impact because you already have 50% cast time on it from UI)

Polyglot: Perhaps an alternative use for Polyglot could be to instantly apply a vulnerability debuff to the target. That way you could gain a bit of utility but can choose whether to trade your damage to inflict it, OR hold Poly until Enochian is just about to add a second charge, debuff the target, then hit Foul while the curse is still up.

I think the issue with this is how easily it might just end up being using the debuff all the time because it being higher damage output. Much like I previously mentioned in regards to a "DoT" based Polyglot spender.

Even with the scenario of gaming the double Poly to Foul into the debuff, the question is whether that buffed Foul competes with the output of just using that second Poly on another round of the debuff.

For example, if it was a standard 10% vulnerability for 10s. What does more damage: 710 potency Foul or 10% of the damage the entire party (Including yourself) does within 10s?

Since Polyglot is a cooldown. Putting more options onto sharing this CD doesn't take away the fact that we'll only ever spend the CD using the most efficient option.

In addition, BLM isn't a job that works around any sort of power spike. There is no timings where things are exponentially more powerful to leverage. It's merely a job that just wants to plod through its rotations one GCD at a time. So there's not a time where it wants to snapshot a DoT effect, or a time where it's about to go ham on DPS. Which would make conditional Polyglot effects (Such as a DoT or a debuff) shine.

[Kabooa]

Convert: Something I've been thinking about, since using it to regain MP is basically pointless to the BLM.

I too find it pointless to fit two more Fire 4s into potion and buff windows.

But yeah, it should actually be a DPS gain to use it during AF when you have a Fire III proc (As opposed to holding that proc for the eventual shift back from UI where it has less impact because you already have 50% cast time on it from UI)

You are never using convert outside a leylines window. With leylines, you can do F4 x 4, Fire 1, F4 X 4, even with clipping Convert if you aren't using Triple or Swift during it.