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

[Kabooa]

What purpose would that serve?

It is exactly what you were asking for. Now, with these additional details, along with Grimmy up there, I'm less opposed to it - Based entirely on what them Astral Hearts are used for.

If it's just "Firestarter, but from Fire 4", hard pass. If it's just "Ice spells do more damage", hard pass.

[Jonnycbad]

New to 70 BLM and I must say the Firestarter mechanic felt bad at 50 with how you often times lost a free Firestarter proc because it would proc as soon as the spell resolved, and any delay with casting your next Fire1 was a DPS loss. I think that was really bad design. It made the job feel poorly designed. They should have done something where Firestarter was a stacking mechanic, where at 1 stack it's a free Fire III, at 2 stacks you could cast 2 Fire III's, up to 3 stacks. That way you could predict when you could cast the free Fire III.

[Archwizard]

Perhaps a bit of a crazy thought, but...

• Thunder III is Instant Cast.
• Thundercloud removes T3/T4 from the GCD in addition to its current effects.
• All Astral Hearts are consumed upon casting Thunder spells, extending the duration of Astral Fire based on the number of Hearts consumed (2/4/7 sec).
• If it consumes the last of your MP, the damage of Flare increases relative to the time left in Astral Fire when cast.

Then just combine them with some of the previous thoughts...

• Each cast of Fire IV generates one Astral Heart, while Flare generates three if it strikes at least 3 targets during Enochian. Astral Hearts are overwritten by Umbral Hearts. Only 3 Hearts of any type may be held at once.
• While at 3 Astral Hearts, Thunder III is replaced with Burst, an oGCD which restores some MP (equal to the cost of Thunder IV) and consumes the active Thunder DoT on the target/nearby enemies for bonus damage. Sharpcast may be applied to Burst to proc Thundercloud.
• New Trait - Absolute Zero: While at zero MP, your next Ice-elemental spell is free.
• Freeze places you in Umbral Ice 3 if it hits a target, and generates one Umbral Heart per target struck if cast during Enochian.
• Blizzard II evolves into Freeze at level 35, Fire II evolves into Flare at level 50.
• Scathe extends the duration of UI/AF by up to 6 seconds per cast, to a maximum of 13 sec.

Now, if I've done this correctly... in single-target, you would want to use Burst->Thunder III in succession after every third Fire IV, pop TC as it comes up, and end the AF phase with Flare before transitioning.

[Kabooa]

Perhaps a bit of a crazy thought, but...

• Thunder III is Instant Cast.
• Thundercloud removes T3/T4 from the GCD in addition to its current effects.
• All Astral Hearts are consumed upon casting Thunder spells, extending the duration of Astral Fire based on the number of Hearts consumed (2/4/7 sec).
• If it consumes the last of your MP, the damage of Flare increases relative to the time left in Astral Fire when cast.

Then just combine them with some of the previous thoughts...

• Each cast of Fire IV generates one Astral Heart, while Flare generates three if it strikes at least 3 targets during Enochian. Astral Hearts are overwritten by Umbral Hearts. Only 3 Hearts of any type may be held at once.
• While at 3 Astral Hearts, Thunder III is replaced with Burst, an oGCD which restores some MP (equal to the cost of Thunder IV) and consumes the active Thunder DoT on the target/nearby enemies for bonus damage. Sharpcast may be applied to Burst to proc Thundercloud.
• New Trait - Absolute Zero: While at zero MP, your next Ice-elemental spell is free.
• Freeze places you in Umbral Ice 3 if it hits a target, and generates one Umbral Heart per target struck if cast during Enochian.
• Blizzard II evolves into Freeze at level 35, Fire II evolves into Flare at level 50.
• Scathe extends the duration of UI/AF by up to 6 seconds per cast, to a maximum of 13 sec.

Now, if I've done this correctly... in single-target, you would want to use Burst->Thunder III in succession after every third Fire IV, pop TC as it comes up, and end the AF phase with Flare before transitioning.

So you're looking at F4 x 3, Burst, Thunder, F4 x 3, Burst, F4, Flare, B3, B4, Foul, F3, repeat.

Using current MP levels (15,480)

Going from UI to AF with Fire 3 (-600) starts you at 14,880.

F4 x 3 ( -3600)
Burst (No cost listed - +2160)
Thunder (-1920)
F4 x 3 (-7200)
Burst (No cost listed - +2160)

Total net cost so far: 8,400. 6,480 remaining

F4 x 2 (-4800)

Flare ( - 1680)
B3.

Our current AF timer is 13 seconds. At bast spell speed.

F4 x 3 (-8.4)
Burst (+6 cuz clipping is about -1)
Thunder (-2.5)
F4 x 3 ( -8.4)
Burst (+6 )
F4 x 2 (-5.6)
Flare (-3.0 if it upgrades from Fire 2, assuming no cast time change)
Net Total: -15.4

If we apply an average spellspeed of about 10% then it's a -12.7. You would need a minimum spellspeed, in our current action use, of 20% to bottom out MP without wasting it due to Flare. The timer for AF / UI would have to increase to about 16 seconds, unless you plan on Flare dealing upwards of 100-200% more damage to make up for the Fire 4's you'd be skipping.

[Archwizard]

The intention isn't for the AF extension to cause Burst to replace F1, just to give provide additional GCDs within AF so as to cram Thunder spells.

But, all the numbers were placeholder and it's an early draft. Purely spitballing.

[Kabooa]

The intention isn't for the AF extension to cause Burst to replace F1, just to give provide additional GCDs within AF so as to cram Thunder spells.

But, all the numbers were placeholder and it's an early draft. Purely spitballing.

See, that's kind of the thing. I play the class extensively, so I'm just providing more of a framework to look at your proposals in context.

If burst isn't meant to replace F1, why does it extend the AF timer by an amount comparable to Fire 1? Sure Fire 1 completely refreshes it, but outside Leyline/Convert windows, that's effectively 7 seconds.

[Archwizard]

See, that's kind of the thing. I play the class extensively, so I'm just providing more of a framework to look at your proposals in context.

If burst isn't meant to replace F1, why does it extend the AF timer by an amount comparable to Fire 1? Sure Fire 1 completely refreshes it, but outside Leyline/Convert windows, that's effectively 7 seconds.

And I certainly appreciate that, particularly for the sake of better tuning the suggestions. (Of course, I'm also not responsible for determining how much potency one cycle of our rotation is intended to effectively gain next expansion, but all the same the framework still gives us something to work with for visualization's sake.)

I mean... Fire 1 extends the timer long enough to cast 3 more Fire IVs and an AF3-enhanced Blizzard III, does it not? In itself that's 10.75 seconds of casts, assuming no extra GCDs and a base spell speed.

[Kabooa]

And I certainly appreciate that, particularly for the sake of better tuning the suggestions. (Of course, I'm also not responsible for determining how much potency one cycle of our rotation is intended to effectively gain next expansion, but all the same the framework still gives us something to work with for visualization's sake.)

I mean... Fire 1 extends the timer long enough to cast 3 more Fire IVs and an AF3-enhanced Blizzard III, does it not? In itself that's 10.75 seconds of casts, assuming no extra GCDs and a base spell speed.

8.4 + 1.75. B3 is cast 50% faster (3.5 base)

In a 3 1 3 set up, you're at

13s AF - 8.4 (F3 x 4) -2.5 (F1) + 10.9 (2.5 doesn't really count as it was for the F1 GCD) - 8.4 (F4 x 3) - 1.75 (B3).

Net amount: 23.9 - 20.55.

If we only use 8 gcds for comparison (F3, Thunder, F3, B3)

13s - 8.4 (F4 x 3) + 6 (Burst Clipping) -2.5 (Thunder 3) -8.4 (F4 x3) +6 (Burst Clipping) -1.75 (B3)

Net amount: 25s - 21.5

[Lauront]

The intention isn't for the AF extension to cause Burst to replace F1, just to give provide additional GCDs within AF so as to cram Thunder spells.

But, all the numbers were placeholder and it's an early draft. Purely spitballing.

The thing is though, would retaining Fire I have much of a point to it? Its main benefit besides refreshing would be being eligible for Firestarter. I think unless it were to be replaced by something like a Fire V, there would be little loss of gameplay by just extending AF as noted by Kabooa and rolling the chance for Firestarter into Burst - or if that is too jarring, having Fire IVs which consume Umbral Hearts have a chance to grant it, adjusted for their higher rotational frequency.

Fire I is a lacklustre spell visually and it’d feel forced to keep it in the rotation when Burst adds to AF.

At this stage it is due an upgrade, but anything proc based is inherently better suited to Fire III, eg the proc people suggest for converting Fire I to Fire V (a la Ruin IV) would better suit Fire III as it’s easier to confine optimal usage of the spell to when Firestarter is up. However, I’m not hugely fond of the proc-based idea and I think Fire III is in less urgent need of an upgrade. Maybe if, instead, Fire V replaced I, inheriting all of its traits, and added some Excruciate style effect you could get more traction out of it. Just something beyond its current function to give it an interesting role to fill.

I’m quite fond of your ideas in any case. With a visual spruce up for Flare, they’d make for a nice change of pace to the core rotation before we even veer much into the new spell territory for 71-80. I’m guessing Burst would be the first of these - unless you intend for it to replace some other, existing spell?

[Archwizard]

+ 10.9 (2.5 doesn't really count as it was for the F1 GCD)

Wait, but the GCD begins at the start of the cast (which in F1's case, cast time = GCD), and the AF timer only resets at cast completion. Wouldn't the effective cast period within AF after F1 still be 13 sec?

Fire I is a lacklustre spell visually
At this stage it is due an upgrade

I mean I agree, I just don't think it's an advanced lightning spell's place to replace a basic fire spell. Were we to do that then as Kalise as pointed out many times, we're just replacing one button with another (and losing out on Firestarter procs to boot).

I think the better benefit we could get from Fire V replacing F1 would be an instant way to extend AF though.