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

[Kabooa]

True, but as you said, the ability to hold Polyglot is the largest obstacle to this.

Like, let's look at SMN's Aetherflow skills: Fester, Bane, Painflare, Energy Siphon. Each one has a clear, distinct purpose for separate jobs -- single-target burst, AoE opener, AoE burst, MP recovery -- and the design of them is such that you're really more fighting against time to spend 3 in under 45 seconds.

There isn't a single summoner worth their salt using Energy Drain out there.

Holding polyglot is irrelevant, because holding it without sufficient knowledge can be a waste - As it should be. Losing a polyglot because you didn't use Foul isn't worth setting up Neo-Freeze.

There's also the matter that Neo-Freeze is an -ice spell-. Neo-Freeze doesn't replace Foul unless you expend resources to ensure your UI window lasts until it's over. Without a stockpiled Polyglot and a TCloud, this means expending valuable instant cast tools that also serve as your mobility. Without fully filling out those GCDs, you're forced to idle (Lose uptime) to avoid going back into AF, which would cut Neo Freeze in half before the damage is dealt. I didn't choose the timers for them out of nowhere.

9 seconds minus 2.5 gcd is 6.5. Enough time for 2.8, 2.5, and an instant cast, but not enough for 2.8, 2.5, and Fire3 into UI.

And this is at base speed. Blackmages generally aim for a comfortable 8-10%, so this means further downtime to prevent your AF entrance from hitting Neo-Freeze's final potency.

Just because SE doesn't expect anything of its playerbase doesn't mean I have to do the same in a purely speculative, never going to happen thread.