Chad Mages What else would you want right now for our class

[Archwizard]

Some people like the minigame as it is, and seeing it reduced to an afterthought like instant fire 1 would make it might be disappointing. It's not a problem for people who wouldn't mind, but for people who do it's not a suggestion they'd support.

Fair 'nuff, though for a lot of people like myself it means having Swift/Triplecast for things other than Fire 1.

Ok so in this world where we have an extra long Fire 1 GCD instacast, would BLM have an alternative spell that's not longer than the gcd to maintain their cpm?

They could always shave a couple tenths of a second off Fire 4. /shrug

But to be clear, the extended GCD wasn't a serious suggestion. Mostly.

Summoner already exists for those who want minimal punishment for less-than-ideal movement. About half the considerations I have to make as a Black Mage on more demanding encounters go out the window if F1 is just baseline instant cast.

And yet, improving our mobility is still one of the biggest considerations for our advancements, particularly this expansion -- Umbral Soul, Xenoglossy, improved Sharpcast, and so on.

But agree to disagree on Fire 1. At the very least, an instant Blizz 1 would certainly be more interesting than Scathe, and give it a better place in the kit.

[Shurrikhan]

Fair 'nuff, though for a lot of people like myself it means having Swift/Triplecast for things other than Fire 1.



They could always shave a couple tenths of a second off Fire 4. /shrug

But to be clear, the extended GCD wasn't a serious suggestion. Mostly.



And yet, improving our mobility is still one of the biggest considerations for our advancements, particularly this expansion -- Umbral Soul, Xenoglossy, improved Sharpcast, and so on.

And it's arguably a little bit too good as is.

For instance, I did not want Umbral Soul. It just reminded me of even more irritating Meditation spam (soon replaced with the even more similar Form Shift spam). Nor did I want Aspect Mastery; I'd have much preferred to simple take Umbral Ice ticks off the server tick, making them feel smooth and consistent -- rather than effectively axing the mechanic outright. Instead, the devs again chose to invalidate their own past mechanics rather than simply fixing them, which in turn made certain other skills even more deeply traps (Fire II, Blizzard I, Blizzard II) rather than, again, fixing them.

Personally, all I want to see, aside from the above Umbral Ice fix, is for stacks to work in a less awkward manner. Rather than having 25/50/75% MP cost reduction, 5/10/15% damage decrease, and 0/0/50% cast speed increase on element-crossover atop a 40/60/80% damage increase in AF, why not just have each go 20/40/60 -- 20% per stack? You could increase Ice spell potency to mirror the increased Fire spell potencies as you compensate for the lost 20% and you'd just generally smooth gameplay in a way that does not outright remove past nuances of play for any and all levels.

[Rilifane]

And yet, improving our mobility is still one of the biggest considerations for our advancements, particularly this expansion -- Umbral Soul, Xenoglossy, improved Sharpcast, and so on.

But agree to disagree on Fire 1. At the very least, an instant Blizz 1 would certainly be more interesting than Scathe, and give it a better place in the kit.

Umbral Soul isn't meant as tool for movement but unavoidable downtimes like E1 add spawn or E3 Maelstrom. It's meant to provide a tool to effectively make use of times without a target. It may be used as a last resort to prevent dropping Enochion in UI, though with how short UI phase is, this shouldn't be an issue. Triple, Swift, Xeno, Firestarter/ Thundercloud procs with Sharpcast available more often, Aetherial Manipulatio, Between the Lines and fast casts are enough mobility tools.
BLM has enough mobility tools to prevent dps drops from back-to-back mechanics but they are just limited enough so one of the main challenges of playing BLM remains minimizing movement by knowing the encounter and planning ahead accordingly. If you have to resort to Scathe, it's almost always because you messed something up and accidentally used a mobility tool too soon.

I think BLM is in a really good spot right now, not just because they rank so high but because their whole toolkit feels well-rounded and the challenges it comes with don't feel clunky. Instant Fire I would make life a tad too easy because even if someone planned poorly or not at all it will become almost impossible to ever let Enochion drop in AF and since Fire I still deals decent dps and procs Firestarter, poor planning would lead to relatively small dps loss.

[Shurrikhan]

I think BLM is in a really good spot right now, not just because they rank so high but because their whole toolkit feels well-rounded and the challenges it comes with don't feel clunky.

Sure, as soon as you get up to level 72... Until then? There's been absolutely no effort to fix old idiosyncrasies that take performance out of the hand of the player and solely into the mercy of, say, the server tick. Those issues may be minor, but it's still annoying to see the entire mechanic of MP margins removed just to avoid actually fixing the issue (which has been there, unmitigateably since they removed mana-shadowing, and remains up until ShB levels).

Meanwhile, Fire II? Useless. Blizzard I and II? Useless. Blizzard IV in AoE? Useless. I'd be okay with situational usefulness, but outright traps?

[Rilifane]

Sure, as soon as you get up to level 72... Until then? There's been absolutely no effort to fix old idiosyncrasies that take performance out of the hand of the player and solely into the mercy of, say, the server tick. Those issues may be minor, but it's still annoying to see the entire mechanic of MP margins removed just to avoid actually fixing the issue (which has been there, unmitigateably since they removed mana-shadowing, and remains up until ShB levels).

Meanwhile, Fire II? Useless. Blizzard I and II? Useless. Blizzard IV in AoE? Useless. I'd be okay with situational usefulness, but outright traps?

I'm mainly talking about max level here as all classes have skills that become less useful if not downright obsolete. Escpecially classes that has been around since ARR and underwent frequent changes. Personally I don't think it's that big of an issue. The roation evolves and changes and some skills fall behind and only remain useful when hitting low level content in roulettes. Skills gradually expand and the gameplay changes with it.
Cure I and Medica I are basically useless once you get past a certain level and Cure III is only very rarely used during stack up mechanics in ex/ savage and even then it's preferred to exhaust other options first. Skills lose their value over time and are mainly kept for low level content. And below a certain level, Blizzard I has it's use, same with Fire II.
Blizzard II needs to be targeted just like Fire II so you can properly use it. But why would Blizzard IV need to be useful in AoE rotation? It's a ST filler, period.

Server ticks cause problems for a number of classes and that so much is tied to them while at the same time being unpredictable is a nuisance, that much is true.
I much prefer systems like in WoW where hots/ dots always tick in set intervalls, depending on haste, after you applied them.
The tiny second you sometimes have to wait after getting back into UI to continue happily flaring away is awkward and disruptive and at max level, escpecially at higher spell speed tiers, server ticks can cause problems like not getting the 2nd tick within 2 GCDs and having to resort to a 3rd cast in UI to get back to 10k.
Nonetheless BLM is in a really good spot, escpecially at max level.