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

[Kabooa]

And as I raise and light my cigar off my thumb with an instant Fire 1 I reiterate: ... that's a problem how?

Because some of us would rather not see the job go this direction.

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.

[Zerathor]

Honestly I like everything exactly as it is. Maybe something cosmetic like different casting animations would be nice.

Gameplay wise, possibly a very slight increase in aoe radius might allow some different aoe optimizations on certain fights, but that's not a large concern.

[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.

[Ferrinus]

I kind of wish either that Despair had a 2.8s cast or even that F4/B4 had 3.0s casts so that optimal use of Triplecast was a little more flexible.

Aside from that, I want to see more fire/ice symmetry, especially with AoEs:

Fire2 and Blizzard2 are both targeted, 80 potency AoEs with 2.5s cast times and 800mp casting costs. A late-game trait makes them grant three stacks of their respective buff on hit, just like F3/B3, so B2 becomes the go-to way to recover stacks post-death or after some other loss while F3 shifts to fire mode during your AoE rotation.

Meanwhile, Freeze gets a 4.0s base cast time like Flare so spamming it isn’t attractive.

[Archwizard]

Aside from that, I want to see more fire/ice symmetry, especially with AoEs:

Fire2 and Blizzard2 are both targeted, 80 potency AoEs with 2.5s cast times and 800mp casting costs. A late-game trait makes them grant three stacks of their respective buff on hit, just like F3/B3, so B2 becomes the go-to way to recover stacks post-death or after some other loss while F3 shifts to fire mode during your AoE rotation.

Meanwhile, Freeze gets a 4.0s base cast time like Flare so spamming it isn’t attractive.

1. "Symmetry" is a strange concept in this context, considering their phases do two objectively different and diametrically opposed things, and these differences are what define their use. If having opposing spells that do the same thing is what you're after, might I suggest RDM instead?

2. Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 don't need to give 3-stacks each, and to be honest it wouldn't make them more attractive if they did. Not only do F3/B3/Flare/Freeze/Despair already provide it (so we would officially have more tools to instantly cap stacks than builders, after which they have no value beyond refreshing), but 80 potency for an AoE is pathetic, which Fire 2 only gets away with early on thanks to AF. Since you mentioned "late game traits" I have to assume you mean to provide a place for them post-50, even though there is presently no place for them in our AoE rotation, which is in a very comfortable spot right now without them.

3. Putting a spell with a lengthy cast in the UI phase means its value will plummet before you finish casting. Freeze being an AoE is largely a courtesy compared to capping UI and a UH stack, since the damage of ice phase pales to fire phase; you basically just want to hit UI3 and pump out as much quick damage as you can before your MP caps and you go back to AF (and once we get Flare, we don't even need to cap!). The only time Freeze spam is attractive is for the period during leveling before you get Flare, and that's mostly because -- again -- Fire 2 is terrible.

[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.

[Ferrinus]

1. "Symmetry" is a strange concept in this context, considering their phases do two objectively different and diametrically opposed things, and these differences are what define their use. If having opposing spells that do the same thing is what you're after, might I suggest RDM instead?

Fire 1 and Blizzard 1 have identical base potencies, cast times, and MP costs. Their differences come from stances and traits. The same is true of F3/B3 and F4/B4. So, it'd be elegant if Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 also had identical on-paper stats but were differently useful thanks to stances and traits.

2. Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 don't need to give 3-stacks each, and to be honest it wouldn't make them more attractive if they did. Not only do F3/B3/Flare/Freeze/Despair already provide it (so we would officially have more tools to instantly cap stacks than builders, after which they have no value beyond refreshing), but 80 potency for an AoE is pathetic, which Fire 2 only gets away with early on thanks to AF. Since you mentioned "late game traits" I have to assume you mean to provide a place for them post-50, even though there is presently no place for them in our AoE rotation, which is in a very comfortable spot right now without them.

You missed that I think they should have 2.5s cast times and 800mp costs - same as F1/B1. That means that before level 68 (when "Improved Umbral Heart" allows you to double flare each fire cycle) Fire 2 would be your generic AoE attack vs. 4 targets or more, (vs. 3 or more prior to 60). Between 60 and 68, you might still use F2 instead of F1 to refresh Astral between F4s if there were exactly three enemies.

Past 68, Flare definitively outpaces F2, so what's the use of F2? Well, that's when a trait makes F2 work like F3 when it comes to granting AF3 immediately - you'd use it instead of F3 to swap from UI to AF, so that you never had to cast a "cold flare". Others have suggested this above. Make sense?

3. Putting a spell with a lengthy cast in the UI phase means its value will plummet before you finish casting. Freeze being an AoE is largely a courtesy compared to capping UI and a UH stack, since the damage of ice phase pales to fire phase; you basically just want to hit UI3 and pump out as much quick damage as you can before your MP caps and you go back to AF (and once we get Flare, we don't even need to cap!). The only time Freeze spam is attractive is for the period during leveling before you get Flare, and that's mostly because -- again -- Fire 2 is terrible.

Remember, AF3 halves ice spell cast times. So, you'd still use Freeze after Flare to swap to UI. However, you wouldn't be Freeze for AoE damage between levels 35 and 50 or whatever it is, and you also wouldn't use Freeze to instantly get to UI3 after death or other mishap, instead favoring B2. The idea is to give every single spell some kind of logical use case at every level you have it for.

[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?

[Archwizard]

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.

I understand that it's not meant to be a skill for movement phases of encounters. What I'm saying though is that it still contributes to the job's general mobility, largely due to the quite literal ability to maintain Enochian while moving between packs in dungeons but especially since you can re-enter an encounter having skipped past B3/B4 and jump straight to Thunder (ideally off a TC proc) and accelerated F3.

If you have to resort to Scathe, it's almost always because you messed something up and accidentally used a mobility tool too soon.

Which is exactly what I was referring to with regards to my statement that aside from timing out an AF refresh a second sooner, you'd largely just use an instant F1 like Scathe -- a competent BLM would have skipped past using Scathe by means of several other tools to allow them to continue their normal rotation whilst moving.
But again, I already said agree to disagree.

-snip-

I'm not against Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 getting buffs during the leveling phase -- by all means go ahead.
My concern is that you're trying to draw out their lifespan beyond that point to a largely unnecessary degree.

Just for a moment I invite you to consider, that when all is said and done with your plan:
1) Blizzard 2 is still equally forgotten after we get Freeze. We only need one transition tool and Freeze already covers that, and we ideally won't spend enough time in UI to spam anything anyway.
2) Best case scenario, all you've accomplished for Fire 2 by endgame is having it replace Fire 3 as a transition tool in AoE scenarios, since we still wouldn't spam it after getting Flare.
3) You've introduced a penalty to Freeze -- a skill we use in end-game -- in order to advance another skill that will still largely get phased out during the leveling process, just slower. Congrats?

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

Shurri, you know I love you, but "not having a use for a single-target skill in AoE" is a weird hill to die on for a job that literally has different DoT skills for single- and multi-target.