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

[Ferrinus]

Sooo much text... well, I'll just comment on your first post:



Well I don't agree that they should change Despairs or F4 / B4 cast times, but you are right that it would make the optimal use of Triplecast more flexible.

But the whole change to F2 / B2 and Freeze? Hell no, you try to fix more than what it broken.

Especially when your Blizzard 2 is just a worse version of the Freeze we already have. And your change to Freeze is unnecessary when Fire 2 grants full AF stacks. The reason that spamming Freeze is more effective than using Fire 2 is because we lose too much damage when we single target switch with Fire 3 into AF. Fire 2 (under AF3) does more damage than Freeze.

All what is needed is a way to build AF3 with an aoe skill wich doesn't burn away all your mana. And Fire 2 could become that skill. With that simple change the 35-50 Freeze spam would end.


And trying to Make Blizzard 2 viable is a waste of time, because there is just no need to fit a weak extra skill into UI. When we have a slow mana tic we already can use another Freeze, a Thundercloud Procc or a Foul.

Blizzard 2 becomes the go-to way to recover stacks after a death? With only 80 potency? Sorry, but even the Freeze we have now with it's 100 potency is weaker than Blizzard 3, except when you can hit more than 1 target of course. And even in AoE it would still be better to start with Freeze, even at a 4 second cast, because you will need the Umbral Heart for double Flare afterwards.

Just upgrade Blizzard 2 into Freeze so we can get rid of that useless extra button.

Even leaving Blizzard 2/Freeze completely alone, or making Blizzard 2 into an aoe which upgrades directly into Freeze at 35, I would still definitely give F2 the same cast time and MP cost as F1 (in addition to making it grant full AF stacks somewhere around level 68) so that the calculus of which to use on multiple targets at lower levels is more straightforward.

Right now, I'm pretty sure that Freeze is a better recovery tool than Blizzard 3 because of the umbral heart it gives you - you end up with one fewer F4 in your first post-death astral cycle but it's better than sitting through a long-cast Blizzard 3 and then casting Blizzard 4 for only +2 umbral hearts (and therefore a gain of only one extra fire spell, rather than effectively two where one is Despair). Given the 80 potency, a UI3-granting Blizzard 2 probably wouldn't make for a better recovery tool than hardcast or swiftcast B3, so it'd be relegated to the relatively rare but not nonexistent case of "you're doing your AoE rotation and have just cast Freeze but don't have a Polyglot or Thundercloud proc up."

Most of your post reads as nonsequitur, honestly. Obviously there is a difference between minimizing the kit down to one or two buttons to spam over and over, and streamlining it so tools with redundant functions don't bloat the kit.

We don't need extra "options" for every niche case, like 2 targets or 3-second burst or "freshly raised" recovery periods. Those are scenarios that an experienced player would anticipate and tools they would either only pull out a fraction of the time or go out of their way to avoid using in the first place, much as we avoid Scathe now so long as we have alternatives. Tools specifically designed for those become (at best) safety nets for bad play, and (at worst) buttons we feel penalized having to push.
We just need tools for practical purposes -- focus-fire, and multi-target -- and the ability to use them unimpeded. If they also happen to cover the niche cases, even better, but it shouldn't be their core justification for existing, and as a friend of mine once said, "failure to improve a ridiculous circumstance doesn't nullify [a tool's] benefit across all reasonable extents and circumstances."

If your argument from the beginning had been "I want Flare to return to purely being a finisher across all levels, so here's my proposal to use Fire 2 until a certain percentage of our MP where we Flare, and some adjustments that would make Fire 2 a useful filler before the final burst, much like our single-target rotation with Despair," I might still have disagreed with you but I would at least have respected your opinion and efforts.
Instead, you argued for Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 to gain redundant functions in end-game, not for the purposes of expanding or smoothing out the kit (quite the opposite, in fact, since you nerfed the smoothing tools we have to push tools we don't need!), but wholly in order to justify their continued bloating of the hotbar. All of this because you "don't want" to use Flare as a transition tool because it "feels bad", but still "want" symmetry with the ice rotation obliging you to keep Blizzard 2 as long as Fire 2 exists, while using fictitious examples as empirical data. Well, with the way our phase transitions work something will "feel bad" either way, and what you want is about as valid as what anyone else wants -- which in my case is in direct opposition to you -- so let's just cut to the chase and call that argument unproductive.

This isn't about creating options for every niche case, but for giving each spell on our bars some kind of use. Use of Fire 2 to swap into AF3 without costing any MP is an obvious one, and I've already explained why simply replacing Fire 2 with Flare isn't possible.

You still seem confused as to what I am proposing and why. "Use Fire 2 until a certain percentage of MP where we Flare" is how our pre-68 AoE rotation goes, and is specifically the example I used to demonstrate why a buffed Fire 2 would obviate Freeze spam during the level range at which Freeze spam predominates. Our level 80 rotation doesn't need to use Fire 2 as filler/primary damage dealer with Flare as an exclusive finisher; the Freeze, Fire 3, Flare, Flare, Freeze, Fire 3, Flare, Flare... cycle works very well.

The only problem with our AoE, and it's a problem that a buff to Fire 2 would neatly solve, is that on a specific number of enemies which isn't at all obvious from spell tooltips casting Fire 3 becomes a damage loss. A Fire 2 which also maximizes your AF3 stacks would solve this, and in a way that isn't redundant with any other spells because it could do this at no MP cost. Flare cannot and should not be able to do that for the same reason that Despair shouldn't be able to replace Fire 3 for swapping on single target - this would both obviate classic, well-established spells and also constitute a substantial damage buff to AoE in the former case and single target in the latter.

Incidentally, "feel bad" is your phrase, not mine, so I don't know why you're putting it in scare quotes. Casting weaker transition spells in preparation for more powerful marquee spells is, in fact, what makes BLM feel good to play. It doesn't "feel bad" to cast Fire 3 on three or four targets before casting Flare on them.

And now you're trying to use the line "confusing examples" between mid- and end-level rotations when you literally said you don't care what our rotation becomes at mid-level? Reads like backpedaling to me.

This is a lie. I said I was prepared to have a particular spell fall out of use for a stretch of levels so long as it was useful long-term, but would prefer to change that spell so it was always useful for as long as you had it (in Freeze's case, by simply having it always cost 0 MP by default).

You've repeatedly stated that Flare is working as intended, but the only actual verification of that is... the way things currently work in-game, which is the definition of circular reasoning, and solves nothing when "the way things work" is in direct opposition to "the way their tooltips say they should."
The devs have never said "Flare doesn't actually cost all of your MP, but rather burns a percentage of your MP as a separate effect on cast, which is why it's unaffected by Aspect Mastery" -- no, Flare lists "all" of your MP as the Cost, and if that's the intended effect then that should be a corrected tooltip that needs fixing yesterday.
Either things aren't working as intended because they defy the tooltips, or the tooltips are wrong and players are using spells in unintended ways, and I have zero reason to trust another player pushing their own agenda to tell me it's the latter.

I have no problem with buffing B2 and F2 for the leveling process, but if they're still phased out by end-game, they don't need to exist in end-game. A trait upgrade will not only allow them to live on in spirit, but save us bar space and/or the trouble of going back into our A&T menu whenever we level sync. Don't overcomplicate it.

The tooltips are misleading, but the spells are clearly being used primarily as intended because in the several patches since the release of Shadowbringers nothing has substantively changed how Flare and Despair interact with Umbral Ice. I say "primarily" because I don't think that an obscure number-of-enemies breakpoint between using Fire 3 to transition and Flare to transition was ever intended, and if it was intended then it shouldn't have been because it's just too opaque to figure out when you are or aren't supposed to be doing it. (I also don't think Freeze becoming the only AoE spell we use for levels 35-49 was done on purpose, either).

[Archwizard]

This isn't about creating options for every niche case, but for giving each spell on our bars some kind of use.

When niche cases are the primary justification for those spells to continue existing, it's the same thing.

Flare cannot and should not be able to do that for the same reason that Despair shouldn't be able to replace Fire 3 for swapping on single target - this would both obviate classic, well-established spells and also constitute a substantial damage buff to AoE in the former case and single target in the latter.

1) Who said anything about Despair doing the same? Despair is literally unable to be used in Umbral Ice, or even out of Astral Fire -- a point I made before when I mentioned that Flare has a weak position as a "finisher", since it can be.
Even if Despair could be, in the hypothetical world where that was on the table, I would be arguing as much about the unnecessary redundancy as I am here, with Despair likely getting the short end of that stick for being new.

2) Despair? "Classic, well-established"? What are you even talking about, it literally has never existed before FF14, and only to fulfill a niche in our rotation at that.
Even the fire-elemental variant of Flare that we use is functionally a distinct spell from the classic non-elemental "Nuke" of early entries, rather existing as part of the Elemental Wheel of ancient magics established only as far back as FF11 (Flare, Freeze(!), Flood, Burst/Surge, Tornado, Quake), with other spells (like Meteor and Ultima) taking the place of "ultimate" magics since. It's not the strongest spell in our arsenal, or even the strongest in its rotation -- it's been functionally just a filler since Stormblood for a multitude of reasons.
You want to save it from being "obviated"? Because you're a few entries late for that.

3) Ignoring just for a moment my earlier mention that all damage would have to be rebalanced regardless of whatever behavior we change, your literal justification for Fire 2 to replace Fire 3 in AoE is for damage reasons: "on a specific number of enemies [...] Fire 3 becomes a damage loss." Yet you're also arguing that by letting Flare do that same job, it's too much damage?
Okay. Let's address that real quick: Flare and Fire 3 have a 20 potency difference, base. Used as a transitional spell from UI3, that's 14 potency, in addition to the reduced peripheral damage of Flare adding a bit under 110p per additional target, versus Fire 2 adding about half that per target.
If the damage is a problem, Flare has multiple tuning knobs on it, it won't kill us if they use them. If those prove insufficient or would weaken it too much in AF, you're literally already suggesting a trait to completely alter Fire 2, so I don't see why there couldn't be one for when Flare is used under AM/UI, or even to increase its damage even further in AF. Or easier solution, just buff F3, since we only use it on transitions and procs anyway.

4) You didn't even suggest touching the potency of Fire 2 -- if your concern was that Fire 3's damage loss "isn't all that obvious from spell tooltips", I would think this would have been on the top of your priorities? Particularly since as it stands, they're still exactly equal at 3 targets.

Incidentally, "feel bad" is your phrase, not mine, so I don't know why you're putting it in scare quotes.

No, you're right, you said "it's lame".

Semantics, bud.

I say "primarily" because I don't think

More backpedaling, editorial...

and if it was intended then it shouldn't have been

... and flat out not your decision.

Funny how some tooltips are misleading, and spells are being used against their intent, but only whenever it supports your position, no?
Or more likely, you're just fitting the evidence to your agenda rather the other way around.

[Ferrinus]

When niche cases are the primary justification for those spells to continue existing, it's the same thing.

No, those niche cases aren't the justification for those spells to continue existing. The justification is twofold:

1) We don't have a good spell for swapping to fire mode on 5+ targets. Having to AoE five or more monsters is not a niche case.
2) Fire 2 can't upgrade into Flare because Flare costs more and casts more slowly than Fire 2.

If you were willing to break symmetrical job design you could change B2 to targeted instead of PBaoE and then upgrade B2 into Freeze, but turning F2 into Flare wouldn't work, and making Flare free to cast in UI3 would be an extremely bad idea for reasons I'll elaborate on below.

1) Who said anything about Despair doing the same? Despair is literally unable to be used in Umbral Ice, or even out of Astral Fire -- a point I made before when I mentioned that Flare has a weak position as a "finisher", since it can be.
Even if Despair could be, in the hypothetical world where that was on the table, I would be arguing as much about the unnecessary redundancy as I am here, with Despair likely getting the short end of that stick for being new.

What you're asking for is the equivalent of being able to use Despair in place of Fire 3 on single target.

2) Despair? "Classic, well-established"? What are you even talking about, it literally has never existed before FF14, and only to fulfill a niche in our rotation at that.
Even the fire-elemental variant of Flare that we use is functionally a distinct spell from the classic non-elemental "Nuke" of early entries, rather existing as part of the Elemental Wheel of ancient magics established only as far back as FF11 (Flare, Freeze(!), Flood, Burst/Surge, Tornado, Quake), with other spells (like Meteor and Ultima) taking the place of "ultimate" magics since. It's not the strongest spell in our arsenal, or even the strongest in its rotation -- it's been functionally just a filler since Stormblood for a multitude of reasons.
You want to save it from being "obviated"? Because you're a few entries late for that.

You really need to read more carefully. Obviously, Despair is not a long-running, well-established spell Black Mage spell in the MMO Final Fantasy Fourteen. However, Fire III is, and you are effectively arguing for Flare to replace both it and Fire II.

3) Ignoring just for a moment my earlier mention that all damage would have to be rebalanced regardless of whatever behavior we change, your literal justification for Fire 2 to replace Fire 3 in AoE is for damage reasons: "on a specific number of enemies [...] Fire 3 becomes a damage loss." Yet you're also arguing that by letting Flare do that same job, it's too much damage?
Okay. Let's address that real quick: Flare and Fire 3 have a 20 potency difference, base. Used as a transitional spell from UI3, that's 14 potency, in addition to the reduced peripheral damage of Flare adding a bit under 110p per additional target, versus Fire 2 adding about half that per target.
If the damage is a problem, Flare has multiple tuning knobs on it, it won't kill us if they use them. If those prove insufficient or would weaken it too much in AF, you're literally already suggesting a trait to completely alter Fire 2, so I don't see why there couldn't be one for when Flare is used under AM/UI, or even to increase its damage even further in AF. Or easier solution, just buff F3, since we only use it on transitions and procs anyway.

So you acknowledge that free Flare would obviate Fire 3 even on single target, but your solution is even more fiddly passives and potency rebalancing? Good lord, that's even worse!

4) You didn't even suggest touching the potency of Fire 2 -- if your concern was that Fire 3's damage loss "isn't all that obvious from spell tooltips", I would think this would have been on the top of your priorities? Particularly since as it stands, they're still exactly equal at 3 targets.

If Fire 2 had Fire 1's cast time and MP cost, it wouldn't need any potency changes since it'd be easy to compare to F1 (at lower levels) or F3 (at higher levels) to determine when using one in place of the other is worse, equivalent, or better. It's fine if they're even at three targets at which point F2 pulls ahead at four. The point is to have clear transition spells and clear damage spells, same as we do for single target.

No, you're right, you said "it's lame".

Semantics, bud.

Semantics are actually appropriate to bring up when you're being misquoted, and, yes, it's lame, because, and here's something else I actually did say, it leaches spells of their distinctiveness and identity and leaves us spamming singular one-size-fits-all spells rather than choosing them situationally. Imagine if Fire 3 had Fire 4's damage and casting cost, so that you used it both to swap and to do maximum potency per second on single target. You have to admit, it'd allow for even more button consolidation!

More backpedaling, editorial...

... and flat out not your decision.

Funny how some tooltips are misleading, and spells are being used against their intent, but only whenever it supports your position, no?
Or more likely, you're just fitting the evidence to your agenda rather the other way around.

I need to make two things clear here. First, my position is clearly supported by the evidence, because Flare consuming MP in UI3 when it isn't supposed to is obviously a huge change to both gameplay and balance that has material effects on every dungeon run and many boss encounters past level 72. At this point we're several balance patches in to Shadowbringers, and the team has had ample opportunity to correct numbers and MP costs on BLM, which they've never done. Flare costing MP even after Aspect Mastery is clearly intended behavior or, at worst, a happy accident - as in, they forgot to fix it, then saw how the game worked with it, and decided to leave it in because they thought that BLM AoE was in a good place as is. If you have some problem with the way I'm drawing conclusions from the evidence, or evidence of your own that rebuts this analysis, I invite you to present it, but to me it looks like you're just grouchy because you don't have a counterargument.

Second and more importantly, I don't actually care about developer intent, I care about the gameplay of the final product. If whoever designed SHB BLM intended for its AoE rotation to involve no fire spells whatsoever from level 35 to 49 then that's his or her right, but it's a terrible idea and needs to be corrected. Likewise, it's possible that we're actually supposed to be breaking out Excel and calculating that four enemies merit Fire 3 but five enemies merit casting a less-than-half-damage Flare instead, but because that's both nonobvious and unsatisfying (a Flare that deals less than half the damage it should? where are my big numbers) and needs correction.