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

[Ferrinus]

Regardless, my point is that you've developed a system where your proposal only seems like the best option on the grounds that you've also simultaneously proposed nerfing every alternative into the ground first. Bearing in mind that adding more buttons is no smoother or more nuanced, nor does it necessarily net more damage since with such a grandiose restructuring, our potencies would have to be tuned around the changes anyway.

Yes, obviously. I mean, if Freeze dealt 750 damage to each target then we could delete every other spell BLM has. This would, you have to admit, cut down on button bloat. However, it would also be bad. The job is much more fun to play when different spells are good for different things and you need to use your memory and analytical spell to determine which one is appropriate when. So, I'm perfectly happy to cut functionality out of some spells to give it to others. That said, my proposal for modifying Fire 2 is strictly a buff - the spell would cast faster and more cheaply and be able to do Fire 3's job on AoE pulls.

A difference of a half second is frankly nothing for "recovering", particularly when you consider your MP is continuing to grow in UI or out of phase, and the raw potency you'd be losing over it. You state that B2 would be worse than Freeze for that purpose, but there is no reason to nerf Freeze out of that position -- yet you seem resigned to it.

But I do admit that the need to wait for that first tick on some invisible timer is a (separate) lingering issue, one which affects our single-target as well, which could be resolved a multitude of ways -- those that give instant means to cast B4 and/or Thunder without clipping your MP recovery being chief among them, such as by having your transitional spell generate instant starter MP, or as Shurri has suggested before, just synching the MP tick timer with personal phase alignment rather than server ticks. At the going rate though, with Thundercloud procs drawing out AoE, we already have pretty consistent Polyglot charges every rotation which could at least buy time for MP; don't really need another spammable ice GCD to pace that rotation out, really just 1-2 GCDs in total (... such as the free transitional skill that Aspect Mastery claims we're due).

First, it's a difference of 1.5 seconds on average potentially a difference of up to 3 seconds. That's quite bad, and, like I said, if you go and do the math - replace 240/2.5s with 0/1.5s - you'll find that it's a dps loss even on three targets to just wait for a mana tick rather than immediately cast an AoE ice spell, even one that only deals 80 potency/target.

That said, you seem to be confusing my example of a level 50 AoE rotation (one in which it would actually make sense to use a buffed F2 as a workhorse/filler spell, and in which your umbral phase is low enough on options that you'd probably need B2 as filler) with general/max-level BLM AoE in which, as you say, there are so many things proccing that you're pretty much never strapped for options during the umbral cycle. At level 50, a ranged 80 potency AoE B2 would probably get cast at least once per umbral cycle. At level 80, probably not, unless you were in the weird situation of entering umbral without polyglot or thundercloud. Currently, Freeze fills this extremely marginal role role, but if Freeze cast more slowly and B2 hit a bit harder it could do the same.

They literally feed us two separate traits at level 68 to make that possible, and it remains one of only 3 spells (with Despair) that gives AF3, so how can you say that's "clearly unintended"? If the devs wanted Flare to be purely a finisher move, they would have had it go the way of Despair long ago and barred its use during Umbral Ice -- and then we would never have noticed that Flare is the weird exception to nearly every phase-crossing nuance of our rotation.

Umbral Hearts are fundamentally designed to reduce Fire spell costs during Astral Fire, which is why you don't lose any for popping Fire 3 during UI phase -- but Flare is the sole exception to that, consuming them even in Umbral Ice.

Aspect Mastery is designed to remove the cost of transitioning between phases, which lets us squeeze that little more damage out of AF phase in single-target -- but Flare is the sole exception to that, too, continuing to have the same cost (even up to all of our MP) regardless.

If anything seems "clearly unintended," I would think it would be the lack of consistency in our core mechanics, particularly the ones they've added each expansion.

It's clearly unintended because unlike Fire 3, Flare eats 2/3rds of our MP and all of our hearts if we try to use it to change from umbral to astral. Also, using Flare to stance change on 3 or 4 targets rather than using F3 (the spell that's traditionally always done it) is a dps loss. It's only a DPS gain on 5 targets by the thinnest of percentages. Does anything in our kit scream "use Flare instead of F3 on five targets" specifically? No.

Remember, Improved Umbral Heart dates back to Stormblood. As far as I'm aware, it was never correct to use Flare to swap aspects back then - your AoE rotation, leaving T4s and Fouls aside for a moment, was F3 Flare Flare B3 B4. F2 was actually a damage gain on something dumb like 11+ targets, though I forget the specifics. It might have been optimal to leave out F3, but in that case you'd be using Transpose to cast a "warm flare" followed by a hot flare - Flare's swapping/refreshing AF3 is pure downside/aesthetic consistency, not utility.

To reiterate, I don't think you're correct that Flare works inconsistently with Aspect Mastery (well, technically it does since Aspect Mastery should affect its MP minimum, though this is a minor issue) - this is a phrasing/tooltip translation issue. The game should just specify that Flare/Despair have an MP cost (800, unaffected by any traits) and then a on-hit effect (a truckload of damage, but also the incineration of all remaining MP).

And it's any less lame to be forced to cast the wet noodle that is Fire 2 at its absolute crappiest, for a job it already shares with two other spells?
Why do you think that level of redundancy and additional bloat would feel any better for the kit, than having us exclusively use our most powerful AoEs -- Flare, Freeze, Foul and T4 -- to call down disaster and do the jobs they do best?

This is like complaining that it's lame to be forced to cast the wet noodle that is Fire 3 in order to swap to astral mode, or the wet noodle that is Fire 1 in order to maintain AF3 in the middle of your cycle. In a way, it is lame to have to use weaker, more basic spells in order to set the stage for stronger and flashier spells. However, it's also the heart of BLM's design and gameplay challenge.

You could retool BLM so that the only two spells it has are Xeno and Foul, and just tweak the potencies on those so that they equal the average potency of a BLM doing their single target or AoE rotations under the current regime, and then we'd get to cast our strongest spells all the time! Wowee! But be careful what you wish for.

Well in such a fictitious scenario that fits your oddly specific narrative, it's probably a DPS check which a good player would most likely have prepped Umbral Hearts or saved cooldowns for, including Swift/Triplecast and Manafont.
Unless you didn't mean that Flare is supposed to be a big, powerful add-finishing move after all? Since "we need adds dead, NOW" seems exactly the scenario Flare is made for in your mind?
Well, in that case -- and here's my favorite part! -- you could still get more potency out of Cold Flare than AF3'd Fire 2. Even with your upgrades.

No, this doesn't work, because the current round of still-alive enemies are on low HP but the next round is going to come in fresh and need to be hit hard. If you flare these guys it'll be overkill, and then you'll find yourself in umbral mode and having to swap back to astral (maybe even waiting for a mana tick if you have no procs and want to flare immediately rather than swap back with F3) before you can start actually outputting max damage. Because you received an (extremely advantageous) sidegrade rather than an upgrade, you have lost options.

That isn't at all the reason F2 is still on our bar, and you know it. For those of us who didn't throw it aside long ago, it only remains for the purposes of level syncing -- which goes back to my original suggestion of having it upgrade!

I do not know how else to say this to you:
It. Doesn't. Matter. If Flare consumes all your MP and Fire 2 doesn't.
So long as Flare amounts to at least a sidegrade, to the point of Fire 2's exclusion (such as, oh, the present reality), it could easily be treated as a functional upgrade -- there is zero rule imposed upon the devs that says every replaced ID needs to be a strict "X becomes X+1" bonus, and you literally showed Bio II as a precedent for such accepted behavior on their drawing board.

If I seemed hostile earlier, it's because to my eyes, the only one imposing such a narrow-minded limitation on the definition of "advancement" is you.

It actually does if, by leveling up and learning new magic, you somehow lose options you had before. For instance, here's a button consolidation idea: imagine if Scathe ugpraded into Xenoglossy when you had a Polyglot proc? Match made in heaven, right? ...unless you want to, say, instantly knock away a bomb or otherwise "pop" a target that only requires a single hit while saving your Xeno for the actual boss.

Now, if Scathe were to be literally deleted entirely, I wouldn't shed a tear. But for Scathe to randomly become unavailable as part of a putative upgrade would be very bad.

[Tint]

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

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.

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.

[Archwizard]

-snip-

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.
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.

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.

[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.

[Umsche]

Will you two stop polluting this forum for something as petty ?

[Archwizard]

Perfectly willing to drop it, since we've each said our respective pieces and it's gone on for 3 pages already. I will say this discussion has added a couple things to my earlier wishlist, of course:

• Make Blizzard 2 on-target rather than surrounding the caster.
• Trait to upgrade Blizzard 2 into Freeze at 35, and Fire 2 into Flare at 50.
• Combine the button for Enochian with Fire 4 and Blizzard 4; combine the buttons for Ley Lines and Between the Lines; combine the buttons for Despair and Umbral Soul.
• Make Aspect Mastery and Umbral Hearts more consistent with regards to transitional Flares.
• Add a trait to make Blizzard 1 Instant in early levels. Replace Scathe with a castable survival skill like an enhanced Drain.
• Remove the Refresh delay on Umbral Ice. Perhaps make it a reduced amount every second instead of on server tick? Failing that, generate a base amount of MP instantly upon transition, based on number of UI stacks.
• More interaction with Thunder. (Astral Hearts, anyone? 1 per Fire 4 or victim of Flare, consume 3 stacks to turn T3 into Burst?)
• Hollow: Mark a designated area, drawing nearby enemies into it and dealing damage over time while they remain nearby. (Grouping tool for AoE.)

[PyurBlue]

My honest feeling on BLM is that it's fine as it is. Almost nothing needs to change, and I'd be more worried about changes hurting the fun of the class than anything else. The only thing I might want is not having to worry about MP ticks when switching to ice.

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

• Hollow: Mark a designated area, drawing nearby enemies into it and dealing damage over time while they remain nearby. (Grouping tool for AoE.)

Wouldn't we need a enemy collision-circle resizing function for this? They're already packed as tightly as possible in most cases and we still can't AoE all without the tank ensuring a small mob is in the center of the fan of mobs.

Of course, I'd be all for said feature, perhaps even atop just shrinking down the oversized circles generally. (We see this most often on quadrupeds where the circle seems to be drawn according to their lengths, not widths, so mobs can't much clip through each other. But, since they're most often shoulder-to-shoulder (i.e. at width) in combat, this tends to just make them seem weirdly spread out.)