Black Mage Blizzard II (and other minor suggestions)

[Archwizard]

I have it on my bars permanently, I try to include every skill.

Congratulations, you are not "most" people.

At any rate, the qualifier was "a convenient spot" on the bar. I assume it's probably closer to your mount button than the spells and abilities you use in your main rotation, largely there just to say it is. That's not the same as actually using it and you know it.

B2 being castable with a target already gives it a niche, especially since Freeze lost this ability.

I assume you meant "without" a target, and will proceed accordingly.

As you said, that's incredibly niche. Being able to precast an ability for mobs spawning gives you, at most, the damage of one extra cast -- and more often than not, the need to get within melee range will end up biting you more than waiting for targets.

It could even match Freeze as it would have the drawback of not being ranged and not providing hearts.

... then what would the point of it be. If they have the same damage, there's still no reason to use B2 over Freeze, especially if you can cast the latter at-range which is a far greater convenience than precasting.

On paper Flare only is more damage, but such a rotation is probably going to suffer from MP tick issues more.

And so long as you're using Flare, you would suffer those exact same MP tick issues until Aspect Mastery anyway. The damage of Flare is too good to pass up just because the rotation is "clunky."
The problem there is the invisible timer on the MP tick itself, honestly.

At any rate, what are you arguing against here? F2 doesn't solve that problem unless you skip Flare completely, and at that point you're still better off just using Freeze.

It might not be optimal, but I still use F2 to space out transpose casts and allow Thunder to proc more per use of transpose (to cover MP ticks). If it is a DPS loss it's not a huge one.

And I don't think the developers are catering the job to suboptimal play.

But really, you're saying B2 should be preserved for the "optimal" value of being able to precast it, while also saying F2 should stay so you can use it suboptimally? Pick a side, we don't need the button bloat caused by either.

Please just leave the thing I can impress sprouts with alone.

Just use Ley Lines instead.

[PyurBlue]

I assume it's probably closer to your mount button than the spells and abilities you use in your main rotation, largely there just to say it is. That's not the same as actually using it and you know it.

I use it whenever I'm synced below Freeze, it's located where I can use it easily, but lower priority than higher level skills.

I assume you meant "without" a target

Yes, my mistake with that typo.

As you said, that's incredibly niche. Being able to precast an ability for mobs spawning gives you, at most, the damage of one extra cast -- and more often than not, the need to get within melee range will end up biting you more than waiting for targets.

Melee range isn't really a problem between slidecasting, AM, and prepositioning. In some cases it's a better position for a BLM (vs cone AoE's for example). Precast gives you only one extra cast (though B2 refreshes UI as well), but not needing a target saves you from the hassle of having casts cancelled by target death. That damage won't be huge, but can add up to something noticeable. It's certainly better than a canceled Flare.

... then what would the point of it be. If they have the same damage, there's still no reason to use B2 over Freeze, especially if you can cast the latter at-range which is a far greater convenience than precasting.

B2 would have precasting/target-free casting. That's at least as valuable as the range of Freeze. The ability to cast at range is an advantage but not something that a BLM needs to maintain in general.

And so long as you're using Flare, you would suffer those exact same MP tick issues until Aspect Mastery anyway. The damage of Flare is too good to pass up just because the rotation is "clunky."
The problem there is the invisible timer on the MP tick itself, honestly.

At any rate, what are you arguing against here? F2 doesn't solve that problem unless you skip Flare completely, and at that point you're still better off just using Freeze.

F2 serves as a filler so that you press transpose less. That leads to two things, less downtime waiting for MP ticks, and a higher chance of having a thunder proc to cover MP ticks. F2 doesn't remove the tick issue, but it does mitigate it a little.

And I don't think the developers are catering the job to suboptimal play.

It's not really sub optimal. If you're unlucky and you constantly have to sit waiting for MP ticks after Flare, you're losing damage. Since ticks are randomish it's harder to work out what the loss actually is. In the worst case, about 3 seconds for MP tick, Flare (now effectively a 7 second cast) becomes the same DPS as F2 at best (3 targets, base cast time). MP issues essentially negate the advantages of Flare vs F2. If you use F2 you can at least expect more procs to cover the MP ticks and maximize the damage of Flare.

But really, you're saying B2 should be preserved for the "optimal" value of being able to precast it, while also saying F2 should stay so you can use it suboptimally? Pick a side, we don't need the button bloat caused by either.

I don't have any bloat issues on BLM. My stance on B2 is there is no need to remove it, you can always take it off your bars if you find it useless. The ability to precast it is helpful and something I don't want to lose, though at the same time it needs a bit of a damage buff to really be worthwhile. F2 meanwhile has some use in trying to get around MP issues at intermediate levels, I only pointed that out and said nothing about whether or not it should be kept.