I thought I would hate Blm. I was wrong.

[SpeckledBurd]

A lot of effort and checks went into the current iteration of BLM. It's genuinely rare for a job to feel so seamless and fluid out of the gate of an expansion release. The job feels and plays really well. I honestly wish the same due care was given to all jobs instead of what ended up happening. At least things are now a lot better for the overall game balance and feel of play.

It isn't rare for Black Mage IMO. Black Mage has pretty consistently had some of the best additions to its kit of any job from expansion to expansion, and more importantly they have a tendency to make bigger changes to the existing kit in addition to expansion additions (IE, Transpose refreshing Enochian in Stormblood and Umbral Hearts from Freeze this expansion). Overall they've lavished attention on Black Mage to the point where it has a solid play experience at every level but 50.

It pays to be the job the game's Director prefers I suppose.

Yeah specially compared to monk who is the worst of the jobs right now.

I mean at the end of Heavensward Black Mage and Monk had a lot of very similar problems with Greased Lightning and Enochian, its just in Stormblood they actually solved those problems for Black Mage while Monk got some of the dumbest additions possible.

If Stormblood Black Mage had been anything like Stormblood Monk it would have been "Enhanced Manaward: Refreshes Enochian when Mana Ward is Broken" instead of Transpose refreshing it, Triple Cast wouldn't exist, Between the Lines would only work during Umbral Ice Phase at full MP, there'd be a trait that altered what Scathe did in Umbral Ice and Astral Fire, and Foul's potency would be a pittance for the price of removing the Enochian status while putting the Enochian CD on cooldown.

[Kabooa]

It pays to be the job the game's Director prefers I suppose.

I'd argue the Director just represents your average player better.

If you're primarily the designer, and in a game without a beta server, you rarely get your creations dragged through the mud, and something you think is genuinely good just doesn't gel with the rest of the playerbase.

I'm not sure how many testers they have, but they could stand to have more. More numerous, eager, and effectively wage-less testers.

#PublicBetaTestServers When

[Nemekh]

It isn't rare for Black Mage IMO. Black Mage has pretty consistently had some of the best additions to its kit of any job from expansion to expansion, and more importantly they have a tendency to make bigger changes to the existing kit in addition to expansion additions (IE, Transpose refreshing Enochian in Stormblood and Umbral Hearts from Freeze this expansion). Overall they've lavished attention on Black Mage to the point where it has a solid play experience at every level but 50.

It pays to be the job the game's Director prefers I suppose.

I wouldn't call past iterations remotely close to how beneficial Shadowbringers release BLM's changes were. Lots of QoL and AF/UI's timer being further increased and nothing new was fundamentally broken in any regard. In fact the only real change BLM has had is the indicator for how many spells left can be made instant with Triplecast in 5.10. The job has had no underlying mechanics changed because it was that good.

Meanwhile, in Stormblood F4/B4 spells were 3s base on release, the AF/UI timers were shorter, the Enochian upgrade tooltip was incorrect (leading people to think its damage% was bugged/did nothing when it was fine) and Foul had a mana cost. These things did get resolved after the fact but it wasn't already in the best state possible on release. Even further down the line were potency adjustments done and the anim lock and speed of AM was made much better.

Heavensward's release state is harder for me to recall, I mostly have memories of not enjoying the old Eno B4 timer mechanic at high ping, the state of SMN and SCH's teapot Broil.

[SpeckledBurd]

I wouldn't call past iterations remotely close to how beneficial Shadowbringers release BLM's changes were. Lots of QoL and AF/UI's timer being further increased and nothing new was fundamentally broken in any regard. In fact the only real change BLM has had is the indicator for how many spells left can be made instant with Triplecast in 5.10. The job has had no underlying mechanics changed because it was that good.

Meanwhile, in Stormblood F4/B4 spells were 3s base on release, the AF/UI timers were shorter, the Enochian upgrade tooltip was incorrect (leading people to think its damage% was bugged/did nothing when it was fine) and Foul had a mana cost. These things did get resolved after the fact but it wasn't already in the best state possible on release. Even further down the line were potency adjustments done and the anim lock and speed of AM was made much better.

Heavensward's release state is harder for me to recall, I mostly have memories of not enjoying the old Eno B4 timer mechanic at high ping, the state of SMN and SCH's teapot Broil.

Perhaps it wasn't to the degree of Shadowbringers, but in general I recall Stormblood Black Mage players were extremely satisfied with how the class played and what the job received even on launch before they'd further refined it with tweaks.

[Kabooa]

Perhaps it wasn't to the degree of Shadowbringers, but in general I recall Stormblood Black Mage players were extremely satisfied with how the class played and what the job received even on launch before they'd further refined it with tweaks.

Can confirm. I wasn't sure how I felt about Eno being passive'd as I'm all about skirting timers, but Stormblood Black Mage, even before the refinements, was great. The MP adjustments were ace.

[Nemekh]

Perhaps it wasn't to the degree of Shadowbringers, but in general I recall Stormblood Black Mage players were extremely satisfied with how the class played and what the job received even on launch before they'd further refined it with tweaks.

We recall it differently. Stormblood era balance concerns are still very fresh in my mind especially in the context of how the community at large, and in particular the channels in The Balance, was reacting to them. There were many complaints about Foul having a cost being clunky for the UI phase and people across the regions being dissatisfied with the damage potential and its execution against the timers. That's what the 3s -> 2.8s cast time adjustment helped address in the initial wave of changes. Then once Deltascape hit there were more complaints on other matters even prior to 4.1.

[Waliel]

We recall it differently. Stormblood era balance concerns are still very fresh in my mind especially in the context of how the community at large, and in particular the channels in The Balance, was reacting to them. There were many complaints about Foul having a cost being clunky for the UI phase and people across the regions being dissatisfied with the damage potential and its execution against the timers. That's what the 3s -> 2.8s cast time adjustment helped address in the initial wave of changes. Then once Deltascape hit there were more complaints on other matters even prior to 4.1.

No B4 rotation memes.

[Silverquick]

We recall it differently. Stormblood era balance concerns are still very fresh in my mind especially in the context of how the community at large, and in particular the channels in The Balance, was reacting to them. There were many complaints about Foul having a cost being clunky for the UI phase and people across the regions being dissatisfied with the damage potential and its execution against the timers. That's what the 3s -> 2.8s cast time adjustment helped address in the initial wave of changes. Then once Deltascape hit there were more complaints on other matters even prior to 4.1.

I agree,

Honestly I remember the beginning days of Stormblood. BLM was weak as hell at the outset. So weak you couldn't even use your normal fire spells on the world map mobs. I remember literally having to kick in Enochian just to keep from taking an insane amount of damage due to how slow they would go down. Which really just cheapened Enochian as it was supposed to be the uber boomer sequence for big bad guys, not some common every day thing.

In all fairness through this part hit all jobs equally as they removed Subjobs and we lost a ton of stats. So even in Augmented Shire gear it was hard to solo and you didn't have self heals anymore by subbing WHM or SMN.

At that point they'd literally nerfed SMN into the ground (On top of the loss of Subjobs) as we'd lost a good 60+ potency in DoTs and Ruin 3 took a major nerf and at the time Pet damage did not make up for it. BLM which was already hard to solo got even worse.

I played through the first part of Stormblood with BLM up through Siren Song which did have a LOT of movement required in it that hosed up Enochian a lot... at that point I went back and leveled up Red Mage. It was much more doable, with the Vercures and I didn't have to put up with Running an overly complicated Enochian rotation every damn mob.

So that was my experience at the outset of Stormblood.