Astral Fire/Umbral Ice timers are actually bad mechanics at a meta level.

[VentVanitas]

snip

Sharpcast isn't underwhelming. It's a pretty fun cooldown to optimise. You have to decide whether getting Firestarter or Thundercloud is more important in that moment on the spot. I enjoy that decision making on BLM and reworking/removing it for a skill just to make Fire 1 instant would sure, amount to generally the same thing, but it removes the fun of having to choose between Fire 3 and Thunder 3. Without timers to facilitate those conundrums, you'd just be choosing whatever's stronger. If I chose Thundercloud over Firestarter and drop Enochian or lost a Fire 4 then... oh well, that's my own fault for not planning it out properly, not the job's fault.

If you want a stress free caster then go play RDM or something, dude.

[Taranok]

I agree with you on scathe. That it needs to be removed.
But sleep was once upon a time was useful and blizz2 and fire2 are becoming useful in 6.0.

Blizzard is there for low level or if massively screwed up in a fight.

Sleep is a role action now.
Lucid dreaming isn't really useful for any of casters unless a smn/rdm is rezzing or dying

BLM is pretty much the community agreed upon best designed class because everything you need flows together, and when expertly played, has an answer for every situation. Great recovery on death as well

It's community agreed upon best because the core rotation is fine, but that doesn't mean BLM doesn't have problems. Scathe is the ultimate proof that the classes ARR design hasn't been touched at all despite being left behind a long time ago. And AF/UI timers are part of the core design, just like greased lightning was. And just light greased lightning, it massively raises the skill floor of the class without really impacting the skill ceiling. And just like greased lightning, the class will be a lot better with its removal.

Sharpcast isn't underwhelming. It's a pretty fun cooldown to optimise. You have to decide whether getting Firestarter or Thundercloud is more important in that moment on the spot. I enjoy that decision making on BLM and reworking/removing it for a skill just to make Fire 1 instant would sure, amount to generally the same thing, but it removes the fun of having to choose between Fire 3 and Thunder 3. Without timers to facilitate those conundrums, you'd just be choosing whatever's stronger. If I chose Thundercloud over Firestarter and drop Enochian or lost a Fire 4 then... oh well, that's my own fault for not planning it out properly, not the job's fault.

If you want a stress free caster then go play RDM or something, dude.

I would, but RDM is very stressful for me. I actually am really good in general on BLM, it's my strongest class by a pretty wide mile. Generally the only reason I don't play it is because I get bored of it, but the omnipresent anxiety of AF/UI timers are definitely something I enjoy not dealing with. It is a reason I stop playing the class, not a reason I come back to it. I rarely drop timers. As in I have to take a break from the class for months to even be at risk of dropping timers. This is because at moderate-high skill levels, the timers offer literally nothing of value to the rotation. It's purely a skill floor mechanic. Once you've dealt with it, you basically don't deal with it again until you really scuff your rotation and cadence. Which is the entire, provable reason it's awful. It's a complete non-issue, except when you're learning the class and realize it will completely trample on your rotation.

Also, with the exception of specific strategic withholding of sharpcast, the agreed upon best way to use it is literally on cooldown at the nearest double weave window. It's very, very underwhelming. Other classes press an oGCD and either can do something amazing, like RDM's manafication, which massively accelerates their rotation (like Ley Lines for BLM), or they just flat get more damage. BLM gets to...guarantee a badly designed part of the class will magically do what it says it will randomly do, but only after already doing it. You just pop it on cooldown when you safely can. If you want you just constantly hold it for AF phase, or T3. The most interesting thing it does is let you do a 4-4-1-4-4-3-4-4-despair rotation in AF, which is an interesting difference compared to the standard 4-4-4-1-4-4-4-despair rotation.

And to iterate, again. Monk got a massive boon by removing greased lightning. Sure, the class was made a lot easier in the short term due to the skill floor being dropped out, but then they could start doing wilder things with its rotation, such as the change to perfect balance. The timer rotation is shackling the class just as much as it's making it harder to learn the class for new players.

I am speaking of this from a position of actually doing well on the class, not a position of being a bad black mage. I normally ignore AF/UI because I normally don't scuff rotations. I memorize positioning on every boss when I take the class into savage. Short of really high intensity movement fights like certain sections of E4S, I always can perform well in my static group. Since there's no objective measure of showing how well I can do, all I can use is things like threat bars, where I'm almost always the first DPS targeted after a tank dies in an alliance fight, and other measures along those lines. When I say you could delete AF/UI timers and 99% of the time I wouldn't notice it, I'm speaking truthfully.

They add nothing to the class at the high end, but take away a lot of the class from the low end while also shackling the classes rotation by forcing the devs to always design around these awful timers. Their inclusion allows for really awkward and silly openers and rotations, such as JP and hypermeme. Neither of which are healthy for a class to have and both of which the devs are trying to fix by making Paradox your second best PPS spell of the AF phase to force BLMs who want to push DPS to actually do the intended rotation. Such a surprising thought.

All of this points to the devs not liking how freeform the timers are, yet also shows how meaningless it is when played normally when you meet the skill floor requirement. And again, 99% of the time, I literally would not notice if AF/UI timers were removed. Why should the class have a mechanic that's largely ignored? Because that's exactly what the timers actually are, while also increasing stress and not being a mandatory part of the rotation, because you can structure it otherwise.

[Rongway]

If I chose Thundercloud over Firestarter and drop Enochian or lost a Fire 4 then... oh well, that's my own fault for not planning it out properly, not the job's fault.

There are boss ultimate attack cutscenes that last 30s or more, and railed movement in some dungeons that are longer than 15s, e.g., the dragon ride in the last MSQ dungeon, and multiple spots in the Copied Factory, one of which, annoyingly, is a 15s ride that you don't have time to Soul after. Dropping Aspect during these is absolutely the job's fault. You can't plan for them, properly or otherwise.

[zcrash970]

There are boss ultimate attack cutscenes that last 30s or more, and railed movement in some dungeons that are longer than 15s, e.g., the dragon ride in the last MSQ dungeon, and multiple spots in the Copied Factory, one of which, annoyingly, is a 15s ride that you don't have time to Soul after. Dropping Aspect during these is absolutely the job's fault. You can't plan for them, properly or otherwise.

So literally when everyone gets an hard reset on their rotation. BLM isn't the only loosing out.
Twinsnakes, disembowel, storms path, cards, literally almost every job gets this

[Rongway]

So literally when everyone gets an hard reset on their rotation. BLM isn't the only loosing out.

None of those suffer nearly as much as BLM.

Twinsnakes

Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs

disembowel

Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs

storms path

You mean Eye, but reapplied on third GCD, activation time three GCDs

cards

No big loss here. Draw a card immediately after the thing finishes? Activation time 0s because you'll either have time to draw before the boss is targetable again or you'll draw in your first weave window.

literally almost every job gets this

BLM has to

(a) hardcast Blizzard III, which takes twice as long to to cast outside of Astral Fire III, and then delay their next cast by activating Enochian outside of a weave window;
(b) Swiftcast Blizzard III which takes almost as much time as hardcasting it but gives a weave window for Enochian,
or (c) substitute Freeze into a single target rotation losing damage but gaining a heart, that's nice I guess.

then spend another two or more GCDs getting back into fire phase before they can cast Fire IV again. EW will remove the Enochian activation time, but Aspects will still need to be reapplied and BLM loses a Paradox every time Aspect drops.

This is not something "every other job" has to deal with.

[Absolution]

None of those suffer nearly as much as BLM.


Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs


Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs


You mean Eye, but reapplied on third GCD, activation time three GCDs


No big loss here. Draw a card immediately after the thing finishes? Activation time 0s because you'll either have time to draw before the boss is targetable again or you'll draw in your first weave window.


BLM has to

(a) hardcast Blizzard III, which takes twice as long to to cast outside of Astral Fire III, and then delay their next cast by activating Enochian outside of a weave window;
(b) Swiftcast Blizzard III which takes almost as much time as hardcasting it but gives a weave window for Enochian,
or (c) substitute Freeze into a single target rotation losing damage but gaining a heart, that's nice I guess.

then spend another two or more GCDs getting back into fire phase before they can cast Fire IV again. EW will remove the Enochian activation time, but Aspects will still need to be reapplied and BLM loses a Paradox every time Aspect drops.

This is not something "every other job" has to deal with.

Good point.

A fix would just be to make Umbral Soul freeze UI timer, granting 3 UI and either, 3 Umbral Hearts outside of combat or 1 while in combat.

It will still cost a GCD. You will still always want to use B4 over US. But it helps with downtime and those long travel phases.

[Taranok]

None of those suffer nearly as much as BLM.


Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs


Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs


You mean Eye, but reapplied on third GCD, activation time three GCDs


No big loss here. Draw a card immediately after the thing finishes? Activation time 0s because you'll either have time to draw before the boss is targetable again or you'll draw in your first weave window.


BLM has to

(a) hardcast Blizzard III, which takes twice as long to to cast outside of Astral Fire III, and then delay their next cast by activating Enochian outside of a weave window;
(b) Swiftcast Blizzard III which takes almost as much time as hardcasting it but gives a weave window for Enochian,
or (c) substitute Freeze into a single target rotation losing damage but gaining a heart, that's nice I guess.

then spend another two or more GCDs getting back into fire phase before they can cast Fire IV again. EW will remove the Enochian activation time, but Aspects will still need to be reapplied and BLM loses a Paradox every time Aspect drops.

This is not something "every other job" has to deal with.

A couple things to add:

Burning swiftcast to restart your opener means you burn a critical movement skill exclusively to bring the classes rotation back. Furthermore, there is absolutely no evidence that dropping AF/UI also drops Paradox, and there's evidence it might actually be saved. Notably, in this video, he simultaneously loses AF/UI but Paradox isn't instantly interrupted. It finishes casting, and isn't put into a stance. Which means Paradox can also get trapped to burn MP, do 20% (percentage points) less damage, and potentially make it more difficult to get into a stance if you accidentally overburn your MP.

Also, quick addition, Storm's Eye doesn't lock out your rotation for want of it. In fact, none of these lock out your core rotation. You want to maintain it, and it's part of your skill ceiling to maintain these class buffs, but that's the important thing. BLM has no core rotation without AF/UI. A warrior simply loses out on ~9% of its total damage until it gets storm's eye up. Which is annoying and should be considered to be looked into, but is not as serious a problem as, say, dumping their entire stack of rage while simultaneously setting back the cooldown of Inner Release, which is what dropping AF/UI is practically doing. In comparison, a Monk in the same situation has its core rotation seriously hindered due to a loss of GL3. DRG has its entire main loop completely reset when BotD is forced to drop as it often is at present. These are both being, or have been, removed.

Good point.

A fix would just be to make Umbral Soul freeze UI timer, granting 3 UI and either, 3 Umbral Hearts outside of combat or 1 while in combat.

It will still cost a GCD. You will still always want to use B4 over US. But it helps with downtime and those long travel phases.

I can't help but think of all of the mechanics the devs kept adding to Monk to fix the problem of Greased Lightning being dropped, which was often just as disastrous to MNK's rotation as it is to BLM to drop AF/UI due to the timers, before the devs finally acquiesced and removed GL3, and found out the class was better with its removal than with it as a major part of the class. At a certain point, you're really just bending over backwards to justify poor design while claiming it's good design. In a broad, general sense. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth as I'm very much editorializing based on trying to fix a problem by creating silly asinine workarounds instead of dealing with the problem directly.

[Absolution]

I can't help but think of all of the mechanics the devs kept adding to Monk to fix the problem of Greased Lightning being dropped, which was often just as disastrous to MNK's rotation as it is to BLM to drop AF/UI due to the timers, before the devs finally acquiesced and removed GL3, and found out the class was better with its removal than with it as a major part of the class. At a certain point, you're really just bending over backwards to justify poor design while claiming it's good design. In a broad, general sense. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth as I'm very much editorializing based on trying to fix a problem by creating silly asinine workarounds instead of dealing with the problem directly.

AF and UI doesn't take forever to reapply though. It only takes one to one and a half GCD to go back to UI3 or AF3. Currently, Enochian only adds a level of punishment for that but that's getting a QOL update next expac hence I understand why they turned that into a trait.

But the timers on AF and UI aren't the "problem" here. Playing BLM optimally, you will always want to switch to the other aspect even before the timers expire anyway. The problem I was keen on was that forced cutscenes and transitions longer than 16s will drop you out of your aspect. There is no way around this. Umbral Soul was already a way to maintain it during passive downtime, why can't we just adjust it to cover all downtimes?

In the end, I wanted to grasp what you, kind sir, really want out of this post. If you think this mechanic is bad, then how would you change it? AF and UI are just passive now? Or are they just modes you transition into like Diurnal Sect/Nocturnal Sect?
When you spawn into an instance, is it unaspected? Or are you always on Umbral Ice at the start of any instance? How will polyglots interact with a passive UI/AF? And so on...

I'm not trying to say you're wrong. You have a point. It sucks to have to drop AF and UI on unskippable boss cutscenes longer than the timer. But the fix would be to:
a) design boss fights such that there are no transitions and cutscenes longer than the timer.
b) redesign the engine such that you CAN Umbral soul in transitions and cutscenes longer than the timer.
c) Rework and redesign the entire job so that it works with a passive UI/AF
d) Just extend the Umbral Soul function to freeze UI.

As much as I'm being critical of your post, I would find it interesting if SE went for option c. But for now, I would be fine with just option d. It doesn't make sense to rework the entire job when it works well on almost all fights save for those with long animation locks.

[Grimoire-M]

None of those suffer nearly as much as BLM.


Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs


Reapplied on second GCD, activation time two GCDs


You mean Eye, but reapplied on third GCD, activation time three GCDs


No big loss here. Draw a card immediately after the thing finishes? Activation time 0s because you'll either have time to draw before the boss is targetable again or you'll draw in your first weave window.


BLM has to

(a) hardcast Blizzard III, which takes twice as long to to cast outside of Astral Fire III, and then delay their next cast by activating Enochian outside of a weave window;
(b) Swiftcast Blizzard III which takes almost as much time as hardcasting it but gives a weave window for Enochian,
or (c) substitute Freeze into a single target rotation losing damage but gaining a heart, that's nice I guess.

then spend another two or more GCDs getting back into fire phase before they can cast Fire IV again. EW will remove the Enochian activation time, but Aspects will still need to be reapplied and BLM loses a Paradox every time Aspect drops.

This is not something "every other job" has to deal with.

Sure, if you consider 30s+ jump phases to not necessitate a full-on reopener in the first place, which is even more punishing for jobs that have a much longer pre-pull setup than BLM has. NIN gets screwed hard by needing to set up their Mudras and has to actively alter their rotation going into and coming out of that window in order to be able to refresh Huton in those situations currently and loses a full on Mudra to a mid-setup Suiton. Dancer screws up their Standard Step timing in a similar manner. Dragoon can drop a whole eye window if they can't compensate for it ahead of time while Summoner can get stuck with back-to-back Demis and Devotion realignment if Bahamut's forced to be held going-in. Monk doesn't want to start without a form buff up at all but has to do so anyways and loses DoT uptime. Red Mage seems like a breeze by comparison but I know you're familiar with how bad it mucks with their mana management. Really only Healers, Tanks, and Bard/Machinist seem mostly unaffected by it as far as I can tell. Most other jobs lose about equally as much, but Black Mage can choose to push a fast AF rotation going in and stockpile Polyglot stacks knowing they won't be charging it anyways.

Really the problem that's begging to be solved here is giving Polyglot the 'in combat only' clause of Lilies and Sage's Aetherflow now that Enochian won't have a button anymore. That's it.

[Taranok]

AF and UI doesn't take forever to reapply though. It only takes one to one and a half GCD to go back to UI3 or AF3. Currently, Enochian only adds a level of punishment for that but that's getting a QOL update next expac hence I understand why they turned that into a trait.

But the timers on AF and UI aren't the "problem" here. Playing BLM optimally, you will always want to switch to the other aspect even before the timers expire anyway. The problem I was keen on was that forced cutscenes and transitions longer than 16s will drop you out of your aspect. There is no way around this. Umbral Soul was already a way to maintain it during passive downtime, why can't we just adjust it to cover all downtimes?

In the end, I wanted to grasp what you, kind sir, really want out of this post. If you think this mechanic is bad, then how would you change it? AF and UI are just passive now? Or are they just modes you transition into like Diurnal Sect/Nocturnal Sect?
When you spawn into an instance, is it unaspected? Or are you always on Umbral Ice at the start of any instance? How will polyglots interact with a passive UI/AF? And so on...

I'm not trying to say you're wrong. You have a point. It sucks to have to drop AF and UI on unskippable boss cutscenes longer than the timer. But the fix would be to:
a) design boss fights such that there are no transitions and cutscenes longer than the timer.
b) redesign the engine such that you CAN Umbral soul in transitions and cutscenes longer than the timer.
c) Rework and redesign the entire job so that it works with a passive UI/AF
d) Just extend the Umbral Soul function to freeze UI.

As much as I'm being critical of your post, I would find it interesting if SE went for option c. But for now, I would be fine with just option d. It doesn't make sense to rework the entire job when it works well on almost all fights save for those with long animation locks.

The problem is, while AF/UI is down, you are locked out of doing your core rotation. You are stuck into a very low PPS re-opener that either resets you into your lowest DPS phase without any way to speed up the process, or you burn a ton of MP, lose even more potency, and are regardless stuck paying a 1000+ potency bill in lost potencies off losing the timer, just in the cost of losing fire 4s and despairs.

It's "not a lot of time," but it's astronomical in cost.

And if you want to see what I could see the rotation looking like without it, I'd direct you towards this post. https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5689833 Basically, drop the skill floor out from under BLM, restructure the rotation to be fundamentally exactly what the devs already want it to be anyways (so don't change the core rotation), and remove the threat of dropping the rotation to smooth out the class, fix transitional issues, etc.

Sure, if you consider 30s+ jump phases to not necessitate a full-on reopener in the first place, which is even more punishing for jobs that have a much longer pre-pull setup than BLM has. NIN gets screwed hard by needing to set up their Mudras and has to actively alter their rotation going into and coming out of that window in order to be able to refresh Huton in those situations currently and loses a full on Mudra to a mid-setup Suiton. Dancer screws up their Standard Step timing in a similar manner. Dragoon can drop a whole eye window if they can't compensate for it ahead of time while Summoner can get stuck with back-to-back Demis and Devotion realignment if Bahamut's forced to be held going-in. Monk doesn't want to start without a form buff up at all but has to do so anyways and loses DoT uptime. Red Mage seems like a breeze by comparison but I know you're familiar with how bad it mucks with their mana management. Really only Healers, Tanks, and Bard/Machinist seem mostly unaffected by it as far as I can tell. Most other jobs lose about equally as much, but Black Mage can choose to push a fast AF rotation going in and stockpile Polyglot stacks knowing they won't be charging it anyways.

Really the problem that's begging to be solved here is giving Polyglot the 'in combat only' clause of Lilies and Sage's Aetherflow now that Enochian won't have a button anymore. That's it.

I mean, if we're talking about Ninja, they're getting a button exclusively to fix the problem of needing to spend ninjutsu to regain Huton. Which begs the question of why they feel they need to keep Huton anymore. It's very expensive to drop, hence adding the button, and at this point the only reason to justify keeping it is to keep Armor Crush in the rotation. They could remove AC, turn AE into a directionlesss attack, and make Bhava have a flank requirement to compliment TA, and the class wouldn't need 2 buttons (AC, Huton refresh in EW), while freeing up an entire Mudra finisher for some other unknown skill that would actually be used at literally any point in end-game EW outside of the opener.

As for making Enochian just be an in-combat thing, that would punish the class mid-pull in dungeons and whatnot, which isn't necessarily a problem outside of just taking away something beneficial the class already has, and doesn't address that dropping AF/UI is still a pretty massive potency loss. You're still talking about losing all remaining Umbral Hearts, have to go from what would probably be F4 spam at 540 potency per 2.8s (300 * 1.8, so ignoring maim and mend, ignoring enochian's potency increase, 192.8 pps), dropping to a flat 240 potency skill that takes .7 seconds longer to cast (68.7pps), and probably dropping into UI again because otherwise you'll be burning at least an entire fire 4 by itself to restart the rotation. Or you burn swiftcast to get into it faster, burning an important movement tool while still incurring all the knock-on problems. Comparing this to Ninja's Huraijin, I wish restarting BLM's rotation cost a mere...127 potency in opportunity cost, give or take (baseline AE rotation, technically would be more because it's a slower GCD but I don't want to math it out entirely.)

All of this to justify a timer that exists to structure the AF3 rotation, does a very poor job of actually structuring it, makes the class much more confusing to understand as a new player, doesn't impact the skill ceiling at all because it's the baseline requirement to play the job as expected, and it could be removed without destroying the rotation provided you structure the rotation using other tools already present.