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

[Acidblood]

It's probably just that I'm used to BLM, but since the timers where extended to 15s they really haven't been as much of a pain point as:

• Enochian being a button but dropping with AF/UI... thankfully gone come Endwalker, because it is literally nothing but a punishment mechanic.
• Aspect Mastery being level 72... AM smooths out the rotation so much (especially AoE with Flare) that it really should be level 50 (or lower).
• Umbral Soul being level 76... US makes downtime, and forced extended movement, infinitely more bearable and should be a low-level ability.

If the timer were to be adjusted though, may I suggest only making UI infinite? That way the rotation, with its current simplicity, flexibility, and on-the-fly decision making stays as is.

I don't know about you but to me it's completely backwards to rework job timers so that they don't punish you during long cutscenes instead of, idk, maybe not having 1 minute cutscenes in the middle of a fight?

1 minute cutscenes at least give you a break, and let your cooldowns reset... it's the 16s rail rides that are super annoying in forcing a re-opener (potentially without cooldowns).

[Ferrinus]

Good news: Aspect Mastery will be a level 1 trait in Endwalker.

[smol_cofe]

blm core change suggestions never sit well with me, I love the job as is, a few spells you don't use in end game don't break it and neither does a timer mechanic that punishes bad timing
mainly the unused spells are there for learning the basics as a beginner blm and sync down in roulettes or helping friends/something related

[Taranok]

blm core change suggestions never sit well with me, I love the job as is, a few spells you don't use in end game don't break it and neither does a timer mechanic that punishes bad timing
mainly the unused spells are there for learning the basics as a beginner blm and sync down in roulettes or helping friends/something related

Well, now the BLM changes are out. The class was nerfed in all content before endwalker due to ley lines changes, despair was nerfed, the class would punish bad timing regardless of the AF/UI timers existing so that point is moot.

This is the worst BLM has looked since Heavensward itself with its absolutely garbage implementation of Enochian.

The thing is, the core rotation can be preserved, but its foundation is awful at the moment. Absolutely awful. And now the devs have made even more reasons to basically never touch the class in any Ultimate content with this new slate of nerfs combined with the generally high skill floor. The changes I want to the class are primarily skill floor related while also removing aspects of its old design to clean up the class. Things like Firestarter and Thundercloud were fun back in ARR, but never really sat well with the timer-induced anxiety of AF/UI. Hell, even Thunder 3 is only barely worth using due to its generally low potency compared to just throwing more fire 4s out. Thundercloud is the entire reason that spell even has a purpose in the rotation.

The class needs a rethink. It doesn't need its core gutted, but AF/UI timers are not part of the core, they're structural components and little else. They shape the core but aren't necessary to shaping it, which by their removal would drop out the skill floor, barely change the skill ceiling, and open up the class to massive, better changes in the future when the devs can implement real mechanics or interesting buttons than: "Terrible procs are guaranteed to proc" or "I can now instantly xenoglossy on opener."

[Komaru_Tatoro]

if the af/ui timer is indefinite, it will effect the pre ew lvling rotation. like there wont be a need to use f1 ever.
in ew, f1 becomes paradox which warrant to be use but what if youre below 80? lv60to80, f1 will become useless

when suggesting a change best take into the account of the ripple effect it will do to the whole rotation. of lvling the class and not just the max lv cap rotation.

i totally understand the idea to make the job easier for new blm to ease into the job.
its the same when i complain about positionals on mnk too.
the idea is, theres a conditional ability that req you to do something but then the game give you some kinda of other ability to negate the prereq, then it becomes redundant and should be phase out.
in this case, mnk have too many positional but then the job got true north and riddle of earth to negate it in shb. which brings to the point, why do you have to press more buttons to do the same thing as if you should remove the positional and press less buttons just to negate it?
now if thats the same case for blm ui/af timer, i would gladly accept the change.

[Ferrinus]

Thundercloud and Firestarter procs are only interesting at all when they exist in the context of an AF/UI timer. Otherwise you might as well just fold extra potency into Fire and Thunder and be done with them entirely. They only work because the tension between weak spells that refresh your timer and strong spells that threaten your timer is, in fact, the core of BLM since Heavensward.

[Taranok]

if the af/ui timer is indefinite, it will effect the pre ew lvling rotation. like there wont be a need to use f1 ever.
in ew, f1 becomes paradox which warrant to be use but what if youre below 80? lv60to80, f1 will become useless

when suggesting a change best take into the account of the ripple effect it will do to the whole rotation. of lvling the class and not just the max lv cap rotation.

i totally understand the idea to make the job easier for new blm to ease into the job.
its the same when i complain about positionals on mnk too.
the idea is, theres a conditional ability that req you to do something but then the game give you some kinda of other ability to negate the prereq, then it becomes redundant and should be phase out.
in this case, mnk have too many positional but then the job got true north and riddle of earth to negate it in shb. which brings to the point, why do you have to press more buttons to do the same thing as if you should remove the positional and press less buttons just to negate it?
now if thats the same case for blm ui/af timer, i would gladly accept the change.

"Changing the class breaks the class in other ways." What a shock, its leveling experience is already a disaster. Sorry, this is needlessly hostile. The problem is the class already has an awful leveling experience. It changes rotations and forms massively, far more than any other class. The poster child for the opposite of this is actually Summoner now. It barely changes at all at any level. Furthermore, despite it potentially being too simple, it is mechanically coherent with itself and doesn't have awkward hamstrung mechanics thrown in, outside of the egi still having to cast things for some reason because why not (looking at you, Searing Light and barrier thing).

Especially with the introduction of Paradox, and Blizz 3's reduction of cast time to 2.5 seconds, effectively upping its potency per GCD by 20% just in opportunity cost alone (time), it's quite obvious rotations like hypermeme are dead. They gave triplecast and sharpcast a second charge, but the former is nice for planned movement (no, seriously, it's the best thing BLM got out of all of EW), and the latter is just a lazy ability designed to provide the semblance of control to a badly thought out class design to begin with.

The devs have done an admirable job stretching this old design razor thin, but at this point the class would gain a lot more by restructuring the foundation than it would by trying to maintain the parts that just don't feel necessary.

This would have additional benefits such as dropping the skill floor, making the class more coherent internaly, and if done correctly, wouldn't impact the actual feel of the class (its actual core, the whole sitting still casting part) in any meaningful way.

The class has 34 buttons though. This is including useless buttons like Lucid and Sleep, but it still has them. Scathe hasn't been touched since ARR and is at its most useless state right now outside of basically high-movement fights like UWU where you have to be the baiter on BLM, a fight where not only is BLM already bad, EW objectively has made it worse outside of specifically 2 charges of triplecast. Potency nerfs all around basically. The AF/UI timers offer nothing of value to the class beyond the superficial structuring of a rotation the devs are desperate to structure in other ways, and for some adrenaline junkies to get a high at the expense of people like me who find it detracts from the experience.

That's not to say things like Thunder wouldn't have a place in BLM's kit, but it devotes literally 6 GCDs just to the AoE rotation, has a metric ton of buttons exclusively for trying to maintain AF/UI and high speed movement, and the class is positively bloated with inane random junk at this point. The class only has 10 single target GCDs, of which 2 are almost entirely useless. The majority of its single target damage comes exclusively from GCDs.

Its biggest problem is it insists on sticking with this old design that dates back to ARR, and it's the new Monk of FFXIV. A class that has deep flaws to it that many mains of the class refuse to acknowledge exist because what exists currently is fun and, often, they're afraid change will ruin the class. I don't want to ruin the class, I want to see the class move forward, and it can't move forward if it has mechanics that make the class much harder to play than it needs to be, especially at the low end, and refuses to try to reinvent parts of its core.

An idea I had, not even half-baked, is to introduce a mechanic like Elemental Chaining exclusive to BLM. Something only it could do. Even something as basic as: "Casting a fire spell twice in a row increases the potency of the next fire spell by 20 for 7 seconds" would go a long way towards creating that time pressure, but making it new player friendly and giving the class something to strive for.

But I look at Summoner, and while it's a bit awkward, it's improved over ShB mostly. I look at RDM, it massively improved with major QoL changes. Monk had a rethink of part of its core and looks a lot better. DRG had major QOL changes, same as NIN. BLM basically had 3 major QoL changes. 1, some timers (T3, procs) last longer. 2, it actually has an AoE rotation now. 3, Triplecast has 2 stacks. Everything else is incredibly underwhelming and is more or less just a shiny new hat to pile on top of its already monstrous tower of hats, and the biggest quality of life problem, the AF/UI timers, weren't even touched at all.

The class was not the most in need of changes in EW, but there were ways to accomplish everything they wanted and still remove AF/UI timers fairly simply with the right structure to the class. Including things as simple as requiring umbral hearts to cast fire 4 and making fire 1 give you 3 additional umbral hearts. It enforces the desired rotation and allows the removal of timers. Sure the procs are orphaned, but they already don't feel good, orphaning them more is basically pushing them to a proper rethink that they need later, which is fine.

[Taranok]

Thundercloud and Firestarter procs are only interesting at all when they exist in the context of an AF/UI timer. Otherwise you might as well just fold extra potency into Fire and Thunder and be done with them entirely. They only work because the tension between weak spells that refresh your timer and strong spells that threaten your timer is, in fact, the core of BLM since Heavensward.

It's also a holdover of ARR's really ancient design, when BLM had far more in common with RDM than it does with the level 60 BLM. It is not, and never has been, an interesting mechanic of the class, so much as an orphaned idea held over expansion after expansion as the class is expanded with more hats placed atop its head. It was so broken in its initial design that you basically couldn't utilize firestarter procs until after you utilized it again. BLM could be moved in vastly more interesting directions if they removed firestarter and thundercloud, while likewise removing AF/UI timers. The best thing to happen to Monk was removing greased lightning, which kept the core rotation which is viable for BLM to have and keep without AF/UI, only for them to have a brand new combo system added on top of the class for Monk. I can actually imagine BLM if it had a real quality of life pass and had the skill floor dropped out from under it, only for the class to be opened up in brand new ways. It's an overbloated class in need of trimming and redefinition without disrupting the core. Just like Monk.

[Ferrinus]

No, you're wrong. In ARR, the timer wasn't a real mechanic at all; it was just there to ensure you couldn't start fighting at full power by simply attacking an enemy on the other side of the map once and then moseying over to the boss. Procs didn't introduce any kind if decision making because there was never a question of when or how to use them; they just checked if you were paying attention to the screen such that you couldn't literally be replaced with a drinky bird.

It's only the Enochian mechanic in Heavensward that made the timers - both aspect timers and proc timers - real mechanics in their own right. The thing you complain about repeatedly, namely the tension between refreshing your timer and using spells that won't refresh your timer, including both Fire IV and Thundercloud procs - is what turned BLM into a dynamic, difficult-to-master job that was constantly presenting its player with unpredictable optimization problems never reducible to a rote 1-2-3 rotation. I went into detail on this above.

If you take away the timers then there's simply nothing left there; the only interesting decision remaining would be whether to immediately use swift/triple to reduce F4 and Despair's effective cast time or to save them for movement.

[StarfallAssassin]

As an outsider looking in, wouldn't the timers being removed effectively do nothing but help the class anyway? like, there are currently two factors that keep BLM from just spamming fire spells. that being the timers and mana. Removing timers does not magically remove that mana barrier. I feel like removing the timers would only promote more optimization theories to pop up and allow for the class to still be a difficult to master class but more approachable.

I will say that SHB BLM was not something I found easy to handle even as I just leveled it to 80. I saw the hoops one had to go through for it to work and I realized it wasn't going to be easy to play even on a casual level. timers only added fuel to that fire as they felt clunky to manage and made the class feel even worse to play especially if I dropped it.