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

[Taranok]

Not really. The timer in ARR was exclusively about having a timer to handle buffs because literally every buff, no matter how long it was intended to be used for, was a timer. Greased Lightning, 100% up time, only dropped if you had to force disengage, had 100% uptime. AF/UI 100% uptime. It has always been designed around 100% uptime. You always entered the fight at full power because your 0 second cast was a cold open fire 3 back in ARR. You instantly and effortlessly went from 0 to hero. The proc-based mechanics probably had no real thought behind it beyond: "We want the class to do something other than fire 1 spam." Which is what the class was.

The AF/UI timers don't exist to make interesting choices, they exist to force the class to not resort to fire 4 spam, because this was the behavior exclusively hated about ARR's design. The tension is basically a byproduct of trying to give the class something vaguely resembling a real rotation. It is not necessary to maintaining this rotation. Paradox by itself proves you can force changes in rotation by making a spell one-use only but higher potency per second than the desired spam spell, forcing interesting choices. If you made umbral hearts required to cast fire 4, and made fire 1 and paradox both give 3 more umbral hearts (to a cap of 6), you would enforce the exact same design without AF/UI timers.

Because it's not a choice, and never has been a choice outside of silly haha meme builds that the devs have repeatedly seemed to not want despite commenting on the player's ingenuity (see Paradox, blizzard 4's timer, AF/UI trying to be so strict to force a specific rotation, the very marginal gains in ShB of these meme rotations), it's patently clear that it was never intended to be a choice like this. The devs also, throughout the entire game's life cycle, have tried to reduce stress points. Prepull aetherflow? Removed. Silly technical rotations such as summoner in heavensward? Destroyed. Playing the class in ways not intended have always been met with the devs trying to prevent this style of play, and we see them doing it with BLM without addressing the core issue, that AF/UI timers are a problem.

So we have competing design goals. We want a rotation that's not fire 1/4 spam, but we don't want to change the class because why would we, so they constantly used the timers, a major source of stress, a skill floor mechanic, to try to enforce the structure of the rotation. The thing is, the timers don't actually impact the skill ceiling beyond theorycrafting meme rotations. They literally do nothing to high-skill play outside of those rotations. Most of the choice of BLM is optimizing Sharpcast which, basically, should always go into firestarter now due to thunder 3's ~65% proc rate and the potential to transpose fire 3 as your opener to AF3, and to choose when to cast and when to move.

In fact, 99% of BLM's actual play is literally in choosing when to cast a GCD and when to interrupt it, or when to supplement an instant cast. That is, and always has been, BLM's true high-skill play. That is the skill ceiling. Absent sharpcast, the fundamental core of BLM is not the tension of AF/UI timers, it's the tension of trying to ride the line on untelegraphed aoes without getting hit, or knowing you need to triplecast here because you need 7.5 seconds of uninterrupted movement.

That difficulty isn't going anywhere, that is, and always has, determined the skill ceiling of the class. AF/UI timers are a skill floor mechanic. You master them to literally play the class as intended, which is why they are, and always have been, an awful way of actually implementing the desired rotation.

[Ferrinus]

Back in ARR, opening with Fire 3 isn't actually starting at full power, because Fire 3 has a 3.5 second base cast time and ate a huge chunk of your MP that could otherwise have gone into much more efficient Fire 1s. It was still a ramping mechanism, just faster than the one you had before level 34.

In modern FF14, the tension of trying to ride the line on AoEs and deciding whether to use Triplecast for cast time shaving or for movement is only half of the challenge of playing BLM, if not less. The other half is making emergency substitutions or even emergency Transposes precisely because of the astral/umbral timer. This is why BLM doesn't actually have a rotation per se. It has an aspirational rotation, i.e. if you were just allowed to sit still and go ignored you would mostly cast the same spells in the same order (but not quite, because of proc timing), but as soon as you start having to deal with enemy mechanics you need to make choices and sacrifices. You might only be able to cast five Fire 4s. You might be able to cast all six, but at the cost of using Triplecast on a Fire 1. You might get too greedy with your Fire 4s and have to give up on your Despair. The more spellspeed you have, the greedier you can afford to be, not just in terms of finishing your cast or dodging an AoE but in terms of packing a greater number of spells within the same seconds of your AF timer.

Compare this to melee DPS or tank classes, who might have to go 1-2-(annoyingly long wait)-3 but who don't have to go 1-2-(annoyingly long wait)-back to 1, unless that "annoyingly long wait" is like 20 or 30 seconds.

If Fire 4 worked purely on an ammo system (i.e. you can just cast three Fire 4s at any pace, then you get three more Fire 4s after you cast your "reload" spell, whether F1 or Paradox), then the requirement to think on your feet and modify your rotation in response to exigency would be gone. You'd always cast the same spells in the same order, and the only difference between a good BLM and a bad BLM would be how many delays crop up between the spells in that rigid sequence. That's much less interesting, and also much stronger, because aggressive enemies or poor planning would make a far smaller difference in your damage output.

[Taranok]

If Fire 4 worked purely on an ammo system (i.e. you can just cast three Fire 4s at any pace, then you get three more Fire 4s after you cast your "reload" spell, whether F1 or Paradox), then the requirement to think on your feet and modify your rotation in response to exigency would be gone. You'd always cast the same spells in the same order, and the only difference between a good BLM and a bad BLM would be how many delays crop up between the spells in that rigid sequence. That's much less interesting, and also much stronger, because aggressive enemies or poor planning would make a far smaller difference in your damage output.

This is literally, and I cannot stress this enough, LITERALLY how every class in the game works. Even Bards with all their random RNG functions off of minimizing delays and pressing the right button at the right time. What makes Black Mage so special that it demands an astronomically high SKILL FLOOR just as a barrier for entry? What does that skill floor offer the ceiling? Literally nothing. You don't play the class better working around AF/UI timers. You play using a largely set-in-stone rotation with rotational differences you can, actually, bake into the class if you wanted to. Both with and without timers, the class would still have the highest skill ceiling in the game. You'd have to actually remove fire 4's cast timer for the skill ceiling to come close to other classes. Literally remove the cast time from every spell except fire 4 and despair, and it would still be one of the hardest classes in the game to play because of how difficult it is to just stand still and cast in savage and especially ultimate content.

I want to stress that again. Literally every single spell except Fire 4 and Despair could be instant cast in a timerless black mage, and it would still be one of the hardest classes in the game to play because of just how long it has to stay still to maximize DPS. So what makes BLM so special that it deserves to actually be this difficult just to get into the class?

Hell, even with the AF/UI timers, the devs are trying their hardest to make sure BLM actually has a largely set in stone rotation. They want you to either do 3 F4 1 F1/paradox 3 f4 1 despair, or 2 f4 1 f1/para 2 f4 1 f3 2 f4 despair. If they wanted hypermeme, paradox never would have been added, and blizz 4 wouldn't have had its cast time reduced. They want you to paradox in AF phase pushing back to the above listed rotations. So how is it any different?

[IruruCece]

Maintaining Astral/Umbral is not an "astronomically high" skill floor. This argument sounds exactly the same as the people whining about positionals being "too punishing" to miss while mentioning in the same breath that they ignore them anyway because they don't have that much in the way of a bonus for 99 percent of buttons that have them.

[Ferrinus]

This is literally, and I cannot stress this enough, LITERALLY how every class in the game works.

Nope, wrong! Specifically, it is not how Black Mage itself works. It's strange that I have to tell you this, since the reason that BLM doesn't work this way is precisely what you're complaining about: AF/UI timers. The principle effect of AF/UI timers is that they force you to make compromises instead of executing your ideal rotation, because you're on a timer.

A simple example. The situation: you've just entered AF 3. Swiftcast and other cooldowns are down, but Triplecast is up. You have a Thundercloud proc, and Thunder's going to expire on your target in 10 seconds or so.

The plan: F4, F4, F4, F1, F4, Thundercloud Proc + Triplecast, F4, F4, Despair.
The reality: After your first F4, the boss targets you with a mechanic. You burn Triplecast in order to be able to keep casting. You throw F1 and begin to cast another F4, but you're targeted with another mechanic that forces you to run around for several seconds because AoEs chase you or something. You've already spent Triplecast; by the time you can stop running, you'll have only 5s left on your AF timer.

Well, you can use your Thundercloud, but then what? Do you cast another F1 to refresh your timer, and then proceed with F4s into Despair? Do you just cast F4->Despair and transition to Umbral straight from there? Maybe you throw in a Scathe while running around? Maybe you panic or get too greedy, end up casting two F4s, and then realize you don't have time for Despair or even B3 and just hit Transpose. Maybe you don't even realize you should Transpose so you drop Astral entirely, resetting your Polyglot timer.

If you had no timer, you'd be guaranteed the ability to cast your three F4s and another Despair and not have to make any of these decisions. This is why I said Black Mage has an aspirational rotation. There's an ideal thing you want to do, but the world will conspire to stop you, so you have to make compromises and substitutions based on your knowledge of the fight and your own job mechanics. If there were no timers, this wouldn't happen; BLM would actually be as simple and boring as you're pretending it is.

[Taranok]

Maintaining Astral/Umbral is not an "astronomically high" skill floor. This argument sounds exactly the same as the people whining about positionals being "too punishing" to miss while mentioning in the same breath that they ignore them anyway because they don't have that much in the way of a bonus for 99 percent of buttons that have them.

Considering every other class that had a mechanic remotely like it has had it removed, as well as the fact that it's a core requirement of playing the class correctly, yes, astronomically high is fair. Especially seeing the bosses of Endwalker dungeons and normal trials, with the sheer amount of movement definitely trips people up.

Why should this class specifically be punished over a thousand potency from one accident on the base mechanics of the class that the class is always, and I cannot stress this enough, always at risk of failing? If they drop a GCD, the class can already lose over 600 potency from 2.8 seconds of lost time, the most of any class in the game for a single GCD. You've refused to even address this specific part of Black Mage. Hell, I'm not even asking for the class to have less-punishing losses of GCDs because I consider that the skill ceiling of the class. The skill floor of BLM is maintaining AF and UI, and dropping that is on the same order of magnitude as popping ten-chi-jin on a NIN and then literally failing that one specific mechanic by itself.

I absolutely wish that the worst part of failing BLM's rotation was dropping a mere 40 to 100 potency, the class would be absolutely over the moon if that was the worst its punishment was. But it drops 540 potency (before enochian/other traits are factored in) from a GCD, up to 660 (post-nerf) from dropping an in progress polyglot charge, and the massive penalties from having to either hardcast back into AF3 or UI3 which incurs MP, time, and potency losses on top.

No other class has punishment even remotely on this order of magnitude for failing the skill floor. Why can't you even address that point?

[Taranok]

If you had no timer, you'd be guaranteed the ability to cast your three F4s and another Despair and not have to make any of these decisions. This is why I said Black Mage has an aspirational rotation. There's an ideal thing you want to do, but the world will conspire to stop you, so you have to make compromises and substitutions based on your knowledge of the fight and your own job mechanics. If there were no timers, this wouldn't happen; BLM would actually be as simple and boring as you're pretending it is.

YES! Exactly! Like literally every other class that makes a technical mistake! The only class that comes close to this level of punishment from a technical mistake is Ninja for dropping Ten-Chi-Jin immediately after pushing it! For 5 seconds during a 2 minute rotation they can make a mistake as punishing as BLM can throughout its entire rotation!

New SMN? Technical mistakes are about 100-150 for up to 4 GCDs, the same as having to delay a single fire 4 for BLM. RDM? They either overcap or screw up their combo that happens around once a minute, the potency loss is usually measured in 1-200 potency plus losses if they lose an entire combo by the end of a fight. Reaper? Same thing, only measured in hundreds of potencies.

BLM goes from losing a massive amount of time because their GCD effectively wasn't rolling, which starts at an average of about 200-220 potency per second in lost damage, then throws away whatever was charging on a polyglot stack, throwing away more, then throws away massive amounts of potency in an attempt to restart the rotation. When you get down to it, an accidental fire 4 drop, because of the AF/UI timers, can snowball into nearly 2000 potency in lost damage because of the extra punishment, when the mere act of dropping a fire 4 is, itself, 540 potency of that.

Why should BLM be punished more than literally any other class when its primary skill ceiling check is already the most punishing of any class for a baseline rotation? Again, I am not asking for the class to be as mobile as a Summoner is, I'm perfectly fine with fire 4s being a 540 potency baseline loss just from dropping a GCD. The AF/UI timers on top of it piles on the punishment and makes my favorite class in the game incredibly frustrating to actually play. Nevermind how unapproachable it often is, as well as how confusing it is to understand for the average new player.

At this point, you seem to want the class kept the way it is because you're gluttons for punishment, not because it actually makes the class better.

[StarfallAssassin]

If you had no timer, you'd be guaranteed the ability to cast your three F4s and another Despair and not have to make any of these decisions. This is why I said Black Mage has an aspirational rotation. There's an ideal thing you want to do, but the world will conspire to stop you, so you have to make compromises and substitutions based on your knowledge of the fight and your own job mechanics. If there were no timers, this wouldn't happen; BLM would actually be as simple and boring as you're pretending it is.

I feel like that is too much no..? Where like every class has this same "dilemma" of working their class around the fight? Isn't it odd that BLM works the most in this case? With so much that can and will go on VS every other class???? It seems like an insane amount to ask for, for both the BLM and the team they are on. Some classes at most worry about overcapping gauges. Others worry about not letting CDs drift, some a bit of both. BLM has a 10-page dissertation about everything that can go wrong from stepping too far in a single direction. Doesn'tt that seem like a bit much? no?

[Ferrinus]

YES! Exactly! Like literally every other class that makes a technical mistake!

First, I'm glad to share the understanding that you're proposing a major change to the job rather than just a streamlining of what everyone's doing anyway.

Now, the thing is: that change would be awful. It'd make playing Black Mage vastly less interesting and ruin the artistry of the class's design, something that goes back all the way to ARR. Unlike most (all other?) DPS, a Black Mage doesn't just have a preset sequence it marches through in perfect lockstep, with player skill only changing how many delays might randomly crop up between GCDs. BLM's spellcasting priorities are an emergent property of the underlying traits of the spells themselves. This is evident in something as simple as the difference between Fire and Fire III. Fire III technically hits harder, but it's so slow and expensive that it's worse than Fire, right? And yet, the fact that it maximizes rather than increments Astral, and the fact that its halved cast time is equal or less than your GCD, means that the developers don't have to do anything so gauche as establish a formal 1-2 combo system where you cast one spell and then the other lights up or something like that. You can just develop an understanding of what each spell does and cast the one you need at the moment, which depending on exigency might not be the same one you use under optimal conditions. It genuinely feels like you're using expertise to select tools in a toolbox rather than just following a script.

I think you're overstating how punishing it is to mess this up relative to other jobs, though, because as I've pointed out there's a huuuge gradient of possible outcomes when it comes to messing up on BLM, and "drop Enochian right as you're about to fill the purple bar, delaying your next Polyglot stack by 30 seconds" is at the absolute bottom. It's much more likely that you end up having to replace a single F4 with a single F1, or having to swiftcast your F1 instead of your Despair, or something like that. Even in worse cases, you might just have to Umbral Soul or Transpose, or, hell, you might drop Enochian but only delay a Polyglot by 5 seconds rather than 25. Meanwhile, imagine a Dragoon who's at step three or four of their five-hit combo and who accidentally hits the 2 button.

The removal of Enochian as a separate button has deleted the absolute worst and most punishing possibility of playing BLM (dropping Enochian while Enochian is still on cooldown), but actually removing the timer entirely would completely leach the job of its depth and destroy at a stroke the most interesting problems it gives you when you're playing it.

[Hasrat]

It changes rotations and forms massively, far more than any other class.

I'd support the idea of shaking things up if only for another big change in rotation. >_>