BLM and Scathe and Blizzard

[Taranok]

Noooo, don't delete Scathe... I swear I used it in my level 60 SB's Job quest scenario to kill 1 HP enemies...

Just remove it from the bars.

This is generally a bad design. You don't want actions people don't or can't reliably use. Also BLM is desperately in need of a real QoL pass, a skill floor drop (mostly AF/UI timers) and its leveling experience cleaned up to give it its core rotation at a lower level anyways.

My idea for keeping Blizzard relevant is a little more annoying: when you have Paradox ready, only the opposite-element spell's button becomes Paradox; the same-aspect spell stays as-is. So you use Blizzard to cast Paradox in fire mode, and Fire to cast Paradox in ice mode. This is technically a flexibility increase since you might, hypothetically, want to be able to use a weak 2.5gcd spell to push a bomb or something while saving your 500-potency 2.5gcd spell for a real target.

I wouldn't go this route. Actually, I'd go a different route. The end result would be removing AF/UI timers, giving the class its core rotation at level 35, upgrading fire and blizzard 1/3 into 3/4 respectively at 58/60, make fire/bliz 1/3 do double duty both for stance swapping and as your filler, merge Freeze and Blizzard instead of having separate buttons for it (cast twice still), and taking Scathe and making it a level 35, 40, or 50 spell that works as a low level Xenoglossy. Remove sharpcast and make it a trait that guarantees the first fire 1/3 of any rotation is guaranteed instant cast and does enough more potency to make it better than fire 4 in DPS (so you always do it), and just give either 3 additional umbral hearts (stacking to 6) from the first fire 1/3, or making bliz 3/4 give 6 UH (else give just 3 so you always want to fire 1) while also making it so you need umbral hearts to cast fire 3/4s.

If done correctly, you can massively drop the skill floor, maintain most of the current skill ceiling, and make the class vastly more approachable to lower skill/lower effort players. Because the majority of the classes difficulty comes from sitting still and hardcasting fire 4s/despairs, it manages to maintain the majority of its difficulty in all content because it would still be heavily punished for unplanned movement. And you'd effectively remove about 5 skills. Fire 1, blizzard 1, scathe, freeze, and Sharpcast. Why Sharpcast? Because it's already a boring ability on the point of obscelesence and even Amplify, also a really boring ability, manages to be more practically useful. They could literally make Thunder 3 and Fire 1/paradox a guaranteed proc and I doubt it would change much in terms of how the class currently plays in my eyes.

If such a dramatic reimagining of the leveling experience and foundation of the class were done, it would also leave room for a real mechanic that is actually fun and interesting to be added. Something like taking FF11's elemental chain mechanic, but applying it to Black Mage internally alone. And it would also just make the class less frustrating to play while mostly maintaining its high skill ceiling.