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

[Sequora]

Why not just make it so if you're out of combat the umbral/astral timer stops going down?

[Taranok]

That's the intention. It's perfectly fine. Punishment for failed execution is OK.


My problem here is with the latter. They're annoying even without resources to disrupt and don't tend to add anything interesting to content. Give us continual control over our characters and everything is fine.

Punishment by itself isn't a problem. The class is pretty punishing just from dropping a GCD. If you drop a Fire 4 at 2.1 seconds, it can cost you over 648 potency in lost damage both from the failed GCD and clipping into the next GCD. That is, literally, the single strongest punishment any class has.

The timers, on the other hand, are the third layer of punishment. They aren't even necessary for maintaining the level 90 rotation. But all I know is, after getting BLM to 90, and playing it in the EXs: If the timers were removed, the class would only get better. It'd have the same rotation, but the freedom of removing the timers would do an absolute ton towards freeing up the class to do something new and interesting down the line.

Just like removing Greased Lightning allowed Monk to have Masterful Blitz added, and that mechanic feels pretty great (rest of the class needs some minor tweaking still), when you tear out old, outdated, awful mechanics, you make way for new, sleaker, better designed ones.

BLM is the least popular caster by a mile. Its skill ceiling is fine but could stand to come down a touch. But its skill floor is way, way too high, and dropping out the floor would only do the class better. Literally every time the devs dropped the skill floor on a class, provided the ceiling didn't also drop out, the class has always improved. It's time for BLM to get the QoL patch it desperately needs.

[Ferrinus]

Removing the timers would actually lock the class into a single preset rotation, making it vastly more monotonous and repetitive to play. The timer creates the pressure to improvise, substitute, and make use of oGCD tools in creative ways. Separately, new mechanics in future mechanics could easily coexist with or even use the timer. This still isn't at all convincing.

[Rym]

No, no. He's got a point.

BLM is not the highest DPS class in the game all-around, but it's the most punishing class in the game for not knowing a fight or your rotation perfectly.

[Ferrinus]

The game's always going to contain a most ____ class, whether damaging, easy, sensitive to movement, whatever. Currently, BLM is probably the most affected by having to move, but it has a ton of tools to use in response and if well-prepared can probably manage more uninterrupted movement than some other casters - RDM can spend half rather than a third of its GCDs running around, but has less ability to make those mobile GCDs happen back to back. So BLM gets to maintain its siege tank identity (which is good - jobs should be distinctive) but break its limits where it really counts.

Separately, "rotation" is a misnomer here. You lose out if you don't know your spell list or tool kit or array of options or whatever perfectly, because, thanks to its unique design, BLM has a set of strategically-distinct GCDs and oGCDs whose usage you need to adapt to the situation, even if there's an AAA-B-AAA-C sequence you'd prefer to do if you weren't under any pressure.

[Taranok]

Removing the timers would actually lock the class into a single preset rotation, making it vastly more monotonous and repetitive to play. The timer creates the pressure to improvise, substitute, and make use of oGCD tools in creative ways. Separately, new mechanics in future mechanics could easily coexist with or even use the timer. This still isn't at all convincing.

This is how the devs want it to play, this is how it already plays unless you break the rotation with something like hypermeme, which the devs then work to destroy anyways (paradox says hi.). It would change nothing to remove. Literally, the inclusion of Paradox, by itself, removed anything but the single solitary rotation.

Which, by the way, is what every single class in the game has. They just have slightly more priority-based rotations, and slightly more combo-based (think BRD vs DRG). They burst similarly, run similarly, etc. The problem is, BLM doesn't even have that because of manafont's design. The class basically hasn't changed, realistically, since Heavensward beyond making Enochian less stupid of a mechanic each expansion on. Monk is proof that when you rip out old and outdated mechanics, the class can finally start to flourish by adding something new that makes sense and isn't overly punishing to low-skill play.

The class needs to, finally, be updated with the times.

[StarfallAssassin]

Having been leveling the job, honestly, this class is almost unapproachable if you ever want to be even semi-decent at it. not even good or great. just being passable requires the player to do so much and to be all over the place, keeping track of a million different things. all of which stems from the timers. I don't understand why they exist beyond adding yet another thing the class HAS to manage in order to function. like, I agree, the timers need to be removed but this class seriously needs help as the only people I see talking good about the class are people who do nothing BUT play the class.

TL;DR: the class needs help and is unapproachable and needs a lot of things changed, starting with the timers

[Taranok]

The game's always going to contain a most ____ class, whether damaging, easy, sensitive to movement, whatever. Currently, BLM is probably the most affected by having to move, but it has a ton of tools to use in response and if well-prepared can probably manage more uninterrupted movement than some other casters - RDM can spend half rather than a third of its GCDs running around, but has less ability to make those mobile GCDs happen back to back. So BLM gets to maintain its siege tank identity (which is good - jobs should be distinctive) but break its limits where it really counts.

Separately, "rotation" is a misnomer here. You lose out if you don't know your spell list or tool kit or array of options or whatever perfectly, because, thanks to its unique design, BLM has a set of strategically-distinct GCDs and oGCDs whose usage you need to adapt to the situation, even if there's an AAA-B-AAA-C sequence you'd prefer to do if you weren't under any pressure.

Here's the thing. You remove the timers and none of that changes. Remove the timers as is, right now, and you will still do every AF phase outside of burst as 6 fire 4s, 1 paradox, and 1 despair. You will, still, modify it to make sure you don't, say, blizzard 4 before the boss jumps. You will still be punished through unplanned movement. That is the thing. The skill ceiling will still be the highest in the game because the majority of the skill ceiling is in sitting still, casting, and planning your oGCD abilities around the movement phases you need.

The 2 oldest, and worst, features of BLM are the timers and procs. Both of them are holdovers from the original, vastly different ARR design. Back when transpose was 15s, AF/UI lasted 8 seconds, and the class played closer to a RDM than it does the modern BLM. Remove both of those and you can free up so much of the design to do something actually interesting with the class for once.

Just as how removing greased lightning allowed the devs to add masterful blitz to Monk and make the class the most interesting it has been since ARR. I'm not, and never have, just asked for removing timers. But I am getting really sick and tired of people defending an awful mechanic because they can't imagine a better class than what we have. And in order to move the class forward, you have to rip out every last tiny bit that is actually holding it back. And the timers are the biggest thing restraining the classes future and making the class unapproachable to most players.

[VentVanitas]

MNK isn't "flourishing." It's still one of the least played jobs. Please stop using it in your comparisons to BLM.

[Taranok]

MNK isn't "flourishing." It's still one of the least played jobs. Please stop using it in your comparisons to BLM.

Give it time for Reaper buzz to fully die down. No one realized how good MNK was going to be. Meanwhile, BLM is the worst played caster, by far.