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

[AnaseSkyrider]

How did this thread hit so many pages? The timers are a very simple purpose, they create restrictions in your rotation to navigate based on fight design.

Because it's a terrible system and needs to be removed because it's an arbitrary way of lowering the DPS floor and raising the barrier-to-entry, something that doesn't even matter to experienced players who are able to manage the timer just fine -- except for when a mechanic forces them. You are a GCD-heavy caster, do your ABCs; job design done. Timers unnecessary.

if you don't see the value of the pressure the timer creates I would encourage you to play BLM more

You are *already losing DPS* by failing to manage your procs, polyglots, and your ABC. The pressure is entirely unnecessary. This is a job with an unnecessary curse that punishes you 10x worse for the same mistake compared to how any other job deals with it. **It is unnecessary**. The rotation can be coded *just fine* without the stance timers.

It underlines every decision you make on the job in higher end content, second only to "can I cast here?".

Except maintaining the timers is not an advanced mechanic that only the masters can do, it's the basic mechanic that you have to perfectly execute to be able to perform your main rotation. And if you don't, your DPS drops like a rock. It's not the extra icing on top that eeks out the extra DPS that only high-end players can do, that's what the procs, ABC, and polyglots are for. The timer is unnecessary punishment for bad timing on top of that.

If you despise how a job functions when it has functioned, in a broad sense, the same way for 6.5 years you should really play another job and leave this one to the people who enjoy it. It is an extremely unique job compared to all the others and most serious BLM mains would probably tell you they don't want the fundamentals to change at all.

As a WoW-addict who is a big fan of nostalgia, tradition, and class fantasy -- who believes Warrior(WoW) stances should come back -- this is a terrible job design that has been neglected and simply added-onto without care for the bad foundation. Stances and stance-dancing is great. Stances on a timer that bricks your rotation is absurd.