To this effect, here are the changes I believe have a very high liklihood of damaging the job:
  1. MP recovery now requiring casting Ice spells - This single almost entirely kills Non-Standard play. It removes many options on how a player can approach their Umbral Ice phase, such as cleverly utilising Transpose and unaspected instant cast spells such as Paradox, Xenoglossy and Thunder III. MP recovery occuring arbitrarily based on server "ticks" can be unintuitive, but the proposed solution is extremely heavy-handed. Alternatives would be to keep MP recovery unchanged from it's current behaviour, allowing current tick behaviour to continue in addition to the proposed change, or ideally having *any* non-fire spell cast during Umbral Ice to grant MP. Either of my latter suggested changes retain the "ease-of-use" desired without closing down an entire playstyle.
  2. Paradox becoming instant cast during Astral Fire - This change is based solely on speculation from the job action trailer, but if this is the case, it forces lower Spell Speed players to follow a strict sequence in the first half of Astral Fire so that they do not drop Enochian. Currently a low-SPS BLM can fit 4 casts of Fire IV/any other spell before Paradox without Enochian falling off, and then 4 more before casting Despair. This allows flexibility in the Astral Fire phase that allows more control on when to move for encounter mechanics, refresh Thunder III's effect, or simply to spend Polyglots for damage or use of Abilities such as Addle. If this is a change being made, it will heavily limit how a BLM can approach their Astral Fire phase.
  3. New Job Gauge - The new Job Gauge appears to grant one of six stacks upon the execution of Fire IV, or three stacks upon executing Flare. Admittedly we need more information on how this gameplay mechanic functions, but there is the possibility that it further restricts Astral Fire and makes an immensely punishing job even more punishing. In an ideal circumstance, Astral Fire Paradox and Despair will also contribute stacks to this Gauge, and the new Spell will be usable regardless of stacks (for lower potency such as a Bard's Apex Arrow or a Machinist's Automaton Queen). If the new spell requires all 6 stacks and they only come from Fire IV, then BLM is forced into a very specific sequence of spells during Astral Fire. This removes opportunities, and also potentially creates very punishing scenarios when a player makes a mistake or has to condense their Astral Fire phase due to encounter mechanics (such as a boss becoming untargetable).
  4. Thunder upgrade becoming instant - another speculated change, but if this is the case, then proper planning and usage of Sharpcast would become less relevant and reduce the reward of playing the job well.

[Part 2 of 3]