SE, the 7.0 BLM changes will not increase engagement. They are completely-pointless.

[LilimoLimomo]

The changes will literally turn BLM into a builder > spender job like any other dps (build Flare Star, spend Flare Star, repeat)...

BLM has always been about building and spending. Build mana with Ice, spend it via Fire. Build Umbral Hearts with Ice, spend them with Fire. Build Polyglots by keeping your plates spinning, spend them on boom. If building and spending is bad, then BLM has always been bad, and I don't see how one more facet of building and spending would move the needle one way or the other.

How can you say, in the same breath, "BLM changes good" and "I want to see less homogenization"?...

Because BLM is very much still its own thing. In my opinion, the core of what makes BLM unique is the need to manage long cast times that require standing still while under time pressure. Most classes are predominantly instant-cast, meaning when mechanics happen, they just step out of the way while continuing their rotation unphased. Not us; BLM's have to think ahead, have to adjust on the fly, have to make strategic decisions about whether to finish a cast or move out of the way. And I don't see that changing in a meaningful way.

Will I miss Thunder procs? Probably. They added that extra element of chaos to trying to keep all of BLM's plates spinning. But Manafont just got more interesting, and I'm curious to see how the changes to Thunder and Ice will impact the class's mobility; my guess is that they'll cancel each other out, but we'll see. I also like how some of the changes seem like they'll address some of BLM's button bloat. So there are some things that have my interest, and I won't really know how to feel until I've had my hands on it and get to feel it for myself.

[Galvuu]

BLM has always been about building and spending. Build mana with Ice, spend it via Fire. Build Umbral Hearts with Ice, spend them with Fire. Build Polyglots by keeping your plates spinning, spend them on boom. If building and spending is bad, then BLM has always been bad, and I don't see how one more facet of building and spending would move the needle one way or the other.

BLM, right now, does not follow this builder/spender pattern at all. There's no gcd or button (or combo) you do to build anything up. You go into UI and you can use whatever you want there while you get your MP back. Unless you think "Thundercloud" and "Xenoglossy" are builders. And that's the magic, really. It's also true for the "spending" part- if you cut your AF short into a Despair (because the boss is going to disengage or it's somewhat advantageous), your loss is minimal- because you're not "losing" a resource that is somehow unrecoverable. That's why BLM is so flexible- you have a wide array of high potency gcds (in both AF and UI) and can more or less change their order with great liberty to suit your needs. That's why people say current BLM is "flexible". Only have time to do 4x Fire IV > Despair before the boss jumps off? No problem! Doing some Transpose line to dump Xenos and optimize Firestarter? No problem! Need a burst of movement and must dump Thundercloud, Xenoglossy and a Triplecast right now? No problem! Ups, need to go ice early? Just Despair, Transpose and Paradox, no problem!
In the DT BLM you cannot do any of these things, because the moment you do not use a Fire IV (aka, use your builder) or don't cast Flare Star (aka, your spender) you permanently lose that one Flare Star. You have to follow the 6x Fire IV pattern no matter what, or you either don't build enough or don't spent it.
Ofc if you want to engage in extreme pedantry, you can say that if you overwrite a Xenoglossy right now you're doing the "same" (didn't spend the Xeno) or if you just skip your entire AF (like, go into Fire and immediately cast Despair) you're also wasting the "MP you built", but the fact that how you build and spend those resources, when you do that and in what order you do it is so free-form is why BLM doesn't fit that pattern at all (it fits it in the loosest sense possible).

[HikariKurosawa]

Im sorry did non-standard existing force you into doing it?
We didn't point a gun to your head and say you have to play non-standard, there was no party finder conditions that said "BLM Non only" or anything like that. Only speedrunning or parsing raid groups would complain about you not doing the highest possible damage you can do and at that point its YOUR fault for surronding yourself with people who don't want you to play how you want to play. Im not a parser in fact I hate it and any record of my parses are recorded by other people and I infact played non-standard because I enjoyed having flexibity and adaptation in my rotation. So please explain to me why me losing my option to play the same Job as you in a different way effects you, when both ways are perfectly viable to do the most important thing clear the content.

What the hell are you even babbling about? I couldn't care less what others expect of me. I know that non-standard lines are more potency than standard lines, so I know that I am not bringing the full potential of the job if I play standard. This means I should play another job where I can bring the full potency or else I am sandbagging the team's performance. It's one thing if non-standard is what the devs want us to be doing and if they were to support that I would just continue as is and avoid the job because it's not what I want to be doing. Since they are clearly not supporting non-standard, I am excited because I am going to be able to play a job that really appeals to me in fantasy.

The job is just not as popular as it should be because people know that you have to do non-standard to bring full potential with it. Doesn't matter how much I want to spam fire 4 if I'm not willing to play the job optimally. I will always be second-rate and that's not appealing to me. I would rather play something else that is tailored to my preferences naturally, and now with the changes in dawntrail, blm is something that is tailored to my preferences naturally. It is still a really hard and demanding job because of how immobile you have to be to execute the standard rotation, but now standard is optimal so I won't be sandbagging the team's dps anymore.

Again, I don't care what others expect, I know what is optimal and it is non-standard. Why would I try to engage in a job that I know I will never play optimally? People don't complain, but they also don't celebrate your mediocrity as a standard blm player.

[Galvuu]

What the hell are you even babbling about? I couldn't care less what others expect of me. I know that non-standard lines are more potency than standard lines, so I know that I am not bringing the full potential of the job if I play standard.

(I'm pretty sure the reason why you're not "bringing the full potential", if that's truly the case, is uptime and has nothing to do with standard or non-standard, since non-standard is a 1.5%ish gain in most scenarios, but you do you. Just don't pretend that doing the standard rotation is a problem at all, or that it's "sandbagging the team"- most people won't even notice or care since you can do damage comparable to the top 10% BLM players just using strictly standard if you plan your Triple/proc usage around movement. You almost sound like you want to use this a scapegoat. The funny thing is, if you struggle with uptime, DT BLM will be much worse to play and your performance will drop even further)

[HikariKurosawa]

(I'm pretty sure the reason why you're not "bringing the full potential", if that's truly the case, is uptime and has nothing to do with standard or non-standard, since non-standard is a 1.5%ish gain in most scenarios, but you do you. Just don't pretend that doing the standard rotation is a problem at all, or that it's "sandbagging the team"- most people won't even notice or care since you can do damage comparable to the top 10% BLM players just using strictly standard if you plan your Triple/proc usage around movement. You almost sound like you want to use this a scapegoat. The funny thing is, if you struggle with uptime, DT BLM will be much worse to play and your performance will drop even further)

Do you think you sound intelligent in italics?

The whole thing is, I wouldn't play BLM at all let alone be good at it as is. The job designers probably feel it is a failure because people are obsessed with being optimal in these games and most games. BLM is a niche and that's a crying shame because it's a really fun job to play. If they supported non-standard I would continue to avoid it like the plague, now that they are making it standardized, I feel like it is worth engaging with. I guarantee you that way more people will play BLM after dawntrail changes come out.

Also.... What are you even on about with the uptime remark? I am talking about something objective that is unrelated to anything I've done. Non-standard rotations are more potency than standard. This is objectively true.

[Ramiee]

Doesn't matter how much I want to spam fire 4 if I'm not willing to play the job optimally. I will always be second-rate and that's not appealing to me. I would rather play something else that is tailored to my preferences naturally, and now with the changes in dawntrail, blm is something that is tailored to my preferences naturally. It is still a really hard and demanding job because of how immobile you have to be to execute the standard rotation, but now standard is optimal so I won't be sandbagging the team's dps anymore.

Again, I don't care what others expect, I know what is optimal and it is non-standard. Why would I try to engage in a job that I know I will never play optimally? People don't complain, but they also don't celebrate your mediocrity as a standard blm player.

So basically you don't like BLM. You liked BLM's look and Job fantasy but don't like how the Job has played since like Heavensward.
I don't like Samurai, I think the combos are boring, Kenki is boring and all the big attacks are flashy without substances and just seem ungabunga do damage to me. However I love the Samurai job fantasy and look. You know what I think about that?
Oh well, other people enjoy how Samurai plays there are so many other Jobs in the game for me to play I dont need to beg for it to conform to my preferences just because of how it looks. For someone who seems to care so much about being a teamplayer so much so that doing 8% less damage than people on a third party leaderboard makes you feel like you're sandbagging. (despite BLM standard rotation still being higher damage than most other DPS) You sure do want other people playing the game to lose their fun.

[Galvuu]

I guarantee you that way more people will play BLM after dawntrail changes come out.

Also.... What are you even on about with the uptime remark? I am talking about something objective that is unrelated to anything I've done. Non-standard rotations are more potency than standard. This is objectively true.

Ignoring your obvious insults/provocations (funny, coming from someone complaining about ad hominem), I’m saying that 98% of BLM is uptime/planning, and 2% is the (optional) non-standard. You can literally get orange on the funny spreadsheet site playing standard. Your opener and reopener crit matter waaay more than non-standard. If you ever “let your team down”/“sandbag your team” on BLM, it’s because of bad planning or bad uptime.

Also, you’re very probably wrong about “way more people playing BLM”- BLM has been one of the least played dps jobs in the game since HW because of the heavy turret playstyle (which is very niche)… and it’s becoming more turret in DT. I agree with the other posters- I think you just don’t like and understand BLM.

[LilimoLimomo]

...

I've re-read your post several times in an earnest attempt at understanding your perspective. There were times when I felt like maybe I was close to getting it, but then I'd realize I didn't. And after several reads, I think this is where we see things differently:

In the DT BLM you cannot do any of these things, because the moment you do not use a Fire IV (aka, use your builder) or don't cast Flare Star (aka, your spender) you permanently lose that one Flare Star.

I genuinely don't see how this is different than any other spell: if you don't cast it, you don't get the good results it provides. Whether that's damage or tokens or Umbral Ice or something else, not casting the spell means you don't get the thing. So I'm not seeing how Fire IV's tokens are different. It seems like you tried to guide me towards understanding how they were different with this...

you can say that if you overwrite a Xenoglossy right now you're doing the "same" (didn't spend the Xeno) or if you just skip your entire AF (like, go into Fire and immediately cast Despair) you're also wasting the "MP you built", but the fact that how you build and spend those resources, when you do that and in what order you do it is so free-form is why BLM doesn't fit that pattern at all (it fits it in the loosest sense possible).

...but I don't follow. How are Fire IV and Flare Star dictating when and in what order you do things in a way that other BLM spells aren't? And maybe it will help if I explain the way I'm thinking about it, which might be different than the way you do.

It seems to me like I'll be playing my Fire phase, and if I cast Fire IV then I'll get a token, and if I cast something like Xenoglossy then I won't. And unless there's something I'm missing, I can interweave casting those different spells in any permutation that I want, toss in a Fire whenever I want to sustain my Astral Fire, etc. Naturally, when I've built up 6 doodads, I probably want to unload with Flare Star, but I don't see how that's meaningfully different than unloading a Xenoglossy when my Polyglots are full. It still feels free form to me, in that the context of the actual fight plays a large role in determining what spell will seem best to cast at any given moment.

Is the issue that when you get that last token, you feel like you have to immediately cast Flare Star before you cast another Fire IV, and that's a meaningfully shorter window than the 30 seconds it takes to build a Polyglot? This is my best guess at trying to understand what you're trying to communicate, but I'm not sure if that's what you're trying to say or not.

While I don't understand, I'm genuinely interested in understanding. So I'm hoping this explanation of my thought process might help you to see where we're not seeing eye-to-eye so you can share it with me.

[HikariKurosawa]

Ignoring your obvious insults/provocations (funny, coming from someone complaining about ad hominem), I’m saying that 98% of BLM is uptime/planning, and 2% is the (optional) non-standard. You can literally get orange on the funny spreadsheet site playing standard. Your opener and reopener crit matter waaay more than non-standard. If you ever “let your team down”/“sandbag your team” on BLM, it’s because of bad planning or bad uptime.

Also, you’re very probably wrong about “way more people playing BLM”- BLM has been one of the least played dps jobs in the game since HW because of the heavy turret playstyle (which is very niche)… and it’s becoming more turret in DT. I agree with the other posters- I think you just don’t like and understand BLM.

?????????? Which insults?

[Galvuu]

snip

I’ll attempt to clarify with an hypothetical scenario, and will honestly be technical about it because you sound like you know what you’re talking about. Let’s assume that you’re using every Xenoglossy in a 2 minute segment of a fight (both in EW and DT BLM) and assume no party buffs (for simplicity). And, while we don’t have official potencies for Flare Star yet, let’s assume it’s powerful enough that it’s always a gain to use it.
For both versions, there’s some sequence of spells that yields the maximum expected damage (let’s call this sequence A). Now, assume that during those two minutes, you’re forced to move for 10s every 20s (half of it), making it a very disruptive mechanic for BLM. (This is quite similar to TOP p6, honestly)
In EW BLM, you can diverge from A by, for example, cutting your AF short (instead of 6xF4+Paradox+Despair, you’d do 4xF4+Despair), hitting Transpose and using UI Paradox, Xeno and using Triple with F3 and 2xF4. Doing this slightly changes your dps- it’s now a bit less than A, but the difference is very small, like 1 or 2%. You can repeat this process for every 20s segment until you’re out of Sharpcasts, Xenos and “natural” (rng) procs. Your damage is still close to A (within 2%) because changing your rotation to suit this scenario doesn’t impede building any resource- maybe you can 2 more Paradox and 2 less Fire IV, but neither “build” anything, so it doesn’t matter beyond that 100 potency.
With DT, if you apply the same logic, it *does* matter- if anything would cost you one less Fire IV, you lose access to Flare Star and lose more damage. If the timer or movement impede you from casting Flare Star, it’s gone. Diverging from A now loses you this finisher. Your “main” gcds are now “builders” of Flare Star, so whereas before skipping one for 1% overall damage was no big deal, in DT you lose the Flare Star. Pretend Flare Star is like a second Xenoglossy that’s “lost”i f you can’t do 6xF4.
Does it make more sense with this hypothetical? If not, I can try a different approach.
(The crux of it is that you cannot keep the same number of high potency gcds in DT if you "miss" one of your builders- you permanently lose Flare Star. In EW, you can. Swapping one Fire IV for a Paradox on your overall gcds for that 2 min window has no penalty)