Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[Keichi]

What are you talking?

First:
Is his quote right.

The most important thing is, that the rotation feels good for you. All other things are meaningless, if it doesnt feel right to you and make it harder.
There is no sense in trying, to follow are very strict order of skills, who has to be used in a fixed number, when it doesnt suit you.

Like exampe: Practicly every guide to BLM stated, that you has to use 4xfire,paradox, fire4 again until the mp is low, despair, in between maybe fire3, mana front, fire 4 again and than despair again. Maybe even Xenoglosie in between.
It is the rotation that makes the most dmg and the highest use of your mp. But, the timer feels to strickt for me. I prefer to only use 3x fire4, and than paradox, when im around 6s left oif the timer, simply, because it feels more safe to me.

Similary thing Drg. Who is even more busier, by using gcd and ogcd in between of each other other. So, that you can use as many skills as possible in a short amount of time.
It is maybe the best way from the numbers. But the feeling of you let you maybe choice to use the high jump, mirage dive, geirskogul combo in one row, without other skills in between, because its easier for you to press the3 skills in that way. And feels more naturaly to you.

Aside of that:
What is that BS, that his opinuion is called meanin gless, only, because of the stuff he was in yet?
Doing solo content, or normal dungeons has the same value, as doing the highest content. Esspecialy, when the hardest content is stuff, that not everyone can enter or likes to enter it (i was never in a Ultimate raid, because: I never had a group for it and, because i never had interesst in it, the name alone let it sound to be a worthless pain in the ..., who is to hard with to less of a good reward, for trying it).
A lot of the players are probably adults or late teens, who has to work or to learn stuff. And maybe dont want to work that hard or using up the time so much, for doing things, that dont make fun to them. Or, they have problems with entering groups activily, and are so keeped out of the group stuff.

[MimaMeouri]

What are you talking?

First:
Is his quote right.

The most important thing is, that the rotation feels good for you. All other things are meaningless, if it doesnt feel right to you and make it harder.
There is no sense in trying, to follow are very strict order of skills, who has to be used in a fixed number, when it doesnt suit you.

Like exampe: Practicly every guide to BLM stated, that you has to use 4xfire,paradox, fire4 again until the mp is low, despair, in between maybe fire3, mana front, fire 4 again and than despair again. Maybe even Xenoglosie in between.
It is the rotation that makes the most dmg and the highest use of your mp. But, the timer feels to strickt for me. I prefer to only use 3x fire4, and than paradox, when im around 6s left oif the timer, simply, because it feels more safe to me.

Similary thing Drg. Who is even more busier, by using gcd and ogcd in between of each other other. So, that you can use as many skills as possible in a short amount of time.
It is maybe the best way from the numbers. But the feeling of you let you maybe choice to use the high jump, mirage dive, geirskogul combo in one row, without other skills in between, because its easier for you to press the3 skills in that way. And feels more naturaly to you.

Aside of that:
What is that BS, that his opinuion is called meanin gless, only, because of the stuff he was in yet?
Doing solo content, or normal dungeons has the same value, as doing the highest content. Esspecialy, when the hardest content is stuff, that not everyone can enter or likes to enter it (i was never in a Ultimate raid, because: I never had a group for it and, because i never had interesst in it, the name alone let it sound to be a worthless pain in the ..., who is to hard with to less of a good reward, for trying it).
A lot of the players are probably adults or late teens, who has to work or to learn stuff. And maybe dont want to work that hard or using up the time so much, for doing things, that dont make fun to them. Or, they have problems with entering groups activily, and are so keeped out of the group stuff.

You do understand that you will be actively punished for your "preferred" rotation after these changes right? You HAVE to use 6 F4 in a fire cycle to do the finisher. This change will negatively impact you more than it will any of us players that have done the hardest content on this job. We are all easily capable of doing the standard rotation. We just like the added challenge and fun of doing nonstandard to optimize our dps. This change will raise the skill floor (make it harder for you) while lower the skill ceiling (make it less fun for us). There are no winners with this change. The job is strictly worse in every way.

[HikariKurosawa]

You do understand that you will be actively punished for your "preferred" rotation after these changes right? You HAVE to use 6 F4 in a fire cycle to do the finisher. This change will negatively impact you more than it will any of us players that have done the hardest content on this job. We are all easily capable of doing the standard rotation. We just like the added challenge and fun of doing nonstandard to optimize our dps. This change will raise the skill floor (make it harder for you) while lower the skill ceiling (make it less fun for us). There are no winners with this change. The job is strictly worse in every way.

I have never struggled with standard black mage rotation. If it is harder, then that is good for you and fine for me. I don't really think that it's going to be harder for anyone who can consistently pull off the standard rotation though. The "you" and "me" language you're using is so cringe lol. Maybe you're just incapable of playing the job as intended and non-standard is what makes it work for you?

[MitsukiKimura]

Yeah Im convinced they're just the obviously forum troll at this point. Don't mind the rotation struggle they have more struggle with using their 2 mins

[Chocochic]

I think this change would legitimately help them, because one of its effects is making it much easier to cast six Fire IVs in an astral cycle. Remember, astral paradox is instant cast and grants an automatic Firestarter proc that's no longer a loss to use immediately, so you get a minimum of two free, instant AF3 refreshes over the course of a cycle (and a third free movement opportunity that's less under your control because it depends on when Thunder is expiring, although in a pinch using High Thunder to move is still going to output more damage at less MP cost than resorting to Scathe).

This means that someone who previously struggled with finding a way to safely cast three or four F4s in a row can now cast them in three sets of two or something.

Fire phase will be harder to cast now, because instant-cast Paradox means that you lose 2.34s of being able to cast any ability, because of the GCD's timer, meaning that you're left with on 13s on the AF timer. It's going to be harder to cast six Fire IVs, and when you're clipping oGCDs because you're using them during a long cast, instead of instant casts or short F3/B4 casts, not only will you not be able to cast despair, you'll lose your Flare Star due to not casting 6 Fire IVs. These changes do nothing for harm them to be honest, especially when it's better to do AF1 F3P because you'll gain more damage which wields much more value compared to using it to extend fire phase, and get delayed on the 2 min burst. Of course, I'm not the best black mage, but I don't think this really helps, I feel like this would harm them more.

[Ferrinus]

Fire phase will be harder to cast now, because instant-cast Paradox means that you lose 2.34s of being able to cast any ability, because of the GCD's timer, meaning that you're left with on 13s on the AF timer. It's going to be harder to cast six Fire IVs, and when you're clipping oGCDs because you're using them during a long cast, instead of instant casts or short F3/B4 casts, not only will you not be able to cast despair, you'll lose your Flare Star due to not casting 6 Fire IVs. These changes do nothing for harm them to be honest, especially when it's better to do AF1 F3P because you'll gain more damage which wields much more value compared to using it to extend fire phase, and get delayed on the 2 min burst. Of course, I'm not the best black mage, but I don't think this really helps, I feel like this would harm them more.

No, I think you're wrong on this one. It's true that refreshing AF at the beginning of GCD leaves you with a little less time than refreshing it at the end of a GCD, but unless you're really trying to cut corners and strip things to the bone (which usually only happened if you were skipping B3/B4 in the first place, and would very rarely happen if you were playing standard but wound up having to use both Xeno and Thunder back to back), but in general having an instant cast spell that refreshes your timer is exactly what a weak or average player needs even though it might set a strong player doing optimization tricks back.

Remember, it's not just that Paradox is an instant cast, but that Paradox automatically gives you a second instant cast that also refreshes AF3. So like, your astral cycle begins, you cast F4, you cast F4, you cast F4... oops! Abort, gotta move! Okay, you cast F4... ack! Interrupted again! Paradox! Now you still have to cast two more F4s... but you have a Firestarter proc to use. You could go F4 F4 Firestarter F4 F4, or even F4 Firestarter F4 F4 F4 if the fight's gotten less hectic, or something like that.

The basic fact of having two instant-cast AF3 refreshes rather than one is going to make the 10000MP + 3UH astral cycle much more forgiving than it was before, because someone who wants to play maximally careful can just go F4x2, Paradox, F4x2, Firestarter, F4x2, Despair, and effectively have close to 45 seconds of cumulative fire phase uptime in which they just need to fit one Xeno and one Thunder.

I do think that Flare Star ought to get charged up by any fire spell, not just F4/Flare, but even its current restrictive state is less harsh than it looks.

[Chocochic]

Ah, I see. I forgot about Paradox being a guaranteed F3P now. That does make it less punishing, with those two instant casts. I suppose I wasn't thinking about a person playing much carefully assuming that you would want to complete fire phases as fast as possible to be able to cast more Flare Stars. Thank you for the clarification.

[Voidmage]

I think this change would legitimately help them, because one of its effects is making it much easier to cast six Fire IVs in an astral cycle. Remember, astral paradox is instant cast and grants an automatic Firestarter proc that's no longer a loss to use immediately, so you get a minimum of two free, instant AF3 refreshes over the course of a cycle (and a third free movement opportunity that's less under your control because it depends on when Thunder is expiring, although in a pinch using High Thunder to move is still going to output more damage at less MP cost than resorting to Scathe).

This means that someone who previously struggled with finding a way to safely cast three or four F4s in a row can now cast them in three sets of two or something.

If you do three sets then sure, I guess it will help those players.
But it will be more clunky then making the timer longer because instant cast always give this awkward waiting time after casting them.
For everyone who did managed to get 6 F4's in it will be more railroaded because either you do 4 F4's > Paradox > 3 F4's or have enough spellspeed for it to have some comfort and that sucks for those who liked lower spell speeds.

If the goal was to make everything easier then removing UI Paradox makes even less sense because it was a nice saving tool for movement or after an emergency transposing to ice.
I just don't understand the goal in the design changes other then charging mana in UI phase instead of sever ticks.

Off the top of my head and without doing any math, I'm guessing that the new opener goes like the current one, where you use F3, Thunder (which is now free and instant, so you can comfortably slam down leylines and triplecast or something right here), as many F4s followed by a Despair as you can, and then Manafont. However, since Manafont is vastly stronger now, you then proceed into a completely normal astral cycle, making sure to drop your Xeno and possibly refresh Thunder before raid buffs run out.

It's possible that we use only Swift and a single Triple to start so we have another Triple ready to go Fire IV-Despair-Flare Star at the end of the post-Manafont astral phase.

I think it depends on the potency of the new finisher. As it is now its not worth it to start in UI just to get the stacks for it but potencies can change so we probably will only know when Dawntrail goes live.

[Ferrinus]

If you do three sets then sure, I guess it will help those players.
But it will be more clunky then making the timer longer because instant cast always give this awkward waiting time after casting them.
For everyone who did managed to get 6 F4's in it will be more railroaded because either you do 4 F4's > Paradox > 3 F4's or have enough spellspeed for it to have some comfort and that sucks for those who liked lower spell speeds.

Basically, the fact that we'll be refreshing AF3 with instant spells means that a refresh buys us 12.5 seconds instead of 15 seconds, but, having a whole extra refresh means that we're going to have a potential 15 + 12.5 + 12.5 = 40 seconds of AF3 time total, where before we had around 30. So I'm not at all worried about this increasing difficulty for newer or weaker players.

I think it depends on the potency of the new finisher. As it is now its not worth it to start in UI just to get the stacks for it but potencies can change so we probably will only know when Dawntrail goes live.

Right now, Flare Star hits only a little harder than Despair, although that might change. I guess the question is whether A) fire opener lets you cast Flare Star under raid buffs B) ice opener lets you cast Flare Star under raid buffs (an ice opener contains like 11 GCDs before flare star, after all) C) a fight's length is such that going fire vs. ice actually changes how many Flare Stars you can cast all together. I'm guessing that not casting B3 or B4 makes up for casting your first Flare Star a little bit later, but I could see it going either way, and wouldn't mind opening with ice spells after several expansions of opening with fire spells instead.