Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[HikariKurosawa]

Do you do the hard content in the game? Did you clear TOP and Dragonsong? Because I did. On Black Mage, too! And I can tell you the DT version of BLM would feel horrible to play in both of those fights, and will feel horrible to week 1 prog with (hey, another thing you can check I did! I also did it in past expansions!). You talk with such authority about "skill expression through progression"- have you done early progression? Like, with week 1 gear and actually cleared a tier? Do you understand what benefits Black Mages in those scenarios? How these changes will (negatively) impact their ability to perform and adapt both to hard fights (TOP/DSR) and in early prog (where wonky strategies reign and dps out is actually important)? I don't think you actually know how those things play like, and you have no knowledge of the hardest fights in the game or early, difficult Savage prog. I'm open to being proven wrong, though :>

Your comment about the JP playerbase is just plain wrong. In fact, if you have some knowledge of Japanese, I invite you to check their DPS board- the SAM and BLM threads have a lot of traction in the past few days, and while I claim no expertise in their cultural nuances, some of the posts there feel very aggressively negative when coming from JP players (legitimately felt like something I'd read in our English forums!). I, naturally, took my time to Like! their posts, as they resonate with me (and, in fact, I started cleaning up my ShB BLM gameplay by watching Te Tu and wondering about what he was doing in some runs- I even messaged him on Yt and he replied every time!).

What you're saying is completely wrong, anyway. If the game had no rotation (like, all you did was move around) it would become completely trivial. Half of the challenge in this game comes from mastering your job and rotation.
Imagine saying something like "a weapon's moveset doesn't matter at all in Monster Hunter! It's all about learning the monster AI patterns and attack ranges" or "picking a good build and synergistic party doesn't matter in Baldur's Gate 3! It's all about how you navigate the encounter!". It's such a silly stance.

Good for you. Nobody said the game should have no rotation. Just that the rotations should be clearly defined and sensible.

[MimaMeouri]

My stance is you should express skill through how you are able to prog content and how cleanly and consistently you deal with mechanics. Rotations shouldn't ever be the most complicated part of the game or even close. Encounters should always take the cake. That's where you should be expressing your skill.

Rotations should feel good to execute and be consistent. You should have a clearly defined execution to master, and you should expect yourself to master it through enough repetition. Then you can focus entirely on the true challenge of the game which is hard encounters. I feel like a lot of people who want for difficult and contrived rotations just don't do the hard content in the game or have done it so many times that it's all muscle memory for them and they're out of touch with what the game's difficulty really is.

Either way, the changes happened and they're not going back. You might just not be a good fit for this mmo. The japanese fanbase wants for rotations to be standardized for a good reason.

Also it's funny how you can only respond with vitriol and ad hominem at someone who is just enthusiastic about progress and refinement from the dev team. Get a better hobby.

This is a hot take coming from someone who doesn't do Savage or Ultimate. I'm curious what exactly you have experience progging?

[Galvuu]

Good for you. Nobody said the game should have no rotation. Just that the rotations should be clearly defined and sensible.

You said very clearly that rotations should be an after thought to "progression" and "doing hard mechanics", and that people saying otherwise don't prog fights or do Ultimates. So my questions stand.
The current "standard" rotation (that's also getting butchered, by the way!) is very much sensible and pretty clearly defined.
So, I ask again, did you do those things you accused others of not doing? And do you understand what Black Mage needs to function properly at that level?
(I obviously shouldn't feed the troll, so I'll just leave it at this, because I already know the answer is "no" and am being petty for the sake of it)

[HikariKurosawa]

Keep yapping it's fine, at the end of the day non-standard was axed for a good reason. Why would I understand what black mage needs to function properly at that level? I don't play it because I know that the non-standard meta exists and I'll never be optimal as it is.

I said that rotations shouldn't be the difficult aspect of the game and that encounters should be. I said also "or have done it so many times that it's all muscle memory for them and they're out of touch with what the game's difficulty really is." The current standard rotation isn't the meta.

What I shouldn't really do is engage with crybabies who are stuck in the past.

[Ramiee]

My stance is you should express skill through how you are able to prog content and how cleanly and consistently you deal with mechanics. Rotations shouldn't ever be the most complicated part of the game or even close. Encounters should always take the cake. That's where you should be expressing your skill.

Skill expression is the ability to do your job in a unique way, non-standard rotation was that for BLM. If healing mattered being able to balance damage dealing and healing would be skill expression and if tanking took skill balancing aggro with damage would also be skill expression. Sadly this game has zero systems for jobs outside of a standard burst, im not asking for rotations to be complicated im asking for them to be open. If anything I want them to be easier so people can create unique playstyles around the jobs they like to play.

Rotations should feel good to execute and be consistent. You should have a clearly defined execution to master, and you should expect yourself to master it through enough repetition. Then you can focus entirely on the true challenge of the game which is hard encounters. I feel like a lot of people who want for difficult and contrived rotations just don't do the hard content in the game or have done it so many times that it's all muscle memory for them and they're out of touch with what the game's difficulty really is.

I have done hard content, the most fun I had was blue mage healing in Eden Savage. Blue Mages have the easiest rotations in the game because you design them to be as easy or as challenging as you want, I had mine relatively simple but rewarding for me when I did my role as a healer. My blue mage damage was easier than all DPS rotations but I had more fun because while I learnt the fight I adjusted my rotation to react to the content and mechanics while I learnt it. This is next to impossible to do in current game because all the jobs are burst classes and I can't adjust my rotation I have to burst every minute/2minutes.

Either way, the changes happened and they're not going back. You might just not be a good fit for this mmo. The japanese fanbase wants for rotations to be standardized for a good reason.

Monk changed in the middle of Shadowbringers, Paladin changed in the middle of Endwalker. JP black mages are complaining about the changes, you are in your own bubble.

Also it's funny how you can only respond with vitriol and ad hominem at someone who is just enthusiastic about progress and refinement from the dev team. Get a better hobby.

Because all you did was say "I like this", "Only you want this" and "Go play ultimate." You are echoing things people complained about Yoshi P saying which comes off as massive bootlicking. Why come to a forum if you dont want to discuss?

[YuuYun]

I have seen HikariKurosawa on other job forum threads also and he is the same there talking as if he knows what he is talking about but actually doesnt. From what I can see I doubt he has ever tried to learn a rotation. And what this player wants is be able to play as good as high end raiders without the effort learning any sort of rotation. For those that are wondering the closest hes done to high end content is set one foot into extemes at the start of the expac and a bit of uwu "most likely damage carried" eventhough enrage does not exist in old ultimates.

"E.G:Rotations should feel good to execute and be consistent. You should have a clearly defined execution to master, and you should expect yourself to master it through enough repetition." and... no he has not done this.

So my advice is just ignore this clown.

And my prediction is that he will not even play BLM in any battle content after all of this.

I will wait to see what happens to BLM in 8.0 since ive been hoping jobs since the start of EW due to poor job design decisions and isnt anything new to me.

[Taranok]

I took a careful look at Rinon's Youtube video about the Dawntrail Black Mage and noticed that Fire III deals ~13k damage when cast from neutral state, and then that Blizzard III deals around 13k damage when cast to swap from AF3 to UI3, and then that Fire III deals around 13k again when cast to swap from UI3 back to AF3.

This indicates to me that the Aspect Mastery III tooltip is probably not misleading, and once you're level 35 or above, you don't actually suffer a damage penalty for casting opposite-element spells. This means that Transpose-Firestarter isn't a damage gain (or a damage loss) compared to just using Firestarter procs in the same astral cycle that you generate them. I have to assume there's still some sort of typo or accidental deletion in the base Aspect Mastery tooltip, though, because it'd be very silly for AF to be all-downside until level 20 or whatever it is.

If this is true, then yeah, transpose-firestarter is still a damage loss. But it's because you're losing +70 percentage points from the opportunity cost of chasing +10% damage instead of AF3's +80% damage. The opportunity cost of holding it is harmful, especially since it's fire 4 neutral at AF3. It's still not all downside, it's still +10% when at AF1, but yeah, they basically harmed BLM heavily below 20, and further reinforces the thought that BLM is in desperate need of a leveling rework. Personally, the fire 4 rotation needs to be dropped from 60 to 35 (without using fire 4 here,) and in the process it'd be pretty easy to just pare down skills, modernize the design, and build it back up with other, newer skills.

The funniest/saddest part of this is that Triplecast is ... a level 66 ability, which appears to be unchanged! In all content through ARR and HW, Black Mage has their single use of Swiftcast and nothing else, which is now going to need to be used for MP regen in dungeon pulls.

Black Mage having no MP in Baelsar's Wall and St Mocianne's Arboretum and Dun Scaith. Absolutely brilliant.

You have no idea the amount of times I wind up in a HW dungeon and just forget I don't have triplecast... Speaking of leveling reworks, seeing triplecast dropped to a lower level would be great. Would also give the class some much-needed mobility in ARR, especially in reworked dungeons that follow's EW's anti-caster fight design principles. At least, in HW, the class was designed around only one swiftcast and actually performed well in HW content. Even back with ye olde enochian. Except nidhogg ex. Man HW BLM sucked on nidhogg ex...

[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.

[MitsukiKimura]

This is a hot take coming from someone who doesn't do Savage or Ultimate. I'm curious what exactly you have experience progging?

You should note you're trying to argue with someone who thinks normal raids/extreme trials are hard content.

[HikariKurosawa]

You should note you're trying to argue with someone who thinks normal raids/extreme trials are hard content.

There's no argument in ad hominem. I have way less experience playing this game than most of the community and I don't consider myself good yet, but it's going to be funny when you're not as good at the game as I am. What will you say when you can't talk down to me? My opinions won't change but my position will.

I'm grinding UWU currently and you're not going to stay ahead very long. It is only a matter of time until most of this community is not as good at the game as me.