Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

Apologies, I think my post was not written good enough or my english sucks more then I think.
That wasn't my point.

I agree that two instant fire casts will make it easier for new and casual players to stay in fire phase.
I also think though, experienced players will feel too railroaded on the fire rotation and that the whole experience will be far more clunky because of the nature of instant casts and the wait time after them.

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.

I see. I didn't take raid buffs into consideration.

[wildvenonat]

A other topic.

What do you guy think, how viable a fire start would be now?

I tested it and noticed, that whe dont have enough mp, to use 6x f4, when whe start the fight with fire3. The mp is only enough for 5x fire 4.
You could use 4 times fire 4 and than flare, to reach the points, without the use of manafront (that whe shouldnt use it at that point).
And even with flare, could it be to close, to use 4x fire 4 with the timer (i have 1866 spell speed and come allways at the last second with the flare cast, after i used 4x f4).

Do you guys think, that a ice starter would be now the better start. Or, that fire would work well to, with maybe 4x fire 4 and than flare (it would be 1 shard to much, but it feels that the extra fire4 would help the dmg output a little).

With flare is your timer back to max, and would give you enough time to use flare star. And after that can whe use mana front to use the propper rotation with paradox and so one.

Flare gives no points for Flare Star. It's literally only Fire 4.

[Ferrinus]

I also think though, experienced players will feel too railroaded on the fire rotation and that the whole experience will be far more clunky because of the nature of instant casts and the wait time after them.

I see what you're saying. I think you've got a point, but it's not all downside. More instant casts mean more movement and more weaving opportunities, so throwing one can feel less active in one way (you're not even filling a cast bar, so it feels like nothing is happening while your GCD refreshes) but more active in another (you can reposition and use oGCDs without clipping). Personally I never felt frustrated or bored after using Thundercloud or Xeno, but it might be because I always build for spellspeed so my next GCD comes up very quickly.

There's also definitely going to be less truncation in the astral cycle, as having more refresh/mobility tools will mean that it's much, much rarer for someone to realize that, shoot, they are not going to be able to use all this MP, they need to just use Despair immediately and hope for better luck next cycle. It's also more rare, but proportionately more punishing to get into a situation where you have to cast Fire 1 just to keep Astral. So there's going to be less absolute variety in total spells cast from cycle to cycle, even though shuffling their sequence around is gonna be easier.

Flare gives no points for Flare Star. It's literally only Fire 4.

Flare gives you 3 pips on the Flare Star meter, but I strongly, strongly doubt it'll ever be worth it to use Flare on single target just to build up Flare Stars faster.

[MagiusNecros]

Flare gives no points for Flare Star. It's literally only Fire 4.

Flare actually does give Astral Soul. Think it will give 3 stacks. So probably double Flare and then Flare Star for AoE.

To answer the question above though Paradox and Firestarter will primarily be used to reset the timer so you don't lose your Astral Soul Stacks.

Probably gonna be something like B3 > B4 > F3 > F4x3 > Paradox > F4x3 > Despair > Flare Star > Repeat

[Voidmage]

I see what you're saying. I think you've got a point, but it's not all downside. More instant casts mean more movement and more weaving opportunities, so throwing one can feel less active in one way (you're not even filling a cast bar, so it feels like nothing is happening while your GCD refreshes) but more active in another (you can reposition and use oGCDs without clipping). Personally I never felt frustrated or bored after using Thundercloud or Xeno, but it might be because I always build for spellspeed so my next GCD comes up very quickly.

There's also definitely going to be less truncation in the astral cycle, as having more refresh/mobility tools will mean that it's much, much rarer for someone to realize that, shoot, they are not going to be able to use all this MP, they need to just use Despair immediately and hope for better luck next cycle. It's also more rare, but proportionately more punishing to get into a situation where you have to cast Fire 1 just to keep Astral. So there's going to be less absolute variety in total spells cast from cycle to cycle, even though shuffling their sequence around is gonna be easier.

I spend to much time on the word truncation...

Yes, i agree that there will be less variables in fire phase but all in all these are all things that I liked about blm.
> timing your casts to squeeze everything out even at the last second
> the flow of fire phase
> using transpose and paradox in an emergency and even in standard rotation just then stepping into non standard real quick.
> managing thunderprog

All in all these are changes that go against everything I hold dear with this job, even more so as a crit blm.
There will be happy players but I won't be one of them and DT will be the point where i will finally drop it sadly.

Picto looks good right now but we will see.


On another note, enhanced flare also seems to be gone.

[Ferrinus]

Yes, i agree that there will be less variables in fire phase but all in all these are all things that I liked about blm.
> timing your casts to squeeze everything out even at the last second
> the flow of fire phase
> using transpose and paradox in an emergency and even in standard rotation just then stepping into non standard real quick.
> managing thunderprog

I think all this stuff basically remains, but with the chief difference that it's never an advantage to skip ice spells or have shorter fire/ice cycles, so while you still might be forced to do that by mistakes or mechanics, the challenge is always going to be about how well you can minimize a loss, rather than if you can squeak out a gain. I think we're going to end up making a lot of the same decisions under pressure, though. If you have to move and you're out of instants, you might throw a Thunder spell to get at least a little potency in even though you're clipping your DoT. If a boss is about to vanish or you're about to run out of timer due to previous movement mechanics or mistakes, you'll cut your astral cycle short with a swiftcast Despair and then charge up for the next one. Etcetera.

On another note, enhanced flare also seems to be gone.

Yes, I noticed that, too. I'm actually a little sad about no Enhanced Flare combined with an apparent drop in High-Fire II potency, because it just felt right to cast HF2 for damage and then use your last Umbral Heart on Flare, rather than using all your Umbral Hearts on Flare. Now it seems like HF2 is just for swapping stances and your damage cycle will always be Flare, Flare, Flare Star for groups of monsters.

[Voidmage]

I think all this stuff basically remains, but with the chief difference that it's never an advantage to skip ice spells or have shorter fire/ice cycles, so while you still might be forced to do that by mistakes or mechanics, the challenge is always going to be about how well you can minimize a loss, rather than if you can squeak out a gain. I think we're going to end up making a lot of the same decisions under pressure, though. If you have to move and you're out of instants, you might throw a Thunder spell to get at least a little potency in even though you're clipping your DoT. If a boss is about to vanish or you're about to run out of timer due to previous movement mechanics or mistakes, you'll cut your astral cycle short with a swiftcast Despair and then charge up for the next one. Etcetera.

Hmm, no here i have to disagree.

Timing our casts to the last second will no longer be needed because we always have the safety net of two instant casts to refresh the fire timer.
The flow of the firephase will be gone because of the wait times after the instant casts (at least on low spell speed).
UI Paradox is gone so that emergency tool is no longer there (and the worst thing is that with the removal the of that spell the "flare" of it is gone)
There is no thunderprog to manage any more as far as I can see.

Nonetheless these are just my opinions so whatever.
Thanks for the discussion though.

Yes, I noticed that, too. I'm actually a little sad about no Enhanced Flare combined with an apparent drop in High-Fire II potency, because it just felt right to cast HF2 for damage and then use your last Umbral Heart on Flare, rather than using all your Umbral Hearts on Flare. Now it seems like HF2 is just for swapping stances and your damage cycle will always be Flare, Flare, Flare Star for groups of monsters.

They managed to make fire 2 good in EW only to almost make it useless now in DT.
This here is the thing I don't get the most.