Issues with Black Mage go against Design Philosophy going into the Expansion.

[ThorneDynasty]

Everything should give MP during ice because the whole point was to replace server ticks, which you can't really keep track of easily and them arbitrarily and semi-randomly not aligning with your rotation. And one tick is close enough to one GCD. I.e. to fix the actual issue you were aiming to fix, unpredictable ticks, every GCD should restore MP for more predictable regeneration in about the same duration.

Otherwise you are just doing the unfortunate thing they ended up doing: Messing about with something that wasn't broken.

[Valence]

They could even make sure that ice spells refill a LOT more MP than other unaspected spells, would probably open the door for more depth and optimization tbh, and would keep some meaning behind ice.

But either way the loss of Flare Star gauge when swapping cripples everything anyway.

[Ramiee]

But either way the loss of Flare Star gauge when swapping cripples everything anyway.

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

[Genoreaper]

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

Vivi deserved better... it's like he doesn't exist anymore

[Valence]

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

I don't think I'm the only one having said it, but Flare Star gauge should work like Monk's chakra gauge when consumed on SSS: Flare Star potency should increase by the amount of gauge stacks you have stored, which would immediately remove rigidity and make it less needlessly punishing when 6 fire IV just can't be casted during astral, whether by mistake or by necessity.

[Azebra]

This is still my biggest problem with the rework. Genuinely such a dumb idea by the Devs just make them drop if you drop astral/umbral like paradox. Does Yoshi P even play BLM anymore or did he love Relm so much that PIC had to replace BLM. Poor Vivi...

Can't second this enough, having it stay between phase switches, or like Valence suggested, adjusting the potency depending on how much of the gauge is full not only would make the rotation less strict, but make getting flare star off at maximum strength frequently feel like a reward for playing well, rather than punishing you for not getting 6 fire ivs during one AF phase, which sometimes only happens because you're trying to adjust for a fight.

Kinda feels like the devs forgot that a part of BLM's ability to move and adjust for fight mechanics came not only from instant casts, but also from the rotation itself being flexible

[Tint]

1. Fire Paradox being instant is not the replacement to Ice Paradox that I assume it was designed as. Due to it being instant, the Astral Fire timer is refreshed sooner than it was as a hardcast, and as such, we have Less Time To Work With.

I was wondering why my AF timer was always so close to running out and just realized this was the reason for it.

I mean the solution of course would be to cast F3 > F4 x 4 > Paradox > F4 x2 or F3 > F4 x 2 > Paradox > F4 x 2 > F3 > F4 x2 but it messes up muscle memory for no reason.

[Sylvain]

So regarding the Fire Paradox I really don't see the problem.

Because it is instant, I can actually do 1 more FireIV before using it, making the next part shorter.

Same goes with Flare Star and the timer, how is that an issue? it costs 0 mp so it can be used after despair.
I'm having issue with Fare Star, but the fire timer isn't one.

[CyclopsDragon]

I'm personally less pressed about how BLM feels at max level than most people who play the job, but as others have said, the changes do make it feel absolutely horrid at low levels. This is particularly troubling when you remember that there are ultimate raids at level 70, with large amounts of downtime where you have no way to restore MP unless you drop two casts' worth of damage before a boss dies or jumps away. There are still issues at high level, but I think that all of the issues are equally deserving of attention. Based on the understanding that they don't want to allow nonstandard play to return, here are my suggestions:

1. Bring back ice-boosted tick-based regeneration when outside of combat. This would prevent players from having to start a mob pack with a pittance of MP.

2. Grant Umbral Soul at the same time as Blizzard 4, or shift Enochian and Blizzard IV/Umbral Hearts back by two levels and place Umbral Soul at 58. I think it makes sense to add Umbral Soul while BLM's core rotation is being developed, and if you follow point 1, BLM will still retain MP regeneration between pulls below 60.

3a. As has been suggested by OP, Ice Paradox can come back. It's unaspected, so it wouldn't restore MP, and its removal shows how the design team misunderstood what made nonstandard BLM work, because the point was to avoid low damage spells (B3, B4) while waiting for your MP to regen, and MP regen being tied to casting ice spells makes that impossible.

3b. With the return of Ice Paradox, Fire Paradox would not need to be instant, reverting BLM to the same fire phase game plan that they've developed since level 60.

4. Offering a marginal reward for a partially-charged Flare Star, as was suggested above, isn't a bad idea. Nonstandard play would be very difficult to accomplish with MP regen on ice spells, but it's a careful line to walk to make sure this doesn't contribute as well. Maybe making it start out weaker than F4, then scale up based on charges. For example, starting at 300 potency with one charge and increasing by 20 for each charge, making it equivalent to Despair at 3 charges and higher than Despair at 4.

I've been pretty vocal about the inevitability of (and design decisions leading to) the removal of nonstandard BLM play, but the changes made have affected far more about the job than just nonstandard play.

[AurisNix]

I mained BLM in EW and it does feel really bad to play, till level 99 BLM is okey ish, the downtimes are really bad and you dont have that passive MP Regen but my problem was at level 100 when I didn't feel BLM was anywhere easier for new players lol if anything it feels super tight to complete your Fire rotation is a total mess with that new slow cast finisher it doesn't feel intuitive I wish it was an instant cast, even with that instant paradox I feel like in fights with alot of movement BLM is going to be really bad it also feels bad in situations where you need to refresh the thunder DoT during Fire Phase cuz of the fire timer and the Flare Star slow cast, at low levels BLM is literally unplayable it feels very bad to run any kind of content below level 80 when you dont have any kind of MP regen between adds or downtime, I honestly don't know what they were thinking by removing 90% of what EW did for the job they could have easily let those stay and include this new stuff. They need to fix the MP issues by bringing back the passive MP regen or giving us the Umbral Soul at low levels, if somebody in the dev team really tested BLM they did a pretty bad job about it