Quote Originally Posted by Ferrinus View Post
Well, no, I do think the skill floor is getting a Flare Star each astral cycle. I just think the job gives you the tools to do that reliably if you don't try to spend those tools on increasing your damage instead...


If some otherwise-defensible sequence of Thunder refresh and Manafont activation and so on puts you in a situation where your Thunder falls off and then stays off for 3 or 4 seconds before being reapplied, that's just how the job works, no more your fault than a failure to cast more than one Flare Star per astral cycle is. It's like how the GNB Bow Shock or whatever it's called DoT doesn't actually have 100% uptime either...

I don't think Manafont drift is a serious issue either...
See the issue I have with the above statements is that none of these were problems with Endwalker Black Mage. In Endwalker, we didn't have this Thunderhead system and you were much more free with your DOT refresh. In Endwalker, you didn't have a restrictive Flare Star system so you didn't have to play super conservatively with your fire phase. In Endwalker, Manafont wasn't such a major damage cooldown that drifting it didn't feel as bad. A well designed job should lead players into the standard rotation and make it feel good to execute. Dawntrail BLM doesn't do that. It has a number of traps for new players, and while free F3p helps, it has more ways to bleed damage than in Endwalker.

I should be excited about a new expansion and new things added to my job. I expect better from SE, and while sure I can settle I don't consider "oh missing DOT / unavoidable drift etc. are just part of the job now. Have fun!" to be good design. They have deliberately introduced these things into the job! They didn't have to do that!

There are lots of ways to fix things - e.g. your suggested change to Despair. For example, they could allow the thunder DOT timer to be increased to 60s and increase the proc to 40s - that would give some freedom back. However I'm not going to close my eyes and pretend the job as it is right now in 7.0 is any kind of improvement over 6.5 BLM.