BLM needs a rework because of new content difficulty

[Ramiee]

More discussion of Tax here then a Bank.

[Galvuu]

they have melee tax

What the hell is "melee tax".
EW is criminally pro-melee, unironically "meleewalker" expansion with how far ahead melees were ahead of every dps that's not BLM.
Melee tax should definitely exist in EW, but part of the balance troubles with it was the fact melee was comparatively overpowered for absolutely no reason.
I'll hold my breath for the DT fight design, but both extremes are almost non-issues for melee (they need to disengage for a bit in the feather mechanic on ex1 and on some annoying patterns of the donut mechanic in ex2, but we're talking... "weave movement under a gcd" type of disconnecting, at most half a gcd).
Picto is fine, the job definitely works for the damage it puts out. BLM just needs, unironically, a 10% damage boost and some core changes to its mechanics (Ice Paradox, not resetting Astral Hearts in UI, Despair giving hearts, Flare Star being instant, old Thunder... the list of potential improvements goes on). I'm tired of the caster and phys ranged roles being held hostage by SE's newfound ideology of melee supremacy when that role gets dumbed down every single patch that comes out with dps pve changes.

Melee went from "you don't get your buff if you miss a positional and your rotation is messed up for the next 30s" while fighting bosses with tiny hit boxes to "you have two positionals every minute, and if you miss them you lose 30 potency each" on a giant hitbox.

[Eraden]

Ohhh, Mao shakings so hard. Mao finally finished DT with helps from friends and other nice peoples. Was so rough on Mao poor old hands. Fights has insane needs for mobilitys. Is good fights but pretty harsh to BLMs whats played by old person with Parkinson's. Mao just glad FFXIV community full of nice peoples whats willing to help poor old Mao. Mao thanks everyones whats helped Mao!

[rewd]

they have melee tax

Is this melee tax in the room with us now?

[Ferrinus]

I'd like to point out that I agree with you that Manafont isn't a burst ability, it's just a damage cooldown, hence you do want to avoid drifting as much as you can since you don't care about aligning it, just maximising the number of uses.

I agree with most of what you've written here, I would just like to state that it's SE that created this problem by massively increasing the power of Manafont, while at the same time removing the tools we could have used to prevent it drifting.

Basically, I prefer a powerful Manafont structurally doomed to drift to a weaker Manafont that's easy and profitable to use on cooldown, but the more I think about it the more I agree that a second charge could give us the best of both worlds (and it's not like a buff is out of order anyway).

[Galvuu]

Basically, I prefer a powerful Manafont structurally doomed to drift to a weaker Manafont that's easy and profitable to use on cooldown, but the more I think about it the more I agree that a second charge could give us the best of both worlds (and it's not like a buff is out of order anyway).

Manafont is particularly safe because even if you stockpiled two charges for some reason, it grants negligible benefit in burst, so the power level of such an "exploitation" is really low.

[Realfoxy]

Manafont is particularly safe because even if you stockpiled two charges for some reason, it grants negligible benefit in burst, so the power level of such an "exploitation" is really low.

It's very very difficult to use a single Manafont in burst, given that buffs last 20 seconds now, which is longer than an entire fire phase. You'd have to be under Ley Lines, use triplecast (probably more than one), and be on a speed set, and have perfect alignment to get 2 Flare Star/Despair under buffs, but at that point you're not using any Xenoglossy in buffs.

The only use of Manafont in relation to burst would be to avoid casting B3/B4/F3 in burst, which is fine, but you could also just try to adjust with Xeno instead.

Anyway all these problems would go away if we just had a way to do shorter lines to adjust alignment without losing a load of DPS.

[Boblawblah]

Ohhh, Mao shakings so hard. Mao finally finished DT with helps from friends and other nice peoples. Was so rough on Mao poor old hands. Fights has insane needs for mobilitys. Is good fights but pretty harsh to BLMs whats played by old person with Parkinson's. Mao just glad FFXIV community full of nice peoples whats willing to help poor old Mao. Mao thanks everyones whats helped Mao!

I was wondering about Mao and the new content I hope you didn't hurt your hands too much.

[Eraden]

I was wondering about Mao and the new content I hope you didn't hurt your hands too much.

Ats one point Mao hands shakings so hard Mao couldn't press keys. Nice players whats helped Mao didn't mind though and were glad Mao gots through MSQs. Mao DEFINITESLY not gonna be able do raids buts Mao nots mind. Mao real joy in game is doings the gatherings and little bits hunts trains. Mao by NO means wants raids or Savage dumbed down for Mao sake. Is must be tough challengings content for young healthy persons whats has the skills to tackle such contents! Otherwise game will gets borings for young players. Now Mao off to do the gatherings! YAY!

[Taranok]

Ats one point Mao hands shakings so hard Mao couldn't press keys. Nice players whats helped Mao didn't mind though and were glad Mao gots through MSQs. Mao DEFINITESLY not gonna be able do raids buts Mao nots mind. Mao real joy in game is doings the gatherings and little bits hunts trains. Mao by NO means wants raids or Savage dumbed down for Mao sake. Is must be tough challengings content for young healthy persons whats has the skills to tackle such contents! Otherwise game will gets borings for young players. Now Mao off to do the gatherings! YAY!

Eh, I'd like it dumbed down anyways. If for no other reason that the fight design is breaking both the game's netcode and the devs are doing the third great homogenization. The first one was turning WAR into PLD in 2.1. Second was 3.x as all healers were turned into WHM. This third one is turning turret casters into phys ranged.

I like and prefer the more thoughtful, slow-paced mechanics of SB and early ShB over the modern action nonsense. Especially because I never saw mechanics firing out of order until EW. This was also the era where the devs targeted mechanics to affect specific roles. E.G. melee-outs to force melee downtime, boss jumps even for wall bosses, high movement mechanics in short bursts for casters. Even sections of mechanics that you wanted rphys to do because they had unlimited movement to run out and bait things.

That style of fight design is about 1000 times better than anything EW put out. It just loses that "action mmo" feel the encounter designers desperately want, at the expense of their game due to bad netcode and incompatible class design.

Having older and/or disabled people also harmed is icing on top of the bad encounter cake, since I want the game to be as accessible as it was barely half a decade ago.