Two Steps Foward, Two To Go: Black Mage, Flare Star, and Thunderhead.

[Deniza]

I generally like how BLM feels now, and due to Flarestar being such a long cast I ended up keeping Triple cast for Flarestar. And while I haven't played BLM yet in harder content than just dungeons I think it works fine.

That being said, the potency does not Warrant such a long cast imO.
I do think that the potency should be significantly higher. up in to the 800 region if not even 1000.
To offset tho that Flare 2x in to Flarecast would end up being viable in single target, this could be adjusted in to Flare 2x only giving Flarestar a potency of what it is now 400
and Fire 4 6x would give Flarestar a buff to do more damage than with Flare.

I don't think being able to cast flarestar before having 6 astral souls just with less potency would be a great change. After all the potency is just 80 more than F4 already. Which imO. is just way too weak for a "finisher" of a rotation.


For Thunderhead I think they could make it something like Deaths Design just with a tiny dot. Something where you do 5% or so more dmg when its on the enemy, the dot itself just doing something low like 10 potency and the application 250 potency, 30s per application 1m total runtime. Just a random thought cause I really don't know what this ability is even doing in our kit or how to make it work so that it feels meaningful.

anyways, thats my 2 cents.
At the end of the day I'm glad we got Ice Paradox back and I feel like Nature has healed with this patch for BLM.

[Azebra]

I do think Flare Star is in need of a buff to it's potency to better justify how much the rotation it makes revolve around it (honestly I don't think I've seen anyone claim that it's power currently feels adequate) but I think just doing that is nowhere near enough because it makes the issue of screwing up and missing it significantly worse. Especially when you're learning high end fights there will be points where you just have to end a fire phase early, and that's punishment enough without the additional dps loss of flare star.

IMO it's existence as another finisher on top of despair just feels redundant, but I also agree that I don't just want it be insta cast, mainly bcus I just feel like that's kinda uninteresting. Like yeah sure it would be a movement tool at the end of fire phase but that really isn't that big a boon bcus at the end of fire phase you're likely either going to use manafont, refreshing your timer anyway, or cast blizzard 3, which is an extremely short cast coming from fire 3. Also as mentioned we already do have a lot of movement options as is, and the main thing hindering blm's movement in fights as of now is flare star's mechanics demanding you maximize fire iv casts.

I agree that buffing Flare Star's maximum damage and allowing it to be cast at a lower potency with fewer stacks would be a nice change, and allow for much needed flexibility in fire phase, but I don't think that's the only route they could take. Having Despair count as a stack would be nice, and alleviate the many instances I've been in where I miss 1 fire iv cast bcus I have to cast despair early due to mechanics, but maybe that would be too much of a "get out of jail free" card (at least from the dev's perspective)

Having your stacks stay while changing to ice phase could be another alternative, but I'm mainly just spitballing here, I just think its current existence as "cast 6 fire ivs or you don't get your finisher. tough." sucks. This type of mechanic may work fine for other classes but as it is now for black mage it's just this deadweight thats constantly looming over your rotation that feels more like a hassle than a reward for playing the job well like how I feel xenoglossy is (not that xeno's incredibly difficult to get, but it does enough damage and can be used as you like so it feels rewarding, back when I first unlocked it I was always excited to use it)


Thunder as is just sucks. Like, okay they got rid of sharpcast because they're giving firestarter with paradox now and they think using it was too difficult for new players. Fine. But why change it like this specifically? Why do I need a proc to even cast thunder in the first place? Why nerf it compared to how it was before because now you don't even want it as a movement tool because the damage is so bad?

I think if they just changed it so you have to hardcast it when you don't have the proc but can still yknow. actually cast it, increased thunders DoT duration, and increased the damage of the proc itself I think I'd like it a lot more. Like ideally if they did it like this it'd be balanced so you don't just want to spam the proc whenever possible, you'd want to wait until nearer to the end of the dot to use it but also find the space in your rotation for it and not let the proc fall off entirely because hardcasting it would mean lower damage. Again, not saying "this is the only way they should do it" it's just the thing that came to mind personally that would deal with my current issues with it, there's a lot that can be improved and there's a few ways they could go about it.

[Ferrinus]

Thunder should definitely just be castable whenever you're in an elemental aspect if not at will. The Thunderhead buff is more likely to mislead newbies than to help them.

As for Flare Star, I actually like it fine. It's hard to use, but I think it's fine if things sometimes make our gameplay harder rather than easier. I do like the idea from the other thread of making astral soul stacks only come from consuming umbral hearts, and therefore only build up to 3/3, and therefore allow you to throw a Flare Star as soon as you've got three (but a max of only one Flare Star per astral cycle, such that B4 remains mandatory).

[Ramiee]

My thoughts on flare star is pretty simple.
Why does it exist?
What does it bring to the job?
I literally don't know what the point of it is, it's just a stronger fire 4 that I sometimes use. That's it.
I genuinely don't get what the point of it is, like this ability is so meaningless to me I wish fire 4 just transformed into it when it's useable because it doesn't feel worthy of having a unique button. It literally just feels like a flashy fire 4 to me, compared to paradox as the 90 capstone this ability is a massive disappointment for level fuckin 100.

[Turtledeluxe]

My thoughts on flare star is pretty simple.
Why does it exist?
What does it bring to the job?
I literally don't know what the point of it is, it's just a stronger fire 4 that I sometimes use. That's it.
I genuinely don't get what the point of it is, like this ability is so meaningless to me I wish fire 4 just transformed into it when it's useable because it doesn't feel worthy of having a unique button. It literally just feels like a flashy fire 4 to me, compared to paradox as the 90 capstone this ability is a massive disappointment for level fuckin 100.

Agreed. Equally as disappointing to 80 as well. Flare Star has been the worst new BLM action for 3 entire expansions.

[remiff]

Agreed. Equally as disappointing to 80 as well. Flare Star has been the worst new BLM action for 3 entire expansions.

Most jobs got level 100 abilities that are terrible,
the Summoner got a reskin of Bahamut,
this is really the expansion where the devs made no effort in terms of visuals or changes.

Most changes are either non-existent, or you wonder how it's possible to make such bad changes that seem poorly thought out.

They just threw things together randomly and told us it's fine, they'll rework the job identities in 8.0.

[Turtledeluxe]

Most jobs got level 100 abilities that are terrible,
the Summoner got a reskin of Bahamut,
this is really the expansion where the devs made no effort in terms of visuals or changes.

Most changes are either non-existent, or you wonder how it's possible to make such bad changes that seem poorly thought out.

They just threw things together randomly and told us it's fine, they'll rework the job identities in 8.0.

Actually now that you mention it, yes that's true. I just think Flare Star is possibly the most egregious because now the whole job rotates around it in a very rigid feeling way. It changes the way it feels to cast fire for example. Before the rotation felt more natural despite having a pretty obvious intentional progression, now that progression feels like difficulty for difficulty's sake, or a job or something. It doesn't feel good, and the low potency only adds to it.

And let's be real, the new BLM is even pretty gear specific where it wasn't so much before.

[Eraden]

Actually now that you mention it, yes that's true. I just think Flare Star is possibly the most egregious because now the whole job rotates around it in a very rigid feeling way. It changes the way it feels to cast fire for example. Before the rotation felt more natural despite having a pretty obvious intentional progression, now that progression feels like difficulty for difficulty's sake, or a job or something. It doesn't feel good, and the low potency only adds to it.

And let's be real, the new BLM is even pretty gear specific where it wasn't so much before.

To be ables do full rotation and gets Flare Star in, with or without foods and leylines, Mao had to MASSIVELY load Spell Speeds materias. If Mao remembers correctsly of the 55 materia slots in Mao gears, nearly 50 are filled with Spell Speeds materias. Flare Star makes rotation far FAR too rigids.

[FreyaAckerman]

Just another voice chiming in to say that Flare Star is the biggest mis-step probably ever in a job's kit. Since getting back ice Paradox BLM felt just fine to play from 90 to 99, but as soon as I hit 100 it became awful to play. As someone who mained BLM in EW, DT has taken a massive dump on the job in every aspect. Not sure that the person who approved these changes even plays BLM to be honest.

Issues:
- Flare Star overcentralizes the rotation to focus on 6 F4s in an AF phase. Any less because you had to Despair early for a mechanic, or a phase transition, or cutscene, and you've lost a bunch of potency.
- Despair doesn't give stacks of Astral Soul... why not? It's a fire-aspected spell. Flare and F4 do but Despair and F1 randomly don't. Ok.
- Astral Soul stacks are lost when going into UI. Why?

Suggestions:
- First, the VFX on Flare Star needs some work. It is very underwhelming to use compared to spells like Despair, Flare, and Xenoglossy which have been out for many expansions now
- Astral Soul stacks should not be lost when swapping to UI
- Despair should give 1-2 Astral Soul stacks. Honestly any Fire-aspected spell in AF should give a stack. Including AF Paradox.
- These changes would make the ability satisfying to use and worthy of an actual level 100 capstone ability.
- As a bonus, making it an instant cast would be nice to then be able to have a good weave window for Manafont.

Final suggestion would be to make it so that any spell cast in UI restores MP, not just B4. So if you cast Paradox, High Thunder, or Xenoglossy in UI that will restore MP just as much as B4.

PLEASE SE, you really cooked with BLM in Endwalker. It was the best designed job by a landslide. But the job feels awful to play at level 100 in high end content right now.

[Ferrinus]

You always lose Potency when you Despair early, because you cause your total string of spells cast to contain proportionately fewer instances of Fire IV, your strongest spammable attack spell. The reason you do it is that you'd lose even more potency if you didn't, because the boss is about to go untargetable or a buff window is coming up or you've messed up and your rotation is collapsing. Flare star just makes you lose even more potency, such that cutting your fire cycle short is less appealing in cases in which it's optional and more painful in cases in which it's mandatory. But, on the other hand, this means that completing your fire cycle feels more rewarding, because on top of abstractly higher white room potency per second you get a big explosion.

It makes BLM harder to play, but, on the other hand, should BLM just get easier and easier to play every expansion? Heavensward gave the job harder-hitting spells but a much more complicated and easily-messed-up play pattern than featured in ARR. I think it's good for the pendulum to swing towards difficulty every so often.

Incidentally, my guess for why only F4 and Flare grant astral souls is that only B4 and Freeze grant umbral hearts, so there's meant to be a sort of symmetry or rhyme in terms of which spells do what.