Bland Mage

[Astronema]

you bms just want explosions that destroy everything?

[Kandraxx]

Nah, you see. Square is just giving us a little preview on job direction coming in 8.0. Friction and Fail States? That's old-school gaming. This is the current. New. Modern. Everything must be a shiny, smooth amusement park ride. Emergent gameplay and skill expression need to be kept to a minimum. The players don't bother to learn how to play anyway, right? Donny "Single Target" Doton needs to be able to compete with those ELITIST raider (Or so Donny thinks). So why not kill 2 birds with 1 stone?

Really, Stormblood showed us the direction the game was going in. The 5% role bonus's creation after that expansion was entirely to make sure you could no longer not bring a Caster, while also allowing them to ignore the massive balance issues between roles due to being forced to take a shit role like Phys Ranged. You know, instead of making those jobs interesting to play so they can be allowed to deal equitable damage to the other roles.

It PROVED that Square had grown complacent and lazy all the way back then. But no. It took 1 bad story for the rest of you to clue the fuck in, and now we're here. At the end of a road. Seeing a preview of the future.

Can you tell me what there's to learn in this game? Genuinely intrigued now. Because the FFXIV I'm playing has less mechanics at endgame than 2004 WoW at level 10.

[Azurarok]

you bms just want explosions that destroy everything?

I think what I liked about it was how much optimization it had. Maybe this isn't the case for actual BLM mains but it seems like a fully optimal rotation on a striking dummy's almost never achievable in practice, and that's kind of its allure for me. With all the weird tricks the job had in its kit it always feels like there's something I could do better, and it's not quite as obvious as it is on other jobs.

I do like the aesthetic and the numbers too, but it coming as the reward for the effort is what makes it satisfying.

[DiaDeem]

Anyone remembers 2.0 Flare?

[SlickPaws]

It really does feel like “You’re having too much fun. Stop that.”
I wish XIV private servers were a thing. I’d rather play a Shb/EW era private server than this.

This.
Game has been on a downward trajectory since EW's release in so many areas, but even at that I'd probably go back to Stormblood jobs. I haven't had as much fun with DRK since the day before ShB dropped and quite frankly I hate the job now but it was competing for my main with SAM at the time. If I could get Stormblood DRK back and actually have MP management stuff to do, and a nice spammable Abyssal Drain for some of that WAR-style sustain, then I'd go back to playing it in a heartbeat.

[Mecia]

Black Mage flavored ranged DPS. Casters? Not in Yoshi P's Enhanced Battle Content game.

[Kaliesto]

Do not question FFXIV Battle Designer

CONSUME PRODUCT>

[Altera]

Anyone remembers 2.0 Flare?

Yeah. But do you remember BLM 1.0 Burst spell and how the worked?

[DiaDeem]

Yeah. But do you remember BLM 1.0 Burst spell and how the worked?

I wasn't there for it, sadly. Imagine running 1.0 on a Celeron-based laptop.

[TakoyakiLala]

Another one bites the dust.