BLM Changes Are Fantastic. The timers were so annoying. Thanks FFXIV team ! :)

[Taranok]

I think the changes made BLM more flexible and approachable, but at the cost of making it way too easy for seasoned players.

Since i dont think they will revert to the previous build, at least add a little complexity by adding a timer to Enochian ( a 15 sec for example), which is refreshed by all fire, blizzard spells except for Fire VI and Blizzard VI.

Let's not bring the skill floor back up after they finally lowered the massive skill cliff of the class.

The problem isn't that BLM is too easy now. BLM was always a stupendously easy class in principle. Its difficulty almost always came from contact with boss mechanics. Nonstandard wasn't a real thing for most of the classes life, so the majority of its difficulty was learning where to stand during fights and maximizing cast times.

The problem with this reworked BLM is that the devs well and truly, finally, have killed caster DPS' core gameplay. Sitting still and casting. If the class still had 2.8s and even 3s casts, 7.2 would be a challenge harder than the hardest ultimate. That's how much movement there is in modern fight design. That's how utterly divorced it is with older fight design and how roles fit into the game. Unfortunately, this issue is so dire that RDM won't survive modern fight design without a major change, and I strongly suspect that BLM and PCT will both lose their ley lines because this nonsense is extremely caustic to core caster gameplay. And then we'll have the true reality of casters laid bare. Casters aren't that hard to play bereft of cast bars. Even shadowbringers summoner isn't that hard if you remove the cast bars, outside of optimizing the pet AI to not drop abilities. It's also core to casters as an identity, so every class that gets them reduced or removed has slowly gotten worse and worse.

The devs need to bring back full cast bars, and design fights with 2 of 5 roles not having much in terms of movement. They need to be static classes. That is the challenge, that is where the fun of playing casters truly lies.

Mh yeah no. Saying that HW BLM could skip so many of its casts is ridiculous. One swiftcast and one sharpcast every minute, that's it. The only thing without cast times was Scathe (even Thunder had cast times), and you were not guaranteed to get many firestarter procs when casting F4, that with B4 and Freeze also had a 3s cast time back then. Flare was 4s.

BLM also couldn't skip jack crap in Stormblood either. Your highest damage spell was foul, followed by a proc'd thunder 3, then fire 4. The entire class was maximizing fire 4, and the only time any BLM skipped anything in the rotation was because the boss was about to jump and the timers wouldn't survive said jump. All the nonstandard stuff where BLM started skipping casts came about because of high spellspeed builds in shadowbringers, and didn't gain traction until paradox solidified it in endwalker. It's part of why I say nonstandard is demonstrably not intended nor is it healthy for the class. It's the equivalent of summoners in Heavensward boosting their expected damage by 25-40% by abusing the bad design of Dreadwyrm Trance, snapshotting, and contagion. Doesn't matter how much anyone likes it, it is aggressively bad to the game's overall health and in no way representative of how the class is intended to be played, or even how it was played throughout the years.

Endwalker is almost literally the only expansion where BLM was regularly played in a way other than what was intended.

[Valence]

SB BLM could skip a bit more with triplecast. But by no means close to what we have today.

Also non standard has been as old as ARR, just perhaps not to the same degree, I wouldn't know. Transpose to AF1 into firestarter for fire swap has been a thing since ARR. Cold Flare techs also used to be a thing before ShB, notably during HW.

[Keichi]

Non Standard seems to exist again, thanks of the change (not sure, if it allready existed earlier).

Standard should be around:
Casting both ice spells to fill the symbols. Cast fire3 to switch to fire. Cast fire4 until flare Star is ready. In between can you use paradox and fire 3 proc (or keep the proc for later). Onces, you mp is 0, are you using B1 to switch to ice and fills everything up again and restart it.

But, i have read, that the Real rotation, people are using is:
Start with fire3. Use fire4 until mp is 0. Use mana font. Use f4 again. Now, can you use flarstar. Than, can you cast F4 again, until the mp is 0 and you cast flar Star again. This rotation sacrifice Paradox, to use FS 2 times.
Now, are you using transmog to go to ice, for a bit more dmg. Maybe use a Quick spell skill to cast B1 faster. Fills the ice stuff and use paradox. Than, switch with transmog again to fire. Use paradox to get fire starter and use than f3 to start the fire phase.

Its so out of the normal line, that it seems for me to fit the term "non-standard".

Aoe is even more simple. Use 2 times flare and than flare Star. Use transmog to switch to ice. Use freeze (or what the aoe Version was), to get the 3 shards. Use some filler, until you can use transmog again. Switch back to fire and cast again 2 times flare.
This variation is very fast and make with it good dmg. From what i have read.

And the base for the ST rotation seems to be, that whe dont have a timer anymore, that force us to use paradox earlier.

[Voidmage]

Non Standard seems to exist again, thanks of the change (not sure, if it allready existed earlier).

Standard should be around:
Casting both ice spells to fill the symbols. Cast fire3 to switch to fire. Cast fire4 until flare Star is ready. In between can you use paradox and fire 3 proc (or keep the proc for later). Onces, you mp is 0, are you using B1 to switch to ice and fills everything up again and restart it.

But, i have read, that the Real rotation, people are using is:
Start with fire3. Use fire4 until mp is 0. Use mana font. Use f4 again. Now, can you use flarstar. Than, can you cast F4 again, until the mp is 0 and you cast flar Star again. This rotation sacrifice Paradox, to use FS 2 times.
Now, are you using transmog to go to ice, for a bit more dmg. Maybe use a Quick spell skill to cast B1 faster. Fills the ice stuff and use paradox. Than, switch with transmog again to fire. Use paradox to get fire starter and use than f3 to start the fire phase.

Its so out of the normal line, that it seems for me to fit the term "non-standard".

Aoe is even more simple. Use 2 times flare and than flare Star. Use transmog to switch to ice. Use freeze (or what the aoe Version was), to get the 3 shards. Use some filler, until you can use transmog again. Switch back to fire and cast again 2 times flare.
This variation is very fast and make with it good dmg. From what i have read.

And the base for the ST rotation seems to be, that whe dont have a timer anymore, that force us to use paradox earlier.

That's not non-standard or a rotation at all but simply the flare opener.
After that you simply go back to the normal rotation after Manafont is back. Non-standard basically doesn't exist anymore because of Flarestar.

The only thing left that is even rudimentary out of the norm is to use triplecast for Blizzard 3 and Blizzard 4 instead of for movement but that is not even worth to mention.
At this point I only wait for Transpose to be deleted next.

[Aysin]

BLM also couldn't skip jack crap in Stormblood either. Your highest damage spell was foul, followed by a proc'd thunder 3, then fire 4. The entire class was maximizing fire 4, and the only time any BLM skipped anything in the rotation was because the boss was about to jump and the timers wouldn't survive said jump. All the nonstandard stuff where BLM started skipping casts came about because of high spellspeed builds in shadowbringers, and didn't gain traction until paradox solidified it in endwalker. It's part of why I say nonstandard is demonstrably not intended nor is it healthy for the class. It's the equivalent of summoners in Heavensward boosting their expected damage by 25-40% by abusing the bad design of Dreadwyrm Trance, snapshotting, and contagion. Doesn't matter how much anyone likes it, it is aggressively bad to the game's overall health and in no way representative of how the class is intended to be played, or even how it was played throughout the years.

Endwalker is almost literally the only expansion where BLM was regularly played in a way other than what was intended.

As someone who literally did the alternate rotations in stormblood, this is false. You could have said not as many people were doing that and I would agree, but transposing to instant B3 or F3, skipping B4, skipping F1 was always a thing in SB. Same with ShB, who had the ideal rotation to skip using B4, and use thunder and Xeno as ice filler and back to F4 spam, was always a thing for those who wanted to push at the top maybe 3%.

The part where Endwalker made it more common is true however and that stems from fight design being more movement heavy in some specific fights that you are kind of forced to otherwise you would lose out on a lot of damage. It's the combination of nonstandard providing both more movement options and more damage that made it more common to attempt for the average player otherwise it would be just like previous expacs.

You can verify this by seeing the top logs from back then where you see not a single Fire 1 cast was made in some cases, ShB nonstandard sacrificed movement for more damage, making you more turret, whereas Endwalker made you more mobile.

Also nonstandard still exists, for as long as some spells have less potency the players will try to find a way around it. This is in the form of swift-B3, double para for F3 and hold on to it till required etc.