A better way to fix a bug [BLM]

[hgcgatts]

Okay, so in this patch there was a bug fix I disagree with.

An Issue wherein thaumaturges and black mages were able to cast multiple fire-based spells under the effect of "UmbralIce"

From my understanding of the bug, it worked like this:
There was a slight delay between when you pressed a key and when the action was confirmed to have taken place server side via cooldown timers or whatnot showing. This allowed you to insert commands into the queue that should not have been possible. For instance, when casting fire 3 with the umbral ice buff on, if you were to resend the cast command at the right moment, the server would recieve a command to begin the cast with a timestamp *before* the umbral ice buff went away, but because of the delay in the server receiving/processing/confirming, some check that would refuse the casting of another spell while already casting had expired, so fire 3 is cast again, but with the umbral ice buff still applied.

[hgcgatts]

Now, because the buffcheck for casting and damage delt was different, during the cast of the second fire3, you would gain the max Astral fire buff. This allowed for a super fast, full power fire3 to be cast every 3-4 seconds.

Now, don't get me wrong. The pre 2.1 incarnation of this was broken. I could match dps of full DL, relic+1 lancers while wearing AK gear if I did it perfectly. It definitely needed a rework. My problem is they destroyed something that made this class immensely more fun to play by fixing it in the most obvious way possible. What was once a symphony of minor inconsistencies coalescing into a beautiful whole has turned into mindless mashing the same rotation over and over, with no variation.

[hgcgatts]

This wouldn't bug me so much if I hadn't thought of a solution within a day that both kept the bug and balanced the dps. Add diminishing returns to damage dealt by BLMs. If we spam too many fire spells on the same target too quickly, fire damage taken by that target, when it is dealt by you, will decrease. Wanna spam the shit outta fire/flare? Fine, but the last few will do shit for damage. Of course this will take some tweeking to get right. It shouldn't effect a player doing the standard rotations at all. It should become a choice of doing max damage at normal speed or doing slightly less faster so you can be more mobile.

I don't know if it's even possible for them to roll back solely this change. It may be an intrinsic part of the game that was broken is now fixed, and you'd screw over others to re-implement this mechanic the same way. I simply hope the mechanic will make it's way back into the game in some fashion, as it was soo much fun.

[JetBrooks]

TLDR: taking advantage of a glitch was fun, and playing BLM as intended is apparently boring.

Carry on.

[hgcgatts]

TLDR: taking advantage of a glitch was fun, and playing BLM as intended is apparently boring.

Carry on.

Thanks. I was looking for a way for those with half second attention spans to get the point. Keep up the good work, charity to the masses is awesome.

[Allyrion]

TLDR: taking advantage of a glitch was fun, and playing BLM as intended is apparently boring.

Carry on.

Which is basically true.

[Kevin949]

I agree with JetBrooks. Proposing diminishing returns on our main damage spell, that's seriously your solution?

[SirGazuntai]

Diminishing returns wouldn't stop any of my rotations except my Fire I spam. All I would do is use 1 or 2 less Fire I spells before changing back into UI. All this would do is make us weaker...

The only thing that changed is the bug. Everything else is fine. I can still pump out around 300 DPS with single rotations, while getting 400-450 DPS against 3 monsters with AoE. In WP I get well over 1000 DPS with speed runs on AoE... Though, clearly power isn't your issue. If you find the way BLM plays boring, switch class. Not SE's fault you don't like the way your class is supposed to be played.