So ... Apocatastasis

[Kenji1134]

I had a random idea about Apocatastasis while driving home today... an idea so random, we would need to rename the ability =P

So, most dps and dps oriented classes come complete with their own 10% resistance debuff. Monk, Dragoon, Warrior... Bard is a "support" class but gets its from Dragoon at no cost to the Dragoon... But mages get our's from Bard at the cost of 20% of the Bard's damage... and it also means that nobody can get Manasong or Paeon.

My random thought: Lets swap the positions of Manawall and Apoc, Mana at 40, Apoc at 45.
So, new Apoc...alypse beam of OPness...

Instant Cast
60 Second Recast
Costs all remaining mana, with a minimum cost of 1064. (4x that of Flare)
Delivers 3 hits at 170 Potency (Fire, Ice, Unaspected). 510 Total.
Reduces target's elemental resistance by 10% for 70 seconds, does not stack with Foe's Requiem. (And cannot be overwritten by Foe's)
Removes all stacks of Astral Fire and applies 3 Stacks of Umbral Ice.

So this is a fairly high cost attack, that on 1 target is stronger than Flare, though Flare is stronger on 2+ targets.
It is more costly than Flare, drops you to 0 mana, and puts you directly into a regen phase, so you are kinda useless for about 3 seconds.

The key idea here is that this is closer to what we probably "hoped" Flare would be. It is a high cost, high reward, high cooldown super-attack.
Now a few things should be noted about this move.

1. The 510 potency instant cast makes it ideal for blowing up small targets, gaols, plumes, small adds, etc, WHILE RUNNING!
2. But if you use it to blow up a small target, you dont get a 10% debuff on the boss... A debuff that lasts slightly longer than the recast, so you get even MORE damage out of it IF you dedicate it to the boss.
3. The 3 hits of 170 vs 1 hit of 510 is both thematic and practical. Thematically, it hits the target with all 3 types of damage that BLM can put out. Functionally, if your target has a damage shield, for one reason or another... Uh, be careful, cause you will take 3 hits back from said shield... Just... because. =)

So, very strong, thematic, functional attack that gives us a lil more mobility, a good chunk more periodic burst, and lets us do our maximal dps WITHOUT being at the mercy of a bard... at least on one target.
Foe's Requiem will still be amazing for aoe, but with this, we can do good dps, be more specialized for range bursting, AND get the bards off our backs about their 20% damage loss.

Edit:
Did some thinking from a balance standpoint... hah!

So lets say that my old rotational potency average of ~110 pot/sec is still roughly true after all of the UI changes.
Now we'll replace 1 hit per minute with 510 potency. So lets say we have a GCD of 2.5, for math's sake. 1 minute = 24 casts. 23*110*2.5+510 = 6835, vs 6600/min using the old rotation. That is a 3.56% dps increase. And on top of that we have a 10% buff we can maintain ourselves, so that would bring our net potency/minute to 7518, or 125 pot/sec... A grand total of a 13.9% increase from the 110 base approximation.

Um, its not HUGE!!! But its nothing to scoff at.