Preliminary patch notes up.

[Urielparadox]

Black mage new skills, all of them require a Blm to move less then ever before and give huge penalty for moving, they better be restoring man a wall to its former glory or blm will die.

[Edellis]

Black mage new skills, all of them require a Blm to move less then ever before and give huge penalty for moving, they better be restoring man a wall to its former glory or blm will die.

...that's a bit extreme, dont you think?


Only thing that really bothered me was the removal of EXP from unsynced dungeon play, but since the bosses still give EXP i guess it's not so bad. It would have been a bit silly to let a lv 60 BLM into darkhold as-is.


Most excited however, was the mention of some of the skills changing. Flare was on the list for BLM. I was really wondering how they were going to keep it viable in light of Enochain, since a 100% MP cost would mean nobody would ever use it past lv 50.

[Omegakiyohime]

Black mage new skills, all of them require a Blm to move less then ever before and give huge penalty for moving, they better be restoring man a wall to its former glory or blm will die.

What? How are you blm'ing? Maybe you were moving a bit too much before if standing in place comes as such a lost to you. If you were moving for anything other than dodging a mechanic that couldn't be eaten by wall/ward, then you were doing it wrong. Standing in one spot and casting is literally all the job does.

[Nyalia]

What? How are you blm'ing? Maybe you were moving a bit too much before if standing in place comes as such a lost to you. If you were moving for anything other than dodging a mechanic that couldn't be eaten by wall/ward, then you were doing it wrong. Standing in one spot and casting is literally all the job does.

I strongly disagree with this statement. I raid primarily as a BLM, and I move quite a lot without losing DPS. There are tons of points during a BLM rotation that you can safely move with no penalty: when a proc is up, move 0.5 seconds before your current cast finishes while hitting the proc - you get a total of ~2 seconds to reposition yourself before you have to stand still again, which is plenty of time to get into a better position when needed. When the boss becomes untargettable temporarily for a mechanic, there is no reason to stand still currently. During AoE situations, there is a ~1.5 second period of time each rotation where you are doing nothing and can safely move (between transpose and the first mana tick). Also, at any point, if you know you're about to have to move, don't have a proc, and want to maintain DPS, you can Swiftcast whatever comes next (often Fire) while moving. If you get lucky and proc Firestarter from the Fire, you get even more max-DPS movement time. All of these times, you can even move via Aetherial Manipulation if you have to go far, and you still won't lose one smidgen of DPS.

I mean, imagine doing T9 final phase without moving. I get maybe two casts in before I have to run to the boss after a jump, or run to bait novas then mid for thermiotic, or run to a DB spot, or run out for thunder/fireout. BLMs move plenty in difficult content. Good BLMs lose minimal DPS from moving because they time it right and manage their rotations to compensate.

Now, I'm not complaining about the new changes - I think they're great, and will enjoy trying to find the optimal time to drop Leylines for maximum effectiveness. I'm just objecting to the idea that BLMs need to stand still to max their DPS. Of course, moving hurts their DPS more than any other class already, and this will only increase that effect, but the effect can be quite minimal if you play it right and plan accordingly.

Also, the stationary aspect of Leylines is important for PvP. Can you imagine 72-person Slaughter where the BLMs are casting their quad-flares and followup Cometeors 15% faster without the Haste buff? Now, imagine it WITH the Haste buff from mid. Ouch!