Thread: What I think should change about 3.0 BLM.

Originally Posted by Kailii

That would make it less stressful, but I'm not sure if it would make it fun. Frankly I think that flat out Fire IV and Bliz IV should just reapply Astral/Umbral, Fire IV should proc Firestarter. Lower potency if it's needed. I would rather do that than keep a slightly less clunky but still meh thing we have going on. Enochian should be enough of a timer to watch for, and I'm not sure that 12-15s Astral Fire lets Thunder be useful again. Frankly 2.0 blm was a happy accident with Firestarter and Thundercloud allowing a normally immobile class some grace with movement. Right now it's gotten even worse due to F4 being 3.0 cast.

I don't think this is the solution, as that would result in us spamming Fire 4 forever instead of finding the most optimal balance between Fire 1 and Fire 4 for your situation. It just needs to be less clunky and less punishing, imo.

Originally Posted by Pyroclastic

I don't think this is the solution, as that would result in us spamming Fire 4 forever instead of finding the most optimal balance between Fire 1 and Fire 4 for your situation. It just needs to be less clunky and less punishing, imo.

I don't really feel like we need to use Fire 1 anymore. Why not let it get replaced? I mean I totally expect them to just increase Astral Fire duration and call it a day, but its not like Fire 1 is interesting from even an animation and sound standpoint.

Originally Posted by Pyroclastic

I don't think this is the solution, as that would result in us spamming Fire 4 forever instead of finding the most optimal balance between Fire 1 and Fire 4 for your situation. It just needs to be less clunky and less punishing, imo.

This is the closest post to correct in this thread in my opinion.

But the problem isn't just "clunky and punishing"

1) Super clunky. The amount of times you lose a full Fire/Blizzard IV just because you lost one of the stacks at the last possible moment is aggravating. And because of the enochian window, you really can't afford to lose 2 whole seconds over a 30 second period. That's a huge reliance on turreting.

2) Ridiculously punishing. A lot of people don't realize that black mages CANNOT do their 2.0 rotation any more. There isn't enough mana for 5 fires. They have to go down to 4. The difference between 4 and 5 fires is about the difference between 1 fire IV's and 5 fires in terms of DPS. This means that you lose about 25% of your DPS simply from a rotation standpoint if you drop stacks which is excessively easy to happen. What did monks lose with greased lightning being dropped in 2.0?

3) The enochian window means you can't really waste time using Thunder procs. You cannot afford to lose an extra GCD. This means many black mages are forgoing their DoT- so if they move or the boss jumps they're doing zero DPS.

Some Black Mages think stuff like "letting Fire IV proc firestarter" or "Having Fire IV renew astral fire" or "I want to be Godzilla overpowered" is the solution. Really, just make the class less punishing and clunky. As it is right now, it's harder than Summoner, does less damage than Summoner (except in certain fights, where they're about even), much more punishing than summoner and the nature of a 'mistake' is such that you can lose your stacks when you have done NOTHING wrong.

Originally Posted by Xenitan

\Some Black Mages think stuff like "letting Fire IV proc firestarter" or "Having Fire IV renew astral fire" or "I want to be Godzilla overpowered" is the solution. Really, just make the class less punishing and clunky

How do you make it less clunky and punishing without doing something like that? Increasing AF duration reduces the punishment on aoe, but it's still clunky. I'm not sure how to make it less clunky without removing F1 from the rotation somehow. What do you think would work and solve the problem?

Originally Posted by Kailii

How do you make it less clunky and punishing without doing something like that?

Just change how Enochian works. Blood of the Dragon works really well by comparison.

Make Blizzard IV do 200 potency but have a 2 second cast (this is lower dps since you will have to wait for the GCD to expire) and add 25->20->15->10->5 seconds to the timer as opposed to overwriting it. This way it's beneficial to activate Enochian at any time since you don't need to get every single second out of the window.

Or make Fire IV and Blizzard IV not require their respective Umbral/Astral stacks, but casting them removes the opposite element if it's up.

Or whatever. There are so many solutions that aren't "let Black Mages have a spammable 504 potency (280*1.8) 3 second cast spell"