Solving the Fire Mage Problem

[Razard]

Spell glamour system...

Yeah who wants in in depth elemental system when you can just have glamours...ugh.

Finding out what flavour of Magic Missile does the most numbers and then spamming it is depth now?

[NovaLevossida]

Finding out what flavour of Magic Missile does the most numbers and then spamming it is depth now?

I hope you're not seriously advocating for the current system's "depth" in which every elemental spell doesn't deal elemental damage.

[MagiusNecros]

Finding out what flavour of Magic Missile does the most numbers and then spamming it is depth now?

Wouldn't call the BLM's spells Magic Missile. If it was accuracy wouldn't matter. Since they would hit regardless. Come on now.

[Alaltus]

Why not an elemental reaction system instead of a wheel? If anyone remembers fighting Soulcage in ffix if you cast fire on him he would catch alight and his attacks etc would change. SE could in that case have differing effects across different enemies when casting elements on them. Maybe even have element reaction combos. So while you might have a best element for a particular enemy/boss it wouldn't carry over to every enemy so there wouldn't be a best for all enemies. Elemental reactions could help or hinder the team depending on the effects and the party makeup.

[Judah_Brandt]

Why not an elemental reaction system instead of a wheel? If anyone remembers fighting Soulcage in ffix if you cast fire on him he would catch alight and his attacks etc would change. SE could in that case have differing effects across different enemies when casting elements on them. Maybe even have element reaction combos. So while you might have a best element for a particular enemy/boss it wouldn't carry over to every enemy so there wouldn't be a best for all enemies. Elemental reactions could help or hinder the team depending on the effects and the party makeup.

Boss A is easier to deal with by doing only fire damage due to the attacks being easier to deal with. Bring only fire. Boss B is easiest to deal with during its ice mechanics. Etc. People will simplify it to the point of exclusion, because their endgame is to put as little time and effort in for the greatest reward. Pointless system is pointless. Oh, and what if you could just bring an unaspected mage in to deal non elemental damage and avoid the mechanic that way, more exclusion.

While one may argue that some greater form of depth is needed within this particular game's combat system is generally up for debate, all a system like this would do is create occlusion of players. We had a very slight amount of it in terms of the Dark Knight and Monk sharing the Int debuff. Why take Monk, Dark Knight can replace Dragon Kick yada yada. Not the greatest example, but just a point of reference. If you turn "Group looking for Black Mage" into "Group looking for Fire Mage" you're effectively curtailing access to all players by creating a niche role instead of trying to make the battle itself more interesting with functional mechanics that can be challenged by all players regardless of their choice of play. If it was implemented, you'd just have bandwagon players who would see which was the most relevant per patch and that's all you'd have. Diversity in skill would be irreversibly damaged, diversity in class wouldn't necessarily be prevalent once the meta game was discerned, and you'd have a bunch of exclusion to players who favored a certain path. Glamour OK. MMORPG that says "You must have x spell to win" is a no.

[Razard]

I hope you're not seriously advocating for the current system's "depth" in which every elemental spell doesn't deal elemental damage.

You didn't answer my question. Is it depth to spam 1 spell over and over because it gives you bigger numbers?

Wouldn't call the BLM's spells Magic Missile. If it was accuracy wouldn't matter. Since they would hit regardless. Come on now.

Don't be a pedant, hun. You know what I mean.

[MagiusNecros]

You didn't answer my question. Is it depth to spam 1 spell over and over because it gives you bigger numbers?

It's pretty much braindead IMO. I only play BLM for the purpose of doing the most damage. If I could have depth to the class then I'd be all for it but it's pretty much spam Fire and regen MP in Ice mode.

[Iromi]

Finding out what flavour of Magic Missile does the most numbers and then spamming it is depth now?

Yeap, it can be...who said anything about spamming? I mentioned spamming in my post? Straw man?

In this game now you spam the same rotation over and over and over..that's depth? Kay. Nice, diverse battle system there.

[MagiusNecros]

I mean I'm all for an obnoxious system that was all about mix matching spells and applying elemental debuffs to use a skill that just sets off a huge magic burst for huge damage but it's clear BLM is just gonna be a Damage Spell stance > Regen MP stance > repeat kinda thing. I don't even know what to expect for 4.0.

People can say Enochian changed BLM but it really didn't. Just added a toggle timer to make 2 buttons work. Not hard to manage and really just amounts to the same thing.

Instead of 5 Fire 1's, I'm firing 5 Fire 4's. Regen the MP and the timer and with the occasional Thunder DoT.

Meanwhile we got the enemy THM/BLM throwing Breakga and Drain spells at us. Where's mine?

[AnimaAnimus]

Originally in version 1 thm was a master of astral and umbral magics and cnj was the elementalist. Basically what we have now is thm using umbral and astral magic still but with "fire" and "ice" monikers to make them more Black Magey and fit better within the realm of Final Fantasy.

So basically blm and its abilities are fan service.

If they are not going to have an elemental wheel they should have just stuck with astral(ice)/umbral(fire,lightning) and things like "blood sacrifice" which made it more a dark mage class. But nope, creativity went out the window in favor of branding and strategic gameplay was replaced by the easy button.

After playing this game since v1 beta and see it transform into a super casual, faceroll mmo, however, it doesn't surprise me nor does it give me hope for any actual change.