Concerns about " Getting rid of unused and ineffective actions"

[No2631]

and it wouldn't be stepping on swiftcasts toes either as swiftcast is typicaly used to speed up long casts like ss2 and raises or flares.

I don't know about you, but no BLM worth their salt would Swiftcast Flare if they knew there were mechanics that required them to move 60s within Swiftcasting Flare. For a BLM, Swiftcast is the tool you use to keep casting spells while handling mechanics, and it's also what you use to clutch Blizz IV after mechanics and finding you have 2s of Enochian left. It's definitely not "typically used to speed up long casts" when you're a BLM. I even Swiftcast Fire whenever necessary.


I do agree Surecast could use some improvement; absurd that one of our least used skills gets a trait to improve it (and it still remains bad). Consideration with your idea (make it allow casting during moving) is that current BLM skill expression is by maximising DPS uptime while minimising movement necessary. If you change Surecast to make it easier, you remove some of the BLM skill expression and homogenise their gameplay towards "turret" more.

The true "hardly worthwhile" spell BLM has is Freeze, which has a long cast time, unsatisfying damage, too few Umbral Ice stacks (it'd be better if it gave 3 for AoE purposes) and crowdcontrol attached that's inferior to Sleep in nearly all situations except PVP with resistances. I don't think I've ever had a serious situation as a BLM in which Sleep wasn't the strictly better alternative to applying crowdcontrol; less cast time, bigger range (5 yalms), longer CC duration that's functional even if the tank remains standing beside them. Outlier: speedrunning Wanderer's Palace HM where you can Freeze the mobs in place as you just skip them.

---

Consideration re: strawmen is that you proposed SE would change things in x way and then highlight why x way would be bad, when there's no indication SE plans things like folding Fire 1/2/3(/4?) into one spell.

---

EDIT: Also re: making encounters different to make the skill useful. Yeahno. While I liked how for Shiva EX I could Surecast past the dropping ice, I don't generally like the idea of changing encounters so that suddenly I have to use Surecast repeatedly for that one encounter where it fades into obscurity afterwards. Rather have Surecast changed to suddenly be useful in existing content than adjust new content to necessitate Surecast.