Black Mage

[Lelila38]

Why is everyone so bent on Convert being useless? It's a vital part of openers, allowing 8 F4s. With all the other issues we face I don't see a need to change that specific skill.

[TsuKoj]

Why is everyone so bent on Convert being useless? It's a vital part of openers, allowing 8 F4s. With all the other issues we face I don't see a need to change that specific skill.

It's not a bad ability. Just an awkward one. It's a 3 min cooldowns and takes 20% of your hp for 2 fire 4s. Openers are strong because of buff stacking. It's when all the raid buffs and personal buffs go up which makes each buff more effective. Problem with convert is it doesn't really fit the opener meta. Trick attack lasts 10s and is used on the 5th-7th gcd 11-25s, litany is up on the 2nd-3rd gcd 3.5-25s, foe reqs up on the first 1.5s-25s, same with battle voice, chain strat is used to match trick and litany. So the window of power is essentially between 3-11 is good, 11-25 amazing. Blm standard opener(@1917ss) (also rough estimates but I'm erroring in favor of convert) is sharp b3(0) > t3(2.35) > b4(4.9) > t3p(6.25) > ll > f3(8.5) > tc > f4(10.7) > pot > f4(12.95) > swift > f4(15.2) > lucid > f4(17.45) > convert > f1(19.6) > f4(21.85) > f4(24.1) > then 2 more f4s but at this point all the raid buffs are down(looking back at my logs my last two actually started casting at on the 24.5 second mark with arrow, and 29 second mark without). So the two fire 4s you gain off convert aren't really "opener" fire 4s, but just standard ones which while a dps gain, is minimal. Convert used to be awesome when blm had raging strikes since they could with enough ss fit extra fire spells in during the buff window.

The other issue with it is being a 3min cd makes the timing on it awkward. You want to time it under your infusion, but infusion cd is 4.5m. So in a 9+ minute fight you'd either lose a use of convert or not be able to line them up. You can convert at minute 3, 6, 9 where it only lines up with an infusion at minute 9, or you can convert at minute 4.5 and 9 to have it line up both times but lose a use of convert.

In the end, it's not a bad ability, it's a dps gain most definitely, but it's lost a lot of its spark due to the loss of raging strikes, and the fact that extending your rotation isn't the best way to synergize with others. It's also has a hp cost that makes it dangerous to use in certain situations.

[Remedi]

It's because it has 3 min CD and it essentially gives 1-2 fire IV which is a bit low

@Llugen I'm thinking about removing the haste buff from ley lines and make it permanent, also between the lines moved to the same level you learn ley lines and essentially morphing it into a movement tool where you switch place with your ley lines once you use between the lines

also tbf they read it surely, I mean most of 4.0 SMN skills are essentially their answer to that branch of forum community wanting more interactions with pets, what we can also deduce is that they however keep such changes for expansion idea pitch while also having a lesser approach during patch time.

[Waliel]

I wish Convert would be a 1 minute cooldown with roughly halved effect. You could get in an extra F4 with Triple and more opportunities for Flare Convert shenanigans. It would also help with recovery if you mess up your mana.

[Ferrinus]

To be in agreement with lore about black mages, Convert should either be a THM ability or it should cost no health and be called Channel or something.

[Makrar]

Convert just needs to have an effect to justify the cooldown. Its so laughable ineffective right now. How much of a dps difference is there between someone who uses convert correctly and someone who doesn't? Because it surely cant be more than 1%

IMO, i would like to see it changed to something like this;

Convert
Sacrifices 30% of maximum HP to restore 100% of MP. Cannot be executed when current HP is lower than 30%.
Additional Effect: Grants Astral Fire III and removes Umbral Ice.

[Llugen]

The idea of Convert is fine it's just weak so it needs tuning up.

If it's going to continue to be 180s recast, I'd have it give you an entire MP bar, three Umbral Hearts, and maybe even a set of procs (particularly a Thundercloud as its most likely that your initial Thunder III is about to fall off)

If they want to keep the effect the way it is, I'd say it should be 60s recast (so every other fire phase) or maybe 90 would be acceptable so it works with Ley Lines. Also if they do this, they should either lower the HP required or remove that stipulation completely, as it would drive the healers crazy. (Indulge)

[zuzu-bq]

Nah convert is a really bad ability. Something that used to be very good and synnergized with BLM's kit and became weirdly akward and weak over the course of the game changes. Remember what Convert did on the course of the game.

During ARR era convert had great synergy into our simplistic kit, we could finish our Raging Strikes window with a bang, casting one single Flare that had a huge potency advantage over Fire, followed by a Convert, a Fire then Blizzard III time. Once convert was back up and so was Raging all we had to do was wait a fresh new Fire phase to unload that somewhat free buffed Flare again.

During Heavensward the concept of that was expanded. At the start we had only ten seconds of Astral Fire and low Spell Speed so people tried to make Convert fit in the opener for a Flare+Convert stack refresh. But since Fire IV was stronger better openers eventually showed up still expanding the concept to just fit more Spells in a tighter Astral Fire with Raging Strikes window and take advantage of Fire IV's extra potency inside Raging and Foe, which was a huge gain in the end. The second use of Convert was lined up with Raging and Ley Lines so we could o the same spells in that buff window once more.

Ok, by Stormblood... Flare and Fire IV have the same potency and our Astral Fire rotation is longer, so the idea would go back to the concept of using Flare as a stack refresh right? Yeah that can work, but also not doing a Flare is a better option to minimize clipping and taking advantage of Triple+Swift to shoot 4 Fire IV in a row without the self clip of the spell for a better gain. So we're back to the second situation of Heavensward using convert for a few more Fire IVs and that is it. What does that give us in reality isn't much because we don't have raw damage buffs to pair up with it anymore. All Convert really does is, in a pratical sense of synergy with our kit, is extend our opener so we can have a Foul charged by the end of it. Ok so now middle fight when Convert is back we can simply use it right? No, if you don't control MP ticks (oh look another issue that can be caused by them) with the right spell order on Umbral Ice you will not gain two Fire IVs from a convert! Simply because the MP provided by it is not 4800 but 4644. A difference of 166 MP that you want to have in your pool to burn in one more Fire IV. On top of that making Foul potentially clip in itself by making that cycle longer mid fight instead of going from a zero charged Polyglot (though that varies on encounters) while either making stack juggling on reopening harder or forcing a Sharp Fire in it to keep stacks. Which while isn't bad it is a smaller gain over a successful Sharp Thunder. All these little things add up on making Convert akward to use and at the same time too weak for its ridiculously long recast time.

Convert was mostly powerful for the fact it was used to extend a burst inside Raging Strikes, without a damage buff the ability became weak and with our new rotation it also became more akward to use. On top of that the HP cost just makes BLM more unliked by parties' healers specially on learnings and progression, yeah you can Manaward but then we go back to the "we always clip with ogcds" issue and having to work around that is yet another job issue that was discussed in this thread). Convert should either cause an extra effect, provide slightly more MP or have its recast reduced. Or any combination of those.

[Shiroe]

yep convert can kill you..., use it out of habit during ex-death v4s when its up, and you either die or get stoned..
(besides convert giving more mp or have a shorter cd, if should NOT cost ffing hp anymore!!!)

but convert is only one of many blm issues

[Solyra]

yep convert can kill you..., use it out of habit during ex-death v4s when its up, and you either die or get stoned..
(besides convert giving more mp or have a shorter cd, if should NOT cost ffing hp anymore!!!)

but convert is only one of many blm issues

Yes, fixing convert still won't fix the main issue behind BLM, which is, it doesn't actually bring anything significant to the raid (brings equivalent raw dps with no utility) and actually ACTIVELY HURTS THE RAID because they CAN'T DO MECHANICS to do the same DPS as other jobs. So not only are you now doing less damage, but you're hindering the group you're in? I'm honestly not surprised we're starting to see BLM excluded from groups now compared to rdm/smn.