Black Mage

[Llugen]

I don't even really want a "caster comp", and in fact it will never be viable until we get a "caster" tank (possibly Mystic Knight or BLU), I ONLY want a caster to be viable at highest end over BRD+MCH.

Down with the physical meta!


Edit: and even then, all three casters would be fighting over the same casting gearset for drops and the entire rest of the gear that would drop would be "wasted". Sounds extremely inefficient to me.

[Llugen]

At this point I will concede that Fire IV and Blizzard IV should get reinstated to 280, Foul should be stronger potency single target (double), and that the Thunder III DoT should be increased to at least 27 seconds if not 30 seconds (which of course intrinsically increases the potency of Thundercloud by 160). As stated recently, some AOE love would be very appropriate too, particularly in the form of Freeze giving Umbral III and Umbral Hearts after Flare (I also really like the idea of Thunder IV cloud doing additional Fester-style damage if reapplied when the Thunder IV DoT is still on the target).

However, I still stand FIRMLY by my assertion that the biggest thing wrong with BLM is that its design (hardcasting turret) is just not conducive for progression/raiding/endgame. Could you imagine trying to do even first phase unending coil on BLM right now? What if you get picked for every Hatch? Never mind even getting picked for liquid hell and fireball, and needing to be either really greedy or sacrifice for twister. Movement management undermining maximum DPS flies directly in the face of "pure damage caster", and only further reinforces the reluctance to put BLM on the roster.



No amount of potency buffing is going to fix this issue. It NEEDS NEEDS NEEDS a mobility improvement. What that means can be up for debate. I personally like the idea of more reliable procs (things like Thunder Ready and maybe successful usage of all three Umbral Hearts grants a free Firestarter) Or making more things instant cast, possibly removing the cast time for Blizzard/Fire I completely while under Enochian, and the cast time from Foul. Hell, they make it so the job can just move at 70% normal speed while casting uninterrupted, or at normal speed and increase cast time by 10% or so while moving. If they wanted to get fancy, there could be a way to "build up" casts that can be used while moving through the Enochian timer and the caster can save up the stack as long as needed and then the stack ticks down during every cast while moving. Oh and for the love of god reduce the recast on Aetherial Manipulation, please and thank you.


I'll say it again: EVEN IF they increased BLM's damage by a flat 20% that would mean NOTHING if the job cannot maintain uptime which is ABSOLUTELY the case in unending and it is pretty standard in most endgame raids as well. Mechanics drastically hinder BLM to the point where no reasonable amount of damage increase will suffice. The "turret DPS" needs to go, rather, the turret needs to gain some legs.

[Remedi]

However, I still stand FIRMLY by my assertion that the biggest thing wrong with BLM is that its design (hardcasting turret) is just not conducive for progression/raiding/endgame.

That's why in a patchwerk style fight with no movements BLM should be number 1 by a large margin.
Turret type jobs can work if you do a double balance with a standstill scenario and a classic fight scenario, that's also why procs should have longer duration, imho each jobs should have a weakness since weaknesses it's what make jobs balanced (that's why DRK fell out of favor since they covered WAR shortcoming).
I still stand that we are at the strongest we ever been in the movement departments and asking for more well........at that point they might aswell give us casting while moving but.....I mean seriously now.

[Tzain]

I'll say it again: EVEN IF they increased BLM's damage by a flat 20% that would mean NOTHING if the job cannot maintain uptime which is ABSOLUTELY the case in unending and it is pretty standard in most endgame raids as well. Mechanics drastically hinder BLM to the point where no reasonable amount of damage increase will suffice. The "turret DPS" needs to go, rather, the turret needs to gain some legs.

What if Aetherial Manipulation was altered to a trait.
Now if you hit a movement key during a cast, you move yourself 5 yalms in that direction instantly, but don't interrupt your cast. If a ley line is active under you when you do this, the leyline moves as well. This effect can only be used once per cast time.
On top of being useful, I think it would look pretty cool to go bopping around like that.
I would say that it should have a 'safety feature' though, that it stops at the edge of a cliff, so that you cant toss yourself off titan just because your controller decided to be overly sensitive.

[Karshan]

I would say that it should have a 'safety feature' though, that it stops at the edge of a cliff, so that you cant toss yourself off titan just because your controller decided to be overly sensitive.

And why would that be ? Other jobs with dashes can fall, so no safeties

[Komaru_Tatoro]

blm in the first phase of baha isnt really that bad. i tried it and other than liquidhell thr other mechanics are fine because usually a proc/swift/triple could give you enough time. i mean if close range melee get target by that random liquidhell, they lose uptime like blm anyway. hell il say rdm as a regular liquidhell baiter is quite tough too, compared to brd/mch.
the only thing that is really holding blm from ult baha is thr general conception that blm isnt prog friendly as smn/rdm.

[Llugen]

blm in the first phase of baha isnt really that bad.

Shh, just agree with me. We really need changes. Tell you what, I'll go in there and try it myself tonight on BLM, but really we're just talking about the same thing from two different angles. If "pure damage" is supposed to be BLM's purpose, then maximum uptime is something that it NEEDS more tools for, period.


I'm not suggesting that BLM needs to be a movement god but the difference between BLM moving and any other ranged moving is incredibly massive. SMN loses a whopping 30 potency (or none, with a Further Ruin), RDM loses nothing if not horribly timed, and BRD/MCH also lose nothing. It is true that melee get screwed in that regard, yes, but considering the balance of ranged/melee, I don't really see that as an issue in a needs-fixing sense. This is why they have gap closers and such.

[zuzu-bq]

the only thing that is really holding blm from ult baha is thr general conception that blm isnt prog friendly as smn/rdm.

Raises are ridiculously powerful to push through Nael and avoid Iceballs to double and kill people, also really strong for Trios that require all 8 players alive.

[Llugen]

I agree that all jobs should have a weakness of some kind, but making it movement/mechanics is just poor design. EVERYONE has to do mechanics, and suffering a (estimated) 70% potency loss due to unfavorable movement is ridiculous. Again, SMN loses a whopping 30 potency if no proc, and the others lose arguably nothing. BLM loses the difference between Fire IV (468? iirc) and flipping SCATHE at 100 if your movement tools are already blown (so 79%), not to mention that the movement means you also lose the potency from another Fire IV due to needing to refresh the Astral timer AND guaranteeing your MP table to be messed up. This is pretty much completely unacceptable.


Also, call me a broken record again, but BLM had SIGNIFICANTLY better movement in 2.0 than it ever had post 3.x. Damage reliance on procs and consistency of getting them due to using Fire I to fill meant the ability to move potentially every 6 seconds for potentially up to 8 if you include swiftcast in there and get a good Thundercloud/another Firestarter, which is to say nothing of being stuck in Ley Lines. One movement of 3 casts every minute does not match up to the value those procs used to have.

Fire/Blizzard I under Enhanced Enochian should be instant cast. This alone might fix the aforementioned discrepancy of potency; it's still significant (324 vs 468 from Fire IV, or 504 if they do decide to give the 20 potency back), but at LEAST it will diminish the punishment from where it currently stands, and with the added chance of additional Firestarters from using Fire. I think on top of this it would be meaningful for either Fire IV to have a chance to proc Firestarter itself, or give Fire IV the ability to BE Firestarted (for more Fire IV per Astral).


Side note: How difficult does it sound to add the remaining timer of Thunder III upon successful Thundercloud usage as damage to the NEW Thundercloud? So if there are 18 seconds worth of Thunder III remaining on the target and I use another Thundercloud, it adds the remaining 240 potency to the Thundercloud hit AND reapplies at 24 seconds. Does that sound horribly difficult to script/program? It feels like it to me, but that might be one good potency solution on top of increasing Thunder III DoT to 30 seconds.

[Kabooa]

Side note: How difficult does it sound to add the remaining timer of Thunder III upon successful Thundercloud usage as damage to the NEW Thundercloud? So if there are 18 seconds worth of Thunder III remaining on the target and I use another Thundercloud, it adds the remaining 240 potency to the Thundercloud hit AND reapplies at 24 seconds. Does that sound horribly difficult to script/program? It feels like it to me, but that might be one good potency solution on top of increasing Thunder III DoT to 30 seconds.

We want to lock as little of our damage ceiling behind RNG as possible.