What's the point of Umbral Soul?

[Roxas_Andrade]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to BLM and I'm still working on the rotation, but I have a sincere question:

What is the purpose of Umbral Soul?

Before I had it, I thought we could use it outside battle to charge Umbral hearts and such - like monk - to get an upstart, but we can't.

If I'm in a aoe situation, I'd rather use Freeze to get one umbral heart and then fire III > double Flare (or 3 or 4...). If we got more umbral hearts, it would be consumed by Flare the same way...

In a sigle target situation, I could just use Blizzard IV to get all three hearts at once and then get back to fire...

I can just imagine it serves as a weave during an Ice phase, but I can't fit it in my rotation. Can Anyone help me figure this out?

[zcrash970]

So you don't lose stacks between pulls or down time in trials

[lulunami]

It is for skipping Blizzard IV or Freeze. Ice is the lower damage part of your rotation, so reducing time in that phase will mean higher damage. You go directly into Thunder III or Fire III in single target. For AoE, you go directly into Thunder IV or Fire III.

[Lina_Slayer]

It's a downtime only skill you should never use it if there is anything to hit since it's actually on GCD, with that said as long as there is downtime it's an amazing skill, because it allows you to skip Ice spells on the opener, in dungeons you should spam that button after you clear a pull and is walking to the next pull/boss.

[Roxas_Andrade]

It is for skipping Blizzard IV or Freeze. Ice is the lower damage part of your rotation, so reducing time in that phase will mean higher damage. You go directly into Thunder III or Fire III in single target. For AoE, you go directly into Thunder IV or Fire III.

But you can't use Umbral Soul unless you're already under umbral Ice and Enochian, so you can't Blizz III + Umbral Soul (would be a DPS loss in your example) and if you use Freeze, you'll already get one Umbral heart, making double Flare possible... If you had to use US 3 times, better use Blizz IV...

So you don't lose stacks between pulls or down time in trials

For not loosing stacks between pulls and keep Enochian going, we have transpose (Of course Umbral Soul would be better in this case, but not being able to use it on the first pull is annoying, why the requirement of Enochian AND umbral Ice?) For downtime in trials I accept it, but then it doesn't feel as powerful as I thought it would be...

[zcrash970]

For not loosing stacks between pulls and keep Enochian going, we have transpose (Of course Umbral Soul would be better in this case, but not being able to use it on the first pull is annoying, why the requirement of Enochian AND umbral Ice?) For downtime in trials I accept it, but then it doesn't feel as powerful as I thought it would be...

You are thinking about it wrong. You're seeing it as a dps tool but it's far from that. It's a QoL tool. BLM has always had a problem getting back into dps after downtime. Umbral Soul is nothing different from MNKs new anatam/ form shift or DNCs improv.

[Selova]

Like others have stated it's not a part of your dps rotation you use it to keep 3 stacks of umbral ice and umbral hearts between pulls. It also makes it so you can start fights after downtime by doing straight into your astral fire phase.

[Roxas_Andrade]

I understand you all and really apeciate the feedback. It's not that it's a bad skill, it's just weird to me it need to have this requirements. If it would just give umbral ice + umbral heart (without requirements), it would be really great, because you could use it pre-pull. And it wouldn't make a huge difference, since you already use it for every pull after first...

SE and their issues with skills outside battle... '-_-

[Numenor1379]

I understand you all and really apeciate the feedback. It's not that it's a bad skill, it's just weird to me it need to have this requirements. If it would just give umbral ice + umbral heart (without requirements), it would be really great, because you could use it pre-pull. And it wouldn't make a huge difference, since you already use it for every pull after first...

SE and their issues with skills outside battle... '-_-

You're still thinking about it wrong. Umbral Soul is not meant to be an Opener/Pre-buffing skill. It is strictly a downtime skill (time before a fight/dungeon starts is not downtime).

[Selova]

I understand you all and really apeciate the feedback. It's not that it's a bad skill, it's just weird to me it need to have this requirements. If it would just give umbral ice + umbral heart (without requirements), it would be really great, because you could use it pre-pull. And it wouldn't make a huge difference, since you already use it for every pull after first...

SE and their issues with skills outside battle... '-_-

So just use transpose to get into umbral ice then use umbral Soul to get to 3 stacks. The spell is a QoL ability to keep full stacks of umbral ice and hearts during downtime. It's not meant to be used in your opener or rotation.