Black Mage Blizzard II (and other minor suggestions)

[KayliRose]

Recap:
Blizzard II is useless. Pre-5.0 it was useless as well, but it at least had Bind on it that allowed it to be used as an escape if you were being attacked by a group, or a Tank lost control. Post-5.0 it doesn't even have bind. Freeze is a better ice-based AoE - it has targeting (doesn't need to have everything beside you), does double damage of Blizz 2, and can upgrade your Umbral gauge to 3 immediately.

Blizzard II pretty much only gets used by new players who don't understand its uselessness, or by the die-hards who badly wanna find a strategy where it would be useful.

Suggestions:
1. Remove Blizzard II, change Freeze's name to Blizzard II. Freeze is pretty much what Blizzard II needs to be anyway. It's also in perfect level alignment since Freeze is obtained before Blizzard III, so it would still stay in chronological order. This would be the simplest solution, but not necessarily most popular since we would have a small gap for learning a new Blizzard skill. (Maybe tweak the levels to when you learn some skills to make the gap shorter.)

2. Upgrade Blizzard II to Freeze at the level you would get Freeze. A lot of abilities "upgrade" already anyway, like Thunder I changing to Thunder III and Thunder II changing to Thunder IV. This would make more sense for a change to how Blizzard II works since it would "evolve" with your ability to cast Ice-aspected magic.

3. Tweak Blizzard II and Freeze so that both have different uses, but similar effects.
A good example would be to make Blizzard II stronger than Freeze in potency, have the same targeting ability as Freeze and still cost 800 MP, while Freeze would still keep its Umbral 3 buff to be used as a "quick-buff" ability. This would give Freeze the use of being an Umbral buff, and Blizzard II can become the standard AoE Ice spell that maintains the buff. This suggestion is the one I'd like most to see, since it would give both abilities a unique use, and remove nothing from the repertoire of spells that BLM has.


Other thoughts:
I do also think Ley Lines should have a shorter cooldown, like maybe 60 seconds instead of 90. Ley Lines is kind of one of those essential skills that tend to make Black Mage's job a lot easier, but it's also one of those skills that can be easily screwed over and wasted under a number of unforeseeable conditions (such as if the tank decides to keep running when they probably should've stopped, or if a boss casts a long-term AoE pool right in your Ley Lines' space just as you've sat comfy with the spot.) It would be nice to be able to get those casting speed boosts out more frequently, and recover from those bad luck placements faster. This is just a small opinion of mine, but I thought it worth mentioning while I'm making this post.

[Iscah]

Blizzard II does have some applications in low-level dungeons at least, where individual enemies might die in the time it takes you to charge a Fire II so it's more reliable to cast Blizzard because it doesn't need a target.



...hmm, it's just occurred to me that it's also possibly a more efficient way of keeping you in Umbral Ice phase between battles or when the boss is invulnerable, instead of transposing and losing stacks. Does that work? Or does it need to hit something to reset the timer? Am I just playing BLM entirely wrong? (Probably yes.)

[KayliRose]

Blizzard II does have some applications in low-level dungeons at least, where individual enemies might die in the time it takes you to charge a Fire II so it's more reliable to cast Blizzard because it doesn't need a target.

The application there doesn't even work as efficiently. BLM shouldn't even be close enough to need to use Blizzard II to finish off enemies. Plus Cycling to the nearest target and casting Fire II isn't that hard. They have the same cast speeds, and if you're playing BLM from a distance like you should, you'd have to run up to the enemies to do Blizz II. Easier to just cast Fire II.

...hmm, it's just occurred to me that it's also possibly a more efficient way of keeping you in Umbral Ice phase between battles or when the boss is invulnerable, instead of transposing and losing stacks. Does that work? Or does it need to hit something to reset the timer? Am I just playing BLM entirely wrong? (Probably yes.)

Yea, you can't do that. Any cast spell, even Blizz II, needs to hit something to add/maintain the stacks. Only Transpose circumvents the timer.

[Iscah]

if you're playing BLM from a distance like you should, you'd have to run up to the enemies to do Blizz II.

There's no need to "play at distance" in low level dungeons. As long as the tank has control of all the enemies, you can stand right up close and only need to dodge the occasional short-range AOE.

[KayliRose]

There's no need to "play at distance" in low level dungeons. As long as the tank has control of all the enemies, you can stand right up close and only need to dodge the occasional short-range AOE.

.. The point of a ranged/magic DPS is to stay away from monsters to begin with. The only Magic DPS that should be anywhere near the monsters is Red Mage, and only when using the Melee-combo after getting their gauge up. The only time a ranged or magic DPS should be close to the action is if the mechanics of bosses or monsters demands it. Otherwise, even in low level dungeons there should always be some distance between yourself and the monster group. It's worth noting, that Blizz II is literally the only spell in Black Mage's repertoire that demands you to be within 5 yalms of your enemy, everything else having the 25 yalm standard you come to expect for all other spells. IF Blizz II actually did some sort of crowd control, like Stun or even Heavy, that might make it slightly more useful... But there's never a need for a Black Mage to be anywhere close to the action if the mechanics don't call for it.

[Iscah]

But there's never a need for a Black Mage to be anywhere close to the action if the mechanics don't call for it.

There's never a need to be far away either, "if mechanics don't call for it" - it doesn't affect your spell potency, and potentially inconveniences your healer as they try to position themselves so everyone is within their AOE circle.

Stand far away enough to be out of the enemy's attack range. That's all that matters. Extra distance adds nothing.

[Shurrikhan]

.. The point of a ranged/magic DPS is to stay away from monsters to begin with.

Maybe if we were playing in a game without excessively high-enmity tanks, our positioning would matter enough to differentiate between Ranged and Melee that way, but honestly it just comes down to Melee having their first pick of spots for spread AoE / tower positions while priority thereafter goes to whoever has the least mobility.

With tanks being so powerful and CC so lacking, there's no point at which you're going to lean on a Ranged's range "advantage" outside of soloing, and then only as convenient. In this game, XIV positioning near or far from mobs means almost nothing without simultaneously necessary arena positioning.

[OneTrueMiqote]

Number 1 seems the most ideal to me. Like you mentioned, there is very little use of Blizzard II and simplifying the job has some small benefit.

While many abilities upgrade, as far as I'm aware, the majority of them are merely a potency upgrade and function almost exactly the same. This would make the second approach fundamentally different from a mere upgrade compared to other spell/skill upgrades in the game. And this is also essentially the same as #1, but might cause some confusion as the functions of the spells have changed with the upgrade.

My reasoning against number 3 comes from the completeness of BLM's kit and how the job is in as perfect of a spot as a job can be imo. I don't think the job needs any changes Blizzard II might bring and I'd rather have the devs focus on other aspects of the game.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

There has been so many threads about this already. Please just leave the thing I can impress sprouts with alone. -It does have questionable function in low level duties.

[Avenger]

I use(d) blizzard ii sometimes to tag s rank hunts that aren't visible when /targetenemy selects an add.