Rework BLM static leylines to be an aura instead

[icy_]

I mean you can literally say the same thing about any of the other casters and they don't have Ley lines weighing them down. When I play Summoner or Red Mage in raid, I'm not doing much in the way of moving either and my healers are normally just telling me to stay put and keep casting if the mechanic requires significant movement. When I healed the first Eden raids I just accepted that our strategies needed to be a bit different because a BLM was in the party. That's not Toxic gameplay. It's different gameplay that requires a different mindset from teams and healers. Not staying near a Black Mage's Ley lines isn't a difficult thing, hell its normally a thing to give at least a little bit of space to any caster or healer when you know AOE's are coming up, and the same is true for Melee's as well. As for the stacking part, thats actually pretty easy to handle, just stack on the Black Mage (or any other person with a stack AOE that does not have much free movement). Of all the jobs in a party, no one loses more by dropping casts. Move the AOE to them...

Summoner has a bunch of sources of movement -- 4 pet skills, Ruin IV, swiftcast, all phoenix skills... . Sure, it loves to sit and Ruin III a bunch too, but it's not nearly to the extent of BLM. Red Mage, in an emergency, could spend 5 of each mana to move, but of course this is not advised. Better to attempt to slidecast or time combo and/or finishers for bigger movement periods. If anyone has limited movement, it's the healers, who ideally move only on dot refresh or certain gcd heals. Choosing someone to stack on is fine; I have no problem with that. Much better if that job also didn't have 30sec of not leaving its position, no?

Cooperation goes both ways of course. Black Mages are not like they were in 2.0 and have tons of movement abilities. I routinely will Aetherial Manipulation to my healers side sometimes for a stack Mechanic then instantly between the lines to get back to Ley lines if I put them in a place that is out of Melee range, and if triple cast is available you can sure as hell bet it's already marked for the heaviest upcoming movement mechanic. And I'm sure not all BLM's do that. But we shouldn't be making changes and decisions on class play based on the worst players, thats how jobs like Bard lose all their popularity and identity in the sake of balance and ease of use. BLM is literally one of the best designed jobs in the game.

I'm going by 'most', not 'worst'. The good BLMs -- the ones who anticipate mechanics, heal points, team buff timings, and actually move in to be in range -- are far too few. Other jobs are often moving to hit the BLM's range. Also, a static group is a completely different animal. This thread is for the sake of reducing the random BLM's worries as well as the party's worries in a pick-up run.

[Payotz]

I'm going by 'most', not 'worst'. The good BLMs -- the ones who anticipate mechanics, heal points, team buff timings, and actually move in to be in range -- are far too few. I'm going by 'most', not 'worst'. The good BLMs -- the ones who anticipate mechanics, heal points, team buff timings, and actually move in to be in range -- are far too few. Other jobs are often moving to hit the BLM's range. Also, a static group is a completely different animal. This thread is for the sake of reducing the random BLM's worries as well as the party's worries in a pick-up run.

This is honestly a bad reason to change the job. Why remove the parts that's enjoyable for the people who've actually dedicated themselves to practice the job for the people who can't be bothered to learn the job?
Your argument is the same thing as:

"Ok guys. What if we turn verfire/verthunder into veraero/verstone when white magic attacks is already casted? Oh and we should also get rid of the melee combo as well. I don't wanna have to go to the melee side, most mechanics interfere with it hard."

"Yeah let's get rid of positionals, and make melees non-melee. Most melees can't keep melee uptime up and aren't hitting positionals. Let's just get rid of it, this is just for reducing the random Melee's worries as well as the party's worries in a pug."

"Yeah, let's get rid of cast times in general. Most casters can't slidecast. Let's just get rid of it. This is just for reducing the random caster/healer's melees worries as well as the party's worries in a pug."


Also, current BLM can actually be as mobile when it needs it. Hell it can do Illya Orbs E/W just fine. Sharpcast, Triplecast, Swiftcast and Slidecasting will give BLM so much mobility during mechanics and even more so when thunder procs hard, and even then, in worse case scenarios, there's just Transposing into Ice and Spamming Umbral Soul or spamming Scathe. Leylines isn't even a problem as depending on fights, you just don't drop it on cooldown like every other raidbuff during E6S.

Lowering the skill floor and eliminating the gap between the skill ceiling and the skill floor will just make the whole job boring.
Look at how homogenized most tanks are now. Look at how less fun the healers are now. Look at how absolutely dumbed down MCH and BRD are now.

Keep what little complex jobs there is, complex. Not everything needs to be easy, and if everything needs to be catered to PuGs, then there will be no Savage and no optimization.