Quote Originally Posted by Taranok View Post
Alright, starting from the top.
I'd argue the timers have not been coopted, they were developed and iterated on. You are neglecting to mention the inclusion of Enochian at lvl 60 in HW which like I said added another 30s timer that refreshed upon casting B4 minus 5 seconds of duration as the refreshes were reapplied 30, 25, 20, 15 etc etc The only problem with this system at the time, imo, is that once the timer ran out you were locked out of using F4 and B4 until it was off cooldown. This went on to be removed/relegated to a passive in later patches. While I miss it, it was probably a good thing for people struggling with the job but it's not just some clumsy holdover from ARR. If anything the fact that the timer gimmick has endured for so long is a testament to it's success. The devs are not shy about removing skills or outright gutting jobs on a whim and if there was ever any doubt about the core Af/UI timer it would have been nuked just like the Enochian timer was. They even doubled down on the timers in SB and again in Shb with the addition of the polyglot stacks [foul in SB, Xeno in Shb] with each charge taking 30seconds to generate requiring the AF/UI to be kept running consistently.

Frankly the fact people can't get the basic rotation correct is user error. Like I said above the game could do a better job in explaining how ALL classes work but that doesn't mean everything should be doomed to braindead gameplay. Some amount of non-standard lines are clearly the expected way to play - Yoshi P was using transpose lines in the most recent liveletter in the new trial preview. Using one meme rotation that is completely impractical in most scenarios and requires way more attention than watching a 15 second timer is meaningless, imo, and is a dishonest representation of how Blm optimization actually plays out. Blm is the only job left in the game with such a high ceiling for optimization and that is a good thing, more jobs should have that. We have been given a lot of tools to compensate for the seeming difficulty of the job - insta casts, longer procs, 2 charges of triple and sharp - I'm sure there are other things they could do too like making AF para instant so people that *want* to try to keep their timers up have more breathing room. Or adjusting the way we regain mana in UI phase so we aren't at the mercy of server ticks. Sorry if you're unwilling to utilize or just plain do not appreciate transpose and umbral hearts - I do not consider them superfluous actions at all but umbral hearts could do with "locking" after 3 uses or something so it's not a spam fest during downtime. They have limited applications but they are still really useful. The reason people have been "abandoning the class" is because people just herd into the newest, shiniest or easiest option. This time it's Smn and next exp all those fairweather babies will flitter off to the newest shiniest toy.

What do you think should replace timers? not just a cop out "something better and new" like, mechanically, what would you like to see instead of timers that would interact meaningfully with their kit?