Thread: Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

Originally Posted by Ferrinus

I guess I don't see that much of a difference. I'm not actually casting Umbral Soul when enemies are onscreen even when I do have it, so the difference feels pretty minor. What I AM disappointed by, though, is that there doesn't appear to be any way to pause your timer out of combat, which makes all dungeons past level 70 just a little bit more annoying because you have to periodically hit Transpose or Umbral Soul to not interrupt your Polyglot generation.

I don't think anyone hits Umbral Soul while an enemy is targetable. The problem is that enemies are often not targetable and dungeons involve a lot of running between mob packs. Alliance raids, too. Currently, you can ensure you're always at max MP for the next pull by switching to ice, and at high levels you have a button to refresh your timer and gain hearts while you wait to cast again, which is Umbral Soul. They have removed the method to reliably be at full MP for the next pull, and not given any replacement until level 76, so in many dungeons you're reliant on Lucid Dreaming when you might have just ended a pull with Flare.

I think new BLM should be reasonably playable IF they lower Umbral Soul's level so that you can at minimum use it during downtime in UWU and UCOB, but it honestly deserves to be available before Crystal Tower.

Originally Posted by wildvenonat

I think new BLM should be reasonably playable IF they lower Umbral Soul's level so that you can at minimum use it during downtime in UWU and UCOB, but it honestly deserves to be available before Crystal Tower.

Umbral Soul will be the new Dark Missionary.

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

They pretty much removed everything I disliked about the job and made the rotation flow way better, way more naturally. Good expansion for blm.

What? You liked that they removed choice and freedom? The standard rotation didn't change.

A free fire proc is nice, but every change they made was in service of gutting the job

Originally Posted by OliviaLugria

What? You liked that they removed choice and freedom? The standard rotation didn't change.

A free fire proc is nice, but every change they made was in service of gutting the job

I like that they removed non-standard from the game, yes. The standard rotation isn't enough to justify playing blm in the top end content. It's a disservice to the team.

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

I like that they removed non-standard from the game, yes. The standard rotation isn't enough to justify playing blm in the top end content. It's a disservice to the team.

So your stance is that skill expression is bad and the only skill expression in the game should be people not messing up a basic rotation?

Originally Posted by Ramiee

So your stance is that skill expression is bad and the only skill expression in the game should be people not messing up a basic rotation?

My stance is you should express skill through how you are able to prog content and how cleanly and consistently you deal with mechanics. Rotations shouldn't ever be the most complicated part of the game or even close. Encounters should always take the cake. That's where you should be expressing your skill.

Rotations should feel good to execute and be consistent. You should have a clearly defined execution to master, and you should expect yourself to master it through enough repetition. Then you can focus entirely on the true challenge of the game which is hard encounters. I feel like a lot of people who want for difficult and contrived rotations just don't do the hard content in the game or have done it so many times that it's all muscle memory for them and they're out of touch with what the game's difficulty really is.

Either way, the changes happened and they're not going back. You might just not be a good fit for this mmo. The japanese fanbase wants for rotations to be standardized for a good reason.

Also it's funny how you can only respond with vitriol and ad hominem at someone who is just enthusiastic about progress and refinement from the dev team. Get a better hobby.

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

My stance is you should express skill through how you are able to prog content and how cleanly and consistently you deal with mechanics. Rotations shouldn't ever be the most complicated part of the game or even close. Encounters should always take the cake. That's where you should be expressing your skill.

Rotations should feel good to execute and be consistent. You should have a clearly defined execution to master, and you should expect yourself to master it through enough repetition. Then you can focus entirely on the true challenge of the game which is hard encounters. I feel like a lot of people who want for difficult and contrived rotations just don't do the hard content in the game.

Do you do the hard content in the game? Did you clear TOP and Dragonsong? Because I did. On Black Mage, too! And I can tell you the DT version of BLM would feel horrible to play in both of those fights, and will feel horrible to week 1 prog with (hey, another thing you can check I did! I also did it in past expansions!). You talk with such authority about "skill expression through progression"- have you done early progression? Like, with week 1 gear and actually cleared a tier? Do you understand what benefits Black Mages in those scenarios? How these changes will (negatively) impact their ability to perform and adapt both to hard fights (TOP/DSR) and in early prog (where wonky strategies reign and dps out is actually important)? I don't think you actually know how those things play like, and you have no knowledge of the hardest fights in the game or early, difficult Savage prog. I'm open to being proven wrong, though :>

Your comment about the JP playerbase is just plain wrong. In fact, if you have some knowledge of Japanese, I invite you to check their DPS board- the SAM and BLM threads have a lot of traction in the past few days, and while I claim no expertise in their cultural nuances, some of the posts there feel very aggressively negative when coming from JP players (legitimately felt like something I'd read in our English forums!). I, naturally, took my time to Like! their posts, as they resonate with me (and, in fact, I started cleaning up my ShB BLM gameplay by watching Te Tu and wondering about what he was doing in some runs- I even messaged him on Yt and he replied every time!).

What you're saying is completely wrong, anyway. If the game had no rotation (like, all you did was move around) it would become completely trivial. Half of the challenge in this game comes from mastering your job and rotation.
Imagine saying something like "a weapon's moveset doesn't matter at all in Monster Hunter! It's all about learning the monster AI patterns and attack ranges" or "picking a good build and synergistic party doesn't matter in Baldur's Gate 3! It's all about how you navigate the encounter!". It's such a silly stance.

Originally Posted by HikariKurosawa

My stance is you should express skill through how you are able to prog content and how cleanly and consistently you deal with mechanics. Rotations shouldn't ever be the most complicated part of the game or even close. Encounters should always take the cake. That's where you should be expressing your skill.

Rotations should feel good to execute and be consistent. You should have a clearly defined execution to master, and you should expect yourself to master it through enough repetition. Then you can focus entirely on the true challenge of the game which is hard encounters. I feel like a lot of people who want for difficult and contrived rotations just don't do the hard content in the game or have done it so many times that it's all muscle memory for them and they're out of touch with what the game's difficulty really is.

Either way, the changes happened and they're not going back. You might just not be a good fit for this mmo. The japanese fanbase wants for rotations to be standardized for a good reason.

Also it's funny how you can only respond with vitriol and ad hominem at someone who is just enthusiastic about progress and refinement from the dev team. Get a better hobby.

This is a hot take coming from someone who doesn't do Savage or Ultimate. I'm curious what exactly you have experience progging?