Thread: Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

Originally Posted by Bloody_Kenny

I still don't understand the process of thinking behind removing non-standard. If it is not the intended way to play, then what is the intended way then? My tinfoil hat theory is that in the eyes of devs, BLM is never supposed to be this high-damage job. They give BLM such high numbers so it can make up for the fact that the average standard rotation player will fumble and lose uptime during the mechanics they create for the fight. And the damage will be equal to that of other casters in the end.

The intended way is to maximize fire 4 use. Nonstandard is a consequence of a decision made back in HW where the devs wanted to: Reduce the amount of spam of any 1 button you did on a class (SMN was a huge offender of this in ARR,) and 2, co-opting old design elements to achieve this, in this case the timers (and fire 4 not refreshing them.)

ARR had nonstandard due to the fire 1 rotation, bad netcode, and server MP tics. HW had no nonstandard. The only thing nonstandard about SB is that the BLM community couldn't agree on if you should sharpcast thundercloud or firestarter. Thundercloud was more damage, firestarter safer. The first instance of nonstandard creeping into the class again is from Shadowbringers with the discovery of hypermeme. Hypermeme became a thing because the classes rotation is structured around the timers. And unfortunately, because of the timers needing to finally be 15s from SBs 13s and HW's 10/11s durations, it enabled this exploit's eventual discovery. Fun fact, the original timers for thundercloud and firestarter were something like 8 and 12 seconds. They kept extending it to make it more user friendly, and accidentally re-enabled an ARR nonstandard once firestarter hit 30s.

EW was the first time I raided as BLM and some fights felt like no one gave a thought about how BLW would solve that. "Let's make them run back and forth nonstop for a minute! Who, BLM? They will figure something out, I dunno."

This is why I think EW is the worst expansion the game has had since heavensward. They designed the fights with this high-octane 'move move move!' fight design that wasn't even really seen in UWU. I ended up roughly estimating the raw amount of movement done in all of TEA during boss uptime, and found that you literally moved less during all 18 minutes of TEA than you did during a 2 minute stretch preceding and including purgation. I could go on and on about how Endwalker basically reversed the difficulty.

Before EW, difficulty was mostly "Hard telegraph, easy solution." The solution typically didn't require a lot of movement to get into a solved state. EW has been mostly "Easy telegraph, hard solution." You know what to do very quickly, but executing on it is absolutely awful. I have had more mechanics fire out of order, or failed mechanics because I didn't react fast enough because the entire expansion has been absolutely awful with even 100 ping if it's slightly unstable. The tolerances are too tight, even on the so-called 'easy' fights.

Here's hoping the devs remember that there's an entire role in the game that wants to actually sit still, and cast, and that movement is anathema to what makes this playstyle fun.