Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[HikariKurosawa]

You do understand that you will be actively punished for your "preferred" rotation after these changes right? You HAVE to use 6 F4 in a fire cycle to do the finisher. This change will negatively impact you more than it will any of us players that have done the hardest content on this job. We are all easily capable of doing the standard rotation. We just like the added challenge and fun of doing nonstandard to optimize our dps. This change will raise the skill floor (make it harder for you) while lower the skill ceiling (make it less fun for us). There are no winners with this change. The job is strictly worse in every way.

I have never struggled with standard black mage rotation. If it is harder, then that is good for you and fine for me. I don't really think that it's going to be harder for anyone who can consistently pull off the standard rotation though. The "you" and "me" language you're using is so cringe lol. Maybe you're just incapable of playing the job as intended and non-standard is what makes it work for you?

[Voidmage]

Nope, i dont realy see, why i should be punished.
Ok, it can happen in new content, that i have trouble with the rotation, because im focusing to much of the battle field and arent able to cast (like, in Troja, or the third god raid).
But in overall do i have rarely trouble, with shooting 6 fire4 in one rotation. 3 or maybe even 4x fire 4, than refresher with paradox or fire1, and than again 3 fire4 and Despair as finisher.
And if i feel, that im not able to shoot all, do i simply using flare and despair, to end my mp and go into ice mode. I didnt care so much about it, to have a perfect rotation each time. If i srew up, do i trying to come back into my flow as fast as possible (one thing i like about blm is, that you can easily come back, after you entered your ice phase).

Before the changes you maybe lost one or two fire 4 by going into UI early. Now you also lose the new finisher and the stacks you build, so quit a dps loss. It is kinda more rigid now.
Its also probably better now to use 4 fire 4 > paradox > 3 fire 4 in the fire phase because of the instant cast of paradox and the timer ticking "earlier".

Solo content won't be a big problem, its easy enough already and there is always the very easy difficulty. Also mostly if there were dps checks in solo content, you were able to stand still anyway.

And, from what i saw, has the Blm mostly only improvements to the earlier stuff. At last, if you using the standard rotations.
Ice spells looks to increase your mp faster as before (had it today multiple times, that i ended up with only 6k mp, because the mp regenerated to slow in the ice phase, after using 2 ice spells).

This I don't understand or maybe my english is to bad. Normaly Blizzard 3, Blizzard 4 and Paradox is enough to regen all mana. Even if I use nonstandard I sometimes cap my mana. May I ask where you refresh thunder? That was also able to give time.
I'm not doubting you just trying to get what you mean.

The only improvement i would have in my mind now would be, to reduce the casting time of the spells a little.
The biggest problem of the Blm, is his slow speed. That can make the rest of the mechanic worse (reason, why i prefer spell speed in my stuff, even, when im a bit lower, as the speed build say, that you would need).

If i interpret the changes right then spell speed should be far better now then crit (a bummer for me who goes crit). I am against lowering spell speed. Its one of the few things that makes blm fun and in my opinion its identity. I also like slow cast times because it gives me time to look at the fight and think.

[MitsukiKimura]

Yeah Im convinced they're just the obviously forum troll at this point. Don't mind the rotation struggle they have more struggle with using their 2 mins

[Moqi]

It is psychotic too me how many people in this thread are just happy this is happening because they didn't play BLM or had some kind of complex against them for being off in their own little corner being happy. Like "I'm happy you're getting screwed over because your job was scary and you can't say Yoshi P has got you anymore" is nuts. Never mind the fact these changes are worse for all levels of BLM so it doesn't actually help anyone lol.

The envy over some videogame skills is baffling and I'm saying this as a perfectly average BLM who sometimes doesn't really do the perfect rotation (let alone non standard) but can still output some decent damage.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Well, this has been enlightening so far.

[Keichi]

A other topic.

What do you guy think, how viable a fire start would be now?

I tested it and noticed, that whe dont have enough mp, to use 6x f4, when whe start the fight with fire3. The mp is only enough for 5x fire 4.
You could use 4 times fire 4 and than flare, to reach the points, without the use of manafront (that whe shouldnt use it at that point).
And even with flare, could it be to close, to use 4x fire 4 with the timer (i have 1866 spell speed and come allways at the last second with the flare cast, after i used 4x f4).

Do you guys think, that a ice starter would be now the better start. Or, that fire would work well to, with maybe 4x fire 4 and than flare (it would be 1 shard to much, but it feels that the extra fire4 would help the dmg output a little).

With flare is your timer back to max, and would give you enough time to use flare star. And after that can whe use mana front to use the propper rotation with paradox and so one.

[Ferrinus]

Off the top of my head and without doing any math, I'm guessing that the new opener goes like the current one, where you use F3, Thunder (which is now free and instant, so you can comfortably slam down leylines and triplecast or something right here), as many F4s followed by a Despair as you can, and then Manafont. However, since Manafont is vastly stronger now, you then proceed into a completely normal astral cycle, making sure to drop your Xeno and possibly refresh Thunder before raid buffs run out.

It's possible that we use only Swift and a single Triple to start so we have another Triple ready to go Fire IV-Despair-Flare Star at the end of the post-Manafont astral phase.

[Chocochic]

I think this change would legitimately help them, because one of its effects is making it much easier to cast six Fire IVs in an astral cycle. Remember, astral paradox is instant cast and grants an automatic Firestarter proc that's no longer a loss to use immediately, so you get a minimum of two free, instant AF3 refreshes over the course of a cycle (and a third free movement opportunity that's less under your control because it depends on when Thunder is expiring, although in a pinch using High Thunder to move is still going to output more damage at less MP cost than resorting to Scathe).

This means that someone who previously struggled with finding a way to safely cast three or four F4s in a row can now cast them in three sets of two or something.

Fire phase will be harder to cast now, because instant-cast Paradox means that you lose 2.34s of being able to cast any ability, because of the GCD's timer, meaning that you're left with on 13s on the AF timer. It's going to be harder to cast six Fire IVs, and when you're clipping oGCDs because you're using them during a long cast, instead of instant casts or short F3/B4 casts, not only will you not be able to cast despair, you'll lose your Flare Star due to not casting 6 Fire IVs. These changes do nothing for harm them to be honest, especially when it's better to do AF1 F3P because you'll gain more damage which wields much more value compared to using it to extend fire phase, and get delayed on the 2 min burst. Of course, I'm not the best black mage, but I don't think this really helps, I feel like this would harm them more.

[Voidmage]

I think this change would legitimately help them, because one of its effects is making it much easier to cast six Fire IVs in an astral cycle. Remember, astral paradox is instant cast and grants an automatic Firestarter proc that's no longer a loss to use immediately, so you get a minimum of two free, instant AF3 refreshes over the course of a cycle (and a third free movement opportunity that's less under your control because it depends on when Thunder is expiring, although in a pinch using High Thunder to move is still going to output more damage at less MP cost than resorting to Scathe).

This means that someone who previously struggled with finding a way to safely cast three or four F4s in a row can now cast them in three sets of two or something.

If you do three sets then sure, I guess it will help those players.
But it will be more clunky then making the timer longer because instant cast always give this awkward waiting time after casting them.
For everyone who did managed to get 6 F4's in it will be more railroaded because either you do 4 F4's > Paradox > 3 F4's or have enough spellspeed for it to have some comfort and that sucks for those who liked lower spell speeds.

If the goal was to make everything easier then removing UI Paradox makes even less sense because it was a nice saving tool for movement or after an emergency transposing to ice.
I just don't understand the goal in the design changes other then charging mana in UI phase instead of sever ticks.

Off the top of my head and without doing any math, I'm guessing that the new opener goes like the current one, where you use F3, Thunder (which is now free and instant, so you can comfortably slam down leylines and triplecast or something right here), as many F4s followed by a Despair as you can, and then Manafont. However, since Manafont is vastly stronger now, you then proceed into a completely normal astral cycle, making sure to drop your Xeno and possibly refresh Thunder before raid buffs run out.

It's possible that we use only Swift and a single Triple to start so we have another Triple ready to go Fire IV-Despair-Flare Star at the end of the post-Manafont astral phase.

I think it depends on the potency of the new finisher. As it is now its not worth it to start in UI just to get the stacks for it but potencies can change so we probably will only know when Dawntrail goes live.

[CasterSvarog]

Thinking about it, I think they should bring back the proc system Thunder currently still has with the new thunder, with swapping between Fire/Ice and Manafont being the equivalent to sharpcasting. Would make it still keep the old thunder mechanics people like, but with a little bit of Qol for newer or less skilled players.