Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[Doublejho]

Drinking game, grab some lemon juice and take a shot everytime anyone says anything about "as intended" on the job that has been near freeflowing since 2.0.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...]

[Milkbeard]

I get it, the frustration. Square could have put some effort into making non-standard feel more like the new standard for this expansion vs deleting it in favor of longer, more strict fire phases. Many players are confusing tracking server tics for complexity. It wasn't complex having to occasionally add, or omit GCDs to ice phase, it was tedious and out of our control. Could they have made changes to eliminate this need for external mods to track mana tics? Absolutely they should have. Could they have made the erratic on the fly choices to go between ice and fire for rapid optimizations before bosses leave, or for more optimized burst phases a new standard streamlined way of playing blm? Absolutely they should have. The design choices were subtractive. Should we be mad that tracking mana tics is gone? No that's a bit absurd, that wasn't what was complex about non-standard play, that was a bother.

[Galvuu]

Should we be mad that tracking mana tics is gone? No that's a bit absurd, that wasn't what was complex about non-standard play, that was a bother.

I don't think anyone cares about or enjoys the mana-tick nonsense we have right now. People are (rightfully) upset at the loss of flexibility and depth the changes will bring to the job.
I'm not going to reiterate what's been said, I'm just addressing this point specifically because I genuinely feel no one cares about the mana-tick tracking (and I haven't seen this sentiment expressed anywhere).
At worst people are worried about regenerating mana between phases with all the cutscene forced downtime SE keeps adding to high-end fights these days.

[Milkbeard]

should have mentioned i was replying to the OP

To this effect, here are the changes I believe have a very high liklihood of damaging the job:[LIST=4][*]MP recovery now requiring casting Ice spells - This single almost entirely kills Non-Standard play. It removes many options on how a player can approach their Umbral Ice phase, such as cleverly utilising Transpose and unaspected instant cast spells such as Paradox, Xenoglossy and Thunder III. MP recovery occuring arbitrarily based on server "ticks" can be unintuitive, but the proposed solution is extremely heavy-handed. Alternatives would be to keep MP recovery unchanged from it's current behaviour, allowing current tick behaviour to continue in addition to the proposed change, or ideally having *any* non-fire spell cast during Umbral Ice to grant MP. Either of my latter suggested changes retain the "ease-of-use" desired without closing down an entire playstyle.

I read this is as being in favor of mana ticks, however, upon rereading, I'm seeing that they were on the same wave length-ish. My bad

[Milkbeard]

At worst people are worried about regenerating mana between phases with all the cutscene forced downtime SE keeps adding to high-end fights these days.

Which fights we talking about? Is there not usually enough time to umbral soul for all the ultimates right now? I know the bosses leave first, but there's usually some GCDs to get those souls in? I'm coming from blm as literally just being an alt. I think I've only progged one ultimate as blm and cleared two of them on it? (red mage main in them all really) Idk maybe I need to recombobulate my thoughts on this. I might just be in favor of the mana regeneration change but not expressing it in a more concise and thoughtful manner.

I mean idk, instead of giving us that fire soul nuke, if they would have made it an ice nuke for doing 2 GCDs in ice,(or I guess even entering ice from at least dispairing in fire) would we not have just been given the essence of non-standard play in a less mana tick-dependent way? Genuine BLM dabbler here so don't roast me too hard. I personally wanted to play more blm this expansion but the non-standard play was a major turn off, and as far as I played it, it was pretty literally just mana tick tracking incarnate. How many lines could we really do without tracking ticks?

[Galvuu]

Which fights we talking about? Is there not usually enough time to umbral soul for all the ultimates right now??

TOP p1 to p2 transition (you can only do Transpose > Umbral Soul once unless you end p1 on a Blizzard III instead of a Despair) and p5 to p6 (same thing) are what I had in mind, in terms of recent fights. Like I said, technically, you can end your burst on the tail end of a fight with Blizzard III (and, if needed, into a Blizzard IV) instead of a Despair... but that incurs a damage loss (and BLM is probs the only job who needs to worry about nonsense like that).

I actually agree with your latter point btw, I'd have preferred a new ice nuke to make UI more interesting. The ice phase has been heavily neglected, and making it more interesting might make people less inclined to try whatever they can to skip it. The only new ice spell we've got since HW was Paradox and they're removing it...

[wildvenonat]

Which fights we talking about? Is there not usually enough time to umbral soul for all the ultimates right now? I know the bosses leave first, but there's usually some GCDs to get those souls in? I'm coming from blm as literally just being an alt. I think I've only progged one ultimate as blm and cleared two of them on it? (red mage main in them all really) Idk maybe I need to recombobulate my thoughts on this. I might just be in favor of the mana regeneration change but not expressing it in a more concise and thoughtful manner.

I mean idk, instead of giving us that fire soul nuke, if they would have made it an ice nuke for doing 2 GCDs in ice,(or I guess even entering ice from at least dispairing in fire) would we not have just been given the essence of non-standard play in a less mana tick-dependent way? Genuine BLM dabbler here so don't roast me too hard. I personally wanted to play more blm this expansion but the non-standard play was a major turn off, and as far as I played it, it was pretty literally just mana tick tracking incarnate. How many lines could we really do without tracking ticks?

Umbral Soul is a level 76 ability so it's literally impossible to use it in UWU or UCOB, and some of the TEA and TOP cutscenes take away control of your character, so no Umbral Soul there either. I'm not an ults gamer and I'm not sure about DRU.

[HikariKurosawa]

4 likes on this post, reading the thread it's the same tiny handful of people complaining about the changes. Very desperate for social media traction you know?

[Milkbeard]

I actually agree with your latter point btw, I'd have preferred a new ice nuke to make UI more interesting. The ice phase has been heavily neglected, and making it more interesting might make people less inclined to try whatever they can to skip it. The only new ice spell we've got since HW was Paradox and they're removing it...

Yea paradox is now truly a paradox, it has literally nothing to do with Ice anymore. It might be one of the most astral fire spells you can do in astral fire now. Firestarter proc? instant? refreash AF? yea they kind of dropped the ball with this unexpected rework.