Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[J3WD4Z]

BLM was a finely tuned watch as you progress. Slowly adding mechanics that flesh it out more and more.

Yoshi-P took the PCT hammer and smashed it to pieces.

Seriously, what’s going on with him and dev team?

Im beginning to see why the devs don't take the English forums as seriously as the Japanese one. From what I've witnessed, and heard the level of depth and nuance in the conversations just isn't where it needs to be. Yoshi P. is not the one responsible for these changes. Yoshi P. is a producer. His job is to deal with executives, and manage tresource to ensure the production of the project. He is not a Game Designer. I apologize if this comes off as harsh. If we are to be taken seriously, we must take the subject matter more seriously, and with greater depth of though. We must hold the appropriate staff responsible for the decision, and these decisions fall to game designers. Not their producer superstar.

[Galvuu]

Im beginning to see why the devs don't take the English forums as seriously as the Japanese one. From what I've witnessed, and heard the level of depth and nuance in the conversations just isn't where it needs to be. Yoshi P. is not the one responsible for these changes. Yoshi P. is a producer. His job is to deal with executives, and manage tresource to ensure the production of the project. He is not a Game Designer. I apologize if this comes off as harsh. If we are to be taken seriously, we must take the subject matter more seriously, and with greater depth of though. We must hold the appropriate staff responsible for the decision, and these decisions fall to game designers. Not their producer superstar.

Both forums have lengthy comments enumerating what's wrong with the current version of the job and how to fix it, and snappy one-paragraph posts. It's the same, really.
The opening post already has a lot of information on what the issues are and how to fix them.
Do we gain much if I go on a 5k character dissertation why Ice Paradox helps with UI mobility and is very flavorful, or how the new Thunderhead system coupled with tight AF timers makes refreshing Thunder as it's about to fall difficult and even acts as trap to new players because overwriting the dot is more punishing now that the up-front potency has been nerfed, or how old Thundercloud was better for mobility, or a myriad other things?
Every post could state the same thing but we're just repeating ourselves.
The cold truth is that the job team doesn't give a damn about what the West or JP says. They have a wrong vision of how the job should be played and they'll force it down everyone's throats. These people cannot fathom they've made a misstep, and will gleefully gaslight both playerbases into thinking they were the issue. We've see this before, they latch onto wrong ideas for years sometimes. If they cared, there were three good posts explaining the issues with DT BLM and how to fix them with 50+ upvotes and multiple pages of replies.

[CoeliAlmr]

This thread was active before so I just want to get some opinions in here about general QoL that doesn't alter gameplay too much which could help lower levels:
- Make firestarter proc quicker (at least in my case, I don't get it until like 0.5s from the end of the F1 cast - I think it's when you can slidecast)
- Make F3 damage application faster (it's not a big deal but it takes so long for the damage to apply sometimes when finishing mobs, that it would just feel better)
- If they stick with this mana system, make it trigger on finish of cast not on damage application so that it can't be ghosted.
- Move 1 stack of triple cast to pre-50
- Not quite sure how but getting some way to get a weave slot at a lower level could be nice
- Foul instant cast immediately at 70
- This one is a bit controversial but perhaps increase the level you get Freeze? I didn't realise for a while that you get umbral hearts from it as you don't get that trait until Level 58 but you get freeze at Level 40. It would make sense to get this at a similar time to B4.
- Remove mana cost from Scathe. At Level 100, if you cast scathe once before refilling MP, you don't have MP for Flare Star.
- Perhaps reduce the cast time of Flare slightly? It's a full second longer than despair.
- Add the comment on Flare that with umbral hearts, that you don't use all MP.
- Make Aetherial Manip more responsive. Possibly add a setting to retarget nearest enemy afterwards (useful on large bosses that are hard to tab target).

Does anyone else have ideas for basic QoL that doesn't alter gameplay too much?

[Altera]

This thread was active before so I just want to get some opinions in here about general QoL that doesn't alter gameplay too much which could help lower levels:
- Make firestarter proc quicker (at least in my case, I don't get it until like 0.5s from the end of the F1 cast - I think it's when you can slidecast)
- Make F3 damage application faster (it's not a big deal but it takes so long for the damage to apply sometimes when finishing mobs, that it would just feel better)
- If they stick with this mana system, make it trigger on finish of cast not on damage application so that it can't be ghosted.
- Move 1 stack of triple cast to pre-50
- Not quite sure how but getting some way to get a weave slot at a lower level could be nice
- Foul instant cast immediately at 70
- This one is a bit controversial but perhaps increase the level you get Freeze? I didn't realise for a while that you get umbral hearts from it as you don't get that trait until Level 58 but you get freeze at Level 40. It would make sense to get this at a similar time to B4.
- Remove mana cost from Scathe. At Level 100, if you cast scathe once before refilling MP, you don't have MP for Flare Star.
- Perhaps reduce the cast time of Flare slightly? It's a full second longer than despair.
- Add the comment on Flare that with umbral hearts, that you don't use all MP.
- Make Aetherial Manip more responsive. Possibly add a setting to retarget nearest enemy afterwards (useful on large bosses that are hard to tab target).

Does anyone else have ideas for basic QoL that doesn't alter gameplay too much?

I would make Thunders OGCD
If cant get Flare Star off in the current AF, you just lose 1 stack from the 6 when going UI. So when going back to AF, 1 more F4 and you can cast FlareStar
FlareStar could also refresh Enochian timer
High Fire/Blizzard 2 needs buffs, possible back to 140potency as now its better to Flare Flare FlareStar Transpose Freeze Freeze Thunder Transpose Flare x2 Flarestar etc
They wanted to remove the Transpose lines, but created a new one for AOE :/

[Ferrinus]

This thread was active before so I just want to get some opinions in here about general QoL that doesn't alter gameplay too much which could help lower levels:
- Make firestarter proc quicker (at least in my case, I don't get it until like 0.5s from the end of the F1 cast - I think it's when you can slidecast)
- Make F3 damage application faster (it's not a big deal but it takes so long for the damage to apply sometimes when finishing mobs, that it would just feel better)
- If they stick with this mana system, make it trigger on finish of cast not on damage application so that it can't be ghosted.
- Move 1 stack of triple cast to pre-50
- Not quite sure how but getting some way to get a weave slot at a lower level could be nice
- Foul instant cast immediately at 70
- This one is a bit controversial but perhaps increase the level you get Freeze? I didn't realise for a while that you get umbral hearts from it as you don't get that trait until Level 58 but you get freeze at Level 40. It would make sense to get this at a similar time to B4.
- Remove mana cost from Scathe. At Level 100, if you cast scathe once before refilling MP, you don't have MP for Flare Star.
- Perhaps reduce the cast time of Flare slightly? It's a full second longer than despair.
- Add the comment on Flare that with umbral hearts, that you don't use all MP.
- Make Aetherial Manip more responsive. Possibly add a setting to retarget nearest enemy afterwards (useful on large bosses that are hard to tab target).

Does anyone else have ideas for basic QoL that doesn't alter gameplay too much?

1. Just make Thunder castable whenever you're in astral/umbral stance, without need for a special status. This would incidentally allow you to delete Scathe.
2. If you don't delete Scathe, zero its MP cost and maybe make it absorb HP or something.
3. Don't have a separate "astral gauge"; just make astral soul stacks appear in the same place as umbral hearts usually do (first each umbral heart would be replaced with an astral heart, then each of the three astral hearts would light up brighter)

[Ferrinus]

1. Just make Thunder castable whenever you're in astral/umbral stance, without need for a special status. This would incidentally allow you to delete Scathe.
2. If you don't delete Scathe, zero its MP cost and maybe make it absorb HP or something.
3. Don't have a separate "astral gauge"; just make astral soul stacks appear in the same place as umbral hearts usually do (first each umbral heart would be replaced with an astral heart, then each of the three astral hearts would light up brighter)

I just remembered my final QoL request: Umbral Soul should freeze your UI timer until you cast another spell.

Oh, yeah, bring back the button consolidation from the media tour.

[Sunako]

I would like to see another way proc thunder than swapping stances. Like bring thunder proc to paradox or xeno.

[Cyth_]

So I made this post a long time ago, and kinda forgot about it as I'd become quite fed up of going over the same points with people who clearly did not have the same understanding of the job. Imagine my surprise coming back to almost 40 new pages of discussion, spanning months, and being active as recently as last week!

I'm overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from likeminded players (I read every single reply!), and I sincerely hope with my entire heart that our feedback hasn't fallen on deaf ears. The passion and enthusiasm that Black Mage players have for the job, the game, and its fights is inspiring and has been a huge motivator in my journey of improvement throughout the course of Endwalker. I hope that one day soon we can find ourselves back in a good place with regards to the job.

Please do not lose hope for BLM, and keep fighting the good fight! o7

[velswen]

I hope they address the horrible state of BLM currently with Ice Paradox removed and Thunder being made significantly worse. I was considering BLM going into the expansion but these changes are so bad.

[Tint]

BLM changes are not thought through at all.

Flare Star is the biggest offender of course. If you have your AF phase to cut short you will lose Flare Star entirely. And it also means Despair loses it's functionality as an disengage tool. Also Despair already was the finisher move for the fire phase - what purpose does Flare Star really have in BLMs kit?

But even worse: When there is too much movement and you have to cast an additional Fire 1 to keep your AF timer running you will lose Flare Star as well.

BLM is too punishing for messing your rotation up. And with Flare Star they just added another layer, while basically every other job in the game got this sort of punishments removed.


Then there is the 3rd Polyglot stack. Why do we have it now? Having a second was nice so you didn't risk to overwrite it. But a third?

Are we supposed to keep them and offload them all at the same time during burst windows? Together with a fourth one we get with Amplifier? Maybe a fifth shortly after because the timer is running over again?

BLM does not have the room to cast that many Xenos. We risk to lose our AF / UI timer. Especially with the removal of ice Paradox. Ice Paradox was a nice way to extend the timer during UI and getting the room get rid of additional Polyglot stacks.

Adding Flare Star also made it harder to get rid of them after casting Despair.


BLM is basically the only job in the game which got harder to play. Was that really the intention?


Plus when I was questing / doing daylie hunts / whatever in the open world I had to waste 3 GCDs after every fight to get my mana back up before I could get on my mount or start the next fight with low damaging Blizzard 3 > Blizzard 4 instead of just killing the overworld trash with fire.


BLM is clunky, too punishing, not thought through at all and I didn't even mentioned the AoE rotation or wonky AF timers because of instant Paradox...