Black Mage changes aren't enough. (As far as we know.)

[Supersnow845]

Mao suspects (is only suspicion on Mao part) that Devs wanted PUSH BLMs over to playing Pictos. Pictos direct competitor with BLMs and maybe Devs worried nots enough players would try out Pictos and make all that Devs work creatings job worth the efforts. So....thems hobble BLMs little bits and make uneven playing field to give Pictos advantage. Thems can always readjust BLMs to be oks LATERS....IF thems want BLMs still around. Mao sayings this because is something concerning Mao. Picto is ideally tuned for current fight designs. Maybe future fight developments gonna double down on such designs. On other claw, BLMs is more of stand-and-deliver design with modifications in EW whats allow BLMs to still be somewhats flexible in new fight environment. But maybe nots enough for whats coming in the future. Maybe Devs know this and tryings to quietsly push BLMs aside. Mao must repeat, is only speculations on Mao parts. Mao has NO WAY to be sure that any of Mao speculations might be valids. Mao just trying find way to figure out logical reason for taking really good job design (EW BLMs with nonstandard rotations) and mess it ups. All this assumings of course, that Devs doings what thems doings nots by mistakes.

Why would they try to push people from what’s always been the least popular class to a new class when new classes always go well initially

If they were worried about it failing it would be better to try to push people from SMN

[Eraden]

Why would they try to push people from what’s always been the least popular class to a new class when new classes always go well initially

If they were worried about it failing it would be better to try to push people from SMN

Again, is only Mao speculatings but maybe BLMs not gonna be good fit for fights laters on. BLMs, even with EW enhancements is still turrets caster. Rather than has to do massive redesign rights away, Devs try to push BLMs over to Pictos so is fewer players to complains and it buys Devs time to kicks can down the road. Maybe Devs not wantings to completely gets rid of BLMs buts maybe thems want to has less hassles from players until thems MAYBE takes longer looks at fixings BLMs in 8.0.

[Lyth]

In Endwalker, SMN was the most played DPS job. In Dawntrail, SMN is the second least played caster, and the fourth least played job overall. PCT is now the most played caster, which is where all those SMN players migrated to. You trade off raise for better mitigation and mobility, alongside the opportunity to do better damage than BLM without any real change in effort.

I think part of the problem is that the Magical Ranged role itself has evolved, in terms of how mobile and utility orientated it now is. BLM is stuck between tradition and the changes to the role/fight design.

[Ramiee]

I am shocked that SMN has fallen down almost as if it's boring rotation from 2 years ago hasn't changed and the second a really easy melee job came out that became the most popular job.
Yep it was really worth destroying that job in EW, got 2 years of a casual playerbase that probably already stopped playing DT after yshtola wasn't in the expansion much.

[reflettage]

As a newer BLM main who has raided Savage for years, I actually like these core things about how the job works:
- AF/UI timers leading to rotational fail-states if not respected
- mobility that's heavily reliant on finite resources
- F4/Despair cast times are longer than the recast time, severely restricting movement/weaving opportunities (I think FlareStar is more satisfying as an instant cast though)

I think it is a very good form of skill expression, to be able to plan your resources in such a way that you can dance through movement-heavy fights without breaking rotation. I like being forced to consider when to use or save Triplecast and Xenoglossy for movement. I like figuring out precise positioning to eliminate unnecessary consumption of my limited resources. I like being constrained to a strict AF timer that prevents me from spamming filler spells without losing F4 casts. I like how Spell Speed is very much a personal preference and lower/higher both have their ups and downs. (although it sucks to get ilvl synch'd and lose a bunch of my spell speed as a result)

I think many (not all, but many) people who say that the "turret caster" is incompatible with modern fight design are also people who like having freedom to move at a moment's notice instead of needing to pre-position, who think they immediately need to get to the "safe spot" when a mechanic/AOE is starting regardless of how much time they actually have before they're in real danger, who aren't used to thinking about their mobility as a resource of their rotation that they need to manage. You can't play BLM perfectly in a fight you don't know and that's fine -- actually, it gives content more replay value imo. Experiment with cooldown placements. Hone the internal sense of "do I have to move NOW or can I finish this cast first". Eat dirt to mechanics and learn for the next time. BLM significantly rewards you for knowing the details of an encounter, probably more than any other class, and I really, REALLY like that. And on a personal note, the restrictions are actually helpful to me as a raider with ADHD. I learn faster, and it's not nearly as easy to get lost in the brain fog, if I have to meticulously plan every button press (or set of button presses) around a fight's timeline as I prog.

If we had healer/PCT-like cast/recast times, no restrictions on how long we can stay in Fire phase, etc. the job would be WAY less satisfying imo. And much more homogenized.


p.s. Bring back non-standard pls, that was a huge part of the fun/satisfaction/skill and I miss it so much

[Azebra]

I think many (not all, but many) people who say that the "turret caster" is incompatible with modern fight design are also people who like having freedom to move at a moment's notice instead of needing to pre-position, who think they immediately need to get to the "safe spot" when a mechanic/AOE is starting regardless of how much time they actually have before they're in real danger, who aren't used to thinking about their mobility as a resource of their rotation that they need to manage. You can't play BLM perfectly in a fight you don't know and that's fine -- actually, it gives content more replay value imo. Experiment with cooldown placements. Hone the internal sense of "do I have to move NOW or can I finish this cast first". Eat dirt to mechanics and learn for the next time. BLM significantly rewards you for knowing the details of an encounter, probably more than any other class, and I really, REALLY like that.

I can't agree with this more, this is the main reason why this class has been what I play in 99% of high level content, it is so incredibly satisfying to experiment with how you can adjust your rotation to fit a fight and get it to the point where you can handle every mechanic without a hitch.

It's also why I find comments that BLM is inherently incompatible with current encounter design and needs a complete rework or changes like removing its timers to be so frustrating, at this point it isn't really a "turret" you are absolutely capable of movement, you just need to consider how you go about it more than other classes do.That friction and challenge is a huge part of what I adore about the class, it needs more consideration to be played well in difficult content and the feeling of gaining mastery over it is really tangible and baked into its core mechanics.

I really hope the devs don't take those complaints too literally and instead of fixing the problems that players have with the class currently, make it like other casters where you can hold all your resources as long as you like with barely any repercussion for playing it poorly.

[Galvuu]

snip.

I dunno, I don't think this "planning" applies much to DT BLM. It commits the cardinal sin of being... boring. I kinda feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over again (I am) and there's not much to plan for your burst, either.
You end up prioritizing uptime and using the least amount of resources to achieve that, since using more incurs a burst penalty... but I also feel like it doesn't really matter, beyond slamming as many Xenoglossies as you possibly can? Before there was the whole gymnastic of aligning short/long fire lines to ensure only your heavy-hitting spells were used under burst. Now you really have very little control over it- I try to save one Triple and Xenos for burst and that's pretty much it.
I don't find myself with a lot of room to experiment compared to EW- on EW you definitely had 4/5 different length lines with different resource consumption that you could experiment/spreadsheet with to manipulate both movement and burst alignment. There are still a few non-standard lines you can do for a small penalty, but your burst is an ocean of Fire IVs and pray mechanics didn't make you bleed your Xenos. That's just my feeling on the job right now.

I am shocked that SMN has fallen down almost as if it's boring rotation from 2 years ago hasn't changed and the second a really easy melee job came out that became the most popular job.
Yep it was really worth destroying that job in EW, got 2 years of a casual playerbase that probably already stopped playing DT after yshtola wasn't in the expansion much.

I love how the new SMN stuff is the whole package- looks bad, plays the same (with the same being incredibly boring), doesn't feel impactful and your biggest boon is a healing spell. It's like someone tried to make it as bad as possible.

[Taranok]

BLM is stuck between tradition and the changes to the role/fight design.

And it has been since late-ShB. The true nail in the coffin is the homogenization of caster gameplay into rphys gameplay. Certain DT changes helped claw population back away from SMN, namely things like grand impact, but BLM just flat out cannot play like a turret caster, because we need fights like EX2 to allow for turret caster gameplay, while the devs are halfway stuck between fight design like EX2 and EX1.

If we look at dungeons, Tender Valley is extremely accessible to turret caster gameplay with BLM's current movement design. The only bad section is Moist Summoning of the final boss because you are forced to move out of ley lines due to puddles. Now compare this to The Strayborough Deadwalk, which is extensibly EW fight design. The first boss is a nightmare on every single job, but unless you kill it before the third charge starts, casters run out of movement and the fight becomes miserable. Teacups has a similar problem, only now it's mixed with tricky mechanics that absolutely hurt my eyes to try to solve it correctly because the teacups move too fast and it's like my monitor is flashbanging me. Teacups has a lot in common with Alzadaal's Legacy's first boss. Actually I'd say it's basically the same fight, complete with tricky and offensively bad mechanics design, especially since it's very hit or miss on whether it causes issues.

One of them is an homage to old school fight design and is extremely fun on turret casters, and the other makes people want to stop playing classes that used to have core, supported gameplay, that is turret casters.

The devs have a choice to make. Do they want to homogenize the game down such that casters play like rphys in the single greatest instance of homogenization since forcing all healers to play like WHM back in HW (and tanks to play like PLD in ARR,) in which case they may as well cut out the middle man and remove all cast bars, as it will just make everything better in the short term if this is their long term goals; or do they want to bring back and properly support turret casters? The release of pictomancer is an indictment of the direction the devs want to take the game. They don't want turret caster gameplay, pictomancer is the proof. It's closer to RDM than BLM in overall playstyle. Which means if the playerbase wants turret caster gameplay, the players need to fight tooth and nail against this homogenization of the caster role.

[Turtledeluxe]

I don't find any of the Expert dungeons problematic on BLM. BLM has Aetherial Manipulation, Between the Lines, numerous insta cast. That's what makes the job fun to play. Devs undoing all of that seems highly unlikely to me. I hope they instead look more at doing something else with the rotation that is more flexible/figure out Flare Star. Also just change the timing on Thunderhead.

I just don't think the job feels intuitive or fun to play with the current setup of AF and the management of Enochian/Xenoglossy. It just feels tacked on, rigid, unrefined, whatever you want to call it.

And even with buffs, you're managing these two gauges simultaneously to do a meager 1k aDPS difference from a PCT. So clearly something isn't working, or perhaps the potencies are still too low.

[remiff]

Let's not lie to ourselves: the changes they've made to the DPS "Caster" role are simply insignificant, pointless, or poorly thought out.

The changes to BLM are riddled with poor design choices that make the job much more rigid than before.

The Red Mage hasn't particularly changed, the Summoner hasn't changed at all, and is in the wrong category because it only fits the Caster category in name, with which it is supposedly balanced.
But in reality, it's a physical ranged DPS that uses magic instead... and this makes balancing Casters impossible because the high mobility inevitably comes with a significant trade-off.

So to make the Summoner playable, they lumped the Red Mage into the same category and used the excuse, "the rez is too powerful," which is completely false and wasn't the case before Endwalker.

Plus, the Summoner has no resource management because the etherflow system is just a relic of its old kit that doesn't work with the new one, especially since it has a 60-second cooldown.

Bahamut got a Bahamut reskin with a heal because they can't diversify the demi-summons since they're literally tied to just two buttons, and since we lose a Phoenix in the cycle, they thought, "what if we give it an AoE heal?"
If the Summoner is less played, it's simply because the job needed adjustments after the rework, a new resource management system, or differentiation of the demi-summons, and above all, the return of more spells with casts.

And what did they do? Nothing but aesthetic changes.

"Look forward to it," they say—"we'll rework all the jobs identites in 8.0," which means with Endwalker, that's five years without any changes to a job that already has huge identity problem in its gameplay.

And the Pictomancer just does everything perfectly better than the others.

It's extremely mobile because it easily accumulates up to 5 stacks of mobility for mandatory movements, plus the 3 powerful hits from the hammer,
a group shield, a dash every 20 seconds that gives it a 5-second sprint, and by far the most massive burst in the game.

It has the best adaptability for downtime phases, a 5% team buff, and deals as much damage, if not more, than the Black Mage.
So why play Black Mage? Why play Summoner and Red Mage after the prog?

The balance of casters and DT jobs changes are simply a mess.