BLM feedback.

[Realfoxy]

Weird, patch notes says Paradox got a buff from 500 to 520, but when i look at tooltips in game its only 500 still. Did they forget to patch inthe potency or just forgot to update the tooltip`?

Testing on the Balance showed it's 520 effective potency, the tooltips are just incorrect.

[Eloah]

I wont pretend to know a lot about BLM, but the changes to Thunder baffle me a bit. The change to make it proc while adjusting stances I didn't mind, it was interesting/nice to have an instant cast GCD at the ready. But the way the DoT functions now ot feels off. You swap stances every 30 seconds or so, usually less for Ice phase, but the DoT is longer, and its always refreshed. Wouldn't it make more sense to frontload the damage and shorten the DoT? Or, make the buff for the DoT stack like old-school Ruin IV. Or just make it similar to the old Thunder, that as long as a Thunder DoT is on the target the damage is frontloaded and refreshed.

Can someone who really understands BLM help elaborate on what Thunder is supposed to be now? It feels odd getting a proc and not using it since you are waiting for the previous DoT to expire.

[Pyitoechito]

I wont pretend to know a lot about BLM, but the changes to Thunder baffle me a bit. The change to make it proc while adjusting stances I didn't mind, it was interesting/nice to have an instant cast GCD at the ready. But the way the DoT functions now ot feels off. You swap stances every 30 seconds or so, usually less for Ice phase, but the DoT is longer, and its always refreshed. Wouldn't it make more sense to frontload the damage and shorten the DoT? Or, make the buff for the DoT stack like old-school Ruin IV. Or just make it similar to the old Thunder, that as long as a Thunder DoT is on the target the damage is frontloaded and refreshed.

Can someone who really understands BLM help elaborate on what Thunder is supposed to be now? It feels odd getting a proc and not using it since you are waiting for the previous DoT to expire.

It's just a normal DoT like healers have that gets refreshed when near expiration. There's no real reason for it to be a proc because there's no gain to using it every phase change, unless they need an excuse for Scathe to continue existing.

I really hope they fix the AoE rotation sooner than later, because it's absolutely atrocious. I like the animations of High Fire/Blizzard II, and prefer the AF rotation of HF2 → HF2 (Umbral Hearts now at 1) → Flare → Flare. Need to buff up the potency of the High 2 spells, and either bring back Enhanced Flare in a stackable form or change Flare Soul gains such that Flare only gives 2 each and HF2 under AF3 gives 1 each.

[Realfoxy]

I wont pretend to know a lot about BLM, but the changes to Thunder baffle me a bit. The change to make it proc while adjusting stances I didn't mind, it was interesting/nice to have an instant cast GCD at the ready. But the way the DoT functions now ot feels off. You swap stances every 30 seconds or so, usually less for Ice phase, but the DoT is longer, and its always refreshed. Wouldn't it make more sense to frontload the damage and shorten the DoT? Or, make the buff for the DoT stack like old-school Ruin IV. Or just make it similar to the old Thunder, that as long as a Thunder DoT is on the target the damage is frontloaded and refreshed.

Can someone who really understands BLM help elaborate on what Thunder is supposed to be now? It feels odd getting a proc and not using it since you are waiting for the previous DoT to expire.

Congratulations! You've spent more time thinking about this than the person who designed these Thunder changes.

You are exactly correct, you just get random procs all the time when you don't need them. The reason they can't increase the upfront potency is because you'll get free procs all the time and they don't want to encourage any meme rotations, so they've backloaded all the damage into the DOT portion, while also making it really annoying to refresh if you're in a long fire phase (e.g. you spent F3p + other fillers to extend.

[Turtledeluxe]

Underwhelming imo. Not bad or pointless, just ever so slightly underwhelming as I wanted to see something more done with Flare Star.

[Pyitoechito]

If it hasn't been suggested yet, they could have Flare Star tied directly to spending Umbral Hearts.

Instead of having a separate gauge for tracking Flare Souls for Flare Star, have Umbral Hearts convert into Flare Souls when spending them (make them orange and... fiery), and reduce the Flare Soul cost of Flare Star to three (because the gauge only holds three Umbral Hearts). This means any fire spells will generate Flare Souls as long as they spend Umbral Hearts, and the requirement to reach Flare Star is less stringent. Flare Star is still locked to one per fire phase, but it's much more open on where the spell can be used during the phase. It's far more elegant than having a new toss-in gauge just for tracking when Flare Star can be cast.

[Ferrinus]

If it hasn't been suggested yet, they could have Flare Star tied directly to spending Umbral Hearts.

Instead of having a separate gauge for tracking Flare Souls for Flare Star, have Umbral Hearts convert into Flare Souls when spending them (make them orange and... fiery), and reduce the Flare Soul cost of Flare Star to three (because the gauge only holds three Umbral Hearts). This means any fire spells will generate Flare Souls as long as they spend Umbral Hearts, and the requirement to reach Flare Star is less stringent. Flare Star is still locked to one per fire phase, but it's much more open on where the spell can be used during the phase. It's far more elegant than having a new toss-in gauge just for tracking when Flare Star can be cast.

This is exactly what I want, too; I like casting Flare Star but it feels dumb to have a second, separate gauge. If they're really particular about sequencing they could make Flare Star only activate once you A) have three astral hearts and B) drop to 0 MP, but I don't think that'd be necessary. So long as the numbers are massaged such that more F4s will increase rather than decrease your dps on average (which is already the premise behind umbral paradox, really), it'll still be optimal in a white room to cast all six F4s in an astral cycle and there'll still be no incentive to skip B4.

[Pyitoechito]

This is exactly what I want, too; I like casting Flare Star but it feels dumb to have a second, separate gauge. If they're really particular about sequencing they could make Flare Star only activate once you A) have three astral hearts and B) drop to 0 MP, but I don't think that'd be necessary. So long as the numbers are massaged such that more F4s will increase rather than decrease your dps on average (which is already the premise behind umbral paradox, really), it'll still be optimal in a white room to cast all six F4s in an astral cycle and there'll still be no incentive to skip B4.

Of course. It would be a DPS loss to not cast all six Fire IV's every fire phase. Flare Star isn't such a DPS gain that anyone would want to cut the rotation down to three F4s or cast F1 over F4. The only time this would be optimal is if the boss is about to become untargetable, then it would actually be a boon to be able to cast Flare Star earlier in fire phase to get it out before the boss becomes untargetable and you lose the cast (we like mechanics-based optimization, right?).

I am an unparalleled artist.

[Ferrinus]

Of course. It would be a DPS loss to not cast all six Fire IV's every fire phase. Flare Star isn't such a DPS gain that anyone would want to cut the rotation down to three F4s or cast F1 over F4. The only time this would be optimal is if the boss is about to become untargetable, then it would actually be a boon to be able to cast Flare Star earlier in fire phase to get it out before the boss becomes untargetable and you lose the cast (we like mechanics-based optimization, right?).

I am an unparalleled artist.

And if they're absolutely dead set on Flare Star requiring six stacks and cannot be budged, they can STILL have each umbral heart turn orange, and then have those orange umbral hearts start crackling and flaming one by one.

[Turtledeluxe]

I still think irrespective of gauge adjustments, flare star needs to be insta cast or something. It's not some kind of massive DPS gain. Alternatively, leave it as a long cast and make it worth using

Flare Star feels unnatural in a single target rotation. It's a Flare upgrade stuffed into redundant Despair status. That just doesn't make sense to me.