BLM feedback.

[LilyPendragon]

A big resounding meh from me. The potency changes are nice, whether they are enough or not will play out over the next few days I suppose, but they've not really done anything to alleviate some glaring issues (looking at you flare star).

I've been kicked off pictomancer this tier due to joining a new static, and their existing caster wants to play PCT, so back to black mage for me. I just hope BLM isn't drastically outperformed by PCT

[Keichi]

Maybe im wrong.
Its stated something, that Ice Paradox comes, when the fire slots are filled (forgot name).
I only forgot, if they mean the normal 3 stacks. Or the new fire Auge with its 6 stacks. And tought instantly, that they meaned the flare Star gauge.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Maybe im wrong.
Its stated something, that Ice Paradox comes, when the fire slots are filled (forgot name).
I only forgot, if they mean the normal 3 stacks. Or the new fire Auge with its 6 stacks. And tought instantly, that they meaned the flare Star gauge.

Astral Fire I/II/III are your regular fire stacks you are familiar with since Lv2.The new gauge is Astral Soul gauge.

So Paradox marker conditions are now:
- Switching into any level of Astral Fire when under the effect of Umbral Ice III and Umbral Heart(s)
- Switching into any level of Umbral Ice when under the effect of Astral Fire III

[Basteala]

Maybe im wrong.
Its stated something, that Ice Paradox comes, when the fire slots are filled (forgot name).
I only forgot, if they mean the normal 3 stacks. Or the new fire Auge with its 6 stacks. And tought instantly, that they meaned the flare Star gauge.

They probably mean Astral Fire, so it just means that you need to be in Astral Fire III to get Paradox--that's straight up how it was in EW.

[Altera]

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`?

[Realfoxy]

Nothing could mess up manafont timing considering it has 20s of anti-drift on it. Manafont itself literally just saves 3 GCDs now by removing a blizzard 3, blizzard 4, and fire 3 from the rotation without weird things getting in. Oh, but I forget, they brought back ice paradox, so it also cuts that out so...yay? It could be removed and barely be noticeable because it literally is just: "Here's all the benefits of your umbral phase all at once." Woo. To give you an idea, I just use it on cooldown as soon as I flare star regardless of where I am in the rotation because it's literally meaningless.
...

Manafont isn't a burst cooldown, because it removes an Ice phase from your rotation you want to be using it as much as possible. In fact it's impossible to burst really given that an entire standard fire phase pretty much lasts longer than an entire 20 second buff window.

Decreasing its cooldown only made it easier to lose a use in a fight. The real fix to manafont drift would have been to put it on a charge system or fully unlock short fire lines that let you adjust your rotation to keep it on cooldown as much as possible.

[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.

[Turtledeluxe]

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