7.0 BLM is a disappointment.

[Poppet]

BLM's current 7.0 rework is the same awful designs as the 5.0 SMN rework. The same issue of making the Job from top to bottom and not bottom to top. If it's not max level it doesn't matter. Fix minor mp tick issues for level 100. Force mp ticks for every level under 76. Fix Sharp cast for level 100. Made it not work until 80.



BLM and PCT should be at the higher end of damage even above melee. So for those fight with high movement they don't become a liability to the extent BLM was for TOP where they're getting role blacklisted and kicked from parties. Having leeway is incredibly important as is excess to avoid P8s P1 PLD situations and not "fixing it" by nerfing PCT to as low as BLM.

High Thunder/III does a lot of damage in a vacuum but in actual practice it can prove rather suboptimal to use it. Hitting an old Thunderhead proc was pretty much always worth it even if a boss was leaving. Now it needs to hit most of its damage ticks to warrant using it. It shouldn't be a DoT anymore and do pure potency that is competitive.

Fire should give 100% Firestarter proc for the first use at the old level for Sharpcast. You shouldn't have to wait until Paradox for it.

Umbral Ice Paradox is too important as a form of movement during Umbral Ice. Removing Ice Paradox and Thunderhead caused so many issues for finishers. The biggest issue being disposability. It's unacceptable to whiff a Xenoglossy for nothing as you can use it when the boss comes back. But an Ice Paradox or Thunderhead were lost either way making them great for it. Ice Paradox is too important to not exist, please return it.

Ice MP changes were to fix mp ticks but now you're forced to rely on them more via Lucid Dreaming. Having to rely on Lucid Dream mp ticks shouldn't be a thing at all. Ice Spells should give 5k mp at Umbral Ice 1 and 2, 10k at 3. 2.5k + 5k has Lucid Dreaming lines which shouldn't exist. Umbral Soul should be unlocked at level 15. No higher. It should give Umbral Ice 3 on use and if used at Umbral Ice 3 it give 3 Umbral Hearts.

Flare Star shouldn't exist. A boss does a random pattern and that's bad for your Ley Lines? Lose a single gcd that loses you a Flare Star later down the line? Used to be just lose a gcd now it's say goodbye to a potential 1k+ worth of potency due to long term ramifications



* It causes way too much variance. Which should be avoided to prevent new PLD P8S P1 and TOP P6 issues.

* It suffers too much from RDM's lengthy combo syndrome. Causing incredibly long Manafont windows that you can't fully resolve before downtime.

* It doesn't make the skill ceiling higher it just makes the skill floor a pit.

Please delete it and remove the memory of it ever having existed. Or change it to a skill that you gain for using 3 Umbral Hearts instead so it can be rushed if needed. Which would be also helpful for rushing short Manafort windows as well.

[Sylvain]

Dude chill it's week 1...
Buff are incoming... maybe just wait for the patch note before complaining wether or not we do enough?

[meie]

besides the low dps, that is obviously going to be adjusted, I think its totally fine to complain, since they just made the transpose lines not possible anymore, while adding more clunky spells. Voiding the transpose playstyle most higher end Black Mages used to play during EW and now we have to wait for a real rework, that maybe is not even coming for 8.0

[Sunako]

Potency is easy to fix. Gameplay however may take years.

[Galvuu]

Dude chill it's week 1...
Buff are incoming... maybe just wait for the patch note before complaining wether or not we do enough?

What kind of backwards logic is this? Job releases in a terrible state, both in terms of gameplay and balance, people who want to play the job need to suffer through the new content for a month with the job in that state, and you go "dude chill"?
What? And what if the "adjustments" they're cooking for 7.05 aren't enough? Does he keep "chilling" for two or three months more? What it it's like MCH in EW, where it took them one year and a half?
He paid for this junk, he has every right to be upset about it. I'm upset about it too.

(This isn't even a BLM-only problem, this is the .0 start with the worst balance I've seen. HW at least mostly messed up the two new jobs and every job had its own minigame, making it super hard to balance, but in DT there's no excuse beyond literal 0 effort and/or sheer stupidity from SE. How hard is it to spreadsheet the cookie-cutter rotations every non-PCT job has now and check if the numbers make sense...?)

[Taranok]

Welcome to the club. BLM has never been at the correct power level at the launch of a game. Especially in EW and DT where the devs shot turret casters as a core gameplay type dead. Anyways, from the top.

PCT should not be close to BLM's ADPS. RDPS is whatever but I believe everyone should be as close to equal as practical. So, kind of agree? A class having X should not be used as justification for more or less damage. PCT's a buffing DPS, it should be balanced like a buffing DPS. BLM's low damage is acknowledged.

Thunders: This mechanic should get a rework. As a DoT it's especially orphaned, a holdover of the old ARR design that never got touched. I'm not sure how it should be reworked exactly, but I call it thunderscathe for a reason. It's basically a better scathe with more limitations and definitely feels bad atm. Kind of wish I could hard cast it at times, 30s proc duration isn't enough for how the class phases.

Firestarter guaranteed: Ah yes, the class getting changes for current expansion without touching it at lower levels. In addition to a leveling rework in general (the fire 4 rotation should show up at level 30-35, for example,) I'd like to see the paradox mechanic co-opted and brought down to lower levels as well, including a guaranteed firestarter. BLM hasn't been a proc mage since HW despite sharpcast and having 'procs.' Time to nip it in the bud.

Umbral ice paradox isn't important at all. That said, I'd like to see umbral ice given a real damage phase and made part of the core kit. It's high time BLM stopped being almost exclusively a fire mage. There's ways to make the transition more exciting as well, and all the people complaining about the loss of non-standard would complain a lot less if the ice phase actually did anything meaningful beyond restoring mana.

Ice MP is fine as is, for now. See above. The devs already acknowledged BLM's dire low level mana situation.

Flare star is fine. The problem of its rigidity is that the AF/UI timers serve no purpose anymore. Even at lower levels, the worst that could happen is players cast 7 fire 4s. Oh no. So anyways, remove the AF/UI timers and the problems of flare star, and indeed the low end of BLM's damage, goes away (or mostly away.) The second half of that 'mostly' would be any changes to distance BLM from its old nature of being a turret mage. The devs don't want turret mages to exist because they want this highly reactionary go-go-go move across the map action gameplay. There's plenty of reasons that's a bad thing, but so long as it exists, turret mages are fundamentally incompatible. Removing this part from BLM's identity, as sad as it would be to see it go, would fix the rest of the low end being awful.

Everything else about flare star is just not really a concern. At the end of the day, BLM needs a rework. Killing nonstandard proved just how bad BLM is in the game. If the class needs a completely broken rotation that exploits bad class design to handle the content, the problem is the class and how it fits into said content, which can only be solved with a rework.

Flare star is a fantastic ability, and everyone saying it's bad literally are ignoring the elephant in the room: FS isn't the issue, the class itself is the issue, especially the timers. Yeah, the rotation is long. That's fine, it can be fixed in a rework. Especially if the devs prioritize trying to make UI do actual damage and have an actual rotation. That'd fix the problem right up.

And I find it funny you mention paladin and P8S. PLD used to be an over time job, just as BLM and a handful of other jobs were. BLM still is mostly over time, not burst. It needs help to fit into a burst meta.

[LilyPendragon]

Dude chill it's week 1...
Buff are incoming... maybe just wait for the patch note before complaining wether or not we do enough?

Potency buffs won't be enough to fix what they've done to the class. It's not just a numbers problem, though damage is obviously also a problem, it's that they've neutered BLM's flexibility.

BLM had an answer for any mechanic with non standard lines, but now it is incredibly rigid and punishing, to the point you can just lose massive amounts of potency if the boss goes untargetable. Can't bank flare stars like you can hammers for picto. No, you just straight up lose them because you have to transpose.

I have no faith the devs will fix these issues, as their past with Summoner shows that they ate extremely boneheaded, and it's their way or the highway.

[Sylvain]

Potency buffs won't be enough to fix what they've done to the class. It's not just a numbers problem, though damage is obviously also a problem, it's that they've neutered BLM's flexibility.

Potency and gameplay are two different things.

While you may have your concerns on gameplay, and those can be valid as of now.
Half his post is about BLM dps which is another concern unrelated to gameplay, regarding that specifically, I feel panicking right now is useless.

They've confirned that they noticed BLM dps is lacking and that it has MP issues at lower level.
While you may be skeptical regarding their solution on the latter (I'm expecting ice spell to become free of cost, but maybe they'll drop umbral soul to lv 20 or something), regarding the DPS there's really nothing to do but to wait one extra week.

Then you can open another post and complain that the buff wasn't enough. And if it was, still complain that you still don't enjoy BLM's changes.

(This isn't even a BLM-only problem, this is the .0 start with the worst balance I've seen. HW at least mostly messed up the two new jobs and every job had its own minigame, making it super hard to balance, but in DT there's no excuse beyond literal 0 effort and/or sheer stupidity from SE. How hard is it to spreadsheet the cookie-cutter rotations every non-PCT job has now and check if the numbers make sense...?)

Can't disagree with you here.
I've always wondered why they struggle to reach balance when job have such rigid rotation.

Who knows, maybe it's intended? Make things slightly unbalanced so that people complain and then you fix it to make them happy. It's easier to fix something totally off balance than something almost perfect. I dunno.. maybe they're just really bad at math.

[Vejj]

lol I've thought since the release that the monk is the bottom drawer. I've only seen one monk since Head Start and he really didn't perform well.

I just don't understand the balance between all the classes, where they should be and where they are now.
BLM is supposed to be the damage beast. He's almost at the bottom. But I'm glad that my favorite DPS class (red mage) is currently in the midfield 8)

[Krakatoa]

Scrap Flare Star entirely, and instead make it so that F4s increase the potency of Blizzard III, and if you complete all F4s, B3 becomes Absolute Zero or something along those lines. Now I can get the reward for my F4s on the back end, Ice phase is more interesting, and I'm less punished for missing one or two F4s because B3 would still be higher than normal due to the scaling previously mentioned. You could even make it so that Absolute Zero buffs B4 (or turns it into Ice Paradox), further incentivizing planning ahead to ensure you can try and find a reasonable spot to cast those spells.