BLM Post-Patch, and where to go from here.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

While me, and i'm sure, many other Black Mages are happy about the umbral soul changes, the fact is, the class has many issues beyond that, that can't be fixed by a simple potency buff.

Before I list the gameplay problems we fact, one thing has to be clear.

Black Mage is not a burst job.

Increasing the potency of Xenoglossy further, with three stacks of it, is going to force us to use them in the party buff window, restricting our movement options, and generally not feeling fun to play.

With that in mind, I shall move into the gameplay issues.

1.Astral Fire both lasts too long, and feels too strict.

This is probably my largest gripe with DT BLM. With the addition of Flare Star, our fire phase is reaching the point where our High Thunder starts to fall off, to speak nothing about Thunder 3, which is 3 seconds shorter than HT. On the latter point of the statement, Fire Paradox being instant, actually gives us 2-3 less seconds to work with, as we have to deal with the recast timer. It doesn't replace Ice Paradox in its movement tech, as the trade off of a lessened AF timer never feels good. This is also the same issue with using F3P to refresh.

2.Flare Star is not a good capstone reward.

I can understand the conception behind Flare Star. A big, meaty finisher to end your fire phase. You'll likely get it every time you do a fire phase, and it has pretty decent VFX to boot. However, in gameplay it falls flat. Despair is already a commitment, as it's (at base sps) 0.2 seconds longer to cast then F4. Flare Star shares that same length, and that's a problem. Back in EW, many times I'd find myself refreshing thunder, or keeping enochian up by the skin of my teeth, because of another cast in the phase. To add another throws off the timing that was established in ShB and EW, and further serves to make the job feel awkward and janky.

3.Thunderhead, both a noob trap, and a bad replacement.

Again, I can understand both the conception of Thunderhead, and the removal of Sharpcast. In most scenarios, you'd only use Sharpcast to keep a charge of Thundercloud (the buff that let you instantcast thunder) in your pocket, and not much else.

However, Thunderclouds replacement with Thunderhead brings about a few issues. The DoT length is the same as our proc, making it impossible to not clip it on ST scenarios. With Thunderclouds duration being 40 seconds, (as opposed to DT's 30), this is a rather baffling and harebrained oversight on the devs end.

Another issue is in the very nature of Thunderhead. If you're a new player, I feel like you would press the glowing button that pops up everytime you switch phase. It's just not good UI design.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

4.MP Regen Problems

Once again, I can understand the conception behind these changes. You don't want to deal with server ticks, it feels gamey and uncomfortable, I get it. But the MP changes aren't perfect. For one, bosses with invulnerability can't be hit to get MP back. While the level lowering of Umbral Soul does alleviate it a bit, there are still innumerable fights with short enough downtime or invulnerability phases, where there's not enough time to spam Umbral Soul. Along with this, according to my friends, the MP regen still relies on server ticks, it just only activates when you hit an enemy with an Ice Spell. While I understand if this is an issue on the technical side or the server side, I think this isn't good enough.

5. Ice Paradox

The loss of Ice Paradox is a devastating blow BLM's flexibility. It allowed us a weave slot to Sharpcast, it refreshed the Umbral Ice timer, and it was a great movement button. All of the Black Mages I've talked too, whether in my FC, in duty roulettes, in the cities, all activities, have all mourned the loss of it. Even if it has to bring MP back or not, we all want it back.

6. Movement inflexibility, and the incongruity of it in current fight design.

A recurring point within my points is this newfound lack of free movement we got in EW. All our movement now either punishes us potency wise, or is best saved for aligning into party buffs or long sections of movement. This lack of movement, where all the other casters, (even Pictomancer, with its long recast timers), have it, leaves us back in the turret mage design on StB and ShB, which doesn't fit in with the fight design of DT. If you've done EX1, you can realize how much small movement is needed in the mechanics, and as such, you can really feel the lack of flexibility.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope the devs take into account some of the points I, and many other Black Mages have brought up.

Thank you for reading.

[Altera]

Even the 2nd raid boss has so much movement due to AOE drops, as well as stuff that floats around the arena you have to dodge. I couldnt get many Flarestars off at all due to the movement and no methods of refreshing Enochian timer as ive already used Paradox, Triple cast to move so much I either have to go into Ice phase or cast a Fire 1 to not loose Enochan

BLM needs serious tweaks to how spells, timers, stacks etc works
Thunder must be made OGCD and add 10secs more duration
Flarestar stacks needs to be carried over through UI phase otherwise our shiny new LVL100 spell is not going to see much use at all.

At this point I wish they would revert BLM back to Endwalker state, let keep Retrace and remove everything else and rather try again in 8.0
Also for 8.0, I would prefer them focusing fully on current Jobs rather than waste so much time making new ones and keep new Jobs for 9.0.

If there isnt any serious changes for BLM next week for Savage, i doubt there will be many BLMs in the clearing parties at all. PIC is way too powerful, too easy to not prefer over a BLM

[Sylvain]

Increasing the potency of Xenoglossy further, with three stacks of it, is going to force us to use them in the party buff window, restricting our movement options, and generally not feeling fun to play.

While I agree on the premise that Xeno damage boost forces us into such gameplay, as long as xeno would do more than fire, the end result would be the same. However, it is true that almost 60% more damage over FireIV promotes such gameplay a “tad bit too much”. Perhaps nerfing Xeno to make it closer to “neutral” with fireIV, while buffing FireIV would help elleviate the issue.
I don’t see any problem with the idea of “keeping xeno for burst”, but it shouldn’t come at such a cost, afterall the spell is clearly designed as a movement tool and not simply a burst one. (Otherwise they’d just not make it instant)

1.Astral Fire both lasts too long, and feels too strict.

It does feel too long. However, I don’t think Paradox instant is a problem. With the guaranteed Firestarter we shouldn’t have any problem and unlike xenoglossy, doing so is a very small, almost negligible, dps loss. Hence making it (imo) well designed. If you can, it’s best to do so but if you use FireIII for movement your dps would in all practicality be the exact same. Some sources are conflicted on the exact loss but it’s somewhere between 0.5-1% if you were to compare one rotation doing it everytime and one never doing it. Since most player would do it only a few times, I do not believe this to be a problem.
Paradox instant + Garanteed FireIII imo lower the skillfloor quite substantially without raising the ceiling all that much. Also, the more SpS we’ll have, the lesser of an issue this will become.

2.Flare Star is not a good capstone reward.

To me the issue is just that it conflicts with Despair. I don’t think the cast time is an issue considering it can be done after Despair (thus giving you 13s to do it). However, it is extremely restrictive as it can only be done at specific moment, thus making its lengthy cast time a problem.
I like that it’s a meaty 3s, tbh I wouldn’t even mind a 3.5 like flare. Thus, some freedom on where to cast it would be more than welcomed.
I strongly believe making it a rarer occurrence would make it feel better. Throwing this again, reducing the flare stack requirement to 4, making them proc only from Paradox + Despair (and kept in umbral obviously) + free use from amplifier, would make it more akin to a 1min cd and give us more freedom. Additionally It could also refresh AF.

3.Thunderhead, both a noob trap, and a bad replacement.
…
Another issue is in the very nature of Thunderhead. If you're a new player, I feel like you would press the glowing button that pops up everytime you switch phase. It's just not good UI design.

I think this is the biggest issue. They really should just bring back the old damage distribution.

5. Ice Paradox

Regarding the mobility I agree, the theme I also agree, but why do people talk about its use as a weave slot for Sharpcast… Sharpcast is gone… You can’t ask to have it back for something that no longer exist… Tbh adding back Ice Paradox should be really trivial on their end. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to add it back like they did for energy drain with SCH at the beginning of EW.

It’s literally the #1 complain.

6. Movement inflexibility, and the incongruity of it in current fight design.

So here there’s an issue in perspective.
I see “dps loss on movement” as part of the job design. Basically, I see BLM optimisation as reducing movement as much as possible. Some, like you?, see that as a hindrance. Basically, all the desired movement should simply be part of the basic rotation, AKA Summoner.
I personally like that holding on xeno, transpose/FireIII etc basically reducing my movement, affects my DPS. Because when I can do everything right, I (should) get the reward of higher dps. (ofc atm we’re low but that’s still what’s happening).
However, the number might be too harsh here. A few changes could easily narrow the gap between the “perfect run” and the “full movement run” (every movement tool used for movment and not for DPS optimisation), such as:
- Nerfing Xeno potency to align it more with regular rotation.
- Matching Cast and Recast of FireIV, Despair and FlareStar. ( Triple cast isn’t a dps gain anymore)
- Increasing Astral Fire 3 damage boost to nerf transpose/FireIII
However this would obviously kill a big part of BLM optimisation but you can’t ask for “no penalty on movement” while requesting “more optimisation”.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope the devs take into account some of the points I, and many other Black Mages have brought up.

Let’s hope they do, see you in 2 weeks ^^

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

It does feel too long. However, I don’t think Paradox instant is a problem. With the guaranteed Firestarter we shouldn’t have any problem and unlike xenoglossy, doing so is a very small, almost negligible, dps loss. Hence making it (imo) well designed. If you can, it’s best to do so but if you use FireIII for movement your dps would in all practicality be the exact same. Some sources are conflicted on the exact loss but it’s somewhere between 0.5-1% if you were to compare one rotation doing it everytime and one never doing it. Since most player would do it only a few times, I do not believe this to be a problem.
Paradox instant + Garanteed FireIII imo lower the skillfloor quite substantially without raising the ceiling all that much. Also, the more SpS we’ll have, the lesser of an issue this will become.

I feel like I might have misrepresented my point. The point is that because your fire phase refreshers are all instant now, you either take the 2-3 second loss on your fire phase with your refresh, or you use both to pad out the loss, and likely have to refresh your thunder earlier, further lengthening your phase.

And if I may clarify on my movement point, we had a lot freer movement in EW than in DT, and while getting used to that is a personal gripe, from the BLM's I've spoken too, they bemoan that loss too. And furthermore, our free movement now (Fire Paradox and F3P) are both more restrictive on when they can be used (Fire Phase), and feel less good (Refresh recast timing issue).

I thank you though for digesting the thread and giving such well thought out feedback.

[Sylvain]

I feel like I might have misrepresented my point. The point is that because your fire phase refreshers are all instant now, you either take the 2-3 second loss on your fire phase with your refresh, or you use both to pad out the loss, and likely have to refresh your thunder earlier, further lengthening your phase.

No I got that, but hence my answer, sure, because they're both instant the timer are tighter. 100% agree with that. However, specifically because we always have fire3 proc, I do not believe this to be an issue. If you know that the next firephase will be tight due to movement, you can decide to keep FireIII to ease the movement.

Also, maybe it's just me but, specifically because Paradox is instant I now do 4 fireIV and use Paradox right when there's basically 1s left on AF. I see no problem with that if anything I find myself more mobile than before. But clearly I must be doing something wrong because everyone complains about the oposite.

And if I may clarify on my movement point, we had a lot freer movement in EW than in DT, and while getting used to that is a personal gripe, from the BLM's I've spoken too, they bemoan that loss too. And furthermore, our free movement now (Fire Paradox and F3P) are both more restrictive on when they can be used (Fire Phase), and feel less good (Refresh recast timing issue).

I suppose you and those players were playing the alternative rotation. Obviously this being gone the end result is stricter. I can't deny that.

I personally never enjoyed the alternative rotation and played the "regular" one most of the time. For me, the rework overall has made everything simplier tbh.
It took some time to get used to the changes but I personally like some of the changes.

I still have my grip about a few points tho, Thunder being 90% DoT, Xeno-pile-up, and I hate having to use my triple cast for a dps gain. And FlareStar... oh boy that spell... it took me 30s into the trailer to realise "oh boy.... this looks like a really bad addition... i hope I'm wrong". Tooltip reveal weeks later confirmed I(everyone?) wasn't wrong.

I thank you though for digesting the thread and giving such well thought out feedback..

<3
Tbh I really hope we get the SCH treatment from EW and get Ice Paradox back at the very least. This is litterally the easiest change they could make without breaking the rest.

I have no hope for any form of Astral Flare rework and I'm *very* skeptical on a thunder rework.

Mao still believes mistake was made by havings Flare Star come from Fire IVs. Is means that Flare Star COMPETES with Xenoglossy for spot in rotation. Flare Star should be step up in chain that begins with maintainings Astral and Umbral, produces Polyglots and the Polyglots should be whats used to make Flare Stars (two for Flare Star equal to 250% of single Polyglots or three for Flare Star equal to 400% of single Polyglots). This way BLMs keep EW flexibility AND gets shiny new boom whats not competings with Xenoglossy.

Tbh this would just further promote Polystacking for burst. Is that what you want? "No Xeno gameplay" and turn xeno into a much worse Reprise fom RDM?
Like "... did this BLM just cast a xenoglossy? what a noob... you never do that. You always go for a 3PFS, (3 polyglot Flare Star)"

Started playing FF14 partway through Endwalker with BLM as my main

Welcome Comrade ! Excellent choice ! Boss are always tastier when properly toasted and crispy.

It just doesn't feel good right now.

Yup this seems to be the general feeling. And indeed, as much as people complain about DPS, DPS can be fixed, feeling is different and requires more work.

So regarding longer cast, I actually really wanted one big ass cast... Like my dream spell was to actually have a 5s cast only usable during Leyline :3 I really wanted that Omega boom worht of 2000 potency :3
But let say Flare Star missed the mark... For every reason everyone keep pointing.
Yeah Thunderhead... I think everyone went from "OMG YES EASY THUNDERHEAD PROC" to "wth is that crap" once we saw the new damage...
And rip Ice Paradox... (maybe you'll be back in 2 weeks ... maybe?)

What really blows my mind is the MP regen problem. The fact that this wasn't caught in testing makes all of the BLM changes feel as if they were untested and rushed. I work pretty closely with QA folks on a daily basis, and I love them to death. It feels like these changes weren't given a proper QA pass at all. Obviously, we don't know if that's the case--but it sure feels that way.

I do believe the "low level experience" was indeed not noticed....

Regarding the changes, I feel that it musn't be easy to add a new skill to everyjob, especially one like BLM because, sparing the whole alternative rotation and such, BLM was considered a very well designed job... What can you add that won't break that delicate balance?
Ideally something that doesn't change the rotation too much... Them settling for a spell only castable at the end of the fire cycle kind of make sens... like, in the grand scheme of things, doing an extra cast after despair doesn't change much. However, as you said "it does feel bad" and that's clearly something that must have sliped through.

I mean every expansion will have this problem and it will always be more apparent and probably even harder to manage.

HW brought "rankIV" mechanic which entirely changed the gameplay.
SB brought Foul which didn't change much but basically served as a delay during the Icephase.
ShB brought despair and xeno which rounded up the rotation with a finisher and a mobility skill. Being unable to stack xeno also made the "xeno stack for burst" not a problem.
EW brought Paradox which solidified ice phase...

So what do you add seriously? Ngl, it's getting hard to add stuff without messing up with everything. Had many conversation with friends and everytime someone brought up a new spell idea, everyone was quick to point all the gameplay issue this would introduce.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

I suppose you and those players were playing the alternative rotation. Obviously this being gone the end result is stricter. I can't deny that.

I personally never enjoyed the alternative rotation and played the "regular" one most of the time. For me, the rework overall has made everything simplier tbh.
It took some time to get used to the changes but I personally like some of the changes.

I still have my grip about a few points tho, Thunder being 90% DoT, Xeno-pile-up, and I hate having to use my triple cast for a dps gain. And FlareStar... oh boy that spell... it took me 30s into the trailer to realise "oh boy.... this looks like a really bad addition... i hope I'm wrong". Tooltip reveal weeks later confirmed I(everyone?) wasn't wrong.
"

Oh no, I don't care for nonstandard either, I've played BLM strictly with standard. I feel like the movement we got in EW, was less detrimental, even in the standard rotation. That's just how I see it though.

[Eraden]

Tbh this would just further promote Polystacking for burst. Is that what you want? "No Xeno gameplay" and turn xeno into a much worse Reprise fom RDM?
Like "... did this BLM just cast a xenoglossy? what a noob... you never do that. You always go for a 3PFS, (3 polyglot Flare Star)".

Nots necessarily. Is depends on fight conditions. Sometimes will wants get single Xenoglossy in because sometimes will has only one charge of Polyglots with boss changings state soon. Main thing is that this makes Flare Star FLEXIBLE....something whats needed for fights requiring more mobilitys.

[Azebra]

4.MP Regen Problems
A recurring point within my points is this newfound lack of free movement we got in EW. All our movement now either punishes us potency wise, or is best saved for aligning into party buffs or long sections of movement. This lack of movement, where all the other casters, (even Pictomancer, with its long recast timers), have it, leaves us back in the turret mage design on StB and ShB, which doesn't fit in with the fight design of DT. If you've done EX1, you can realize how much small movement is needed in the mechanics, and as such, you can really feel the lack of flexibility.

This is one of my big problems right now, I progged ex1 and had a rough time with it on BLM but I felt like it was doable, but ex2 I just gave up trying to learn the fight on it and just switched to RDM until I melded a bunch of spell speed and could do the mechanics more comfortably. Even after clearing ex2 well over a dozen times on BLM now, I cannot get over how the overlap of fire phase's new strictness/trying to save stuff for burst window/doing the fire/wind blade warp mechanic which happens EXACTLY at the same time as the burst window feels so incredibly hectic in a not great way, and I love the fight. Almost very single time I'm either like "ok, lets focus on burning through xenos for burst and staying alive for the mechanic" and then I look over and see I've dropped enochain, or I focus on the mechanic and keeping AF up and I don't maximize burst damage.

The thing that's getting me is that I did not ever feel like this during extreme or the few savages I did back during endwalker, and I was not a nonstandard player at all (I thought the concept was cool but it felt unintuitve to me/i hate using tranpose because its hard wired into my brain as the move I use when I've messed up.) Obviously dawntrail content is already more intense, but I feel like if they're not going to design the fights to accommodate for black mage, they should have at least tried to add things to BLM to be able to deal with more movement out of the gate without a crapton of SpSd melds besides Retrace (which is nice, but completely useless in constant movement mechs like ex1's Rain of Feathers) and another Xeno slot (which ends up just being saved for burst anyway). Don't get me wrong, I think the challenge of figuring out how to best use leylines/triplecast in a fight is part of the fun of the class, but currently I think it's too punishing if you ever do mess up, getting back into the flow while still doing the kinds of mechanics in ex1 and ex2 is very trying.

I like BLM's sustain damage style, its what it's built around and I don't want them trying to rework it to be just like other burst DPS, but I feel like most of these changes to the job weren't made with enough consideration for what the new content is like. I did not need the thunder damage changes to give me a new thing to fret about and worry about dropping thunderhead or the DoT itself since you're discouraged from refreshing too early now, or a new slowcast spell that punishes me from missing even one fire iv because i tried to adjust for a mechanic. I don't think its impossible to add stuff to BLM that makes it more capable of dealing with these kinds of fights without undermining the core of the class too. I'm kind of bummed that the devs either didn't realize (or just didn't care) that nonstandard rotations existence was a symptom of Black mage's flexibility, and by haphazardly trying to neuter it they took part of BLM's ability to adjust for mechs with it.

[Realfoxy]

...

I like BLM's sustain damage style, its what it's built around and I don't want them trying to rework it to be just like other burst DPS, but I feel like most of these changes to the job weren't made with enough consideration for what the new content is like. I did not need the thunder damage changes to give me a new thing to fret about and worry about dropping thunderhead or the DoT itself since you're discouraged from refreshing too early now, or a new slowcast spell that punishes me from missing even one fire iv because i tried to adjust for a mechanic. I don't think its impossible to add stuff to BLM that makes it more capable of dealing with these kinds of fights without undermining the core of the class too. I'm kind of bummed that the devs either didn't realize (or just didn't care) that nonstandard rotations existence was a symptom of Black mage's flexibility, and by haphazardly trying to neuter it they took part of BLM's ability to adjust for mechs with it.

I agree.

The fundamental problem with Dawntrail BLM is that the developers cared more about removing flexibility and absolutely murdering nonstandard than they cared about actually addressing any of the job's pain points.

Look at the Umbral Soul changes. People have been asking for such a thing for literally years to help make the BLM levelling experience less crap and we only got it just now when they accidentally broke the job in synced content.