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

[Kabooa]

I genuinely cannot take this statement seriously. Did you play floors 2 and 3 of the new NM raids and felt BLM flowed nicely?
.

Having gotten over the initial system shock, yeah.

Honey Bee still kind of sucks ass, but like most things regarding Black Mage, learning timings and movement patterns make it much more manageable. Likewise with BB.

Can't speak to how Savage will push that, and frankly I stand by my initial thoughts for changes, which I will list in the spodler below for sake of readability. I am not in favor of full reversion, almost never am strictly on the principle of always moving forward. As someone who found Endwalker's changes bad for the class (But positive for the player), I'm fine with DT Mage. The numbers need adjusting, but the increased pressure is right up my alley. I'm personally looking forward to crafting my i710, pentamelding, and pushing the throttle.

It sounds like those who favored EW Black Mage have a new home in Picto. I'm happy for those people. I am sorry that your favored version of the Black Mage is gone. I really am. I am, however, happy to have a version of it closer to the one I enjoyed more.

Rotational Changes

Astral Soul carries over.

Flarestar refreshes AF

Blizzard 3 / Transpose from AF3 restores 2k MP.

Blizzard 4 restores all MP

Ice Paradox returns, usable when entering UI from AF3.

All other GCDs in UI restore 3k MP.

I believe these changes allow a return of some of the flexibility previous Black Mage incarnations have, while also making Flarestar more lenient, allowing up to 6 excess Fire 4s before "Losing" the use of a Flarestar. Combined with appropriate potency shifts (Hell if I know what those should be), this provides both ease of use of the Developer Intended Rotation as well as reinstating the player puzzle of removing as many non-F4s/Despairs/Flarestars from used GCDs as prior.

The MP changes in particular provide UI with multiple purposes, be it hard turret (Immediate B4 into AF), extended repositioning (return of Ice Paradox for extended UI phase as well as using stocked instant casts / polyglots), and shorter lines (2 GCDs chosen from THead, Ice Paradox, or Polyglots) for 8k MP.

[Galvuu]

It sounds like those who favored EW Black Mage have a new home in Picto. I'm happy for those people. I am sorry that your favored version of the Black Mage is gone. I really am. I am, however, happy to have a version of it closer to the one I enjoyed more.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but short fire lines (sometimes using Lucid Dreaming)- which became a massive loss in DT- were very common in ShB and even SB (although to a lesser extent). DT BLM is very different from ShB. Not gonna bother comparing to HW because that one is dramatically different just by virtue of how Enochian used to work (and the fact BLM had actual damage steroids back then).

[Kabooa]

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but short fire lines (sometimes using Lucid Dreaming)- which became a massive loss in DT- were very common in ShB and even SB (although to a lesser extent). DT BLM is very different from ShB. Not gonna bother comparing to HW because that one is dramatically different just by virtue of how Enochian used to work (and the fact BLM had actual damage steroids back then).

Yes, I am aware.

What I enjoy most about Black Mage is the pressure it puts upon itself, both from the encounter and its mechanic. This is something Endwalker largely alleviated, outside of certain phases in certain encounters. The extension of TCloud, charges and CD reduction of Sharpcast, combined with further polyglot stacking was the straw that broke the camel's back.

We'll start with Thunder. You always aim for 100% uptime with thunder, but the shift in potency in DT makes uptime more important and clipping more punishing. It adds pressure. The change to TCloud makes your ideal points to refresh thunder less flexible. It adds pressure.

Flarestar, while far too rigid at the moment, demands you to perform a specific condition that is currently all too easily lost - but it adds pressure. The addition of another strong AF GCD does the same so it doubles up.

I do not care about the standard, nonstandard, short line debate. Everyone plays black mage non-standard, even those who claim not to, because dummy fighting almost never happens and adjustments need to be made. What matters to me is whether or not the job applies suitable pressure, to which, DT is closer to StB and ShB than Endwalker is in that regard. That is what I enjoy.

[Galvuu]

snip.

No encounter in the history of this game was as rough to BLM as Golden Bahamut in UCoB during patches 4.X and especially p6 TOP.
Not sure how you feel anything has more pressure than that- it was extremely challenging to keep uptime and not drop AF in p6 TOP.

Regardless, all this talk of "pressure" that you're describing is subjective. The point of my reply was divining which "version of BLM" DT is like, according to you, because it's not HW and it's certainly not ShB either. Stormblood is probably the closest, but you had Sharpcast for movement and short lines (of 4x Fire IV after skipping Blizzard IV) were also used in some places, so that's also quite different from DT.
While EW was BLM at its most fluid, this absurd rigidity of DT never existed in the history of this job.
A lot of what you're saying can be construed for EW anyway- I can say it was much harder to weave ogcds in EW and that there were more of them, so it was more "pressure", whatever that means.

[Kabooa]

Regardless, all this talk of "pressure" that you're describing is subjective.

And this is the truth of the matter. We like different things for different reasons. I doubt any amount of digging into the why will satisfy you, nor do I think I could articulate the why with suitable clarity, so we should leave it at that.

[Ferrinus]

I think I'm with Kaboa here in that this job feels harder to play optimally now but in a novel way I'm enjoying. I wouldn't say no to a slight easing of pressure in terms of ice phase mobility or flare star generation but thus far it still mostly feels to me like I have to stop casting or drop flare stars because I got too greedy rather than because I don't have the tools to cope. Like, I enjoyed doing all the new raids on BLM and am finding BLM more satisfying to play than PCT (though I'm still only leveling PCT).

[Realfoxy]

It's certainly fair to say that DT BLM is harder than EW BLM in some sense, given that the job became less flexible.

Personally I find it amusing reading all the comments here saying that they enjoy the job being harder when SE stated in the patch notes they wanted to make the job easier to approach.

I also think that the rigidity of the job is going to present a future balance problem, I can't see DT BLM handling the upcoming Eden ultimate well if there's any phase that's like TOP P6 - which is going to necessitate changes to the job given the competition it has in the non-res caster slot - i.e. a job that is much more flexible, easier to execute, and gains much more from downtime.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

snip

The sad thing about it, is that the difficulty isn't really rewarding? You just get a long cast like despair without its benefits, pointlessly shorter fire phases, a needlessly strict dot timer, and a neutered ice phase! How they thought this would make the job approachable is baffling to me.

[Galvuu]

The sad thing about it, is that the difficulty isn't really rewarding? You just get a long cast like despair without its benefits, pointlessly shorter fire phases, a needlessly strict dot timer, and a neutered ice phase! How they thought this would make the job approachable is baffling to me.

I basically feel punished rather than rewarded- that's exactly it. You're also hyper-sensitive to, well, anything. BLM always somewhat had this issue, but your team getting in the way (accidentally or because they just don't care) and unfortunate mechanical rng feel awful now.
I'm primarily a df/pf player, so it's painful. And people keep saying "it's so rewarding to play BLM in the new raids", and maybe you really did feel that way, but... currently, SE is deliberately designing fights where 2-minute windows land on heavy movement mechanics. There's a 2min during Honey Bee's "Honey B. live", there's a 2 min during Spikecycle on Valigarmanda's ice phase, there's a 2 min during the fire/wind swords during Vollok on Zoral Ja, there's a 2 minute during double Lariat into emerald weapon mechanic... In EW, you can kinda setup a burst phase made of Thundercloud/Paradox/Xenoglossies/Triple'd Despairs, but now you can't do this because you have no control over the length of your fire phases. So those 2 minute windows when you need to run around feel horrible. Can you make it work with an understanding static and a bit of lucky rng where the aoes land? Yea, you can. In the df it makes me want me want to alt+f4 though.
Like, maybe you enjoy running around the whole arena dancing away from heart aoe vomit while your Ley Lines are planted across the boss, but I didn't find that particularly palatable.

Let me make an extreme analogy here. If you forced me to play a job with my keyboard unplugged- that is, mouse only- it would certainly feel more challenging. But I wouldn't have fun. This is how I feel about DT BLM. I need to rely on everyone, good luck and swallow my frustration to get past some obstacles, whereas before it was 95% in my hands.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

snip

Precisely! While I do love team based mechanics and gameplay, (which is something they wanted to work towards), it feels like BLM with its limits is especially reliant on the team, and I think, personally, all content should be PF-able, since I think, while a static helps, the only difference is voice communication.

While I got off the point, yes, it feels like BLM's flexibility is built around worse tools (af paradox and thunderhead), which makes it feel more rigid as while you feel smart for using it in a creative way, it isnt as rewarding as it was in EW, since there's all these unintended side effects.