The (Possible) Shape of Black Mage to Come

[Eraden]

Also, Mao wants Fire and Ice AoEs to be worth castings again. Mao thinkings it was mistake to lower potencies on thems.

[Supersnow845]

Removal of enhanced flare was such a dumb idea

Who decided freeze->clip transpose->flare->flare->flare star->clip transpose->repeat

Was a good rotation

[Ferrinus]

I mentioned this elsewhere, but I think the removal of "enhanced flare" was an aesthetic decision first and foremost: since Flare is a big flashy important spell, it's weird for it to be weak by default and require another spell to charge it up first.

That said, I miss EW's AoE rotation, so I definitely want them to do SOMETHING to ensure that it's worth it to cast HF2 for damage (which would automatically make it worth casting HB2 to stance swap, because you'd want Freeze to fully, not just partially, restore your MP). Maybe if there was an inherent reward to spending umbral hearts one by one, rather than three at once? Or it might be possible to just play with potencies until it's worth it.

Off the cuff idea for the first suggestion:

* You get 1 astral soul, to a maximum of 3, whenever a fire spell consumes one or more umbral hearts,
* Flare Star unlocks when your MP drops to 0 as long as you have 3/3 astral souls.

Put together, this lets us delete the astral gauge, earn a flare star as long as we were able to cast B4 and a minimum of three fire spells, and use HF2 to earn a flare star during AoE. They'd still probably want to make F2, B2, and Freeze hit harder, though.

[Ramiee]

Removal of enhanced flare was such a dumb idea

Who decided freeze->clip transpose->flare->flare->flare star->clip transpose->repeat

Was a good rotation

This job was not play tested at all for DT.
"Wow this non-standard stuff players are doing is not bot like enough for our game let's spend all of 90-100 destroying it. We must do this to make this job easier for new players."
>Still got painful levelling
>Got worse more complicated aoe
>10x more punishing
>Remains lowest played DPS by a large margin.

Yep, job design team needs to be sacked and replace they are completely incompetent.

[AzaelOrunitia]

While I'm normally not in favour of bashing the Devs on the forums, it does feel like the person (or people) in charge of BLM this expansion did not know the first thing about the job... (Not that SMN got it any better lmao, what are they even necrotising?)
Like removing ice paradox made absolutely no sense to begin with I don't understand how this choice went through...
And how could they not foresee the massive issues that the removal of MP ticks would cause for leveling...

Honestly after this many expansions how a job could be released in such a state at launch is beyond me even though this is not a first.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

Coming back to this thread, I realize I made it in a rather reactionary state of mind and emotion, and for that I apologize. But truly, the class doesn't need to change. From all accounts, it's worked perfectly fine in the new savages and extremes, and really most of the complaints are about Flare Star's strictness, and thunderhead just being hot garbage. I doubt the devs would listen to the few fringe fools who want this class to be changed so drastically when it really doesn't need it. At least, I hope they ignore them.

[Lemuria]

Coming back to this thread, I realize I made it in a rather reactionary state of mind and emotion, and for that I apologize. But truly, the class doesn't need to change. From all accounts, it's worked perfectly fine in the new savages and extremes, and really most of the complaints are about Flare Star's strictness, and thunderhead just being hot garbage. I doubt the devs would listen to the few fringe fools who want this class to be changed so drastically when it really doesn't need it. At least, I hope they ignore them.

Hard disagree.

If BLM is going to have long cast times, it needs the payout. The problem is that you're constantly gasping for air in between rounds because mana regeneration is now contingent on a handful of spells. At high levels, this means cheesing the system with transpose, at low levels this means getting the royal shaft until you find another enemy and let your MP slowly trickle back in. From Thaumaturge to Shadowbringers it's a genuine slog, and that applies to any lower levelling roulettes you happen to be dumped into.

The thunderhead changes I didn't mind so much, saves me the bother of a cast time, but not being able to free-cast Thunder outside of that buff is ridiculous. It used to be a bonus, now it's mandatory.

The paradox changes are... just why? It was fine as it was, it didn't need adjustments. Now they've removed some of that identity, and utility, with nothing to replace it.

MP has always been more of a mechanical thing for BLM up to now. You spam fire, you switch to ice for MP regen, you rinse and repeat. Now it's basically limited to just a few spells which are forced into your rotation whether you like it or not. If you don't like it, you're on the slow regen. It can lead to some awkward moments and a complete readjustment of your rotations. Where previously you might have gotten away with a quick transpose between battles, you no longer have that luxury - with the MP regen from ice no longer as powerful you're forced to rely on the spells which just dump 10k mana into your pool. If you mis-time because you had to dodge a mechanic or ran out of trash mobs, you're basically drained for the next round.

So yes, it needs a drastic rework. At the very least to bring it back to Endwalker BLM where it flowed more freely and actually felt fun to play. This feels like I'm fighting my own character as much as the enemy.

[Supersnow845]

Hard disagree.

If BLM is going to have long cast times, it needs the payout. The problem is that you're constantly gasping for air in between rounds because mana regeneration is now contingent on a handful of spells. At high levels, this means cheesing the system with transpose, at low levels this means getting the royal shaft until you find another enemy and let your MP slowly trickle back in. From Thaumaturge to Shadowbringers it's a genuine slog, and that applies to any lower levelling roulettes you happen to be dumped into.

The thunderhead changes I didn't mind so much, saves me the bother of a cast time, but not being able to free-cast Thunder outside of that buff is ridiculous. It used to be a bonus, now it's mandatory.

The paradox changes are... just why? It was fine as it was, it didn't need adjustments. Now they've removed some of that identity, and utility, with nothing to replace it.

MP has always been more of a mechanical thing for BLM up to now. You spam fire, you switch to ice for MP regen, you rinse and repeat. Now it's basically limited to just a few spells which are forced into your rotation whether you like it or not. If you don't like it, you're on the slow regen. It can lead to some awkward moments and a complete readjustment of your rotations. Where previously you might have gotten away with a quick transpose between battles, you no longer have that luxury - with the MP regen from ice no longer as powerful you're forced to rely on the spells which just dump 10k mana into your pool. If you mis-time because you had to dodge a mechanic or ran out of trash mobs, you're basically drained for the next round.

So yes, it needs a drastic rework. At the very least to bring it back to Endwalker BLM where it flowed more freely and actually felt fun to play. This feels like I'm fighting my own character as much as the enemy.

Hasn’t umbral soul been reduced to like level 32 so you just press umbral soul to get mp back out of combat

[meie]

Coming back to this thread, I realize I made it in a rather reactionary state of mind and emotion, and for that I apologize. But truly, the class doesn't need to change. From all accounts, it's worked perfectly fine in the new savages and extremes, and really most of the complaints are about Flare Star's strictness, and thunderhead just being hot garbage. I doubt the devs would listen to the few fringe fools who want this class to be changed so drastically when it really doesn't need it. At least, I hope they ignore them.

I think complains before were totally fine, because nobody expected the savage tier to be that easy on blm's. Cant really talk for Asphodelos, since it was my first raid tier and I was still bad at blm, but I think past encounter had always parts that drove blm's to the edge, for movement resources(or even beyond with p7s purgation, time to cast scathe?). General opinion seems to be that this tier is just to easy and more than often you are forced to use resources not because of mechanics, but else you would overcap on them.
But now the question is more, was this difficulty intended or mistake and how will future content look. Also overarching critic still stands, that EW blm was far more satisfying to play.

[ElevatedCosmonaut]

But now the question is more, was this difficulty intended or mistake and how will future content look. Also overarching critic still stands, that EW blm was far more satisfying to play.

Yeah, if a rework were to happen, I would much prefer a reversion to EW's BLM, rather than something more in line with SMN's rework.

We have 7 years of BLM to go off of. Nothing drastic is needed at all.