My class was "put out to pasture", please tell me why?

[RheyIdol]

Hi I'm here to cry about Black Mage again.

Can someone please explain to me why these were the changes we got? How in the world did anyone look at BLM and think it needed a dmg reduction? I mean, surely there were numbers ran in the dev room right? Are we truly intended to believe these changes are to bring BLM "to Picto's level"?

I mean congratulations ensuring nobody will be accepting black mages into FRU groups, I applaud the systematic destruction if that was the intention. But we do understand that Black Mage needs to perform as well or better than Picto to be even considered for parties right? Preferably it does much much more damage to compensate for the fact that it does not have any raid buffs or the ease of play picto has?

But surely.... surely these changes were a mistake right? I mean, it had to be some kind of error that Enochians effect would be reduced. It very obviously needed a 1-2% increase, and yet the opposite happened. I am just, I am beside myself.

Also, why is despair instant? I like casting as a caster? And, now it completely changes the value of spellspeed in my gearset so i need new savage gear which i only have 2 weeks to get.

Please, please please just tell me why. I need to know, there HAS to be a reason for these changes, even if its complete nonsense.

[Exinias]

I know it seems like the opposite, but with another stack of leylines that's another 30 seconds of reduced cast and recast time, so more damage because more spells cast. If you don't use leylines then you're gonna deal less damage lol I think they added a 2nd stack because they realized when using mana font after flare star there's still like 4 seconds on leylines left. I guess they thought a 2nd leylines was the solution and also saw it increased their dps.

I didn't say I do or do not support these changes, just letting you know BLM should deal more damage with 2 leylines at 32% increase in damage with enochian opposed to 1 leyline and 33% enochian.

[RheyIdol]

How many more casts would we need to compensate for a 1% reduction? And then, go beyond that reduction, to do be doing much much more than picto like is necessary. I think at best these changes equal to a lateral if not miniscule increase in damage; a farcry from what it needs to be considered for endgame.

[RagiForzando]

Join the club friends. MCH, and honestly the entire phys ranged role has been grazing on the pasture for a while. Been trying to figure out why SE seems to refuse to change anything meaningful, hope we find an answer someday

[Turtledeluxe]

Yep. BLM has just joined a list of casualties. It's not the only reason I unsubbed but it is a strong one. I will not resub until 8.0 changes are announced and I suspect that wll mark the end of my time with XIV. BLM isn't unplayable obviously but it just doesn't sit right with me paying for a story I don't like, sparse content releases, and now my favorite job being rendered pointless and less fun to play than before. Maybe other players will accept all that, not me.

Only reason I can post is the free login campaign and I suspect privileges will end soon. Hope the devs listen to folks like yourself OP but i wouldn't hold my breath/sub.

Nerfing Enochian especially is just such a massive slap in the face, even with leyline charges.

Reposting this from the other thread:

@OP

At the time of writing, this JP forum users post has 40+ likes and shares many of your criticisms as well as some solutions. It's not perfect but it's the most popular post I've seen about improving BLM in a while. Try Google translate and give it a like.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6623255

[Taranok]

I know it seems like the opposite, but with another stack of leylines that's another 30 seconds of reduced cast and recast time, so more damage because more spells cast. If you don't use leylines then you're gonna deal less damage lol I think they added a 2nd stack because they realized when using mana font after flare star there's still like 4 seconds on leylines left. I guess they thought a 2nd leylines was the solution and also saw it increased their dps.

I didn't say I do or do not support these changes, just letting you know BLM should deal more damage with 2 leylines at 32% increase in damage with enochian opposed to 1 leyline and 33% enochian.

They added a second stack because losing half your ley lines because the class has to dodge from tower position 2 to 4 to 1 to 3 is actually awful, and the devs finally realized that ley lines' duration is longer than they give time to burst, because they designed around PCT's 5 GCDs and then moving on.

Only instead of realizing the actual problem (there's too much frivolous movement over an excessively large amount of distance and time in encounter design,) they chose to turn leylines into a driftless ability so you can delay it 30s to a period of null movement and get full uptime out of it, which is close to self awareness but missing the point.

[Lyth]

Don't worry, they nerfed PCT such that you can only bring one PCT into FRU due to the new LB generation restrictions. There's still hope yet.

[Taranok]

Don't worry, they nerfed PCT such that you can only bring one PCT into FRU due to the new LB generation restrictions. There's still hope yet.

They also nerfed all tanks by nerfing all-tank runs of UCOB/UWU. Such a goofy change they did.

[Carighan]

How many more casts would we need to compensate for a 1% reduction? And then, go beyond that reduction, to do be doing much much more than picto like is necessary. I think at best these changes equal to a lateral if not miniscule increase in damage; a farcry from what it needs to be considered for endgame.

It's difficult to fully equalize as it depends on the fight, but 100 casts at 133% damage ~= 100,75 casts at 132% damage. So not even a whole one more.

[Taranok]

It's difficult to fully equalize as it depends on the fight, but 100 casts at 133% damage ~= 100,75 casts. So not even a whole one more.

Also Despair is harder to understand, but they did boost Despair's DPS by ~19% after factoring in all buffs and the change in Eno-chan. Which, spread out over a cycle time of, very roughly, 40 seconds before looping, actually does come close to offsetting a 1% DPS loss. The math is weird on it due to how BLM expresses itself, but this change is pretty close to neutral even though it feels like a nerf.

The more interesting concern is that BLM was thought of as needing mobility help when it also just flat needs more damage.