Dawntrail BLM | I'm so tired

[Absurdity]

Aside from BLM having a reputation for being the hardest job, I don’t recall it ever being played less than other classes.

It was played less than other jobs, at least when it comes to higher-end content, just like monk is played less than other melees.

But that's just inevitable, there will always be a job that is less popular, just like healers and tanks are never as popular as dps.

[Taranok]

I disagree. I'm a staunch hater of timers and found they didn't make the class better, they just made it abusable. Until shadowbringers, short lines didn't even really exist as well because the be-all end-all was simply more fire 4s, and transpose tech flat didn't exist. Sharpcast was turned from a button you just always used every 1m, typically for firestarters, to one you used every 30s, to one you simply used whenever you could because it was a godawful garbage ability to control for RNG on a class that long since stopped being a real proc mage. BLM was never defined by oGCDs, the loss of procs is meaningless. The loss of thundercloud is a nuisance, but that's the nature of bad dot design from a server perspective. I'd rather thunder was more meaningful with a real rotation instead of going back to the ARR-old janky and poorly implemented DoT design.

What is truly bad about DT BLM design is that the devs have homogenized fight design down to a point where the only way they can make harder content is to make mechanics faster, trickier, and require more movement. Which has killed caster design. They started this in mid-ShB, but this is the real issue. The devs hold cast bars in contempt.

All of your points? Mostly can't care less on. EW BLM was garbage design on a class full of major design flaws. But it losing cast bars is what's killing BLM. Everything else can be fixed by making BLM structurally sound and have a real gimmick. Cast bars being removed cheapens the game as a whole.

[Rithy255]

All of your points? Mostly can't care less on. EW BLM was garbage design on a class full of major design flaws. But it losing cast bars is what's killing BLM. Everything else can be fixed by making BLM structurally sound and have a real gimmick. Cast bars being removed cheapens the game as a whole.

While I disagree with what you said about timers, Personally I'm someone who liked the timer but can live without it my main issue was always the casting time changes, but I still kinda liked the timer.

But I do agree that cast bars being lost on Casters is a major issue, I feel as if fight design is unironically killing all and any interesting aspects about job design in general, but you can see the problem tenfold with casters as it becomes apparent that removing cast times (the thing that separates them from phys ranged) is being done for the sake of fight design. This is ontop of other aspects such as job design in general becoming more blander. To me black mage was most fun re-learning fights because of its cast times, added actual replay value to me.

This results in gameplay where only dodge the mech and learn the mech becomes important and jobs feel superficial.

[Carighan]

While I disagree with what you said about timers, Personally I'm someone who liked the timer but can live without it my main issue was always the casting time changes, but I still kinda liked the timer.

But I do agree that cast bars being lost on Casters is a major issue, I feel as if fight design is unironically killing all and any interesting aspects about job design in general, but you can see the problem tenfold with casters as it becomes apparent that removing cast times (the thing that separates them from phys ranged) is being done for the sake of fight design. This is ontop of other aspects such as job design in general becoming more blander. To me black mage was most fun re-learning fights because of its cast times, added actual replay value to me.

This results in gameplay where only dodge the mech and learn the mech becomes important and jobs feel superficial.

I agree, sadly this is fully consistent.

If you think about it, for a long time now:

* Melees have never really had to care about their limited reach much.
* Tanks commit only a fraction of their time to actual tanking stuff (taunting, shirking, stance toggles, defensive abilities).
* Healers commit only a small portion of their time to actual healing, and most of that is done as a weave between what you actually do, spam damage.

Nowadays if you want to see a lot of castbars for damage spells: Play healer. Which says all there is to say about this design approach. >.>

[fulminating]

I don't know that black mage can really be judged on its current state. To me it feels like they've thrown in the towel as with greased lightning and monk back in 5.4/promise, only this time it's going to be stuck as a failure stateless mess for - what 18 months? The best case scenario would be another miniature rework or flat enochian nerf in 7.3 so people don't have quite as long to associate it with free huge damage but, realistically 8.0 is likely the earliest we'll see the new vision for black mage.

Perhaps if you cast 3 spells of the same aspect in ley lines you'll get one kind of aether, 3 spells of different aspects for another and when you have both kinds of aether any combination of 3 aspected spells for a bigger attack.

[TheInsomniac13]

I keep seeing the argument the watering down of Jobs is to draw in more new players... I do not see it, In the past if I saw anything about FF14 it talked about how amazing the story is if I go now on forums or reviews a majority of them talk about how bad the current state of gameplay is, so I doubt that this will draw in new players.
Meanwhile old loyal players they already had feel now betrayed for there jobs getting gutted in order to appeal to potential illusive new player that may or may not stay.

All this do´s is boost player counts in the short term while sacrificing long term sustainability.
I for one will now renew my playtime and have given up on the game since the Dves made clear they Ignore the EN Forums while getting a very moderated view of the JP ones.

Honestly as I believe the Watering down of Jobs and current encounter design funneling player into Extrem and Savage content if they like it or not is simply because it is the cheap and easy thing to do, I am sure FF14 is currently in the same situation as WoW was a few years ago. The Studio holding all rights Sees is as an infinite cash cow that can be milked without investing any money back in and soo all we get is the cheapest shit possible. The end is the game keeps declining more and more till either enough people walk out for Squer to notice they have to actual put money back into the system for it to work... or it will be put on live support for the remaining Wales to be bleed dry.

Also am I the only one being bothered that the new player experienced tells you this is a Fantasy setting with your main Enemy being Gods and a Magitech empire while seeing countless other players in Space Suits taking selfies and crafter having metal arms on there back?

[Voidmage]

While I don’t really like the changes I actually warmed up to some of them.
I miss the longer cast times more than the timer for example and infinite firestarter is really good.
Thunder though feels awful and the aoe rotation is horrible, especially with the speed things die nowadays (a good example of potencies being adjusted for savage screwing over dungeon feeling).
The shorter leylines also feel really bad imo and make between the lines and the replacing of them kinda useless.


Imo I don’t think they should go back. Not because I don’t miss old BLM but because I think it has potential as it is right now.

Flare star has become a really nice feeling attack and I think it could potentially be a good compromise for the faster cast times.
Instead of long casts I actually like us “supercharging” a strong attack and personally would like more of it through the ice phase which I was forever annoyed at how unwanted it was.
For instance, imagine ice phase actually charging up flare for aoes or the ability to overcharge thunder in some form.
I think that could be nice for BLM and give it back the feeling of power and skill expression.

I was really disappointed with the changes but I am surprised myself at how little I miss the timer honestly.
The problem is really mostly that the sceiling of the job is at the bottom right now imo.

[Absurdity]

I don't know that black mage can really be judged on its current state. To me it feels like they've thrown in the towel as with greased lightning and monk back in 5.4/promise, only this time it's going to be stuck as a failure stateless mess for - what 18 months? The best case scenario would be another miniature rework or flat enochian nerf in 7.3 so people don't have quite as long to associate it with free huge damage but, realistically 8.0 is likely the earliest we'll see the new vision for black mage.

Perhaps if you cast 3 spells of the same aspect in ley lines you'll get one kind of aether, 3 spells of different aspects for another and when you have both kinds of aether any combination of 3 aspected spells for a bigger attack.

That is assuming 8.0 isn't just massive copium and actually reworks the job gameplay beyond giving everyone another finisher and some job-flavoured versions of role abilities.

Also while it could be the same case as Monk, it could also be a Paladin rework. Paladin was reworked mid-Endwalker as well and that job has basically not changed at all going into 7.0.

[TheInsomniac13]

That is assuming 8.0 isn't just massive copium and actually reworks the job gameplay beyond giving everyone another finisher and some job-flavoured versions of role abilities.

Also while it could be the same case as Monk, it could also be a Paladin rework. Paladin was reworked mid-Endwalker as well and that job has basically not changed at all going into 7.0.

Everything 8.0 could do, would still have to comfort to the 7.x and onward Encounter design so, I very much doubt that anything thy are going to do will silence the players that want Job design over DDR heavy encounter design.

[fulminating]

That is assuming 8.0 isn't just massive copium and actually reworks the job gameplay beyond giving everyone another finisher and some job-flavoured versions of role abilities.

Also while it could be the same case as Monk, it could also be a Paladin rework. Paladin was reworked mid-Endwalker as well and that job has basically not changed at all going into 7.0.

The reason I'm c/hoping it will be closer to monk with a full expansion rework than paladin is that enochian and greased lightning occupied the same sort of design concept among the several spinning plates they had pre rework. I'd like to believe the dps would be given more flesh later down the line, but we all know about summoner. Can't do anything but wait and see - it doesn't yet feel finished to me, but again summoner.