Dawntrail BLM Media Tour Analysis - Disappointing!

[@javabird4168]

It kinda blows my mind they made these changes without addressing the leveling experience which has to be the number one reason people avoid this job in the first place

[@MitoRequiem]

Genuinely I would have been a BLM solo main if doing solo content on it didn't feel awkward lol, it feels like they are designing it to just do one thing for single target bosses it's strange

[@TobinatorTx]

Was hoping for much earlier umbral soul and maybe fire 4 at lvl 50 already

[@nonemitigation]

i've known more than one person who specifically dropped FFXIV because they'd start with black mage, beat ARR, go into heavensward and then give up after discovering they need to re-learn the job 3 more times before they're done

[@Scerttle]

Anything below level 70 (I'm sure a case could be made for below 80), BLM is a whole bunch of effort for barely any payoff. Having just recently gone through the process of getting all the jobs to 70 on an alt, I find it the absolutely most unrewarding job to level. They just decided to make that experience worse, apparently.

[@axylum4453]

@@TobinatorTx It's funny but sad seeing BLM still using fire 1 in lvl 50 content

[@SfiaPirion]

Watched this on stream and pretty much 99% of what was said was already coming out of my mouth, you just said it in a much nicer way than I can right now :) Great vid, really extensive and well thought out.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

Yeah Eksu was not happy on stream and was totally bewildered at how braindead these changes are. The Monk ones "kind of" make sense...as they are just forcing players to do what Optimal Drift was already helping players do: alternate Boot/DK, 2 True for every 1 Twin, Three snap for every 1 demo. Problem is, because of the ball system, you MUST do that and cannot adapt at all otherwise you lose potency (not spending charges). They changed monk from a dynamic class to one that is a "builder spender". He definitely took some time to carefully calm down and explain things to not be discredited as "angry guy ranting" lol. They've now done the very same thing to BLM: it's now a Builder Spender when it never was intended to be that way and was always dynamic in every single iteration of the job. There was never some "quota" of Fire casts that you needed to do, you just wanted to maximize your hardest hitting spells which were coincidentally, fire spells, before Foul/Xeno existed (and ice para). You now can be caught with your pants down in so many instances where you desperately want to get Flare Star off but cannot because of the fight, or, having to use F3 proc to maintain AF since your AF phase is heavy before flarestar, instead of the transpose into AF1 and then using F3 with the bonus. Thunder no longer being for movement and having less penalty as there's less dmg on the dot, more upfront (to be changed in DT), with no way to "stack uses" to get two "stacks of thunderhead" for double dotting is outrageous. They took something that was a flexible mobility skill if needed and just straight up said "no" but it is STILL a noob trap because people will still see it glowing and use it lol. No sharpcast means that you can't choose when to force a proc for a planned line. No mana from non ice means that you cannot use Xeno to gain back mana under this system so you must cast B4 when you could skip it before. Totally moronic.

[@chrislee5268]

Aren't you the guy on a cheater team

[@Jay-mx5ky]

​@marcusaurelius4777 Uh, black mage has always been the definition of a builder spender job since its inception. You build mp and polyglot to spend mp and polyglot, it's just dressed in a different flavor without mostly static cooldowns. In fact, every job builds and spends. The problem for the devs to solve is how to make building and spending engaging enough, and how to make it feel different from other jobs.

[@Nimoot]

@@chrislee5268 No. People all assume the high end teams cheat just because 'some' of them do... it's like assuming all Mentors are toxic. Get outta here.

[@evenaris-8008gg]

I only started playing Black mage in endwalker. I fell in love with it for its reactionary gameplan to your resources and boss mechanics. Im upset that my favorite job lost the reasons I played it. Im gonna be moving to pictomancer.

[@air_born_ninja]

word

[@anthony26812]

lol it will still be that way, yall exaggerating so much

[@libertylizard_]

Exaggerate exaggerate is all you ******* could say when healers and summoners suggested that the build they received years ago was not the 'foundation that would be added to' that you all tried to silence them with. Instead the former is a 1 button spammer that has a #strike movement following it. The latter has a gutted role that they couldn't even be bothered to listen to (player feedback) and slapped them with nothing but another Bahamut. Shut your pie hole. The company is doing EXTREMELY poorly on job faith right now.

[@atlaszeik9239]

Welcome to the ffxiv experience. We lost *a lot* since HW.

[@Scerttle]

Paradox being removed from umbral ice seems so ass backwards. Like... even from a purely superficial casual level... it's a fire AND ice spell. It's in the name. It's the whole identity of the skill. WHY?! It bugs me and I'm the most casual of the casual when it comes to BLM. Honestly EW Paradox is so cool and satisfying I was hoping they'd do an AOE upgrade to it.

[@Scerttle]

It blows my mind they both made the job some how more punishing to casual players and also alienating high level players at the same time. They managed a miracle of making the job unappealing to every skill level.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

The one time ice phase gets to shine on a damage standpoint, and they couldn't even have that. And now ice phase gets completely deleted and skipped every 2 minutes with new Manafont, so that the rotation can be even less dynamic

[@Y0UKN0WM31]

It's true identity is "cooler fire 1" maybe you forgot that lol

[@Jonesman64]

I too was totally expecting an AOE version, it made sense! Instead it gets removed from umbral I and we get a second meter to fill for an underwhelming skill to tack onto fire rotation...

[@kuronaialtani]

For whatever it's worth, you can only paradox with full umbral hearts and it's instant cast But I do agree that not being able to paradox in ice anymore is a shame plus locking everyone into a single way to play

[@tayloraves]

this video could not be more constructive. I've been so frustrated with the changes which has soured a lot of the excitement I've had towards an otherwise incredible looking expansion. I've probably been a bit pessimistic and emotional because of it. really glad to hear such constructive feedback from someone in contrast to how I've been feeling. here's hoping the devs hear us. awesome video ❤

[@Rubiquu]

They could've made 0 changes and I would still be really happy with the job. Endwalker black mage is the most fun fun job/class I've played in any MMO. Black mage was fun to prog with even when prog was slow because you could then spend time on changing up the rotation and optimise. I just finished DSR with blm and wow it was enjoyable. With these changes I'm not really excited for the job anymore, but I'll test it out nevertheless. Hopefully they change a little before release!

[@magamisic5924]

because you're bad. these changes are fine. You shouldn't have be fighting the server tick to get your MP back at all. That is BAD game design

[@Rubiquu]

@@magamisic5924 Haha sure thing, whatever you say bud. Im pretty dang confident in my skills at this point :P I disagree that mana ticks are bad game design, but lets look at some other options they could've implemented instead. They could have made it so that any spells casted while in ice phase regenerated a specific amount of mana, that would also still allow for non-standard. That would've been really cool! What they chose instead kinda butchered the freedom of the job which many enjoyed. I'm hopeful theyll change along the way because I really love current blm!

[@buriedghostlady]

@@magamisic5924 insane that people keep crying over the server ticks when it only really matters for super specific optimization, that the new changes fuck up anyways 😒

[@Yokai_Yuri]

The job is the same, they just removed the "fun part" which was some rotations with fire and that's it. 😂. You can live without ice Paradox and the mp refresh on server tick. The job plays mostly the same ans with manafont giving you full mp back you can do the fire rotation back to back. But the job is dead, right? 😂.

[@ich3730]

​@@Yokai_Yuri i mean, you perfectly describe the problem. They changed nothing besides make the job strictly worse. Beginners will still play like dog, veterans have been gimped. BLM has been made worse for everyone. Its like shooting someone in the stomach and when i complain about it, you go "well hes not dead right?"

[@EydisFFXIV-qn6zh]

Well said Eksu! Glad you were honest about your feelings on the changes.

[@starmiz1740]

One thing is the gameplay. Another thing is the class fantasy. BLM started as a class where you balance the powers of fire and ice but in DT you are just gonna be a Pyromancer with occational ice spells to chill out a bit.

[@Jay-mx5ky]

Unironically, you're kind of wrong about this. It's the opposite in Dawntrail, we're now casting more ice spells at a high level than we did in endwalker, with the exception of the full refresh manafont during burst.

[@leon3589]

@Jay-mx5ky You cast Fire, fire, fire, fire 1, fire, fire, fire, despair, with procs of fire 3. And then a massive fire ball. Paradox is half fire. You use two ice spells. 👍

[@Jay-mx5ky]

@leon3589 I mean in the general rotation, you're now forced to cast ice instead of being able to skip it. A lot of optimized black mages in endwalker had very low casts of ice compared to fire (especially cutting out blizzard 4 and 3)

[@sharmalqir4721]

i have mained BLM sense HW and done savages and ultimates with it, iv always loved BLM because it felt the most free to adjust and optimize and also rewarding for learning, thank you Eksu for the thoughts and analysis i appreciate it, i might have to look for another job to main now.

[@lashgnash]

go to your shitty pct and mald over still not having a battle rez and getting passed over for a smn lmao

[@angelnoa6327]

I have mained BLM since the end of Stormblood. And I'm only a standard BLM player, I don't engage in nonstandard at all. But the sum of all these changes is mixed, to negative. I HATE HATE HATE the removal of Umbral Ice Paradox. It felt like a great button to use, was very thematic, and useful with it's free movement. I hate the removal of sharpcast. I liked the BLM had multiple oGCDs that just affected how your spells were cast, and liked that you could use sharpcast on thunder or f3p. I HATE instant cast astral fire Paradox since you used to be able to do F3 -> 4 spells -> Paradox -> 4 spells -> despair and now you can only do F3 -> 4 spells -> Paradox -> 3 spells -> despair. This is such a huge downside to have to burn the f3p to deal with this, when non instant Fire Paradox already gave you flexibility in fire phase. I would sometimes clip t3p earlier if I needed a weave spot or movement, but now that has been made way more punishing than before. They really did just kill nonstandard, and made standard BLM less flexible and harder to play as well. Absolutely insane changes.

[@patrikbatemanx]

100% this, its not mainly that non-standard got killed, its all the other changes that are insanely bad and this has nothing to do with non-standard

[@marcusaurelius4777]

You DID do nonstandard if you ever used a Xeno to transpose into UI and then paradox, it's a baby transpose line, but it absolutely would have been nonstandard to panic despair into xeno transpose UI with a UI Para and Thunder III refresh. ;)

[@angelnoa6327]

@@marcusaurelius4777 yea small bits of nonstandard do just evolve as you play BLM and make mistakes, or when you realize you don't have time for a full standard line and you have to skip some casts.

[@hasseo195]

you could use the fire 3 proc after paradox, to refresh the timer a second time, to use the fourth fire 4. Pro: F3 proc would benefit from the 3 fire soul buffs to. Con: You would need to cast F3 in the ice phase. Or, can not use the proc by switching first to fire with transpose to have than the 3 fire souls.

[@zadayaz]

same here, ive been playing w blm as my main since when i started playing in post stormblood, and though i never played nonstandard (dont do enough high end stuff on content to need it lol) i love the class for the sort of dance you have to do balancing your enochain/dots/leylines up while dodging aoes, and how you sometimes have to adjust and deviate from just clicking buttons in a certain order to try and keep enochain. Non standard was something i thought was cool for just existing, that you could optimize the class in such a way. i dont want to be overly negative about changes i havent even gotten to play yet, but a lot of the changes seem to just remove any friction caused by the player trying to keep uptime and put the class more on rails, which ruins the fun part of the job for me :( I really hope I end up being wrong, but it feels so strange to me to make all these changes when the class has been at its basics unchanged since i started playing, because it didnt need overhauling at max level. if anything i wish they changed the way it plays at low levels because it bores me to tears even now (and if it wasnt the class i had started with i probably wouldve dropped it while leveling). Im just kind of bummed out because all the other dps ive tried playing over the years dont even come close and i find them just boring, and i dont want my favorite class to lose what i enjoy about it after playing it for 6 years now

[@ApolloYves]

the way AoE part made ugly cackle, like i dunno. It really feels like whoever did these "changes" to BLM doesnt really understand what feels good about playing Black Mage and just tried to fit it into a cookie mold. I still dont think this whole Flare star a good design choice. If anything, to saty consistent, Astral Hearts should affect Ice phase, since Umbral Hearts affect Fire. Maybe instead of a Flare Star it should've been Absolute Zero, a powerful nuke in Ice phase, i dunno. Agree with all other proposed changes, but also wish they buffed upfront potency of new Thunder so it is not miserable to use as a movement tool.

[@ich3730]

you know class design is down in the mud when i read a random YT comment with better ideas then 2 years of dev time

[@inarosthedad3565]

As a general post ill say this ive been playing the class almost exclusively since STB ive been going to savage with it on and off im not the best player not do i claim this however them removing hundreds of TP lines and any amount of freestyle flexibility the job has with its rotation dosent do anything to make the average player play it more it may make it a bit easier to "optimize" for the average guy but you can do that without taking away tools from the people who are already in love with it because thats how it already was in endwalker. People dont stay away from this job because of its "Complex rotation" standard is literally FIV FIV FIV paradox FIV FIV FIV despair congrats you did it you played blackmage at the base level which is what most people will do anyway and taking away optimization dosent make this any easier to accomplish all it does is make it boring for people who have done it for so long that they want to try another way to play it. There is no benefit in killing TP lines its purely a negative, if you allow experienced players to be flexible with the rotations it wont make the new guy any worse at doing the standard one that is indisputable fact blackmage will remain the least played caster in dawntrail and its numbers wont increase by any significant amount feel free to come back and shit on my grave if i am wrong because i will be flabbergasted if i am.

[@patrikbatemanx]

100 %

[@linhilde]

SE's efforts to marry the skill ceiling to the floor baffle me. Losing flexibility, adaptation, and adjustment ability hinders play in higher-end content; making things stricter, more rigid, more linear makes lack of freeform decision making and does not make the learning experience more welcoming; and by streamlining options, they're only trading complexity for tediousness. It is for this that I've been really unhappy with what was shown for AST's draws losing a lot of MP regen and the linearity creating more problems as a whole as well as BLM's loss of Ice Paradox, the Astral gauge restraints, the MP-ties to Ice-only casts, and loss of Sharpcast... :/ Here's hoping they'll listen to the people who care about the jobs they love.

[@Snug_ma]

The recent interviews with Yoshi-P where he talks about wanting to "strongly differentiate" jobs and "create a situation in which [...] there is also a sort of pride in playing a particular Job" in later patches/expansions ring extremely hollow when changes that are outright hostile towards any sort of emergent gameplay and player dedication, like these BLM changes, are scheduled to go live just a few weeks later. Given that their response to feedback regarding decreased job engagement across the board amounts to "We hear you, but we'll do it later - bear with it for now", it'd have been a really nice show of good faith from the team to put their money where their mouth is by, I don't know, not aggressively destroying what little job engagement and heterogeneity still remains in the game.

[@大-g4b5]

The class designer for SAM absolutely hated sticker dumping for more stabs, so that hostile reaction from people on the design team is somewhat expected and not really anything new, sadly.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

@@大-g4b5 Real. Deadass just DELETED Hagakure LOL. Only to realize that it fucked up the job and had to give it back begrudgingly, just like the fucker that took away Energy Drain from SCH xD.

[@zyzden]

inb4 Square Enix takeaway from this video: "you're right, let's just remove transpose altogether"

[@smolkahboom8552]

Just want to say thank you Eksu for taking the time to bring us this information :D

[@Envinyon]

Appreciate the thoughtful video. Glad you brought up that the leveling experience is gonna be worse now and then the new thunderhead system feels like a bit of a new player trap. I do savage raids with black mage, but I'm definitely not a top player. Pretty hesitant on progging with black mage again due to its more restrictive movement and overall lack of flexibility. I sometimes use short fire lines to ensure a good spot in my rotation during mechanics or buffs, and now I feel like there's no way to do that due to Flare Star. Will obviously have to see how it plays, hoping things are a bit different on release.

[@guffels]

I think it's obvious they went out of their way to kill non-standard. FF14 seems to just want all the characters always pressing the same buttons when playing optimally. Hits BLM pretty hard tho.

[@jimmorrison4ever529]

Agreed

[@wind_tempos]

it’s just absolutely unreal how 70 blm gets even worse unless they move umbral soul there. would solve everything

[@russpc9739]

Could've just let the mana auto regen in ice, as it used to... Who even approved these changes

[@thepoeticdistress_8713]

I was looking forward to BLM but now I feel like I’m gonna switch my mindset after this. Is this class even viable now with the rotation being that clunky?

[@nyaruhyodo989]

@@thepoeticdistress_8713 long time black mage main here just play picto, its black mage but better in every way, makes me depressed as hell to say it but black mage is now a dead job unless its buffed, because it is so much worse than picto

[@thepoeticdistress_8713]

@@nyaruhyodo989 I wish you would’ve replied sooner, I’m already level 57 BLM lol. Where’s the location of this NPC sounds new

[@thepoeticdistress_8713]

Damn, I’ve to hit 80 first on BLM since I’m new well damn it’s gonna be a hot minute then lol.

[@Sazandora635]

It's nice to see some actual criticism of the job changes out in the content creation space because I feel like a lot of creators are just being outright dishonest at this point for the sake of maintaining favor with the community over trying to actually get a problem noticed and acknowledged.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

coughWOOPS AND MR HAPPY cough

[@stormkeeper1741]

Or perhaps they don't actually have an issue because I see criticism all over the board for various jobs and job changes.

[@VallThyo]

@@stormkeeper1741 Woops literally said in his video that he didn't want any kind of criticism on his video and that you could only talk about the positive changes. lol

[@stormkeeper1741]

@VallThyo woops and Mr Happy aren't the only content creators out there, as I alluded to in my comment. Do try to keep up.

[@Sazandora635]

@@stormkeeper1741 There's criticism around, but I have not seen a single person who actually went to the media tour with impressions that came across as remotely negative.

[@somerandomdudeable]

Paradox doesn't make sense anymore as lorewise and visuals-wise it's a fusion of the Fire and Blizzard spells but you can't use it in Ice phase

[@jackjohnson8305]

They stopped caring about job lore years ago, look at SMN summoning primals and solar bahamut outta nowhere.

[@charliedaloon4831]

@@jackjohnson8305 Both of those things make sense in current lore.

[@teno777]

@@jackjohnson8305summoning Demi Primals is perfectly fine and very fitting. What’s boggling the mind is how they keep fester and upgrade it to necrotize. They removed all bio stuff yet keep this around and even upgrade it…

[@ich3730]

@@charliedaloon4831 So how is MCH going from gunsmith to mech pilot? How is nobody reacting to the phoenix summon, considering its the form of the twins dead grandpa? Why is the RPR spirit not mentioned in the void? Why is the party freezing in garlemald while my character, a BLM, can literally summon small suns out of nothing? The lore and flavor of classes went out a loooong time ago.

[@j0vian_796]

I just can’t get over the fact that they somehow made black mage more difficult and more punishing for new players to get into while simultaneously making it less appealing and more restrictive to the veterans as well. Nobody wins with these changes.

[@TobinatorTx]

How is it harder to play? It got great qol changes. No sharpcast management anymore, dot always instant cast, Paradox always grants firestarter. It got easier imo, also you can move leylines now

[@valberline]

@@TobinatorTx not hitting 6x f4 fucks you out of flarestar, thunder was overtly nerfed in total potency because of thundercloud changes, an instant was removed from ice reducing blm's overall mobility, guaranteed firestarter makes it more punishing to fuck up even slightly with a broken cast or slidecast in fire because your AF timer starts ticking down immediately instead of after you finish the cast bar for fire III going into fire, clipping your dot early with thunder - for example, to move - is even more of a loss than it was before

[@TobinatorTx]

@@valberline but the point is to hit 6 f4s or not? And overall the mobility hasnt been reduced, you lost instant ice paradox but got instant fire paradox, so mobility still the same. The thunder changes i can agree with, also the firestarter proc you get from paradox pretty much guarantees you 6 f4s, because you can just use it to refresh the timer, unless you're talking about downtime scenarios, then it might get iffy

[@naruto-kun-ub6yz]

@@TobinatorTx Mobility has arguably been reduced if you knew how to properly use transpose lines before. The instant fire paradox and guaranteed f3p and t3ps dont make up for that. They literally made BLM harder to play, but less flexible, less variable at the same time.

[@valberline]

@@TobinatorTx yes, the point is to hit 6 f4s. indisputably they made it harder to do so and more finnicky to do so because how instants work with your gauge timer. the average player, who these changes were supposedly meant to appease, now receives harsher punishment for bumbling a cast and loses out on their shiny new capstone as well as more situational, rigid mobility. guess who's more likely to accidentally move during a cast or put themselves in a bad spot and need to adjust for movement? paradox being an instant is a bad thing because with slidecasts or aetherial manip clipping or thunder refreshing, despair was already an incredibly tight fit without SpS and now it's even worse (because your timer refreshes the moment you cast the spell, meaning you effectively get 2.5 less seconds of your timer when you paradox now), and optimally you wanna be saving your f3p to transpose from ice into fire to f3p under af1 anyway (this is like, the most basic optimisation you can make with f3p) rather than using it just to extend a scuffed fire phase these changes, which don't benefit the average black mage player no matter how much people who don't play the job tell you it does, come at the cost of cutting out almost the entirety of what a lot of experienced black mage players found fun. the funniest part is that this doesn't actually entice that many new players to play black mage, since the main issue with getting into black mage was the horrendous levelling experience and not how the job played at max level LOL

[@PlazDreamweaver]

BLM's flexibility was something, I, as a sole BLM main my entire time playing, enjoyed. It allowed me to experiment with higher damage, non-standard rotations and gave me flexibility when progging. Both of those really help when suffering prog with slow-learning party members. Idk how negative I feel about the changes, except I do dislike ice pretty much being nonexistent yet its GCDs being required to regen mp. Also, the removal of ice paradox makes no sense and seems it will make BLM feel much worse. Black Mage is pretty much Fire Mage now. We'll have to see in combat how these changes will truly affect BLM. Regardless, my biggest problem with this game (outside of its community) is how little flexibility we have as players when engaging in combat. BLM allowed for that, and EW BLM felt the best it's ever been. I might actually skip DT. Not only because FFXIV is stale and casual leeches are ruining Savage due to the rest of the game's failure to prepare them for it, but also due to the lack of anything interesting story-wise in DT, as well as the same stale gameplay but with cut down classes. What reason is there to play DT when it looks as stale as prison bread and the screwed up classes are going to be "worked on further" in 8.0? Why not just wait until 8.0 to see if anything improves? DT looks awful so far. Yoshida is already full of himself due to all the worship he gets from his fanbase. But the success from ShB due to it being the only MMO that didn't shoot itself in the foot at the time seems to have gotten to him and his team's heads.

[@veggiewizard168]

terrible terrible changes from both thematic and gameplay perspectives. black mage design was so elegant in endwalker, having a very obvious and viable standard rotation, while having insane flexibility and customization to the rotation. having a literal fire 4 counter is so clunky, unnuanced design that removes all flexibility.

[@nonemitigation]

as a former paladin player, i know exactly what happens when a rotation becomes strict, and its burst forced into being longer than any reasonable burst window can provide. to this end, i'm excited for 7.3, when black mage is reworked to become easier than summoner! smile

[@brycemoose7026]

All ice spell will be instacast and fire 4 will be 1.5 sec cast and you'll only have to cast 3 times also thunder spells will be gone

[@timothy-josephvalles7668]

Great, so now my choices are Fire Mage or Bahamut Mage! 😅 Gone are the complexity of both my favorite mages!

[@peppermint7152]

I commented on the mana tick tracker not being necessary. This resulted in multiple downvotes and people telling me I was an idiot. We love Reddit. FF14's community is extremely ignorant and it feels like the dev team is leveraging that to cut the ceiling from the game. (Maybe to make balancing the job more straightforward?) I dunno. It's depressing.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

"FF14's community is extremely ignorant and it feels like the dev team is leveraging that to cut the ceiling fron the game." This absolutely 100% true. Just look at MNK, casuals are cheering for these changes, thinking it's much more streamlined compared to EW. However, the only core gameplay change they've made for standard rotations is literally just adding another True Strike and Snap Punch to the normal loop, but by removing the buff + dot they have lowered the ceiling SUBSTANTIALLY by removing Optimal Drift. It's honestly so frustrating to see because they're making these changes for people who don't play the job and never will.

[@libertylizard_]

The trouble is you all don't scream loud enough. If you do, nothing will save them from having to answer your concerns. Just look at #healerstrike on the forums. They have had enough of passive aggressive trolls telling them 'one button dps' is 'fun' and 'complex'. It is not. And not everyone plays ultimate. They aren't asking for 'dark souls' and whatever other hyperbolic rubbish that is used to shut them up - and you all know it. They want the sort of thing that MMO's once offered. Something other than braindead. I am fed up of reading how the game MUST cater for people who not only don't care - they have ZERO respect for any other view but their own. Then have the gall to accuse long term healers and MMO players of being 'elitist bigots' - just because they have a different point of view. It's starting to seem more like the world is Fascist than much else. Disagree with a casual who has no concern for others? -- You are told to 'quit and go somewhere else'. I am sure many of you have seen the posts. What it is - is flat disgusting. You aren't stupid. People used to handle more job depth in games TWENTY FIVE YEARS old. Suddenly even ONE dot timer is too much? Really? When Healers are stuck doing NOTHING for most of the instance? Please. The BS is out of hand. People need to start speaking up. Or there won't be a game of any real substance remaining.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

@@Spiritchuckpvp Nah you are wrong. They'll play it once a month for Expert Roulette ;).

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

@@marcusaurelius4777 True that LOL. Who knows, they might even bring it into an extreme trial... for 2 pulls, and then swap back to RPR/SMN.

[@vaan_]

of course it's not necessary, you just need to sit there staring at your mana bar so you don't accidently enter fire before the mana tick, very good game design

[@skittlestheninjapanda4823]

>.> I main Black Mage... I dont do raids or anything, but Black Mage is my main. I dont like the changes. I dont like that they took Paradox... if they wanted Flare Star, they could have had Despire turn into Flare Star once the fire gague was filled.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

Another false illusion of a new button, one of those types that will be grayed out most of the time, just like Xenoglossy in Shadowbringers

[@skittlestheninjapanda4823]

@@cosmosofinfinity true though I'm sure that a rotation could be found to use it.

[@Dharsi]

@@cosmosofinfinity Saying Xenoglossy is a "false illusion of a new button" is kinda wild o_o

[@marcusaurelius4777]

@@cosmosofinfinity ? Xeno actually has a core purpose for BLM wtf? It's a reward for keeping up AF/UI

[@Coaltergeist]

For the record, I'm not a high-end Black Mage player. I don't raid Ultimate, and I've only done a few Savage fights. I do NOT like these changes. I felt that Black Mage was in a spot that felt extremely free. You had so many options to kinda mold the rotation into something that fit the situation you were in. This added rigidity is pretty disappointing, but honestly not unexpected; one of the reasons I played Black Mage was that it was basically the last bastion of player optimization, like you said. I hope that they can revert some changes, but I'm not expecting much.

[@Scerttle]

I'm casual asf with BLM and I don't like these changes either. Who are these for?!

[@UTO7]

Same, not only does this make current black mage less flexible, but a lot of the skills they're removing aren't replaced until higher levels, making the leveling experience and older content even worse than it was.

[@Hi_howrudoin]

I think they should retain transpose ice paradox, and add MP on polyglot usage during ice stance… Also thunder should give mp as well… Make it so that at least transpose ice can go-> paradox-> thunder->polyglot and recover 8000 mana here

[@thibault7135]

that would be fun and fun is not allowed for square enix.

[@obamaorb7426]

The issue with that is, if you go into astral fire after this there's no way you'll be able to generate a full flare star which will be a dps loss. They've made it next to impossible to see any benefit to non standard blm which is just sad

[@Hi_howrudoin]

@@obamaorb7426 this is still better than losing the whole line in clunky situation. Hence why astral soul need to be able to carry over as well

[@shakeweller]

How do you even play the new BLM before level 76 lmao

[@MagiusNecros]

Umbral Soul is the new Dark Missionary

[@mthebubble6565]

@@MagiusNecrosit’s worse. Dark missionary sucks to be level 76, but at the end of the day it is a mitigation that can be circumvented by assistance from other party members. It doesn’t make the job downright unplayable, which is what blm suffers.

[@MagiusNecros]

@@mthebubble6565 Really got to love how they only design the game around level cap and don't care about the leveling experience at all.

[@JonathanFantasy]

transpose and cope

[@brycemoose7026]

​@@MagiusNecros the literal only part of summoners kit that that makes it somewhat engaging is locked all the way up at 86 it's crazy lol😂

[@zemperish]

Man you know this community is batshit insane when you gotta give a "negativity" (feedback) trigger warning

[@leo-demon-chimera]

😂 agreed

[@snsr1234]

toxic positivity at its finest

[@ishirutaekakura308]

mmorpgs elitists be like that, as far as I'm aware, WoW and FFXIV are the worse at it, with WoW just being slightly more worse.

[@ghozter1]

Name a better duo, fake positivity and ff14 community.

[@libertylizard_]

Most of the playerbase is legitimately mentally ill from what I've been able to experience across the servers/regions since the game began. It's more than a little troubling, when you consider that critique is given by those who want to see a game improve. The time to worry is when they fall silent. Which is the big concern with censorship and communities that dogpile on contrary viewpoints. The world itself is full of this sort of thing now. So it's not news. However it is ridiculous and should change.

[@henryb5947]

TIME TO PICK UP THE BRUSH 🖌️🖌️🖌️🖌️

[@solisimperium1203]

i agree with everything you said. Black mage isnt flexible anymore. that line is what stuck with me, cause its true. I hate how they are forcing this very specific rotation. Black mage actually feels less special now. Disappointing changes to black mage.

[@imcleo7631]

As a relatively new BLM, I just wanna talk a bit about my personal experience with EW BLM and nonstandard lines, for anyone interested... TLDR; killing nonstandard does not benefit anybody, only actively harms the enjoyment of BLM for those who like adding nonstandard lines to their normal rotation. The only reason to kill it is to force conformance of all players to a single method of play, bring the skill ceiling crashing down whilst keeping the skill floor mostly the same or maybe even raising it a bit, and remove any possibility of needing to think critically or be creative while playing the job. This entire expansion I've been working at learning BLM on the side (RDM main). I enjoy Savage/Ultimate content so I worked really hard learning BLM's rotation in order to play it well, even in high-movement scenarios, with hopes of taking it into high-end content one day. Recently I've decided I was gonna switch my main from RDM to BLM for DT, let me tell you why. Earlier this year I joined a DSR static and went as BLM. I put in lots of effort to learn some nonstandard lines, and I can safely say it is THE MOST FUN I have ever had playing any job in this game. Although they were difficult and awkward at first, once I got some muscle memory down I was shocked at how efficient and powerful they were. I worked so hard learning a nonstandard P3 rotation, practicing it both on striking dummies and in the fight itself, it was really difficult especially with the mechanics to think about. The first time I successfully did it in the fight without any mistakes was an amazing personal moment for me as a player, I was ecstatic really, it was so satisfying. Definitely one of my favorite moments ever in my raiding experience so far. And, to my surprise, the more I progged DSR the more some of that nonstandard muscle memory started coming out in other content. Just the other night I was running Lunar Subterrane and was having such a good time on the final boss, sneaking in some nonstandard lines when I saw a good opportunity -- once I even made a mistake in my fire phase (popped Triplecast when I only had F4 + Despair left) and with some quick thinking I turned it into a nonstandard line, using Lucid and my spare resources I was able to use the last stack of Triple to insta-cast a non-proc F3. Afterwards I was like, omg, that was so awesome. I saved a clip of that fight, a fucking dungeon final boss fight I'd done tons of times, because I was just really enjoying myself and thinking "I am going to miss this version of BLM so much if they do indeed kill nonstandard". All of that is a really long-winded way to say, nonstandard BLM brings me so much personal satisfaction and engagement from moment-to-moment, even in "easy" content, IT ACTIVELY BRINGS ME JOY AND FUN. The fact that it seems we're gonna lose nonstandard completely in DT really breaks my heart tbh. It's not like nonstandard was an easy way to cheese the job and do big numbers with no effort. It's not like the gains from nonstandard created a huge rift in damage/execution between those who could do it and those who couldn't. If anything, its gains are pretty miniscule, but it's super easy to LOSE damage if you don't do it right -- and regarding resource/movement management, it's one of those "just because you COULD doesn't mean you SHOULD" sorts of things. Skill expression, risk/reward, etc. Please don't kill nonstandard, thanks.

[@Yokai_Yuri]

All I learned from this is that you are trying so hard to sound and have people say "non-standard blm" 😂. You are crying about skill expression. They removed that a long time ago since heavensward. Stormblood was its last legs and yeah.

[@linhilde]

It makes me sad that the first reply on this comment has no idea what they're saying, truly ; - ; On the other, better, more constructive note, I wholeheartedly agree, non-standard hurt nobody and opened a lot in terms of player expression of their understanding with the game, especially amidst moments of needed adaptation and adjustment. Non-standard was a way for people to deep dive into scripting and studying a job beyond just doing the same thing on repeat. Single and Double Transpose Lines were the catalyst to me deciding to play a job that wasn't just a healer or mp-tank. Progging with BLM for Savages and TEA felt so satisfying. It truly is one of those "end of an era" moments. Especially with all the questionable choices made for these changes to Black Mage, especially the whole "no more ice paradox" thing. I hope this is like the whole "oh we're removing energy drain" ordeal and we still get to keep Ice Paradox anyways.

[@JasiuBC]

love your passion for BLM. Even if i understand like 50% of what you talk about xD Huge Win Video, hope that someone could make JP text for it and put into forum

[@SporePunch]

These changes may only hurt a relatively small portion of the BLM playerbase, but they benefit absolutely no one. Nobody gains anything from these changes, so there is only loss. I don't even play BLM and I hate this so much for y'all. Hopefully Yoshi P listens to you guys.

[@hockey1973]

THIS. I think this is the best summation of the changes I've seen thus far. Now I'm casual and aren't really that upset but I think your observation is 100% spot on.

[@MarcusMaybenot]

You haven't even played it yet and this is just one opinion from a high end player who's extremely try-harding the game in a way not even a small fraction of the playerbase is....

[@SporePunch]

@@MarcusMaybenot Damn that's crazy, maybe I just care about how this negatively affects other people even if it doesn't affect me. This is a net negative for the community and for the benefit of absolutely no one. It's reasonable for people to be upset about that, I don't get why you want to be a jerk to Eksu over it.

[@axylum4453]

I'm a casual BLM player and I hate the changes. Removal of paradox under ice phase defeats the entire thematic of the spell Removal of sharpcast effectively removes skill expression and optimization potential Removal of thundercloud which made thunder spells one of the most unique and fun DoTs imho, is now incredibly boring and streamlined And my admiration for all those crazy high skilled BLM mains who can no longer express their incredible skill in the way they used to

[@ekaylor4104]

I can only see this improving job balance, but hemoginizing the jobs to be more balanced has already gone too far.

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

I feel like SE should introduce something into BLM's kit that would allow it to perform well in cutscene-heavy ultimates, something that would "freeze" the UI timer once you use Umbral Soul with 3 hearts to allow it to seamlessly transition out of cutscenes. Boosting potencies was just putting a band-aid on the problem, and it will be ripped off in DT when BLM just feels terrible to play in Ultimates.

[@Ubermunki3]

They balance the game for the downtime and reupping of gauges. It’s intentional and people need to get over it

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

@@Ubermunki3 Apparently it wasn't balanced, since they decided to give BLM a potency increase as a result of their low DPS in TOP. However, this change did not address the root of the problem.

[@GregHealthy]

​@@Ubermunki3they should also balance it around what feels good buddy ❤ Being forced out of enochain cuz the boss is having some flashy CS doesnt FEEL good. So that should be improved 😂😮😂

[@vaan_]

@@GregHealthy you dont hear warriors whining about losing storm's eye in that transition (it's long enough that even if you refresh right as it starts you'll need to reup it before it falls off and tank lb3), or samurais whining about their initial slower gcd now that they gotta get their buffs back up, or dancers that they need to hit an unbuffed tech These changes aren't great, but complaining about having to re-opener is some spoiled shit that only black mage mains could come up with. Last time spoiled players whined that they didn't get everything handed to them (melees and tanks), we went from Eden's Verse to 4 raid tiers of massive hitboxes. Just cast the damn Fire 3, you'll live.

[@GregHealthy]

@@vaan_ But you do hear people complain. Who even likes stupid CS's that last too long.

[@itzyblitzy7013]

Great video but, I am heartbroken. This class was looking to be my main. I am level 68 and i don't even care to level it anymore. These changes removed everything I loved about this job borderline systematically. Manafont was cool. Getting a guaranteed thunder proc was cool. Getting full mana while casting ice spells in Umbral ice 3 was cool. Why did they get rid of all the things that made early leveling even somewhat enjoyable? Why did they kill nonstandard? Is there a good backup class to play since BLM is kinda dead for me now?

[@versatilemojo9094]

As someone who loves the class for its archetype i will always play BLM, it's just a shame it's losing a lot of its uniqueness and tools. I'm thinking the devs really don't know what they want to do with the class. I hope they really try to make this class feel better as time goes on, so i can continue to love the class, and i'll cope with the changes in the meantime. Picto looks really fun and flashy at least, and as an omni-caster i'll always have something to play for different purposes

[@auxxillary]

I absolutely hate these changes and I cannot believe they decided to make this job just another 123 finisher with no identity anymore.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

As a Monk main, I resonate with this more than you'd ever know.

[@auxxillary]

@@Spiritchuckpvp I have monk friends, im so sorry for your perpetual loss

[@HRFleur]

From reading the comments below and all the community feedbacks, I can see that only people who don't play BLM or at least don't play BLM in high difficulty contents think these changes are making BLM easier. It makes me doubt if people who made these changes ever thought about BLM in Savages and Ultimates, which is extremely sad. The only easy part is the 100% firestarter proc and thunder proc(and LL thing), but the other changes almost make these 'positive' changes negligible. Sadly a few top level BLMs are quitting this game on 7.0 due to the changes. As a BLM main, I'll probably keep an eye on the upcoming changes, but if it mostly stays the same I do consider switching to main another job, if anything can keep me interested. However, I highly doubt the new jobs will be as charming as BLM in 6.0.

[@hasseo195]

I see nearly only improvement with the new blm. Except, that missing ice paradox is sad (but it has now nearly no meaning, by how fast the ice phase is over, except, for movement phases like again Thal). And im a little salty about the thunder change (i liked it to sometimes start with lightning first, in addition did i liked it more, to shot a lightning ball first again the enemy, and not simply summon a lightning above the enemie). Instant Paradox help with casting. You has now more time, until you have to use it. Until now, was it allways a small pain, to watch your timer and decided, how much time you had left. And it feeled allways bad, when you had missed 1 second, to cast paradox (i started to cast it allwayxs around 6 second left, because otherwise was it to risky for me). The new ice phase make Mp recovery even faster now. I had it in the last few times, that i finished the ice phase to fast (B3 to enter it, B4 for the shards and than switching back) and had only around 6k mp recovered. I dont even see much of a problem to cast 4x fire 4 and despair, because, you can allways use the F3 proc, to refresh the timer a second time, if it is needed (and i dont even know, if i cast F4 4 times, i allways use despair, when i reached 1600 mp or less). I dont even see the problem to recover mp outside of B3/4, because, i needed in a neutral stance mit the dream skill only 2-3 seconds, until i had enough mp to cast B3. And while i was casting it, recovered the mp enough, to cast the next ice spell. The rotation will change a little. But that is normal. That was allready the case in EW to (and before).

[@chef416]

I am capable of playing BLM at a relatively high level, these changes are fine and people are making a big deal out of nothing for the most part. The only real negative here is the levelling experience for the job looks like it's getting even worse despite already being bad. The job has been streamlined sure, but we all know that's because the average current BLM player is only getting maybe 60% of the potential DPS out of the job at most, that sucks and I'm glad it's being addressed. Maybe these changes are capable of making that reach 70%+. I'll admit the better way of handling poor average performances would be to introduce mandatory skill checks at the end of each level cap that had to be completed before being allowed further progress. But that's not something SE has the spine to implement.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

@@chef416 If you consider yourself a "relatively high level BLM" and can't see the problem with the complete deletion of non-standard BLM lines, I don't know what to say to you.

[@chef416]

@@Spiritchuckpvp Non-standard while sometimes fun and interesting is undeniably jank and in 99% of cases is no more of a DPS gain than simply getting an extra crit or two. The changes made to BLM make it an easier job through QoL and a streamlined rotation likely to raise the average performance of all BLM players. If you regularly play content outside of a decent static you'll know that's something this job needed, albeit not as much as BRD needs it, but hopefully we get a rework for that some point during this expansion.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

@@chef416 That is NOT why the removal of non-standard is such a big deal. It was a source of rotation flexibility on par with MNK's Optimal Drift, to be able to deal with situations that had you moving more than usual, situations where you had to move during a fire phase as opposed to an ice phase, downtime mechanics in ultimates, and hell even downtime mechanics in savage. Making the job easier for 0 parse Larry with 15 interrupted casts a fight doesn't justify lowering the skill ceiling this substantially.

[@RichardRobles-c1h]

I feel like in trying to make the job rotation even more rigid and "straight forward" they actually made it harder to play due to the inflexibility. Which is hilarious. This almost feels like a SMN level rework. You can basically use a static rotation and just use xenoglossy and triplecast to move. The rotation is so standardized and basically when interrupted you just start over from the beginning which is exactly how SMN plays. Lose your place? Die? Hit a transition? If your demi is up, start from there and repeat from step 1. We didn't need blm to turn into smn 2.0. They seem to be oversimplifying jobs. Why also even bother giving thunderhead in both phases. You're not going to want to refresh it in fire phase if you JUST refreshed it in ice phase. This whole change makes very little sense other than to standardize the rotation so heavily as to eliminate any variation. Next they will give a third stack of triple cast or they will lower the cd of triplecast to account for the lean towards being in fire phase longer and ice phase so briefly.

[@lockheartmac]

disappointed is exactly how i feel, feels like smn all over again

[@chef416]

Yeah and then the SMN player numbers skyrocketed and it became the number 1 job for people who don't want to put any effort into the game, which is a LOT of people. Overall the SMN changes benefitted way more than they hurt. Think about it this way, getting a SMN in your roulettes now is a much better feeling than it was in the past because the skill floor was raised significantly, it's harder for people to grief you while playing a braindead job.

[@vaan_]

​@@chef416 "benefited way more than they hurt" If they released a job with a single button that did tons of damage, self healed, and self mitigated, it would be the #1 most popular job. Let's not use the lowest common denominator as a metric for "success". Because let's be clear, anyone who can only play as summoner is 100% going to trap every high end content prog party they're on. It's literal brain diff.

[@chef416]

@@vaan_ Probably not wrong about the 1 button comment, but they haven't done that and probably won't ever do that. All they did here was bring the skill floor closer to the skill ceiling, that's not a bad thing. They did the same thing with SMN, they might have taken it a little too far with that job sure but believe it or not there are still people who suck at it somehow.

[@stormkeeper1741]

Saying this feels like smn is excessive. The change to blm vs. smn isn't even remotely the same, lol. All they did was end non-standard rotation, not gut the class.

[@libertylizard_]

Sigh. Always someone with the disingenuous lies, trying for some reason to brown nose the devs and try and cancel any criticism. It’s not rocket *** science. The change to BLM is frowned upon so heavily because it’s MORE OF THE SAME, when looking at their sweeping simplification and elimination of any diversity in play. So let’s not all continue to pretend comments that suggest the reactions right now are ‘hyperbole’, are in anyway honest in their motive. We all get it by now. You’re almost too lazy to breathe and hate effort so much you’d make the gameplay a QuickTime event with auto-movement if you could. We’ve all become tired of the brainless babies trying to censor anyone who dares ask for a braincell being required. No more patience for being told we have no right to opinion, whilst those who dumb the game down to suit their laziness run all over the place. It’s been years. It’s enough. Time to shut up and let people have an opinion that differs from netflix watching whilst spamming 1 button.

[@shanzhe_xiv]

I really hope some of the changes you suggested make it into the final release build. As many other BLM mains have already touched on, the current changes by and large make the job harder to execute well due to thunderhead + extended fire phases + ridiculous manafont drift + no more nonstandard for alignment/movement, and hopefully they bring back at least some of the rotational flexibility that we're used to. As an aside, your guides + POVs got me from an absolutely new raider in late Abyssos to parsing 99s and clearing ultis this tier. I'm really thankful that this job has a bunch of people like you who care about making the tools and knowledge needed for opti accessible to anyone who wants to read/watch about it. I sure hope the job stays interesting in 7.0 and we're not all forced to become red paint eaters.

[@aerheart]

The biggest thing I'm worried about by far with these changes is the effect they'll have on lower levels. I got into the game relatively recently, and although I'm level 90, there is still a lot of content at the earlier levels that I haven't gotten the opportunity to try yet. It's already frustrating enough when the boss leaves, and now not being able to generate mana passively during downtime in all the Heavensward and Stormblood stuff is going to be so frustrating. I can't imagine players leveling black mage for the first time will be enthused, either.

[@ProfessorHeavy1]

Personally I never enjoyed BLM. That's a personal preference, I'm not going to say that BLM's existing rotation is objectively bad... because I can't. I just don't enjoy it and I don't play it, easy. But even as someone who hasn't, I can agree that some of these changes don't seem for the better at all, even if they intend on making the job easier for someone like me to understand and play. Mostly because it represents a larger design shift in rotations and abilities across all classes, and BLM's rotation was always the most "free" rotation.

[@rashash9954]

I highly doubt they will take any of these feedbacks in consideration, they over simplified many jobs up to this day and I really don't think they will make an exception for BLM. Unfortunetaly, the vocal audience in the game is the average joes, you don't see them on streams or youtube videos but they are so present on the forums and reddit, mmo players are aging and they just want something that is simple and works. For example according to FFlogs, MNK had the lowest melee representation from 6.3 to 6.5 and the main complain was the job is hard, look what they did to monk, now you can play it with your eyes closed. The direction they started taking in EW isn't very promissing sadly, let's just hope that next time they don't make BLM follow the ''Press the shiny button'' rule.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

Just look how long it took for them to do something as simple and obvious as revisiting dark knight's Living Dead, which had been a constant bane of people's existence since 2015. I guess samurai players will have to keep up their Kaiten outcry for 7 years before it starts to matter to them, alongside the healers and the summoners and the machinists, and now we black mages have our own personal protests to maintain too.

[@addiction4062]

​@@cosmosofinfinitydont forget healers getting more and more irrelevant for the last 2 expansions. its a shame since it seems the game is crumbling around square not being able to make anything profitable besides xiv so xiv has to be the most mass appeal game ever.

[@JetEriksen]

What do you think of the idea of Ice Paradox not only coming back, but also counting as an ice spell (if youre in ice) and thus giving 10k MP? This would allows us to skip B4 again since we dont have to use it to give us MP. Im not super deep in the sauce when it comes to BLM but this seems like an idea.

[@Duarte_GB]

Cool for sure but but it depends on whether or not it's worth losing the flare star since you won't be able to proc it.

[@nozelxo6514]

I mean you need the Umbra Hearts so you could be able to cast 6 Fire IV to be able to cast Flare Star

[@dale7326]

Flare star is for aoe, fire and ice is still worth for single target. The problem here that they remove enochian and add an punishing move that deal no real impact on a job require high skill celling already. Basically, turn BLM into flat mage

[@valberline]

@@dale7326 just because flare star has an aoe effect doesn't mean it's meant solely for aoe, you're supposed to use it after despair to finish your single target fire phase, but you also get it at the end of your double flare aoe line it's pretty much just "you just casted despair? you wanna cast it again?" and it's worth casting

[@Duarte_GB]

@@dale7326 it's literally your highest potency spell in fire, why would you ever only use it in AOE.

[@Cypher121]

A bit more mixed on the changes personally, though still leaning negative. That said, good riddance to the mana ticks, hoooly hell. As a sworn and loyal speed mage, I am so looking forward to actually having reliable ice phases for once!

[@oxymoron1891]

Only been playing the game long enough for the most recent raid tier and absolutely loved changing up what i did in fights based how it played. Trying to get in as many transpose lines/non standard lines felt so good. Now it seems like ill be just like reaper and be bored in a very easy rotation without any mix up :/

[@TheSerloks]

Extremely disappointed with the overall direction change. I hope SE walks back on a few design decisions to allow for more flexible rotations again.

[@sergel02]

As a casual player, I really liked ice spells visually and loved using Paradox in it. I’m so sad to see Ice phase shortened even more now, and I was hoping it would be expanded upon.

[@cameronstroebel3333]

"Then I hope you can find your happiness elsewhere" Tell them! 👏

[@aristaljunior]

The worst part about this IMO is that its not that hard to take it back to something that was similar to old BLM but still keep the ideia of DT BLM First just rollback the changes to paradox and proc spells (and skill tied to them), no one asked for that and i don't think it makes anyone happy Then just make flare start always castable after despair but it gains more damage the more F4 you casted in that fire phase , that way shorter lines aren't that punished anymore cuz you wont lose flare star you would just have it with less damage. And just make that any spells in ice phase gives you 5k MP independent of how many ice ticks you have, that way if you have ice paradox back you can always do ice paradox > Blizzard 4 and have full mana, but you are also allowed to skip weak ice spells to do some non standard stuff. I think those changes would: 1 - Keep the DT standard rotation pretty much the same 2 - Wouldn't be too punishing if you mess up your rotation 3 - Would probably keep non standard viable ( didn't do the math on this one so correct me if i am wrong)

[@TatsuMurasaki]

Casual BLM Main here. Most of these changes are fine with me, but two adjustments should be made. Ice paradox should never have been removed in the first place.. defeats the theme of the spell, and I'll miss the extra little explosion and timer reset. Second, and I'd argue this is just as important as putting Ice Paradox back, if not more, Umbral Soul needs to be adjusted in it's availability in lower levels somehow. Pre level 70 content as BLM is already boring as hell, but locking the mage out of mana regen is RIDICULOUS. Are you in a cutscene with Enochian ticking down? No umbral soul? Too bad, no Mana for you.

[@dale7326]

Paradox turn into Synopsis now...

[@SateLight]

i'm only a standard player, so when the changes to it was shown on PLL 81 i was seeing no problems at all, but now that i found out about non standard and a ton of people are complaining, the more concerning the changes looks. I'm guessing YoshiP only wants BLM to play standard rotation all the way.

[@hhmpkr]

I agree with a lot of the concerns expressed there and I hope they consider at least restoring Ice Paradox. With the changes to MP recovery, it's simply unacceptable to keep Umbral Soul above level 70. The potency ratio change for Thunder also feels weird when they're trying to make the job more approachable. Clipping your DoT becoming more punishing in DT sounds like the opposite of what you'd do to achieve that goal. Something I'd like to see in the final adjustments for the expac launch is Flare's potency adjusted so that players can consider it in single target situations to shorten AF lines according to the encounter (boss about to jump/die like you mentioned or simply for better alignment with certain mechanics in upcoming raids). And, regarding Manafont, a cooldown reduction would be really nice. Concerning the examples of cutscenes and transitions you mentioned, I wonder if holding Manafont to do a Fire reopener in such cases could be an option and if a cooldown reduction to 110s or lower would make that an even better way of approaching those situations.

[@Darkpentagrams]

Look at how they massacred my boy...

[@marcusaurelius4777]

They hit monk and astro with this bs too. Took choice and flexibility away for no reason. Blm will be harder ironically because it lost flexibility. If you ever used xeno into transpose before fire was over after a despair into paradox etc.. Congrats u did something simlar to those elitist raiders you are jealous of.

[@goropanckechi3028]

what flexibility did AST got in 6.x ? oh yeah nothing LMAO. you either play cards for RDPS or for your astrodyn AST is not even ''flexible'' RIGHT NOW.

[@Envinyon]

@rickmel09 monk has two different rotations and several different openers you can use depending on how much you want to optimize

[@marcusaurelius4777]

@rickmel09 No. Clearly you are casual and a fool. Optimal Drift allows you to enter your burst with the correct GCD so that you can never run in to the issues the standard rotation has for MNK where twin and demo might fall off or get clipped early, so you adjust the rotation depending on when you are entering 2mins with different Brotherhood windows. You also could do Double Solar to move Phantom Rush into 2mins if it would net you a cast of it and push the other two blitzes to odd windows. Clearly you don't optimize and just hit w/e buttons you want in Expert Dungeons only and then AFK in Limsa like a bot.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

​@rickmel09 ....Look up Optimal Drift. Endwalker Monk had possibly the most flexible rotation in the entire game if you knew how to utilize Optimal Drift. To vastly oversimplify, Optimal Drift is maximizing the amount of Opo-opo GCDs you use while minimizing the downtime of or early clipping of Demolish by no more than 1 GCD. You do this by spending your Formless Fist proc after your opener on either an opo-opo GCD or Demolish instead of forcing a Twin Snakes like in the looping rotation. This throws off the normal loop and it makes your 1 minute and 2 minute burst windows different each time depending on the duration of Demolish in relation to the cooldown of Riddle of Fire. For example, after a Double Solar opener using Optimal Drift, your Riddle of Fire comes up after you've refreshed Demolish 2 GCDs prior, so you double weave PB + RoF after the next Twin Snakes to go into a Lunar, spend the FF proc on an opo-opo GCD, then TS into a Demolish refresh. But for the 3 minute burst window it's different, RoF comes up during Snap Punch 2 so you go through another loop into your Demolish refresh into an opo-opo, then you PB into a Lunar. This means it's much more flexible than the looping rotation since it isn't as concerned about having a fixed sequence of moves going into a burst window like the looping rotation does, meaning it accommodates downtime much more easily. Optimal Drift lets MNK have amazing flexibility for it's rotation and is what basically every MNK player worth their salt uses in Savage and Ultimate, there are whole 26 google docs written on MNK optimization in Ultimates because of how much freedom there is. And it's gone, recall what I said, Optimal Drift is reliant on the duration of Demolish in relation to the cooldown of Riddle of Fire.

[@obamaorb7426]

Astro had been going downhill for years to the point that in EW you had next to no control over your cards due to losing tools like sleeve draw

[@spiceekimchee931]

Great video, very insightful and the information is well explained and informational

[@Wanderingplayer227]

Black mage was the only DPS class I enjoyed! And of course they killed it!! No flexibility wth! Why do MMOs always go down this path if simplifying things and try to make something appeal to the masses. I dont agree with the mindset of making things easier for everyone. And actually BLM is not gonna be as good now because they killed non standard and you cant even make a rotation that fits with your playstyle or needs for a fight now so dumb. This sucks so bad

[@evangel1460]

Because people are stupid. When people pay monthly they expect to be able to do "everything" nowadays, which is not how an MMO has ever been. ESPECIALLY an mmo rpg. There are now 4 magical DPS in the game, if you could not find 1 you liked (which is crazy, since the spectrum was so broad, even after they totally killed SMN which was disgusting) you could play something else. And since YoshiP and the devs are so anal against DPS meters (in a game that has DPS checks) they shouldn't even care if most BLM players suck and do low damage. At the end of ShB, during the platform boss, I got a 95% (not amazing, but I was a very casual BLM player at the time) parse just by doing standard and I think 1 little trick with a transpose when I saw I could get something better out of it, THAT'S IT. In this game with so many casual players the standard rotation is almost always gonna be the best for 99% of players because they are casual joes. The crazy fun stuff of BLM was left for high end users and it wasn't required of anyone, or so the developers claim because remember there really shouldn't be DPS checks. It's disgusting, the only good thing about these changes is that since BLM is such a popular job on JP and they read so much of those forums, it will probably get some sort of quick fix, but until then, the job is fucked like so many jobs before it. (I rant like this because I was a healer main for a long time, and FF continually shits on or doesn't allow healers to have literally any fun with damage. They get NOTHING, just screwed which makes no sense since so many things can be healed through purely ogcds now. I mained SCH for the last 2 xpacs and it's insane that they will not give us anymore damage or fun buttons to hit, but keep ED in the game, which punishes you for healing which they seem to hate. So they remove the complexity from DPS players who deserve it, fuck over healers and keep it boring for them. So who is the fucking game for?)

[@VinceKv57]

As a BLM Main Specialist since 1.0 to now, from doing normal content to Savages and Ultimates. I picked this class from the beginning due to the complexity and the uniqueness of how this job plays around it’s what truly makes this job so worth it to play. (It keeps me busy always) But I truly have to say this is gonna have lots of issues. It has its Ups but it truly has lots of downs. BLM already has issues in lower levels due to casting time but you can manage to play around with it. These are the things I can see can cause issues or just really doesn’t make sense why been removed when they actually where fine in the 1st place. 1. Removing Paradox from Ice Truly kills the whole purpose of paradox being the combination of fire ice. Paradox in ice really helped to maintain damage potency on the ice stage. Also help a lot when moving around and having it as an instant also. 2. Removing Sharpcast especially for thunder progs also can cause issues in the lower level dungeons Allowing us to have more mobility. 3. Depending on Ice Moves to regenerate is really gonna make things way more complicated for newer black mages, because I don’t see how people were having issues with the ticking to regenerate mana when all you need to do is to use one 1 Blizzard 3, 1 Thunder 3 and 1 Blizzard 4 to fully regenerate Mana. Now you have to be aware that if you finish your opponent or any mobs in fire stage and you have no mana, And you have to be fully dependable on ice moves to regenerate. This is going to be a big issue, especially in any lower lv dungeon raids or alliance where you do not have Umbral Soul available to regenerate mana. So if you accidentally finish the mob in a fire stage and no mana Which this gets to happen a lot especially on new players playing BLM, this will cost a lot of issues. 4 . To clarify to those who do not play BLM or for those who play normally and casual, because high Content players will understand this very clear. But one of the true difficulty of BLM At any level of content, you really need to know your fight by almost my memory to fully have a great potential and successful DPS because this is what truly helps black mage To get to their positions. Even though after level 80 level 90 if you calculate things correctly BLM has a great mobility With all the Instance progs you can get. (Trust me at Lv 90 in good moments I have thrown 16 Instants in a row if things goes my way when pulling with tanks) and using a Swiftcast with Ether and 1 Triple cast and connecting your Polyglots timer and having your instants on hand with sharpcast you can do this. You can cast 4 Flares, 4 Fouls, 3-6 Thunder 4 Instants, 1 Fire 3 instant and Ice phase Paradox, Still having another set of Triple cast you have 3 more instants attacks. Now have to rethink how to do all this after all this changes. 5 . I feel a little disappointed of how such a level 100 move Flare Star only have 350 potency on first enemy and 60% less on the rest. Xenoglossy still being Higher 880 potency and being an easy instant same as Foul being AoE is 600 of potency, but Flare Star requires a build of 6 Fire 4 for such low damage. But over here in PICTOMANCER have lots of moves of Potency of 780 AoE or with the canvases move there’s one called Winged Muse has a potency of 1,000 on 1st enemy and 50% less on the rest. Another move called Mog of the Ages that does 1,100 potency and another move called Retribution of the Madeen that does 1,300 whopping potency. Not trying to hate Picto cause it’s a class I’m interested to try out but come on!!! I could had expected more Damage Potency on Flare Star for being a LV100 move. 6 . Removing Enhanced Flare Out of Fire 2 it truly did not make no sense to me. Because of this reason, it really makes me want to use 3 Fire 2 To take the full benefit of the Umbral Hearts and then throw a Flare that is enhanced with a potency of 280. Now there’s no point in that. Also very awful that they drive the potency of Blizzard 2 and Fire 2. Gonna finish this cause I know this is going too long and only a few will read it But I hope it gives you a pinpoint what’s going on. Because I know Moving from level 90 to 100 we can find ways to adjust things. It is just making it so much difficult on the lower levels. They’re making it even more restricted. Is killing the uniqueness of what BLM has and all the possibilities of rotations that they can do. Hope it helps to clarify some stuff! Valentine Nocturne Crystal/Diabolos

[@dirademb7060]

I only skimmed this comment but noticed you talked about the Potency of Flare Star. #1) Potency adjustments are always possible before launch. Those are the easiest things for SE to tweak whether it be at launch or in 7.11 #2) The 350 potency is before Astral Fire is calculated, which means it's actually a 630 potency action (10 potency higher than Despair) as Astral Fire 3 adds 80% damage to fire spells.

[@VinceKv57]

⁠@@dirademb7060 ahh thank you for clarifying this! Appreciate that feedback and good information to know more of Flare Star 👍🏻 that’s more better now than just thinking of just being 350 only. Wish this was better clarified in the Bio of the Attack.

[@FFXIVMomo]

Yap yap yap Fire IV yap yap yap Despair yap yap yap Flare Star yap yap yap Job Change

[@dreamelemon4558]

LOL

[@KanetsidohiKanotoush]

I've watched several videos trying to understand BLM changes, and how they're going to affect how I currently play, and it's getting sadder with each one I'm a very, very casual player but I thought my time playing FF14 would be longer than just a year when, after several tries, I finally found a class I actually enjoyed, however it seems such iteration it's not going to last, it's very sad Edit: I hope BLM gets better or fixed for you because as a anonymous player, I can just leave but content creators are terribly impacted when the games they make content for, goes on a tangent, and sadly, I've already seen that more than once

[@versatilemojo9094]

I'm curious if the Balance will run with this general opener or if the opener will involve 2 triplecasts and a swift. I think this opener is good especially with the 20s raid buffs now, and saving a triple for movement is ideal

[@justmarsol]

Honestly these changes have really taken away a lot of my excitement for dawntrail as a BLM main, not only have they made BLM more rigid but they have also made BLM immensely more punishing in high-end content especially ultimates which I'm sure those complaining about the jobs complexity aren't even running so who were these changes for then SE? Sigh, thank you Eksu for another great video, completely agree

[@Redwolfxx]

Easily one my Fav BLMs streamers! Hope you been well Eksu :D This dude easily one Best of the Best casters!

[@sm7467689]

I liked using ice Paradox on low hp enemy for last attack it was satisfying and feel smooth casting long ability on low hp enemy was annyoing so I liked EW blackmage

[@Nightwolf739]

They took Summoner from us in EW reducing it to pressing only 2 buttons more than once a minute and after making all the veteran summoner players jump ship they take blm from us. So sad man.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

You're telling me that the HEALER gameplay doesn't suit you?

[@libertylizard_]

Judging by the dev feedback they think healers are fine lol. We’ve debated this to death on both sides of the world and at this point we’ve concluded that a:) there is no dedicated heal dev b:) that a vast amount of devs feel that more than one button is too stressful a dps rotation for your average crybaby and c:) that it’s nice and cheap on dev time and resources if they keep it braindead. The game is too old to really expect them to pull their finger out and make significant changes on the level of reversing the utter gutting they gave the the jobs after the Heavensward days. Sadly what we have is likely all we’re going to see and the glory days are long gone. As soon as a more modern wow replacement drops I think most of us will be gone. Telling people who want a ‘challenge’ that all they get is ultimate. Where effort there is mostly player schedule and not the content. Add a 99% otherwise faceroll game on top and it’s really just taking the p*ss. I’d be surprised if Yoshida has much goodwill left with the original crowd. Not that he cares at this stage of course. Whatever the game is marketed at now, it isn’t the MMO enthusiast.

[@DieKao]

lol, new SMN is fun. The only thing they fucked up was giving us a shitty vfx skin in DT and nothing else.

[@sneaky7615]

I bet that after people give DT BLM a try they will go back to RDM or SMN anyway (if they're not interest in Picto) Long cast time is what turn people away from the job it's more punishing compare to other caster when you try move away from mechanic.

[@ATOMiiCChicken]

The long cast times is what makes me enjoy it, it feels like you're doing something after each cast. I find playing the range dps boring because you click the button and forget about it, my friends are the opposite though they all hate casting

[@jpsailorallaboardmatey461]

Hey @Eksu Plosion, what is the glam or gear you are using in most your videos? With the fox mask and the robe? It’s so awesome.

[@EksuPlosion]

@@jpsailorallaboardmatey461 the hat is the Warg Pelt of Casting from the Grand Cosmos lv 80 dungeon. The chest piece I'm not sure which one you're referring to, but usually I'm using either the fat cat hoodie (which I think is mogstation) or the ivalician oracle coat, from Orbonne Monastery

[@PE2RO]

I'm BLM main since Heavensward, and since the DLC came out I am so bored of BLM, no more non-standard opener/rotation, the class is monotonous as hell and holds your hand so hard to the point that the only way you can lose your astral/umbral stance is by dying, getting a refresh with an insta paradoxe that gives you a 100% chance of F3 proc, getting anothet refresh with manafont and another free paradox + 100% F3 proc, its crazy how they hold your hand and there's any chance for you to have fun anymore and try to optimize with non standard things.

[@asdsad17]

lv60 blm just got a massive nerf. massive.

[@cosmosofinfinity]

The glory of Heavensward black mage status quo survived too long for their liking. They are ashamed of that era when the jobs had unique complexity, every last trace of it must be purged. What I hate about their job designers is that they feel the need to pluck abilities, not just from the current levels, but all the level ranges prior too, making their kit feel so much more wanting and emptier for it. I understand higher levels of kits drifting away from certain abilities, but why do the old level ranges' content have to suffer for it too? Why can't it be left there, where it is still fun and much-appreciated complexity? They can get rid of those abilities from later levels with a trait like they did with Enochian, instead of literally removing the action completely. I still miss turning on Enochian... Maybe there's no room for it NOW, but there certainly is in that era of content where it was first introduced.

[@ProfessorHeavy1]

@@cosmosofinfinity I don't entirely disagree with their mindset of removing *some* complexity from that era because it wouldn't hold up sooner or later, but it came to around post-Shadowbringers when they just kept going and going. They went somewhat overboard from that point onwards.

[@user-xl5kd6il6c]

@@cosmosofinfinity Don't make me cry I will not play this expansion, it will be the first one I don't. The combat in the game has never recovered since HW, I feel like they achieved a fun game at the time by mere chance My main is healer btw, healers have never been fixed. Not only healing became boring, there's no DPS complexity to it anymore. I at least had BLM until now that I considered dynamic and still fun

[@dood52751]

​@@user-xl5kd6il6chave you seen the healer strike going on the forum?

[@lashgnash]

@@user-xl5kd6il6c Bye. See ya never loser.

[@MyChannelsNameIs]

I laughed out loud when you showed the actual better aoe rotation using transpose and leaving out high fire/blizz 2. How much more evidence do we need that square enix no longer understands the inner workings of their own combat system?

[@libertylizard_]

Well of course they don’t. All the old team that made the game into its HW peak are gone. Some went to FF16 development but others simply moved on. It’s an older game so of course it’s not getting the dedication it once did; but the jobs are horrific now. Worse than MMOs 25 years ago if you take into account their shoddy net code as a trade for the little bit of eye candy. To not even have a dedicated healer dev on a game that once was trinity oriented and not people clearing end game content without one, really just shows what the game is moving towards. It’s debatable if they consider it an mmo anymore.

[@marcusaurelius4777]

Emphasizing the problem: Let's say you can't get off six fire IV's before a boss goes: You lose flare star. There's nothing you can do to prevent this. You can't swap to ice, you lose the astral hearts. You can't regain mana...you need to swap to ice. You can't maintain AF, it will drop. So if there's any downtime, you just basically have to PRAY that your rotation works out so that you can dump Flare Star. Everything needs to work around it, instead of the exact opposite that we have now with BLM. So basically, DT BLM is all about dropping Flare Stars because you want to end a phase on Fire Phase basically, and you can dump a despair and swap to Ice but then you NEED to hit ANOTHER ice spell to get mana. Fortunately, it seems like Umbral Soul can do this just fine so you don't, thank god, need a target otherwise you'd be mega boned.

[@scaper12123]

As a BLM main who's only recently begun to dip into the more interesting things you can do with the class in EW, these changes are extremely disappointing. It isn't even for the loss of non-standard rotations, but the fact that lv100 BLM now requires a perfect Fire rotation to play optimally. Any missed casts for any reason - mis-timing my first cast that gets canceled by movement, moving from an AoE and forgetting to triplecast, etc - will mean a very sub-optimal rotation because of that missed Flarestar. Before this, if I messed up my rotation I could at least take solace in slapping my Despair on my target anyway. I feel like they've attempted to make this class more straightforward for accessibility and accidentally made it less accessible.

[@stormdrain23]

I am really trying to understand WHY they felt the need to rework the job like this? Other than the leveling experience being bad, I felt really good about where BLM was as a job especially at cap. This seems like such an unnecessary set of changes to make

[@preshrunk_cyberpunk5479]

Its quite disappointing that "non standard rotations" would be punished. the game is already such a theme park mmo, why does even the order in which you use skills need to be on rails as well. Makes me want to spend my free time playing City of Heroes more tbh...

[@AnActualRealPotato]

I loved my paradox rotation, and now its pretty much impossible because you need to hard cast a lot more now. Not happy :( Extra bad because I was planning on maining black mage in the MSQ for Dawntrail, that plan is now down the shitter

[@Luvias0415]

I already hate it

[@ATOMiiCChicken]

I'm a BLM main since ARR but now I'm starting to reconsider don't like the direction this is going in

[@mongie]

tysm for making this.

[@stevemitchell4663]

wow levelling blm to cap is going to be so much more ass now and removing paradox from ice is simply confusing.

[@xXLordYggdrasillXx]

Overall a very level headed and thorough analysis. Even as someone who was not super big on non standard gameplay, I feel like some of the changes need to be fixed asap. Umbral Soul at a lower level is an absolute must have. Lower CD on manafont to combat excessive drift issues is also a high priority. Ice paradox should also stay as its a very nice feeling skills with great lore implications, offers good flexibility for our ice phase and would fit right in with the guaranteed firestarter proc to make the AF1F3P a very smooth part of the rotation. With these three easy changes alone I would honestly be pretty happy. Yes we lose some flexibility and I feel for people who really liked to min max the boundaries of non standard, but the job would still be fun for the vast majority of players imo.

[@obamaorb7426]

What im wondering is, do the paradox changes mean that fire 3 procs will no longer exist prior to lv90? Or will fire 1 also guarantee a f3p?

[@aka_Iron]

I haven't seen anyone talk about f1 changes so I assume the 40% proc rate stays the same

[@DatGuyChucky]

If Eksu has a million fans I am one of them. If Eksu has ten fans then I am one of them. If Eksu has one fan then that fan is me. If the world is against Eksu then I am against the world.

[@atheist101]

Blm was my main but I dont think it will be anymore. At least not until some things get reworked. It's pretty upsetting to me but I'll give it some time

[@RyuNoZero]

looking at all this Media Tour Stuff I only have one thought: *WTF WERE THEY THINKING!?!?* like.. why did they remove Umbral Paradox!? but I'm as a SAM Main also not happy with those changes.. and Monk not getting 100 Fists at lvl100 Are they serious!? I guess DT stands for DumpTruck or Downtrail :/

[@Lily-cn1bp]

I really hope someone from FFXIV team watches this, honestly both ast and blm got gutted

[@gooman2]

I hope the job is still fun for you man! Assuming you're not allowed to add more buttons to the kit, what kind of text file changes would you make for the job to click better with you? (Potency distribution, cooldowns, lvl unlocked, etc)

[@Enis1198]

The changes on paper almost feel like someone on the battle team came to the discussion table and said "they're doing this anyway so let's lean into this" while either not being cognizant or just not caring about alternate lines of play. I'm really hoping that, especially if its on JP forums, there's enough dissent about these changes to have the restrictiveness walked back. I play black mage because I get to have agency in my gameplay and I feel rewarded for that and these changes really don't seem to be respecting that agency that this job has...had.

[@gjet35]

The change to Thunder as a whole is just another nail in their seemingly never-ending war against any DOT's of all kind. They seem to be very adverse to DOT's existing in the game whatsoever and want them to have as minimal of an impact on rotations and Jobs as possible, which I hate. I just want a fully DOT-based Job like old SMN back where you juggled multiple DOT timers - it keeps you engaged. Sure, it might not be for everyone but not every Job needs to be for everyone. Gimme Shadow Flare back. Gimme old Thunder back. Gimme Fracture and Touch of Death back.

[@redgeoblaze3752]

I think all they need to do to fix it is to keep mana ticks, but also have ice paradox just give 5000MP (and put ice paradox back of course.) Or better yet, just have every spell cast within ice phase give MP. Honestly, I'm mostly upset about the loss of Thunder. I liked the challenge of finding a place to weave Sharpcast in order to keep my thunder proc going. Now there's no thinking, It's basically just a healer DoT, with the only caveat being that you can't just sit there doing nothing.

[@KazumiKiguma]

To the people whom he thinks are gonna drop eno by casting fire 1 by accident: do you not keep blizzard 1 on your bars in case of roulette giving you low level dungeons? Like I know it changed both buttons but I just never changed my habbit of using my ice keybinds in ice

[@Gofr5]

haha same. never know when the roulette is going to throw you in to yet another Sastasha run. I also had the habit of hitting Paradox with my blizzard button in ice and fire button in fire just to help maintain that muscle memory.

[@elegyxiaolong]

while I do keep b1 on my Bar I almost always press the f1 Button to do paradox, and if I have to do Roulettes that can sync me down I dont do them on blm, cause its just so much less fun, so I can see his point pretty well.

[@user-uv4wn2xx7o]

Square enix: “we know our game is boring from simplicity but we are planning to make gameplay more thrilling and different from here on out” *narrows blm skill curve*

[@magedranix]

Sps blm its time to shine! I don't mind these changes. But I do agree the Umbral Soul should be acquired at a lower level

[@xluizfx]

Paradox being only Fire is actually so weird, the spell itself is a "paradox" of Ice and Fire, and the icon is Ice and Fire ... I didn't notice reading the spells that Sharpcast was removed (I was thinking they just didn't talk about ou change anyway with it) but oh ... and the Umbral Ice thing still on level 76 makes no sense ... put on level 40 or something like that ... I'm still "hyped" for the kit itself, Flare Star will have a buff (maybe, hope... copium ...) and some adjusts on potency here and there, but the Paradox thing and Sharpcast didn't feel right at all ... still going to try BLM tho.. hoping for the best and hope everyone have a good expansion

[@michaelyohn5026]

kinda shocking this is yoshi p's main

[@tonyruiz5414]

post DT: how to play BLM for 70 ultimates step 1: equip SMN job stone.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

Yeah for 70 ultimates we go with a pretty straight forward line: Swiftcast + Despair > Transpose > Equip "Soul of the Summoner" Works pretty well for both 70 ultimates and is generally the best line to use in any situation. :^)