Hard to start this, but i’ll try to give an objective and unbiased feedback to the job, and the job’s current level of fun to play.
An issue of communication:
Pretty much until the end of EW, there was no reason to believe anything would drastically change with the gameplay of BLM. Then, when the first infos dropped before DT, all of a sudden information about changes to the job became public. There was never a discourse, or a _honest_ reason given for any of the drastic changes made to the job. After seeing the changes, and finally experiencing them, when DT was released, i remained sceptical. Everything that was changed and reworked, is not a solution. the problems were not even there in the first place; on the contrary, it created so many more issues:
EW BLM was enjoyable for me, at any level. It was accepted and taken, that you start ramping up slower from lv50, but became more and more complete by lv90. BLM has always been a job of high risk, and high reward. It allowed for more flexibility and creativity and was a very fun job to learn, understand and to try to take it to it’s limits.
Now, ofcourse, with DT, that component has vanished. The flexibility it had in it’s rotation, is just not there anymore. With the fundamental changes to it’s MP-regeneration, and any level, but especially for the lv100 rotation, there is little left, what made the job so unique and fun to play.
In detail, i am referring to the the Astral Fire rotation, which requires the 6x FireIV’s, before being able to cast the jobs keystone ability, BLM’s new signature move: The Flare Star. While on paper, it does seem amazing. It does in reality feel, that it is a very disappointing action to have in your toolkit, due to the fact that there is a big probability ,that you are not able to cast it.
There are numerous examples for when that happens.
Another major example for the restrictiveness and unflexible rotation is of course the Thunderhead-proc ‘mechanic’. The way thunder worked in EW was fine, and even felt more rewarding due to it’s RNG proc nature. It was steadily available, able to multi-dot, and getting the proc meant you had a resource you could spend accordingly (multi target dot, movement, ice-phase-filler). While Sharpcast at lv90, was more or less ,only used to keep the thunder-proc alive, especially for lower levels, the lack of it, is a tremendous loss.
While Manafont, was arguably the weakest 2 minute buff, it again, was very flexible in it’s usage. And again, a huge loss, in my opinion, for lower levels. Did the design team ever test the impact of such a groundbreaking change (2 consecutive fire phases)?
The next factor, which reduces the job, is the MP-regen system. One of BLM’s unique traits was it’s automatic MP regen, now this trait is not existent anymore. The change to umbral soul, may be convenient, but it does not account for all the problems the job still has, due to the lack of automatic MP-regen. 1/2
Continue reading...
An issue of communication:
Pretty much until the end of EW, there was no reason to believe anything would drastically change with the gameplay of BLM. Then, when the first infos dropped before DT, all of a sudden information about changes to the job became public. There was never a discourse, or a _honest_ reason given for any of the drastic changes made to the job. After seeing the changes, and finally experiencing them, when DT was released, i remained sceptical. Everything that was changed and reworked, is not a solution. the problems were not even there in the first place; on the contrary, it created so many more issues:
EW BLM was enjoyable for me, at any level. It was accepted and taken, that you start ramping up slower from lv50, but became more and more complete by lv90. BLM has always been a job of high risk, and high reward. It allowed for more flexibility and creativity and was a very fun job to learn, understand and to try to take it to it’s limits.
Now, ofcourse, with DT, that component has vanished. The flexibility it had in it’s rotation, is just not there anymore. With the fundamental changes to it’s MP-regeneration, and any level, but especially for the lv100 rotation, there is little left, what made the job so unique and fun to play.
In detail, i am referring to the the Astral Fire rotation, which requires the 6x FireIV’s, before being able to cast the jobs keystone ability, BLM’s new signature move: The Flare Star. While on paper, it does seem amazing. It does in reality feel, that it is a very disappointing action to have in your toolkit, due to the fact that there is a big probability ,that you are not able to cast it.
There are numerous examples for when that happens.
Another major example for the restrictiveness and unflexible rotation is of course the Thunderhead-proc ‘mechanic’. The way thunder worked in EW was fine, and even felt more rewarding due to it’s RNG proc nature. It was steadily available, able to multi-dot, and getting the proc meant you had a resource you could spend accordingly (multi target dot, movement, ice-phase-filler). While Sharpcast at lv90, was more or less ,only used to keep the thunder-proc alive, especially for lower levels, the lack of it, is a tremendous loss.
While Manafont, was arguably the weakest 2 minute buff, it again, was very flexible in it’s usage. And again, a huge loss, in my opinion, for lower levels. Did the design team ever test the impact of such a groundbreaking change (2 consecutive fire phases)?
The next factor, which reduces the job, is the MP-regen system. One of BLM’s unique traits was it’s automatic MP regen, now this trait is not existent anymore. The change to umbral soul, may be convenient, but it does not account for all the problems the job still has, due to the lack of automatic MP-regen. 1/2
Continue reading...