BLU Balance

[OmnysValefor]

Try for a moment to imagine a Thief being able to remove "Resist Gravity" or "Evasion Bonus" and replace them with "Attack Bonus", "Accuracy Bonus" or "Magic Attack Bonus". Ninja's have "Resist Bind" and "Subtle Blow", both of which are useless in a full on DPS race. ...

Accurate but add in giving up SA and TA, because anyone would give up a non-dps trair for a dps trait. Different weapons and ws types. Maybe dnc giving up flourishea but keeping steps (-def) is a better example.

The only offensive unique buff blu keeps is Nature's Meditation (since your group can haste cap without blu).

Truthfully, I know that's not quite an even trade, but that's what blu is these days. CA and BA have little relevance.

In a melee zerg, ca isn't worth using. In mage, you'll not be relying on CA to skillchain and BA will probably cost more mb damage than it gives.

Edit: rearranged paragraphs

[Shiyo]

If blu wasn't so powerful, why does nearly EVERYONE play it?

Have you /sea'd?
Have you looked at shouts?
Have you...ran around the game and seen what jobs people are?
You'll see over half the player base at any given time is blue mage.

There's a reason for that.

[Stamos]

On Leviathan -
314 people online
41 are on Blu

13%~

[Afania]

The spreed sheets were incredibly wrong because they had CDC listed as 2.25 fTP per hit when it was really 1.63 which is about ~35% error.

I believe the current version of BLU spreadsheet has CDC fTP values fixed. And yes I'm aware that in full buff zerg situations WAR is king for DPS. I prefer WAR in zergs a lot, and played with WAR a lot, I'm fully aware that BLU doesn't always win parse in endgame.

But a top end BLU is by no means as weak as people claimed. Every once a while there are people claiming "My DRG DRK or X DD beats BLU", they usually either beat a gimp one or just a few runs that they happened to be 3% ahead.

As a DPS job BLU is still highly competitive, I'm not saying it's zomg awesome super strong DPS that wins every single parse, but they are definitely not behind unless they're parsing against WAR in zerg situations.

It's just that every once a while I keep hearing people saying "BLU doesn't deal a lot of DPS so it's utility is justified" or "BLU DPS doesn't increase compare with pre JT2 era", I personally disagree and find claims like this misleading. The gap between BLU's DPS and other real DD such as SAM DRG DRK MNK definitely has decreased since JT2 released, while BLU's utility increased with better spells and better traits. Overall that makes BLU a more attractive option for DPS players compare with other DPS when people level DPS job, or pick DPS job for events.

Personally I still think 2014 BLU is "just right" in terms of DPS balance, post 2014 BLU gained a lot more as a whole while other DD mostly remains stagnant.

Anyways, I think the dmg has been done and since SE already made BLU competitive DPS as a hybrid job, I think nerfing it's DPS will just backfire and won't do any good to the community. That's why I'm promoting MG nerf, so at least in situations that favors bringing BLU as DPS your 2nd DD slot isn't locked to another BLU.

[Fae]

Friendly reminder that ad hominem/personal attacks are against the terms of service, if you guys keep it up and get banned don't go crying on another website about how unfair moderation is when you can't follow posted rules. You can say you're against ideas or express your opinion and reason why but attacking others is below the belt and uncalled for and ineffective.

Personally I find Afania to be one of the very few people that is posting support for their claims, where as most the posts are begging the question for their own statements and then using straw man/red herring/appeals to emotion on everyone else's post and then even following that up with appeals to incredulity or simply cherry picking whatever they feel is weakest and ignore the rest in an attempt to discredit all of it. Basically very little posts that actual have content in them, which doesn't build a strong case for BLU.

[Afania]

The spreed sheets were incredibly wrong because they had CDC listed as 2.25 fTP per hit when it was really 1.63 which is about ~35% error.

Ok I just found out the reason why my spreadsheet result seems to have smaller gap than what people expected, it's not that BLU spreadsheet is wrong, it's the WAR spreadsheet didn't have updated calculation at high pDIF situations.

If someone has Nightfyre's fixed version spreadsheet feel free to publish updated DPS comparison.

Also please note that WAR atm is one of the strongest DPS at capped pdif situations. Even if that makes BLU a bit more behind(as it should for a hybrid job) at capped pdif situations I'd say it's probably still highly competitive against other DPS jobs like DRG, NIN, MNK and possibly SAM and such.

[saevel]

Ok I just found out the reason why my spreadsheet result seems to have smaller gap than what people expected, it's not that BLU spreadsheet is wrong, it's the WAR spreadsheet didn't have updated calculation at high pDIF situations.

If someone has Nightfyre's fixed version spreadsheet feel free to publish updated DPS comparison.

Also please note that WAR atm is one of the strongest DPS at capped pdif situations. Even if that makes BLU a bit more behind(as it should for a hybrid job) at capped pdif situations I'd say it's probably still highly competitive against other DPS jobs like DRG, NIN, MNK and possibly SAM and such.

In the case of WAR it's about Warcry and Blood Rage. Warcry is +700 TP Bonus and +11% Attack for 60s on the entire party. 700 TP Bonus is crazy powerful on any Weapon Skill that scales with fTP like Resolution / Cross Reaper / ect. The other ability is Blood Rage, +40% Critical Hit Rate for 60s on the entire party, which does similar things to any Critical hit WS. These abilities don't stack and overwrite each other so the WAR needs to choose the appropriate one for the group they are with. I've switched to WAR/NIN with my sword and spammed crazy nice Vorpals just to demonstrate this to people saying the exact same things you were.

A note on those spreedsheets, they should never be used to compare jobs. They are designed to allow you to compare gear X vs gear Y for the same job in a variety of situations, this game is far too dynamic for them to be accurate between different jobs. Something as simple as fight length will have dramatic effects on the result because they don't take time into consideration. Take the above WC / BR for example. Both those abilities are on a 5 min timer with a 60s duration meaning in a fight of infinite length (spreedsheets) they are up 1/5th of the time. Yet in the game nearly every fight is over with before WC/BR wears which makes it up 100% of the time, that alone dramatically shifts the relative power index of not only WAR but every other job in the party. Almace CDC is no longer BLU's best WS option then. But reverse the situation, take away the buffs and strip down the support and suddenly that fight is taking several minutes and that WAR is spending more time in -DT gear (another thing the spreedsheets fail to take into account), now the BLU has the advantage.

Which brings me to my last point, for the love of god stop giving everyone 3000TP free AM3 at the start, a lot of content doesn't allow you to do that. By the time the person has built up TP the fight is halfway over with and a couple seconds later it's finished. It heavily bias's the comparisons between builds.

[Shiyo]

BLU is supposed to be the "jack of all trades master of none", correct?

Then please explain why:

Blu is the BEST AOE job.

Blu is the BEST solo job.

Blu is a S tier(up there with the best dd jobs) at being a DD.

Should a jack of all trades, be the master of multiple things, and as good at other jobs at their own specialty?
No. That is the blue mage problem.

I mean Afania even put it pretty well earlier - in some games being the "best" at AOE is usually your own specialty and niche. Yet, blue mage gets this role uncontested basically, and it's not even considered a "Strength" for them by the developers or player base really. Being the best at AOE is generally one of the strongest things you can be in a MMO, because it lets you do so much. There's so much content that is really good for AOE burning even in this game, yet this strength seems to be neglected and not brought up often by people talking about blue mage balance, why?

Afania brings up that nerfing MG so that you don't automatically always bring a 2nd BLU if you already have one already for party set ups. While this is a pretty good idea, I still don't think it would be enough. It wouldn't give the player base a reason to not actually be on their BLU 99% of the time. There's simply no reason not to just come blue mage for most of your in game situations. Solo? BLU. AOE? BLU. Need a DD? I got BLU. The only roles a BLU doesn't completely dominate are healer/support/tank(and blu can tank really well,but not the best).

So if you're just running around doing random crap, soloing, farming merits(for whatever reason), farming gil, lowmanning, or need to come a DD for something, you can just sit on blu.

No other job is this versatile besides RDM, and it pays for that by being subpar in all it's roles except it's niche(debuffer) - why doesn't BLU?

[Dale]

The problem is that bluemage can do everything, and do some things better than everyone. That creates a situation where you have over half your player base on a single job at any given time, as the job is the optimal choice in so many situations.

It's bad for the health of the game.

It's fine to have imbalance, but it is NOT fine for a job that is capable of doing EVERYTHING to be the BEST at multiple things. That ruins the game.

I don't know what sever you are on - but on mine I do not see blue mages everywhere I go. So this idea that everyone is playing Blue Mage now is an exaggeration.

Besides, blue mages are not capable of being the best at everything anyway. It's a versatile job (it was designed to be) and can probably perform a lot of different roles in the right hands. But that would require them to gear and set spells separately. They can not be all things at once.

I really don't see a significant problem with Blue Mage.

[Dale]

It's a matter of scale. I'm not going to demand that every job be PRECISELY equal, that just leads to bland gameplay. But it definitely needs to be closer than it is today. Back at 75 cap, everyone knew SAM was the best melee, but you COULD still do merits and various endgame events as other melee. Compare that to nowadays, where playing a DD besides BLM or BLU is relegated strictly to LS members taking pity on you. The difference between jobs is so vast these days that for a lot of events people would rather have an EMPTY SLOT than take a lot of the jobs out there.

This isn't just about being "so worried that we forget to have fun." It's about being able to play with people on the job we choose. It's about knowing full well that we're dragging our group down. It's about knowing that this fight that's kicking our ass could be so easily resolved by simply stepping into line and picking the same job as everyone else, that our own stubbornness is making things drastically more difficult. That the promise of all these jobs to play is a lie, and that the list of feasible jobs for any content is so drastically smaller.

I find that this game is more balanced than it was in the past.

Back in the ancient days of 75 cap - a lot of jobs just sucked and were awful to play. That is not the case today.

If you want to feel like you are dragging your group down just because you are not playing the most efficient job possible for any given situation - then perhaps it's time you re-assessed. As a previous poster alluded, games are about having fun. This isn't a job, and your goal should not be to accomplish something as quickly or efficiently as possible. It should be to have as much fun as possible.

I am open to legitimate criticisms that have some effect on gameplay. But when it comes to this argument that my job sucks and this other job is OP simply because so and so job can do it faster - I don't find that persuasive. That would require an exact balance to combat that kind of criticism - and that would in effect ruin this game.

Also: it's a myth that everyone is playing either Blue Mage or Black Mage to do endgame events. Who ever told you that doesn't know what they are talking about.