BLU Balance

[Diavolo]

Yo, listen up, here's a story,
About a little guy that lives in a BLU world.
And all day and all night and everything he sees,
Is just BLU.

I'm BLU da ba dee da ba daa
I'm BLU da ba dee da ba daa

Remove a little salt from your diet by taking advantage of all the game has to offer, including BLU.

[Jakuk]

I hope Nerfs aren't coming to BLU because I like the utility of it and a lot of players do. I can do good damage (not the best, most pure DPS can wreck me) and provide support to my group. I genuinely think it represents more of a problem that a job can be effectively replaced because of someone having one spell (RDM) than someone else having that spell. A good look at the support role of red mage would be nice, and perhaps the gear available to them. With Temper/Temper II, it could be quite awesome to see RDM on good melee gear.

Part of me would love to see RDM in melee gear, but another part of me fears it could then see them the next bandwagon job.

Yo, listen up, here's a story,
About a little guy that lives in a BLU world.
And all day and all night and everything he sees,
Is just BLU.

I'm BLU da ba dee da ba daa
I'm BLU da ba dee da ba daa

Remove a little salt from your diet by taking advantage of all the game has to offer, including BLU.

Makes sense, instead of asking for a change to allow you to play the job you want, just hop on the bandwagon.

[Diavolo]

Makes sense, instead of asking for a change to allow you to play the job you want, just hop on the bandwagon.

What's stopping you from playing any of the 22 jobs?

One of my friends was recently playing RDM, another even whips out MNK sometimes and it's at the bottom of the barrel right now. Play what you like. If the people you play with won't allow you to do that then find more open minded people to play with. Many of the players on the more quiet servers claim the low population isn't a detriment to way they play the game. Well, this would be a good time to prove it.

I've been playing since March '04 with a couple of extended breaks in recent years. I know better than to hope for changes to come quickly, so I take advantage of the here and now.

[Vae]

What's stopping you from playing any of the 22 jobs?

One of my friends was recently playing RDM, another even whips out MNK sometimes and it's at the bottom of the barrel right now. Play what you like. If the people you play with won't allow you to do that then find more open minded people to play with. Many of the players on the more quiet servers claim the low population isn't a detriment to way they play the game. Well, this would be a good time to prove it.

I've been playing since March '04 with a couple of extended breaks in recent years. I know better than to hope for changes to come quickly, so I take advantage of the here and now.

Nothing physically stops you from playing other jobs. It's that it's inefficient (by more than an acceptable amount) to go on any job that isn't at least as good as blu. I'd like nothing more than to always be able to go on my main and favorite job. But it's unfair to the people I'm going with to make them work harder to make up for my loss in dps by not being on BLU.

Now some people don't grasp that concept. BLU is literally people just being polite. Realizing that other peoples time is valuable and it's the highest chance of success, because it's so obscenely imbalanced.

[Diavolo]

Nothing physically stops you from playing other jobs. It's that it's inefficient (by more than an acceptable amount) to go on any job that isn't at least as good as blu. I'd like nothing more than to always be able to go on my main and favorite job. But it's unfair to the people I'm going with to make them work harder to make up for my loss in dps by not being on BLU.

Now some people don't grasp that concept. BLU is literally people just being polite. Realizing that other peoples time is valuable and it's the highest chance of success, because it's so obscenely imbalanced.

Are we not playing a video game when we log into FFXI? This isn't a job. You aren't going to lose your ability to continue playing if you take 15-30 seconds longer to complete a battle on a different job. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not logging into FFXI to make money as fast as possible with a boss judging your every move.

There are 22 jobs in this game and they will never be 100% equally balanced. Even if that utopian setting was possible (what a frighteningly boring image that paints) you still have to deal with a wide variety of skill levels from one player to the next. That's not a weakness, it's a strength. Why not accept it and take advantage of everything the game offers you?

[Eckamus]

You can play anything you want. Being on BLU doesn't mean you can do anything by any means. To be completely honest it depends primarily on the skill level of the people you play with, like Diavolo said. A good example is when I had to tell someone to step down to D Intense because the 2 BLU's we were running with were unable to kill it on VD. We did fine after that on D. They were LS mates and they don't play as often as everyone else. So we adjusted to fit their skill level. The other DD was MNK. Imagine that a MNK doing better than 2 BLU's, but by no means is MNK in a good spot. That job needs a lot of adjustment to fix it. That is a whole other topic though.

Also, I want to look at the Avatar fights. I really can't see any BLU doing them solo in ~3 min. Since they will likely die to the magic damage dealt. You need a GEO for Vex and Attunement, then you can do them in that time frame. Likely on more than just BLU. A lot of times people define it as solo, but it's really them and their mule. I can't say this is the case, but i see no other way a BLU or anything can solo those fights as a close quarters DD without a GEO. Please link a video if you actually have someone soloing it in that time frame. Would be interesting to see.

[Afania]

4) It is extremely survivable while also doing great DPS, there is very little tradeoff.

Since AH BLU discussion thread is locked so I'd like to chime in and provide some additional info and perspective on this part, which is BLU DPS.

Ever since people started this BLU balance discussion I've heard basically 2 side of story: "BLU DPS is so strong, and they have great survive-ability" and "WAR DRK SAM and possibly RUN is better DPS! BLU doesn't need a nerf!"

The 90% of time it'd turn into "If you can't outparse X job you suck" kinda conversation, with no numbers except parse result from people's friend circles.

So yesterday while we had another DPS discussion I took the opportunity and looked into the DPS gap between BLU and GS WAR.

Originally I had AG Almace/sequence BLU fall a bit behind AG Rag WAR(no MS), both blood rage up/war cry up situations. That being said, next day I have a bit more time to optimize sets and used better DD spell combo, BLU started to pull ahead of WAR in bloodrage up situations, although it's still behind WAR in warcry up situations the difference aren't big.

Using 500 enhancing buffs, 46% chaos, frailty/fury and No.7 SAM roll:
WAR(Bloodrage) DPS 4823
WAR(Warcry) DPS 5904
WAR(JA down) DPS 4706

BLU DPS 5609

Considering Warcry has like 1 min(if I remember correctly with 119 head) duration in longer fights BLU would probably pull ahead, while in shorter fights I see WAR still wins.

And even in situations that favors WAR, which is warcry up, BLU still deal 95% of DPS of WAR. By comparison in 2014 BLU had lower than 95% of top DPS when I spreadsheeted the DPS hierarchy.

IMHO, a job with such survive-ability and versatility, shouldn't do 95% of DPS of WAR in niche situations that strongly favors WAR, and beats WAR most of the time. And WAR is actually one of the strongest "traditional heavy DD" job atm.

If BLU is a DPS only job, not a hybrid job, then the job balance issue doesn't exist.
If BLU is a hybrid job, but only does 70% of DPS of WAR, then the job balance issue doesn't exist as well.

But as it stands, regardless of how people try to make it sound like BLU is MUCH weaker than WAR thus justify the versatility, the fact is that BLU is on the same tier as WAR, the difference are so small that it doesn't really justify the versatility nor survive-ability IMO.

If someone has different opinion or different spreadsheet result feel free to share it prove me wrong(my result is probably not 100% accurate), but please keep the discussion civil thanks. Until then my stance about BLU having major advantage as DPS job doesn't change.

[Immortta]

No threads to nerf GEO and how it completely overshadows other buffers and is required for any serious fight
No threads to nerf BLM and how it was the top strategy for over a year for anything serious
No threads to nerf BST truly when they can still do the exact same thing they were doing before with a little care/prep

People still primarily use mage strats for the hardest NMs in the game or ranged strats in general, yet you are clamoring for a nerf to a job that does well in trash content for the most part. After the evasion nerf, people have slowly started bringing DD to zerg the bosses down, but the fights are so quick you won't see BLU topping the parse.

As for the OP:

I see its problems as these four points:
1) It has huge aoe nukes, even better than dedicated nuking jobs like BLM. One reason BST was nerfed was it could farm experience points and job points so well, solo. Well, BLU can do this and much more.
2) It has huge soloing potential. I feel one reason BST was nerfed was it could do solo VD battlefields. They can clear those with lots of temps, 1 hours, and high degrees of skill and still take over 10 minutes. BLU is soloing some VD fights in much less time.
3) It can self haste cap, and needs less buffs. The director in the reddit AMA said they didn't want any job to be able to self haste cap as a DD as it is a group game, yet BLU can.
4) It is extremely survivable while also doing great DPS, there is very little tradeoff.

1) BST can still farm those points just as fast as they used to. I'm not gonna disagree that BLM needs the aoe dmg reduction removed at this point. Other jobs are also capable of farming merits to cap that fast, as referenced by the PLD video. Farming EXP/Merits/JP fast shouldn't be the base for a nerf, many jobs in the past had this advantage.
2) Already brought up earlier in the thread, but tons of jobs can solo VD fights. Hell, you should be asking for a nerf to SCH and not BLU for that point. SCH can solo some fights that BLU can't, thats for sure.
3) Self cap haste is something everyone can achieve. Everyone has access to trusts, therefore you can be capped haste or a smidgen off on it. In party scenarios, outside of trusts, you can simply cast an indi-haste and all you lose is a small boost from another entrusted spell, which most lazy PUG GEO barely use the JA.
4) "Extremely survivable" is a huge exaggeration, especially given the nerf to AOE dmg players take.

Your gil example is pretty poor too. I doubt BLU can consistently clear the VD avatars in under 3 minutes every single fight, have you even done it? There are also a ton of other ways to make more gil per hour, one of them being crafting. Yet I don't see you clamoring for a nerf to crafting and how grossly overpriced most of the ABJ gear is. Not going to list them all, but there are a lot of other ways to make gil on various jobs that doesn't involve BLU. Also, keep in mind you can clear the battles much quicker with MORE people and not less.

What Afania doesn't realize, casting those defensive buffs will lower DPS in any fight over 90s long. The hardest content (which is what you should be judging when determining a nerf) will last longer than that and thus see the BLU fall behind other DD. These benefits aren't even that much of a boost now that SE has nerfed AOE dmg considerably for anyone not the target of the AOE. Keep in mind, most of BLUs buffs can be given to the party just like other jobs.

[Afania]

What Afania doesn't realize, casting those defensive buffs will lower DPS in any fight over 90s long. The hardest content (which is what you should be judging when determining a nerf) will last longer than that and thus see the BLU fall behind other DD. These benefits aren't even that much of a boost now that SE has nerfed AOE dmg considerably for anyone not the target of the AOE. Keep in mind, most of BLUs buffs can be given to the party just like other jobs.

This is Draylo's alt yeah?

It's been discussed on AH.com already. Other jobs doesn't get the option to lower DPS to boost defense, outside of defender for WAR and /WAR people, which BLU can do too.

You sound like every BLU cocoon full time and lose every parse because of it, but the fact is they have the choice to not use cocoon and maintain top end DPS, and choose to use cocoon when the situations call for it.

You can't give out MG full time if the fight last too long or repeat pop, like you previously mentioned....longer fights. Unless you invite 2 BLUs or something, again, like AH discussion, this creates the scenario of MG mechanics making 2x BLU setup a lot more appealing thus filter out other melee DDs. the bold part is pretty much the main reason why BLU debate is being brought up on AH over and over.

There no real downside of using BLU, and their DPS is definitely not as bad as all the BLU main make it sound like unless I do something seriously wrong with WAR spreadsheet, or unless BLU sheet has incorrect ws forumla. If the situation calls for more defense, BLU can do it. If the situation calls for all out offense, BLU still keep up with 2h DDs. That's what people meant by "BLU has no downside", they don't necessary mean BLU can set every offense/defense job trait at once and cocoon full time or something. They simply mean in situations that need a melee DPS, using a BLU over other jobs like WAR MNK DRK SAM DRG has no penalty, while in situations that needs more defensive DD, BLU did way better than almost every other melee job except tanks.

[Immortta]

This is Draylo's alt yeah?

No I'm Immortta

It's been discussed on AH.com already. Other jobs doesn't get the option to lower DPS to boost defense, outside of defender for WAR and /WAR people, which BLU can do too.

You sound like every BLU cocoon full time and lose every parse because of it, but the fact is they have the choice to not use cocoon and maintain top end DPS, and choose to use cocoon when the situations call for it.

You can't give out MG full time if the fight last too long or repeat pop, like you previously mentioned....longer fights. Unless you invite 2 BLUs or something, again, like AH discussion, this creates the scenario of MG mechanics making 2x BLU setup a lot more appealing thus filter out other melee DDs. the bold part is pretty much the main reason why BLU debate is being brought up on AH over and over.

There no real downside of using BLU, and their DPS is definitely not as bad as all the BLU main make it sound like unless I do something seriously wrong with WAR spreadsheet, or unless BLU sheet has incorrect ws forumla. If the situation calls for more defense, BLU can do it. If the situation calls for all out offense, BLU still keep up with 2h DDs. That's what people meant by "BLU has no downside", they don't necessary mean BLU can set every offense/defense job trait at once and cocoon full time or something. They simply mean in situations that need a melee DPS, using a BLU over other jobs like WAR MNK DRK SAM DRG has no penalty, while in situations that needs more defensive DD, BLU did way better than almost every other melee job except tanks.

You can easily reset JA's now with a variety of methods, that is no concern. Also your concern is why SE needs to BUFF, other jobs. Notice how in your comparison its 1h vs 2hrs? Yes, 2h needs an update. You could say the same thing about DNC vs those other DD and get the same result. Those DD have come a little bit further (keep in mind they all have secondary benefits such as warcry, stun, SC properties and angon) but SE needs more buffs to them and only slight buffs. BLU has ALWAYS had the benefits you are stating, the extra defense and self buffs. They have always had this and a DD competitve edge since Abyssea, so your point is moot. We need BUFFS to 2h jobs, not a nerf to other jobs.