High Tier Elemental Magic [dev1229]

[Xsilver]

I think BLM and nukers in general were balanced to be able to deal high damage "on demand" meaning without having to swing a weapon and gain TP whereas a nuker could theoretically spam nukes back to back until their MP runs dry. Additionally, I think the damage of BLM was set to be lower than a hasted melee because a melee faces risks that BLMs do not such as being killed by AoEs, amnesia, doom, DoT, petrify etc. Melee DPS on any given relevant mob is stymied by TP moves with stun or knockback etc, whereas a BLM can sit back at a safe distance, eat some cookies and drop damage.

It's similar with Rangers too. Everyone thinks Rangers are top tier dd in terms of damage, but RNG DPS isn't that high compared to MNK or SAM, it's just that unlike MNK or SAM, RNG can deal comparable damage(less so actually) but be hateless and safe, away from Arrogance Incarnate or other crappy TP moves. Yet their damage will never beat out a fully hasted melee job because melee face more risks. There's probably an algorithim for calculating proposed DPS changes for jobclasses at SE, whereby there's some function of DPS vs Risk. High risk jobs like melee are higher tier'd DPS jobs than RNG or BLM which deal damage from far away(and are not too handicapped when weakened; unlike melee which are virtually worthless when weakened).