BLU Balance

[OmnysValefor]

Before SCH, here were the considerations for mb'ing any boss:

We need mages with enough magic accuracy and melee with enough accuracy. We need a healer who can watch over the melee. Further, and the most important part, we're taking up party spaces with people who can't drop 40k and even 70k and 99k bombs on the boss. They'll be in danger, they'll die sometimes.

They need support, they're a distraction.

SCH is as powerful as any nuker besides BLM, has longer throughput than any nuker (SCH has sublimation / refresh, Myrkr). They're level of nuking rises some since they also bring Storms II.

Many many things can be killed in 4 SCs. Many things can be killed in 2. When you do get high enough that it's time to settle in for a fight you have three options.

1.) Burn out strats >> Tabula Rasa (infinite strats for duration) >> Burn out strats again. Most content in the game is dead before TR expires.
2.) Bring two or more scholars, capable of contributing to nuking if it's beneficial to the group. The off-scholar can also may drop some helixes, reapply storms.
3.) Working with Death, stratagems may not be consumed so fast. With use of Random Deal, and Revitalizers, this may be a non-issue.

SCH 550 along with mega-love to MBs caused SCH to alter strategies for any fight that wasn't heavily magic resistant and there's some fights that people brute-force MB because they'd rather deal with that than the mechanics of the fight.

Not to mention the incomparably small tp feed of SCH SCs vs Melee SCs. In many cases, you're trading two melee (waiting on tank tp sucks) for one scholar and one blm, or two scholars. No longer are the resources (GEO, COR) or attention (BRD) divided between groups.

Immanence + 550 literally redefined the game.

Edit: It is the reason you don't see too many melee on Valefor. You can say want you want about BLU but other melee bring interesting things that are strategically useful. Immanence rendered them, for a time, not useful (Angon, Tomahawk, Feint, high-burst damage like souleater).

So we've been getting Ambuscade that has pretty unwelcoming to mages most months and Ambuscade, more than any other reason, is why you see what melee you do.

Even with the changes SE has made, mage mode is still preferential a lot of times and some (the highest tier stuff) still requires every bit of accuracy multiple buffers can give your melee.