I see that ranger is getting buffs in this months patch, ranger are already far stronger than BLM. Why is one of the key jobs from the FF series being ignored?

The main issues with BLM, compared to other jobs,

A) BLM only have spike damage, nothing else.
B) BLM only have one real use to a party, DMG (and they do it less well than many others).
C) BLM are ranged, so they risk causing wipes/annoyance if they pull aggro away from the tank.
D) BLM can only do DMG when they have MP.
E) BLM has to deal with elemental resistances, which often means they can't use their best spells and require monster knowledge.
F) FFXI is heavily reliant on buff jobs, most buff jobs do not want to cast spells specifically for one job in a group. Melee not only benefit far more from buff jobs like bard but GEO is far less likely to want to put up a specific indi for a single BLM. As such the only spell a BLM usually is going to get is refresh related and not dmg.
G) BLM rely heavily on skillchains and magic bursts, the modern nature of FFXI is melee spamming WS and interrupting skillchains.


Some possible ideas to boost BLM.

A) DOTS, DMG from BLM dots like burn and shock should do significant damage. Dots to a BLM should be akin to melee damage from any melee job, they should do far more damage over time than they do right now anyway.

B) Give BLM a debuff spell that inhibits TP gain on the monsters being fought, this would make them far more useful to a group as a single blm.

D) Add a Job Trait that allows BLM to gain more TP per spell cast, so they can use Myrkr more often.

F) Add a new drink that lasts 5 minutes, (so you can have the drink and food on at the same time) and that gives boosts when certain buffs are on. For instance a bard song being active gives Magic Acc and Magic Dmg.

G) Reduce the cast time of higher tier spells, so they can be more easily cast to magic burst off random skillchains. It's near impossible these days to setup skillchains, you have to be able to react to seeing one and MB on it.