Why are rangers getting buffs when BLM needs buffs far more?

[Pixela]

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.

[Gwydion]

I too wish BLM and Magic Damage were updated to be relevant again.

[Dragoy]

They did also mention that "our upcoming job progression systems alone would be insufficient to solve this issue", so I'd wait and see what happens with that.

[Alhanelem]

Relax man, there's going to be an all jobs update. They said they wanted to address a specific ranger issue ahead of this bigger update because the new thing wasn't going to be enough to put that job where they wanted it to be. It doesn't mean BLM isn't getting anything.

[Gwydion]

Relax man, there's going to be an all jobs update. They said they wanted to address a specific ranger issue ahead of this bigger update because the new thing wasn't going to be enough to put that job where they wanted it to be. It doesn't mean BLM isn't getting anything.

Before I hold out hope for the "all jobs" update, I want to remind you that Aeonic Weapons were an "all jobs" update and we all know how useful Aeonic Club/Staff, etc are to WHM, GEO, BLM, SCH, etc. (If this update is to simply all a uniform buff to all jobs I'd be disappointed, again).

I'm hoping for SE unlocking Group1 and Group 2 merits for all jobs.

[Alhanelem]

Before I hold out hope for the "all jobs" update, I want to remind you that Aeonic Weapons were an "all jobs" update and we all know how useful Aeonic Club/Staff, etc are to WHM, GEO, BLM, SCH, etc. (If this update is to simply all a uniform buff to all jobs I'd be disappointed, again).

I'm hoping for SE unlocking Group1 and Group 2 merits for all jobs.

Aeonic weapons weren't a job update. They were new weapons.

And yeah, they're not unlocking merits. They're adding new abiltiies/spells/etc.

[Pixela]

If the all job update wasn't good enough for RNG, which is far better off then BLM there isn't much hope for BLM.

[Alhanelem]

If the all job update wasn't good enough for RNG, which is far better off then BLM there isn't much hope for BLM.

We have no idea what they're doing. They could be putting death on a 2 second cooldown and removing the seal dependence. Or they could be increasing your INT by 1.

Until we have more information you shouldn't be passing judgement. And frankly, I don't really agree with your assessment, based on how frequently I see these two j obs.

[Gwydion]

Aeonic weapons weren't a job update. They were new weapons.

And yeah, they're not unlocking merits. They're adding new abiltiies/spells/etc.

Yes Aeonics were not an update per se. But when given the opportunity to uniquely change each job, they went with a broad, sweeping change with speculative value for many jobs.

[ikudosi]

This new hover shot is ridiculously OP based on what I'm seeing.