Either SMN and RDM should lose their Raise or BLM should get a Raise.

Summoner would still be okaish because dmg is fine and support is okaish not the best but still good, Red mage you are right and nobody cares because of raise.

However the threat management are very valuable to most even more than trick attack in some cases, some even advise SE to gut those or give them to the role action (mostly since MNK and SAM badly need something else).
So it's not as clear

I don't know, that still sounds like exactly what we want, to me.

The whole point is that we do not want classes locked out because other classes bring "different" (read: significantly stronger) tools. I guess if that's what we're calling "homogenization", then fine, homogenize me, capp'n!~

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Originally Posted by PrismaticDaybreak

No it's not, they just aren't affected nearly as much as an any other caster since they have built in MP recovery and MP is no longer relevant to Summoners damage. It has 66% less cost to DPS comparatively used with or without Swiftcast since Summoner has so much passive damage. Yes that belief that Raise is the main attraction of SMN is incorrect, but it's icing on the cake along with those other things you listed. I don't believe Raise on its own would make BLM attractive either, I've said this previously. They desperately need damage boosts and QoL fixes I agree, and if they got the necessary ones a Raise wouldn't even be necessary, but supposing they don't it means BLM is back on the shelf for another raid tier, which isn't fun. Player enjoyment and fun (e.g. play how you want to play) should be prioritized a bit more over lore worship for the sake of it. Raise itself is a group buff, it returns a player to the battlefield, meaning you either get a tank back, a healer back (losing either of these is most likely a wipe), or around 4000 more DPS you wouldn't otherwise have without it. Nobody believes SMN is a Raise Dispenser, that term is an 'affectionate' euphemism for Red Mage.

Ceallach a coding fluke isn't something that necessarily gets fixed immediately. Pretty much the reason SMN has Resurrection is because ACN needed it so SCH would have it. Plus I mean I get the importance of lore to a point, we had a very very large argument about it a while ago. But it's also a game, made for fun and enjoyment, the fact that people avoid taking their favorite class to progression outside of a static doesn't sound fun at all, it sounds very unfun. And I don't necessarily believe giving BLM a Raise variant is the answer, they could give them a powerful party wide defensive buff perhaps, I think someone mentioned group Manaward somewhere. There are a lot of things they could do within the lore as well, so I'd rather argue about what fun, creative group utility we could give to BLM than make a feckless waste about whether or not we should exclude a certain type of group utility. Plainly, I'd rather discuss ideas than discuss whether or not we should have an idea.


For example,

Aetherial Concentration (Trait): While your Ley Lines are active, your party regains MP (potency something something, close to Refresh maybe) while you're in Umbral Ice. While you're in Astral Fire your party does 1-2% more damage for each stack of Astral Fire you have.

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Yes, a game should be fun, but no, the lore shouldn't take a backseat. You can toss around ideas all you like, but in the end, what actually happens needs to be both fun and in line with the lore. You have to consider both sides. If you don't, you're going to piss a lot of people off, which means losing a lot of players, which means losing a lot of money, not to mention all the trust SE would lose. Black mage getting a Raise variant would be the same level of idiocy as that pay-to-win system Star Wars: Battlefront II got so much flak for.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

The lore of the franchise can be considered malleable but BLM has been constant in not having access to any raise or restorative spell and his elemental spells and garb are as iconic to the franchise as the chocobos, moogles, tonberries etc.
FF has created some tropes by itself and the moment they stray from it they get blasted to oblivion by the fanbase.

When ppl see a BLM they can expect what kind of spells they'll have access to and they can imagine their gamestyle, the same happens with other jobs, that's also the reason why SMN are very vocal about SMN not feeling like traditional FF SMN.
Ppl play this game expecting it to be a FF game and expect jobs to play in a similar manner and that is true for every game, tropes are needed to give you an idea of what a class can do, they play a part in making you choose what to play because by a simple name you know what to expect more or less.

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Quoted for emphasis.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

That's called being a team player and/or realizing before how I was talking about "personal damage does not outweigh group damage (read: someone lying on the floor)" BLM deserves not to be shut out of this incredibly valuable part of the role balance. (or, as mentioned before, access to this power needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY trimmed a la what Remedi has been saying).

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You know what else is called "being a team player?" Doing your job well. It's not the black mage's job to get team members back up. It's the black mage's job to immolate all opposition before people die in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

"jobs being the same" is why it's all the more important to have proper implementation (avoid homogenization). This is another "pro" that off-GCD raise would have.

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It's more like a "con," but you refuse to listen to all the reasons why.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

Consider also that there needs careful attention paid to what "being the same" even means. All the DPS do damage, all the healers do healing and raising and have some form of shield. All the tanks tank and have some kind of party defensive cooldown. Whatever playing "the same" means is pretty fast and loose.


If anything the caster role is the most wildly different of the bunch: RDM has no dots, and has every other cast instant with movement focus, SMN has two dots and off-GCD nuke focus, and BLM has one DoT and hardcast/recharge focus. Meanwhile, consider that all the melee have one DoT to manage, a buff/resistance down rotation, and a "filler" rotation, all of which is quite rigid. Why aren't we accusing them of "playing the same"? Adding ONE FUNCTION for the sake of balance (carefully considered) is far from making the casters "play all the same"

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Uh, probably because they don't? You keep overlooking the fact that carefully considering the balance between red mage, summoner, and black mage shows that a Raise variant would hurt the black mage, who is already in a bad spot. Black mage does not need a Raise variant. It needs more damage, because again, black mage should be doing considerably more damage than red mage or summoner to justify its lack of utility, while red mage should be buffed up to summoner's level so that your choice between them is based on utility alone.

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

Having the raise would still homogenize the classes, not to mention spit in the faces of players who know that Raise hasn't really been a BLM thing since day one of the job's introduction all the way back in FF1, and hasn't been made available in specific exceptions (like job/custom systems but it's not even their own spell or where there's no real delineation between Black and White Magic like in FFVI to FFVIII).

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The closest example of a black mage healing was FINAL FANTASY XI, in which you had a support job that was half the level of your main job. Specifically, BLM/SCH was able to heal to a point, and that was entirely because of what scholar was capable of at level 49 and how Light Arts worked. Absolutely none of that capability came from the black mage.

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

If I may,

White Mage kinda has a heal in Divine Benison, but they're not exactly all that good at it with just a 15% MHP barrier that costs all of the lillies that could speed up Assize and focuses heavily on Regens and pure healing + damage as well as having the objective best MP management of any healer. Astrologian is absolutely and utterly broken and does everything better than the other two healers to the point that you may as well delete White Mage and Scholar a jack of all trades that has either better barriers like than Scholar or almost better Regen like White Mage, as well as a heavy emphasis on utility cards and having the worst MP management and damage of the bunch. Scholar has been nerfed to the ground is a more strategic healer, using barriers to patch holes that need to be filled by oGCDs and flying garbage the fairy with the highest DPS potential and the mother of all multipliers that is Chain Stratagem.

As for tanks, Warrior is a murdertastic, DPS-focused tank that loses out on defense in favor of raw HP, and at one point lacked a party defense (until Shake it Off was reworked) and has the only buff-rotation of the three as well as the most spammable and powerful single target nuke (Fell Cleave). Paladin lacks much mechanics in the Oath Gauge beyond two oGCDs, but is highly defensive, has an actual heal spell and is utterly overpowered has the best tools to support the party. Dark Knight is utter trash has a constant DPS boost, the highest damage while in tank stance, a defensive utility that ALSO helps its offence, and has a significant emphasis on MP management, unlike the other two tanks (even Paladin who also uses MP for Clemency and Holy Spirit don't use it nearly as much as Dark Knight).

In addition, all of their tools are pretty much different, despite having "similar" types of tools. A Dark Knight doesn't play like a Warrior which doesn't play like a Paladin, and a White Mage doesn't play like a Scholar which doesn't play like an Astrologian. Hell, not all of their tools are even equivalent, which can be seen in the "common" skills between the three.

Warrior's two single target nukes, Fell Cleave and Inner Beast, are unique in being separate at all, with one being purely offensive with a whopping 500 potency base and the other being a self heal + utility hybrid. Bloodspiller needs both MP and Blood Gauge to hit as hard as Fell Cleave and Spit and Carve has a dual role depending on whether you use Dark Arts or not. Meanwhile, Holy Spirit is the only straightforward nuke of the bunch, and just uses MP.

White Mage has the two best "emergency" heals in the game, with Tetragrammaton having its cooldown reduced with Lillies and Benediction being a full heal, and then there's Plenary Indulgence which benefits from other AoE heals. Scholar's healing buttons are generally locked behind Aetherflow, while Astrologian only has two "reliable" healing oGCDs in Earthly Star for AoE and Essential Dignity for single target.

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I can simplify this. White mage is a reactive, druidic healer that wields the elements to bring succor to his allies. Astrologian is a horribly misguided healer that uses the aether of the heavens to bargain with fate. Scholar is a proactive, strategic healer who plans ahead and makes sure the party can survive anything.

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

Cough cough, you're objectively wrong.

The only thing the melee jobs have in common is the DoT and the damage rotation, but even that is debatable. Monk doesn't conform to a "rotation", considering it has its unique form system, Samurai has nothing but buff rotations (Seriously, all three "rotations, Gekko, Kasha and Yukikaze provides a buff in some form, Yukikaze provides a slash debuff if there's no WAR or NIN, Kasha's prereq Shifu increases speed, and Gekko's prereq Jinpu increases damage) as well as being one of the few melee-ranged classes to have a cast timer for attacks, Dragoon has a buildup and oGCD focus much like Summoner (as well as the only four step comboes in the game) and Ninja has to weave Mudras on top of maintaining their combos. Hell, Bard and Machinist are also as different as night and day, with Machinist being able to "confirm" their RNG and use turrets, while Bard uses DoTs and stance dancing.

Gee, it's almost like the DPS roles aren't homogenized at all, even within their supposed "roles" and that calling for "role balance" by creating homogenization isn't exactly a productive idea.

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THANK YOU! This, Llugen, is why so many of us don't think you have black mage's best interests at heart.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

That paradox is keenly felt, certainly.

That's part of why I'm a little skeptical in general of it, as per my previous post. What even is "play the same"? We're all pressing GCDs and off-GCDs and maximizing our efficiency through the means given to us. We're ALL playing the same (I hope).

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So because murderers and rapists are still human beings, they're the same as law-abiding citizens that do their taxes and take care of their families?

I understand that this is one hell of a comparison to make, but I want you to understand the gravity of how stupid your suggestion is.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

"Unique", or at least, enough for me is aesthetic and general "feel" of the rotation, not access to direly useful (read: practically mandatory by the playerbase's standards) recovery tools.

Unique is BRD having dots and songs, while MCH has a turret and overheat, NOT that they both have access to support (dismantle/troubadour) or offensive utility (battle voice+foe requiem, hypercharge), not to mention of course the actual role pool skills. To me, that is different enough while still "able" to cover very close to the exact same role "requirements".

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Unique is black mage being a turret to deal heavy damage in not much time, while summoner builds up to bigger pets and fights in tandem with them, while red mage moves all over the place and casts spells in pairs. OH WAIT.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

Oh, and side note, we already hashed out the "precedent" thing, at least kind of. NIN could use some looking at as per role adjustment due to its invaluable enmity tools/Trick Attack, but saying that giving BLM access to Raise will pave the way for "all classes to beg for trick attack" is definitely a stretch in logic. Again, there's no expectation of the melee role to do healing or raising, but there IS an expectation of the caster role doing it. In fact, anecdotally, since Feint is still pretty new on the role, I see loads of melee being "uncomfortable" with its usage. Meanwhlie, casters have had access to tools like that forever (Virus, Eye for an Eye, Apoc, Raise), so I feel pretty confident in my stance.

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That's the problem. You insist that you're right for no reason other than you're tired of being "forced" to play red mage or summoner. Ninja's enmity tools are good, but not critical like Trick Attack, and Trick Attack is the only real reason ninja's in the meta right now. As far expecting any Disciple of Magic other than black mage to be able to get a player back on his feet, that's actually an expectation to use every action at your disposal well. You know, something that's expected of literally every player in the game?

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Originally Posted by Llugen

Also, at risk of sounding like an even bigger tool than I already have in this thread so far, I'm going to quote myself here with regard to your consideration for what balance would look like

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Or you could just stop talking.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

It's not even the same thing, trick attack can be given to other jobs because it's not a definitive trait of NIN ot anyone else, there's nothing that's stops other jobs from giving them trick attack or similar effects, I was surprised that overcharge is not exclusive with trick for example since they share debuff type.
All jobs could in fact inflict a weakness on the enemy and there's literally nothing that stops them.

Meanwhile Raise is an action that usually is relegated to healer-type jobs and we have it on some casters because of reasons we already discussed. While you may argue that they are extremely strong tools they are not in the same category.
A better comparison could be shadewalker or smoke bombs tbh,
That said that's why it would pave the way to homogenization, because you are literally asking them to add something that, while it would make the role balanced gameplaywise, it would be essentially break the functions of an RPG.
And if they fall to that, they will fall to anything else after.

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Thank you!

Maybe be a little less prickly about it. Nowhere did I say lore should take a backseat, the fact that people don't enjoy playing a game designed for entertainment is arguably more important than lore, no that doesn't mean lore isn't important. And you skimmed right past the main point of what I said, that'd I'd rather discuss fun and creative ideas to give something to BLM rather than waste time doing exactly this, arguing about what pithy types it should have, it's about as useless as trying to shovel snow in a blizzard.

Look more carefully at what I said, I do consider both sides. I don't necessarily think Raise is the right way to go but if the bottom line ends up being they need it for people to enjoy playing BLM versus just keeping them sad because lore then I'm going to put my chips on the let them play the damn game how they'd like side. Now I sincerely doubt it'll hit that point, if we look at Summoners current state and SE's history of overbuffing I'm sure BLM will be quite fine. Please please please please don't engage me on a "is lore important or not?" type discussion.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

I don't know, that still sounds like exactly what we want, to me.

The whole point is that we do not want classes locked out because other classes bring "different" (read: significantly stronger) tools. I guess if that's what we're calling "homogenization", then fine, homogenize me, capp'n!~

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It's not a binary flip for homogenized or not. It's degrees.

Put simply there is already a fair amount of homogenization in this game, where most of the distinction between jobs is how they interact with the game. Damage is fairly similar across the board for jobs within their roles but the manner in which they achieve it is what's different. The Class Role /Cross Class system is another layer of homogenization because certain tools are required to be in a toolkit (TP Recovery, MP Recovery, Threat Drops, etc)

Every Melee has a gap closer, every tank has damage reduction, every healer has a small, medium, and big single and aoe heal, every caster has a huge AoE nuke string.

It's hard to see Raise being some straw-and-camel scenario with that in mind.

It's not a technical limitation on Arcanist raise either. They have a fully functional sync system that works for jobs as far back as first zone fates. All they would need to do is put that Arcanist raise in Scholar's database at level 22. The backend exists for jobs being level 7ish from attributes to accessible actions.

I mean, that's exactly what I'm getting at. I'm not sure why everyone's trying to pull the "homogenization" card on BLM Raise when it's very clear that there are loads of other things that are pretty well "homogenized".

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Originally Posted by PrismaticDaybreak

Maybe be a little less prickly about it. Nowhere did I say lore should take a backseat...

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Yep. This thread is starting to give me Healer DPS discussion PTSD, what with people being so quick to read dire criticism into fairly dry commentary on gameplay issues.

It's also apparently not acceptable to maintain any kind of nuanced opinion; you must declare for or against a side 100% or have a position assumed for you.

Game balance aside, I'm still boggled that we have pages of lore debate in a fantasy setting where it appears that magic=aether=can-do-nearly-anything. If I do start to slide into snark, it's because the persistent argument over whether or not BLM being allowed to raise anything is lore-allowable is increasingly taking on the tone of a "which superhero would win in a fight?" sort of discussion. If Scholars and Summoners can raise without Holy magic, if Ascians can maintain their aether indefinitely without a body, and if characters can be both dematerialized and rematerialized by means of aether, exactly what sort of spellcaster (read: manipulator of aether) in FFXIV couldn't reasonably be imagined to prop up a nearly-dead person in a fashion that's reasonably consistent with their Job theme?

I can certainly imagine ways for BLMs to scrape bodies off the ground, but my reason for opposing the idea is that I'm against the further proliferation of Resurrection skills outside of the Healer role. And I want to be selfish when I play BLM and continue not to care about fixing everyone else's mistakes; I play healer 99% of the time for Savage content and enjoy a BLM sociopathy break.

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Originally Posted by PrismaticDaybreak

Maybe be a little less prickly about it. Nowhere did I say lore should take a backseat, the fact that people don't enjoy playing a game designed for entertainment is arguably more important than lore, no that doesn't mean lore isn't important. And you skimmed right past the main point of what I said, that'd I'd rather discuss fun and creative ideas to give something to BLM rather than waste time doing exactly this, arguing about what pithy types it should have, it's about as useless as trying to shovel snow in a blizzard.

Look more carefully at what I said, I do consider both sides. I don't necessarily think Raise is the right way to go but if the bottom line ends up being they need it for people to enjoy playing BLM versus just keeping them sad because lore then I'm going to put my chips on the let them play the damn game how they'd like side. Now I sincerely doubt it'll hit that point, if we look at Summoners current state and SE's history of overbuffing I'm sure BLM will be quite fine. Please please please please don't engage me on a "is lore important or not?" type discussion.

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I wasn't prickly toward you, I was direct. I'm prickly toward Llugen. Sorry that it can sometimes be hard to tell. I'm like that sometimes.

I skimmed over your points because I agree mostly with them. I just don't think a Raise variant is a helpful idea to push, to put it lightly, and there are gameplay reasons for that as well that I've already pointed out. I'd sooner fix what black mage is supposed to do than give it more tools to not do the one thing it's meant to do. That's literally it. You agree lore is important, and you're trying to come up with ideas. In short, Prism, you are fine. Quit worrying.

Now, I could bring up a ton of lore (again) to show why black mages shouldn't get a Raise variant, but since certain people (Llugen) really don't give a fig for so huge a reason why this game is worth playing, I'd like to quote from a thread EllieShadeflare made.

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

• The Enochian Economy: Enochian... just doesn't work. It hasn't worked since 3.x, but 4.x solved half of the problem but causing new ones. Foul is essentially a return to all the problems associated with the original Enochian but now with the stipulation that A. Enochian now has an indefinite duration if done right and B. Enochian is easier to lose. Enochian is easier to lose due to the design of Fire IV and Astral Fire, since Fire IV does not refresh Astral Fire but both Fire IV and Enochian require Astral Fire or Umbral Ice in order to build up Foul. Actually, this is the old Enochian mechanic, with a "reward," a lack of degenerating duration and actually being easier to lose... Somehow, Black Mage became more complex in the team's attempt to not make the game more complex. Hm.
  
• Gambler or Black Mage? Two of Black Mage's most important tools, Firestarter and Thundercloud, are locked behind RNG. Firestarter to some might not be so bad, since it's just a Fire III you get randomly (or by using Sharpcast) on Fire. However, its purpose to a Black Mage belies its simple usage, as it's neccessary to extend Astral Fire when doing the opener, or moving. Having it as RNG is honestly a massive hindrance to the class. Thundercloud is borderline unacceptable, however. This is our third highest single target spell and it's locked behind RNG. Granted, this is also a problem with Bard and Refugulent Arrow and Pitch Perfect, and both should be solved.
  
• "Where's the Kaboom? There's supposed to be an earthshattering Kaboom!" A long time ago, Black Mage had damage without peer. Our raw potencies when merged with Astral Fire beat out Fell Cleave as a standard rotation spell. Unfortunately, this all changed with the changes to Stormblood. We lost Raging Strikes, a whopping 20% damage boost for 20s and Fire IV reduced to 260 potency. It seemed that the only way to make up this loss in potency would be with Foul... if the game didn't make it also disappointing with only 650 potency. Sure, we gained 14 potency per second... but that's still a pretty low improvement, and especially considering it took 10 levels just to get there. Compare this to other classes, who have gained net gains (such as the Tanks, who have either gained a powerful 'Fell Cleave' equivalent (Holy Spirit and Bloodspiller) or have gained a better economy (Beast Gauge and Inner Release), Healers who all gain a new tool for their healing, damage and support, and every other DPS other than MAYBE Monk who all feel objectively more powerful at 70 than at 60. With that also said, unlike other DPSes, even though our rotation is "simple" on paper, it's also rather... forceful in its tunnel vision.

So, what would be some solutions I'd suggest? Not all of the solutions need to be taken, but something has to be done.

• Fire IV Solution A: Increase Fire IV and Blizzard IV potency to 300. Why? We lost an incredible amount of damage, so much so that all it'd take to make Black Mage close to its old potency is to give us back our old potency. Buuuuut. Even old Black Mage had problems in 3.x and we also lost Raging Strikes on top of that. As a result, 300 should allow Black Mage to inflict serious hurt without being too deeply hampered by death or losing Enochian... and would make it almost match what we had when we used Raging Strikes due to the change to Enochian. If Black Mage is gonna commit to being a turret with seriously high damage, then we go full hog.
• Fire IV Solution B: Decrease cast time for Fire IV to 2.5s. If this is done instead of A, this would solve the problem of lining Fire IV with Enochian, while also solving our mobility issue. It'd especially work well with the reduction of RNG.
• Reduce the RNG. The insulting part is that it was already done for PVP, through Thunder III ready. Essentially, you build up Thunder III Ready by inflicting 5000 damage upon a foe whilst under the affect of Thunder. Then, perhaps for Firestarter, we can create a new mechanic, Astral Hearts, that works under a similar principle. With each cast of Fire IV, you gain an Astral Heart, and upon gaining 3, you guarantee Firestarter upon casting of Fire. In addition, each Astral Heart buffs the potency of Fire, with 1 Astral Heart making it 200, 2 Astral Hearts making it 220, and 3 making it 240. Thundercloud can also work under the same mechanic, through Aether Static. Each tic of Thunder I/II/III/IV causes your Aether Static to go up. I/III will make it go up by 15% per tic, whilst each tic of Thunder II/IV would make the gauge go up by 5%. Upon reaching full Aether Static, this is when you proc Thundercloud, which would no longer have a time limit to casting. However, RNG could still be there but would not affect Aether Static nor Astral Hearts... though Sharpcast would need a new purpose. Or replacement.
• Grant some mitigation or mobility. For the former, Quadcast (Triplecast + Swiftcast) does some of the work, but due to the way Fire IV works, it works more as a pseudo haste than as a true mobility. As such, a solution granted by the Black Mage thread gives this:
  
  While Quadcast may still be neccessary for the opener, IPZI would mitigate its neccessity for it in further procs of Leylines until you get Convert again.
  
  If mobility is not in the question, give us better mitigation. Lower the cooldown of Manaward. Done. Maybe give us a damage taken reduction cooldown? I'unno.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

I mean, that's exactly what I'm getting at. I'm not sure why everyone's trying to pull the "homogenization" card on BLM Raise when it's very clear that there are loads of other things that are pretty well "homogenized".

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If that's so then it's better not to conitnue further down that way, though what was used as an example is not really what I would call homogenization since it fall in the required toolkit for the job and they do not really have an impact on the balance in a manner as big as something else.

Here's the deal though, Cyn. It's already "unjustly spread." And keeping it off of BLM is only making the situation worse because it means BLMs shunned out.

Not sure if you read my post about my experience in unending the other night, but it's going to take a LOT of "raw damage" to compete with SMN, where in Nael phase I was able to get off FOUR full raises (two swift two slow) and maintain top damage on the boss (the DRG and the BRD both died and both healers), and still almost make it to enrage (we died to the last thermionic beam because not enough bodies)



Frankly, NO amount of "raw damage" can compete with that, and that's the problem I've been trying to illustrate in this thread. This game is a team effort especially at the high end, and when your caster choice(s) are either "play BLM for 'the damage' when you could have taken SAM for 'the damage' anyway, or play SMN/RDM for decent damage AND access to recovery", it's pretty obvious which choice is more alluring.


This is why it either deserves a nerf across the role, or BLM deserves access to it (the title of the thread). I think we have a better shot at the latter as a community trying to express issues with balance to the developers.


Frankly still, if they do some completely left-field blanket fix like "oh ok well here's Resurrection in the role pool! You're welcome!" Literally ALL of us are going to collectively facepalm. This is all part of why this is such a touchy (and heated) subject.

Though if you keep saying that BLM is shunned because of it and that no amounts of raw dmg willc ompete + was sfia said to be a competent replacement it only makes it more and more apparent that as a resource is off balance by itself and has to be nerfed not spread.
Or at least it's what I would get as a game designer (well frankly I wouldn't have given verraise to the job to begin with)

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Originally Posted by Llugen

Here's the deal though, Cyn. It's already "unjustly spread." And keeping it off of BLM is only making the situation worse because it means BLMs shunned out.

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I recognize that your intentions are good, and I don’t think you are truly off the mark.

I’m more of the mindset that resurrection skills outside of the Healer role need to be dialed back, though RDM would require some tweaking if they lost their rez-dispenser niche.

There’s a larger issue of physical vs. magical DPS comps at play, and I think there is a major problem when no one seems to care that the former group cannot raise but seems to expect that the latter group be able to do so. Ideally, if NIN, MCH, and what-have-you are considered healthy and viable without raise, it should be possible to bring BLM to that level.

To be fair he thinks about progression level play where you need raise the most, though you are not wrong that they could make BLM to be better in the meta by making caster meta viable.

I don't agree with the I don't want to be forced play X job during prog so that I can play my main afterward though. I think that the goal of the party enter into play there, if you aim for wf you are going to do whatever will garantees better chances to get a good position which means beign ready to change your job to better suit your strategy.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

To be fair he thinks about progression level play where you need raise the most, though you are not wrong that they could make BLM to be better in the meta by making caster meta viable.

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Exactly. This why I think RDM has a very unfortunate niche; we are all heavily reliant on resurrection to progress more quickly and efficiently, and our need for it drops off after progression is over. I don’t think rez on magical DPS should ever have been allowed to become something other than an occasional bonus, and now it’s close to being viewed as mandatory for prog.

Back in the day SMN often beat out BLM in prog popularity, but it was about much more than the backup rez. You know rez is overvalued when RDM has few advantages over its peers and is still a top pick, at least during prog.

So let me see if I can spell this out better. (Ha, get it? Spell? badumtiss)


I made reference to BLM/SAM previously because of the power dynamic. Both BLM and SAM allegedly are "high damage low utility", so in theory you bring one or the other in a group. I'm trying to explain how, by the logic of the people in this thread, even if "damage checks" somehow become SO great that a "raw damage" class is required for it, it would still make more sense to bring SAM and then a SMN/RDM for the recovery tools, because bringing SAM is not gimping you on any recovery tools; you're probably losing disembowel or maybe losing shadewalker.



Saying that "raw damage alone" should be enough for BLM while the other two have Raise turns a completely blind eye to the power of it within the caster role. This is what people in this thread don't seem to understand. MCH and NIN are "perfectly healthy without raise" because they aren't threatened by being replaced by a class that does have it in their same role. Does this make sense?



Without significant "removal" of Raise ability on the other two casters, there will be no such thing as balance on this front, period. Call it homogenization if you want, but the difference between taking a caster that can raise and taking a caster that cannot is staggering. Why gimp your group even if you "need" raw damage by taking BLM when you could just take SAM for the damage and bring SMN/RDM for the recovery?

No other (DPS) role in the game has access to this, or if you prefer, is forced to deal with this level of discrepancy.
This is why it's a huge dilemma explicitly for the caster role, hence this thread, hence the pages and pages of me/us arguing about it while I roll my eyes at people saying "what if SAM wants a heal and DRG wants Trick Attack".




(By the way, they would never implement any DPS check that REQUIRES BLM or SAM; they have to balance the game for at least reasonable variance of comps, furthermore it's still arguable that the total group contribution from "meta" or synergistic classes would outweigh that damage anyway, so it's barely even a point of argument.)

Well samurai can not halve enmity bar unlike blm, so it is potentially big dps loss for tank if you bring samurai over blm.

Indeed, but that's undoubtedly a separate issue that needs addressed, preferably by making it so Diversion also dumps, or giving the Melee role the "mini-shirk" I/we have been tossing around.

Besides, it might be a loss but it's certainly not one so huge as to outweigh bringing recovery, esp. for prog related strats. Worrying about enmity on SAM would mostly come from "already on farm"/speedkill areas of play, and as many have pointed out, by that logic Raise is already less valuable so sure, bring the BLM then. However, this is still "band-aid" logic, a la: "play RDM/SMN for prog and play BLM after". No, I want to play my main job, please and thank you.

Problem is that many ppl are saying that they don't want the caster role to be the raising role of the game and that's why we say that it should be put in check and not spread.

Even so what if for some reasons BLM instead of beign a prog job becomes a meta speed kill job (trough of change to the balance and whatnot).
Does it really need to be extra viable in prog? Because as things stands it's underperforming compared to other options true but it still functions.

You usually point out the fact that you don't want to be forced to play a job during prog and then switch to your main after but frankly I cannot agree on that, if you want to play competitive that's what ppl usually do to reach the goal, which makes me think you don't really like to play like that tbh

...Of course I don't LIKE to do it, I do it because it's "the right thing to do". But I don't want to NEED to do it.

Besides, it's only because the gap is so great. If the gap was lowered (for instance, if BLM had access to SOME kind of ability for raising and party utility, no matter how small), it would still be "justifiable" by saying "well, it's not QUITE as utility-heavy as SMN/RDM, but it's still usable and can compete on the front, and everyone's not griping at me for playing 'the selfish job'."

I don't think that makes me some kind of monster.


And again, by all means strip the caster role of Raise completely, I'm game. Give RDM Verregen instead of Verraise, which heals over time and also gives a small incoming damage reduction. Bam. Just remember what I said a few pages back about Unending Coil being 18 minutes long vs. Savage Second Coil which was about 12 max, and about 4.XX content vs. 2.XX content as it relates to recoverability.

I don't really think you can really compare, second coil was also a place where too much dps or bad phase transitions could screw you, as for the recoverability as you said they wanted to not punish the healers too much and frankly also lessen the burden on the PUGs, but from the bits of ultimate you can see that they don't really want to be that accessible and frankly they kinda missed the marks in some place, it kinda shows that they went to somewhat arbitrary design to make sure that raise isn't as free as it was in O4s and not everything went that way, whcih begs what they'll do next?

Maybe phoenix will always shows up to give you a dmg buff at the start of a fight? diying to any mechanics will trigger a catastrophic failure that wipes everyone? the boss recovers health which each deaths? each deaths makes the boss stronger?.

Frankly as it stands raise is not a resource it's a ticking bomb. Strip all lore reasons shenanigans away and you see that as it stands as a tool is too powerful.
20 raises in a fight should not be possible EVER!
The problem it's not about having it or not it's the window of opportunity, if they made Verraise 2.0 secs cast time but not dualcastable it would be as powerful as now and that's a problem.
SMN is limited in it's frequency, but 75% of his dmg is still happening while they channel it also the change to MP cost of R3 essentially gave them infinity MP which means it's never a real loss for them to use it and that's a problem.

As you can see there are gameplay problems attached to it and it's because of that I insist, something that is problematic and harmful to the game should not be encouraged but should be moderated instead especially if it corners the role to a niche that should not be his to begin with

I mean, bravo, you have me sold, save for the fact (once more) that I still think we have a better chance at the Devs giving Raise to BLM than removing it from RDM/SMN.

And the bottom line is that if they decide to keep it on the other two, the role will STILL be imbalanced, no matter how much we hate the idea of 20 raises in a fight on paper. Then what? We take the "moral high ground" and boycott it while everyone else laughs and uses tools at their disposal? No, that would be just as foolish.


The very fact that it exists means that it should be considered. Leaving it "as is" is 100% the wrong thing to do.

I don't see how you can really say that the devs have a better chance of giving raise to BLM than doing otherwise when they stated they won't do it.

...stated that they wont do it**** before deltascape savage prog even happened, and by extension therefore before the precedent of rez dispenser debut in the raid scene.


I don't know why that's so tough for everyone to grasp. It's like them saying "hey we're never going to make an alliance raid roulette" in 2.XX and then now, SEVEN ALLIANCE RAIDS LATER, they're like "hmm yeah maybe we should do that after all because (insert multitude of reasons here)". New information/perspective has arrived on the scene, and SIGNIFICANT new information, at that. (Turns out we really can clear V4S with 7 Raises, whadayaknow)


The dawn of "rez dispenser" is why this is "suddenly" such a pressing issue to begin with; as I've said several times in this thread already, before when it was just SMN and BLM, there really wasn't an issue; SMN had to devour a ton of its own MP (which at that time was translatable into damage, not to mention burn Swiftcast which at that time was basically used on cooldown for Shadow Flare) to use the Raise and BLM was still meaningful to take as such anyway. The precedent has changed since then, and it was with the old precedent in mind that they made the statement.

No they knew about it, The interwiew was not 4 months before SB release it was in the month after the release (raid testing started in april btw) everyone knew about how strong it was and the question was made because of how strong it was and they acknowledged it was strong but said that dps would suffer because of it and that it wouldn't make sense to add it to BLM.

Now that to me tells that they do not think raise as a defining trait of the caster role and that they underestimated the strength of it.

Which makes me believe that they'd rather moderate it in some way before giving access to BLM sealing the tombstone of caster forever in that regards and making their work 100% harder when design bosses.

I feel like your evidence supports my argument more than it supports yours.

Their "testing" of the content is irrelevant, as we established when we said it's impossible to "overvalue" something, there is only usage of something or lack thereof. The community decided it was invaluable, and therefore it was.

With this in mind, if the players are going to shun BLM for progression then it makes the most sense to add it to the group than to kill the group, particularly since they thought that rez dispenser was apparently "perfectly balanced".

Maybe because I don't get what is your point exactly, you used an unrealistic example about alliance roulette where they never stated they would never do it to my memory and even so it's not like they had that conversation extremely far away from the start of prog.

Fact is they didn't said we'll consider it they said NO!, which means either they lose their face or they proceed in another way or maybe we just acknowledge that BLM will never be prog optimal which as I said can be a possibility if they make it stronger in other areas. Remember that Lucrezia started with a RDM then went SMN and then double ranged, which means that it's possible to pull off something like this if they make magical jobs functional.

The fact that they "said no" and we are still here discussing it is evidence enough that their stubborn attitude regarding it should be changed. This isn't difficult. Furthermore, everything we have said still does not deny the fact that the statement was made before deltascape savage prog. This is significant, whether you'd personally like to admit it or not.

They absolutely said they weren't interested in putting in an alliance raid roulette, it was back at the beginning of 3.x when Void Ark was just first coming out, before Wiping City. Now here we are.


There is a major difference between "prog optimal" and "can meaningfully compete". Like I said, no one expects BLM to be the strongest prog class, but if my options are "suffer heavily or play RDM/SMN", then it's a pretty shitty design situation. Right now we are absolutely under that adage, and again no matter how much damage they give BLM it cannot outweigh four raises over the course of 160 seconds (my SMN firsthand share).


Having access to an option (while the others have their current options) as well as increased damage and reliable procs would be enough for me personally and hopefully many BLM mains to justify playing the job over switching to rez dispenser. It even still might not be "as good", but the gap between how good they are would be significantly lower (read: more balanced). It goes from groups saying "BLM doesn't have recovery tools man, come on don't shaft us" to BLMs saying "Well now it does, they might not be AS good, but deal with it because it's better than nothing and stronger in other areas."


And to be blunt, it was yoship who said "no" so vehemently, and in our collectively honest opinion, even if BLM is his "pet class", he might not exactly be the strongest player on the job and/or be the best judge of what it might need balance-wise. (please don't smite me)

First I need you to direct me to that quote about raid alliance roulette because I don't recall them saying they would never do it only that they had no interest at the time, though as a comparison is not that valid since that is more a System problem than a real gameplay problem.

Second if you say that no1 expect BLM to be the strongest in prog than he doesn't really need it, it can fulfill some other role like beign Good at speed running for example.
I think I spoke enough of why the caster role should not have that easy and frequent access I won't digress again

I would say that you think that continuing on this road they might think that they are wrong and they'll fix it.
Well I believe that they might think that this is a tantrum from not having the same toys as the other jobs which could lead to them overlooking the problem in the worst scenario.

I really don't believe there's a indication of them poitning towards them adding a raise to BLM and frankly speaking it won't happen this expansion, the only spell they've added mid expansion was Stoneskin 2 in 2.5! So all of this is talking about something that might happen in 5.0, which might aswell remove verraise for what we know.
I think it would be more productive from us to telling them that if they believe that the BLM should be the turret selfish mage, they should make it so at least

"the turret selfish mage" is pointless when in its role there are jobs that have recovery tools and the "selfish" DPS can come from another source (namely, SAM).

This cannot be stated more simply.



I'm pretty sure it was either a fan fest live letter or just a regular stream live letter but it was around the time of Void Ark.

I'm very well aware of your stance on it and "agree" in full, save for the few caveats that I've already illustrated (longer fights, change of precedent, unwillingness to consider rez dispenser/SMN resurrection nerfs). There's not much more that needs to be said, it could honestly go either way. The only wrong thing would be to leave it the way that it is. "tantrum for not having toys" by which you mean "needs insulin to survive and isn't getting it", I suppose yeah you could call that a "tantrum" lol

The mere fact that you would consider (or think that the devs might consider) this entire thread a "tantrum" (save for maybe our tone in a few of the posts, my own included) is very discouraging. If you are able to glean ANYTHING from what I've said, I'd hope that it would be that there is absolutely a problem and we are very much in the right for stating it. Besides, they WANT our feedback, and nothing that we have said has been unfounded. "Tantrum" is certainly a stretch.


They may not have "added" skills outside of stoneskin II (which you could argue "was a function already in the game", which you could certainly ALSO argue about Raise, albeit not on the same job or in the same fashion) but they have overhauled them; shield swipe in 2.x got a pretty meaningful overhaul in I think 2.48. Given the state of BLM I could see them overhauling Freeze as suggested, and if they really decided to wake up with a change-of-heart, they could remove Sleep and put it in that slot. That being said, given the circumstances, adding a skill wouldn't be ridiculous, since the kit is already very few buttons.

I certainly don't see them adding it in 4.2, I just hope that this is something that they will seriously consider over the next year at the very least. I'm in it for the long haul.

The existance of SAM and RDM/SMN having different tools does not preclude BLM to be made a functional selfish job.

Yes, it does, when the caster role has one allocated slot in standard comps, while the melee role has two.



This is why the OP talks about either remove raise from RDM/SMN or give it to BLM. Role balance.

Furthermore, as we've stated there are obviously "tiers" of tools. It would make no sense to insist that BLM must have embolden or devotion for role balance, although SOMETHING would indeed be nice, but it DOES make sense when access to Raise is basically "S tier", as we've agreed over the course of this thread.


This is why this matters so much and I keep bringing up the SAM/BLM paradox. Why would you waste your caster slot on the "raw damage" when you could put the "raw damage" in the melee slot and bring a caster with recovery tools for more classes with recovery tools overall in the group AND the same access to "raw damage"?! Please tell me this makes sense.

And who says that there should be only 1 caster slot? there could be 2, ranged had 2 for a good while, melee sometimes have 3, those are still standard comps

Not for progression during gear split, this is plain. In fact I'm surprised you're even saying this.


Casters share all left and right side gear. If nothing else, purely for the sake of gear efficiency it makes no sense to bring two casters.


Ranged has two now because prog pushing is long over; no one is fighting over gear. Also related, Lucrezia using RDM for early prog SMN for mid prog and BRD+MCH for the clear. And by the way, nothing in Unending is gear-related. It's just the totem that you can turn in for ANY weapon.


Everything that I've said about Raise relates the MOST to early prog and hoping to give BLM a closer-to-equal footing than the other jobs, otherwise, can't wait to be stuck playing SMN again.

considering how BLM favors spellspeed while the other 2 don't the gear point is moot also gear is frankly stupidily easy to get in this game.


Frankly this horse has been beaten to death already atm we are arguing over minor point about what is more likely to happen, which is up to their whim.


I've said enough how bad of influence dualcast raise has been to the community and how terrible would be spreading to the role, there's nothing more that I can say unless repeating myself.
Take from it what you will

I mean, you're not wrong on either of those points but it's completely away from everything I've been saying, so "irrelevant" if you're trying to contend my point still.

My point being: with one caster per standard group in mind, BLM makes the least sense having no recovery tools given that the others do for early progression especially. Even if speed isn't on a piece when you're beefing up your ilvl at the start, you're going to use it and meld some speed then optimize after. By extension, the difference when you have 1-2 clears vs already having 10 clears is staggering.


I mean, I'm pretty sure that's the very first thing I said in this thread is how ridiculous rez dispensing is and how, after their stance of "raise is very powerful" for all of 2.x and 3.x, they decide "here take this class that can pump out raise lemayo". I'm shocked they didn't nerf it right then and there, but based on the fact that they didn't, nor still, nor does it look like they will, here I am. Preaching about how BLM deserves access to a Raise tool to compete.

I believe there was already a statement made by Yoshi-P that the adjustments to BLM in 4.2 would be strictly damage adjustments. I’m of the mindset that BLM does not need a Raise—not from any sort of lore standpoint or what have you, but just that it isn’t needed. What they need is more damage to make up for the fact that they do not bring Raise/utility to a group like SMN or RDM do.

There is nothing wrong with having selfish DPS like BLM and SAM. But, said selfish DPS need to have high enough personal damage to make them favorable over a job with lower damage and utility.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Llugen

Not for progression during gear split, this is plain. In fact I'm surprised you're even saying this.


Casters share all left and right side gear. If nothing else, purely for the sake of gear efficiency it makes no sense to bring two casters.


Ranged has two now because prog pushing is long over; no one is fighting over gear. Also related, Lucrezia using RDM for early prog SMN for mid prog and BRD+MCH for the clear. And by the way, nothing in Unending is gear-related. It's just the totem that you can turn in for ANY weapon.


Everything that I've said about Raise relates the MOST to early prog and hoping to give BLM a closer-to-equal footing than the other jobs, otherwise, can't wait to be stuck playing SMN again.

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In a world where Savage raids can be completed with full crafted gear and vit melds, as well as alt raids, gear splitting is less of an issue. The main reason caster comps aren't viable is because they don't bring the performance that a double melee comp brings.

On the subject of adding a raise - they should add something unique, rather than the same thing to each caster class.

I think black mage will get raise spell but it be called some else. see it problem be at lvl 80 or 70 to 80 when it get it

I can agree with getting something unique, but in my opinion "something unique" is a special-function raise that's on a 180s recast that costs no MP and is off-GCD.

Unless the utility can bring unconscious players back from the dead, it will by definition be inferior to the support that RDM/SMN is able to provide: spot raising someone who messes up a mechanic/is deliberately sacrificing/"for science", etc.

What they really need to do is buff RDM damage so the only reason to bring it isn't just the raises. And if that'd make their raises too powerful, just make dualcast work similar to lightspeed; except take a flat 5 seconds off (lightspeed takes off 2.5) casting time instead of instant cast. That way their normal rotation stays the same while they'd still need swiftcast for an instant raise.