Any other Black Mages annoyed?

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

SMN wasn't fine last patch. It had mana issues. Other than that, they were fine.

BLM's never had the highest single target damage, Monks did.

Also, have you taken into account the massive nerfs to spellspeed, fey glow (now fey wind), thundercloud and the impracticality of the combination of movement, enochain timers and 10 seconds of Astral Fire?

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You shouldn't even be comparing to any of the melees as they're all balanced on entirely separate criteria. All of the melee jobs should have higher single target damage than the ranged jobs by virtue of being at greater risk in melee range and having to reposition a lot more. Any comparisons here are solely between BLM and SMN as caster dps. Between those two BLMs had the highest single target and AOE damage throughout the latter half of the 2.x patch cycle and the cause of that problem traced back to the BLM buffs in 2.2 (or thereabouts). The MP problem was only part of the issue for SMNs.

I also never said that BLM was fine. Go back and read my post. I even acknowledged they need attention. Many in this thread are complaining about perceived imbalance compared to SMN though and I was pointing out that this is not true. SMN's were vastly inferior to BLMs for a long time so SE has buffed our AOE burst damage so we're finally comparable again. Yes, Deathflare does not have diminishing returns but we can't use it anywhere near as frequently as you can use Flare so it's not a fair comparison. Our single target damage was also not increased much at all: Ruin III is 40 extra potency but can only be used for 15s every 60s and Deathflare can only be used once every 60s. It's an increase but not by much, and not by anywhere near as much as the new BLM spells can potentially increase the BLM output.

BLMs, like many jobs right now, are having teething problems with the new skills. The new rotations are a little clunky, there's not enough room for error with maintaining dots and buff timers, etc. That needs attention, yes. I just wish people would stop comparing things like the AOE potencies on BLM and SMN skills when the cooldowns and situations in which they can be used are entirely different. Compare the overall dps performance of the jobs, not individual skills.

Only thing Black Mage doesn't do now is dominate Summoner in every area of dps with ease. There is no direct comaparison to Black Mage and Summoner because most of Summoners abilities aren't spammable. Pain Flare is a poor mans Flare it requires aetherflow stacks to us and can only be done 3 times per minute. Death Flare has a 400 potency but can only be used once per minute so it doesn't add much overall damage to the Summoner.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

What it really annoys me is the fact that the ability surecast doesn't work on blizzard IV or fire IV, if enochian or astral/umbral expire surecast does not force the cast of both spells.

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i don't think this was ever the intended effect of surecast...surecast is only intended to prevent casting interrupts from enemy mechanics that don't physically knock you in any single direction or relinquish character control from the player(static damage or being hit by physical auto attacks from mobs). the cast canceling of b4/f4 is just bad game programming.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

The irony here is somewhat priceless given that all the BLMs were saying SMN was fine when BLMs had the highest single target and AOE damage towards the end of the previous patch cycle.

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After the mana change to Summoners, it was pretty easy to justify taking them. You get a better virus, a better eye for an eye and a combat res all on a class that can handle any of the mechanics a bard could (and if it involved taking magic damage, better than a bard could). If you take a Black Mage you get Apoc and really nothing else. If the two classes are doing equal DPS, you take the summoner every single time. Right now, Summoners are doing more in both aoe and single target. That's a problem.

Magnitude matters, but in the aggregate it's way worse for Summoners to be higher DPS than Black Mages than it is the other way around. There's a break-even point somewhere on the side of "Black Mages are slightly higher DPS than Summoners".

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Originally Posted by Alberel

You shouldn't even be comparing to any of the melees as they're all balanced on entirely separate criteria. All of the melee jobs should have higher single target damage than the ranged jobs by virtue of being at greater risk in melee range and having to reposition a lot more. Any comparisons here are solely between BLM and SMN as caster dps. Between those two BLMs had the highest single target and AOE damage throughout the latter half of the 2.x patch cycle and the cause of that problem traced back to the BLM buffs in 2.2 (or thereabouts). The MP problem was only part of the issue for SMNs.

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I disagree. Melee's have instant cast abilities and are no more difficult to play. BLM's are just as movement incapacitated as Melee's. They are all DPS classes at the end of the day - and what should be taken into account is raid utility; Monks have Dragon kick. Dragoons have battle litany and disembowel. Ninja's have the Trick attack. SMN's have Enhanced Virus, Lower CD Eye for an Eye and Raise. If casters are automatically given lower dps because they are ranged, there isn't a need for them, unless if there are either artificial magic only phases (e.g. T11 in progression), AOE or if a specific mechanic makes 3 Melee's unfeasible.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

I also never said that BLM was fine. Go back and read my post. I even acknowledged they need attention. Many in this thread are complaining about perceived imbalance compared to SMN though and I was pointing out that this is not true. SMN's were vastly inferior to BLMs for a long time so SE has buffed our AOE burst damage so we're finally comparable again. Yes, Deathflare does not have diminishing returns but we can't use it anywhere near as frequently as you can use Flare so it's not a fair comparison. Our single target damage was also not increased much at all: Ruin III is 40 extra potency but can only be used for 15s every 60s and Deathflare can only be used once every 60s. It's an increase but not by much, and not by anywhere near as much as the new BLM spells can potentially increase the BLM output.

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Talking about reading posts, where did I accuse you of saying that? Just because SMN had mana issues last patch doesn't mean that they should be kings this patch.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

BLMs, like many jobs right now, are having teething problems with the new skills. The new rotations are a little clunky, there's not enough room for error with maintaining dots and buff timers, etc. That needs attention, yes. I just wish people would stop comparing things like the AOE potencies on BLM and SMN skills when the cooldowns and situations in which they can be used are entirely different. Compare the overall dps performance of the jobs, not individual skills.

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It isn't just teething problems and clunky rotations. Its broken skills and broken rotations. Thundercloud gone - dps loss. Spellspeed gutted - DPS loss. Fey Glow gone - dps loss. 3 second casts instead of 2.5 (Potency doesn't mean everything!). You have to cut short your Enochian refresh because of the refresh diminishing returns. Does Monk have to do that?

Also, when in my last post did I compare AOE potency on BLM to SMN this patch?

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Originally Posted by Akiza

Only thing Black Mage doesn't do now is dominate Summoner in every area of dps with ease. There is no direct comaparison to Black Mage and Summoner because most of Summoners abilities aren't spammable. Pain Flare is a poor mans Flare it requires aetherflow stacks to us and can only be done 3 times per minute. Death Flare has a 400 potency but can only be used once per minute so it doesn't add much overall damage to the Summoner.

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You know Flare can only be done 6 times a minute due to transpose cooldown. Sure you can do double with convert but that is a 3 minute cooldown anyway.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

You never needed to run triple flares in the add phase in T13. That phase is timed. Save your cooldowns for the phase after.

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That was my whole argument against triple flaring but hey, whatever inflates numbers people think is better smh. I could have worded my arguments better but whatever. The only thing that I wish carried over from WoW is "who the fuck cares about aoe?" Like if you weren't getting through add phase in t13, a single flare wouldn't help.

One day we'll finally have an MMO that doesn't rely on lame adds and add-based mechanics to actually make fights challenging and unique.

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Originally Posted by Meleoffs

Most blms?

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Yes, most blms have used triple flare at some point for some reason.
.....not all the time.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

I disagree. Melee's have instant cast abilities and are no more difficult to play. BLM's are just as movement incapacitated as Melee's. They are all DPS classes at the end of the day - and what should be taken into account is raid utility; Monks have Dragon kick. Dragoons have battle litany and disembowel. Ninja's have the Trick attack. SMN's have Enhanced Virus, Lower CD Eye for an Eye and Raise. If casters are automatically given lower dps because they are ranged, there isn't a need for them, unless if there are either artificial magic only phases (e.g. T11 in progression), AOE or if a specific mechanic makes 3 Melee's unfeasible.

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Well you're welcome to disagree but that is how the game is already balanced. All the melee jobs have a higher single target DPS output than any of the ranged jobs. That is how the game has been balanced for over a year now. The effective damage output ends up being more equal due to their losing damage to mechanics but their base potencies are actually higher than casters and on a training dummy or largely stationary fights they will parse much higher. Clearly despite this balancing the ranged jobs haven't been rendered obsolete (though SMN very nearly was due to being eclipsed by BLM) so your fears are unwarranted.

As for BLM, they have far more reliable burst than a SMN which makes them ideal for add phases or taking out targets quickly. SMNs being DOT based means they deal their damage in a fairly even spread over a long time which makes them less ideal for taking out priority targets. Even with the new SMN skills BLMs are still better at this unless we conveniently have Dreadwyrm Trance ready to use at the exact moment needed, and due to the aethertrail timer that's not easy to do unless we deliberately sacrifice damage prior to that.

To be honest you're falling into the exact trap I was describing in looking at the numbers and assuming this makes SMN instantly better. It doesn't. You're not thinking about the practical differences in how the jobs deal that damage.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

Talking about reading posts, where did I accuse you of saying that? Just because SMN had mana issues last patch doesn't mean that they should be kings this patch.

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You questioned whether I had taken into account a long list of problems contributing to the BLM issues. The implication was that I hadn't taken those into account and thus thought there was no problem. I wanted to be explicit in pointing out that I do not disagree on the subject of BLMs having issues. As for SMNs being kings... I never said they should be. I've already agreed that BLM has problems so clearly I'm agreeing with you that they need some attention.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

It isn't just teething problems and clunky rotations. Its broken skills and broken rotations. Thundercloud gone - dps loss. Spellspeed gutted - DPS loss. Fey Glow gone - dps loss. 3 second casts instead of 2.5 (Potency doesn't mean everything!). You have to cut short your Enochian refresh because of the refresh diminishing returns. Does Monk have to do that?

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I classify those all as teething problems. SE has made a lot of sweeping changes to many jobs and a lot of previous synergies have been lost. Further changes will be needed going forward to compensate for those losses. You class if not broken and those changes aren't bugs. They're just an oversight that needs to be accounted for.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

Also, when in my last post did I compare AOE potency on BLM to SMN this patch?

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I never said that you said those things. My post was quite clear in referring to previous posters in this thread making those comparisons.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

Well you're welcome to disagree but that is how the game is already balanced. All the melee jobs have a higher single target DPS output than any of the ranged jobs. That is how the game has been balanced for over a year now. The effective damage output ends up being more equal due to their losing damage to mechanics but their base potencies are actually higher than casters and on a training dummy or largely stationary fights they will parse much higher. Clearly despite this balancing the ranged jobs haven't been rendered obsolete (though SMN very nearly was due to being eclipsed by BLM) so your fears are unwarranted.

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Yet, it wasn't balanced last patch, for the reasons I went into in my last post. And Melee jobs don't end up having equal effective damage as casters - They out DPS casters at top end gameplay. And still do. BLM's lose damage to mechanics as much, if not more than a Melee does. Hell, fights are pretty much designed around Melee's nowadays. Why do you think the T13 world first ran duel Monk? Surely another Apocastasis/Eye for an Eye would have given more utility than the second monk? No because they did so much more DPS.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

As for BLM, they have far more reliable burst than a SMN which makes them ideal for add phases or taking out targets quickly. SMNs being DOT based means they deal their damage in a fairly even spread over a long time which makes them less ideal for taking out priority targets. Even with the new SMN skills BLMs are still better at this unless we conveniently have Dreadwyrm Trance ready to use at the exact moment needed, and due to the aethertrail timer that's not easy to do unless we deliberately sacrifice damage prior to that.

To be honest you're falling into the exact trap I was describing in looking at the numbers and assuming this makes SMN instantly better. It doesn't. You're not thinking about the practical differences in how the jobs deal that damage.

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And when you get into a practical scenario, where there are mechanics to deal with, its even worse. BLM's burst - well, honestly, its something other classes have. Dragoon and Summoner both have great burst from what i've seen - and as you are talking about having to have Dreadwyrm Trance ready to use at the exact moment; We need a decent remaining time of Enochian, DPS cooldowns (RS at 3 minutes, Ley Lines at 90 seconds, Convert at 3 minutes) - and we need to make sure we are in our Fire rotation.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

You questioned whether I had taken into account a long list of problems contributing to the BLM issues. The implication was that I hadn't taken those into account and thus thought there was no problem. I wanted to be explicit in pointing out that I do not disagree on the subject of BLMs having issues. As for SMNs being kings... I never said they should be. I've already agreed that BLM has problems so clearly I'm agreeing with you that they need some attention.

I classify those all as teething problems. SE has made a lot of sweeping changes to many jobs and a lot of previous synergies have been lost. Further changes will be needed going forward to compensate for those losses. You class if not broken and those changes aren't bugs. They're just an oversight that needs to be accounted for.

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Teething problems? They had nearly a year to test this. This is more than just "teething problems" or an "oversight". They are large, basic flaws with the entire design of BLM - which is sad because I actually like the core idea of the changes. The implementation has been lazy at best, negligent at worst.

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Originally Posted by Alberel

I never said that you said those things. My post was quite clear in referring to previous posters in this thread making those comparisons.

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Generally when you quote someone and say that, its fair to assume you was.

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Originally Posted by hallena

Except thats not true. They buffed black mage after completely destroying them in 2.1 by *fixing* astral fire and umbral ice tick rate.
If you dont think it was fine for blm to have more single target and aoe than smn in 2.0 then you shouldnt thing its fine for smn to currently have more single target and aoe than blm.

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Except Summoners don't currently have higher ST damage than BLM.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

SMN wasn't fine last patch. It had mana issues. Other than that, they were fine.

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Fine is the keyword here. They were still outclassed by BLM even without the mana issues. Anyone who says otherwise haven't played BLM at the highest level. Even in fights that would be considered "movement heavy" by some such as T11, BLM was always ahead.

I'm annoyed.

I'm new to the game so I've never been great at the class but in 2.x I at least felt comfortable. There weren't too many keybinds for my creepily small hands and the rotation felt responsive and straightforward.

3.0 feels uncomfortable to me (again, a new player not a super experienced theory-crafting raider) for a few reasons I can identify:

1. The AoE isn't as strong. I could help groups power through trash pulls with Flare before
2. Our hard-hitting rotation is balanced around two separate buffs on two separate timers being active at the same time. Should one of the timers end while you are in mid cast you lose that cast. This feels clunky to me.
3. Longcasting feels unresponsive. It's weird having a rotation where I make an attack that won't land until two seconds later (yes I make use of Swiftcast but I can't Swiftcast everything)
4. Longcasts combined with the small area of Ley Lines makes us even MORE immobile than before in an expansion that so far loves heavy movement. To me being punished for moving is fine... Having an entire rotation potentially destroyed for having to move is not.

It's not a matter of "get gud" to me. I can learn to be good. It is a matter of fun. Having only a small fraction of content where your class can perform as it is supposed to is not fun. I guess that once you learn a fight you can learn when you can safely sit still (in the last boss of Neverreap that's never) but what about progression raiders? What are they supposed to do?

Annoyed is the right word. Not enraged. Not gritting my teeth. Just annoyed. It's annoying.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

It's not a matter of "get gud" to me. I can learn to be good. It is a matter of fun. Having only a small fraction of content where your class can perform as it is supposed to is not fun. I guess that once you learn a fight you can learn when you can safely sit still (in the last boss of Neverreap that's never) but what about progression raiders? What are they supposed to do?

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I think this is the key thing. Hardcore raiders will surive as always, but as was the case in WoW, often times balancing for hardcore raiders means saving them from themselves. BLM's numbers are more or less fine. But it's vastly different and more stressful from 2.0. I'm certainly not having fun with it, as everything is so damn stressful, I can't sit back and relax and enjoy myself anymore. And I think that's a shame.

We are fine here, No issues to report.

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Originally Posted by OneWingedSora

Except Summoners don't currently have higher ST damage than BLM.



Fine is the keyword here. They were still outclassed by BLM even without the mana issues. Anyone who says otherwise haven't played BLM at the highest level. Even in fights that would be considered "movement heavy" by some such as T11, BLM was always ahead.

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I was parsing 560 on smn on 2.5 on dummy but was one after 3mins.while my blm was averaging 550-560 dps higher with lucky rng. Many was the issue still.

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Originally Posted by Aikaal

I was parsing 560 on smn on 2.5 on dummy but was one after 3mins.while my blm was averaging 550-560 dps higher with lucky rng. Many was the issue still.

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I was getting 570-600 on BLM. Maybe cause I was using crafted accessories idk. And that's not even factoring in Selene.

After spending a good amount of time at 60 and spending lots of time on the dummy, I'd say we should hopefully get some QoL improvements with the next patch. The only real problem are the way the buffs work because if ANY LITTLE THING goes wrong you get all screwed up. Once in a while you can fix that with Swiftcast to keep everything flowing okay but a few ground AOE's, a knockback or anything like that and you have to revert to the 2.0 rotation. Its just so damn clunky and its really not good design when a class gets 2 completely different rotations come end game depending on circumstances, both of which you need to ramp up to get going. They've heard the Bard cries already, hopefully they hear these. I just wish SE would get out of the stone age and set up a PTR so that crap like this would get dealt with before a major patch/expansion releases.

In re: Leylines problems.
Leylines is fine. Side step as you pop it, and stand on the edge of the circle. AoE? You can prolly step to the other side of your haste circle. Don't stand in the middle of it and you'll be fine in many cases.

In re: Annoyed
A little bit. I don't feel like the Enochian rotation really pumps out as much damage in practice as it should in theory. Sure, I can go a whole minute without it falling off, by taking risks and managing my timings carefully...but even with Leylines, Sharpcast, and Swiftcast, the decreasing volume of Fire IV casts to accommodate the shortening timer in conjunction with all of the movement required in fights (the Lv60 Expert dungeons come to mind) means a much higher ice spells : fire spells ratio than before. Coupling this with having to cast Blizzard again to gain Umbral Ice back after a long dodge, or even a shorter dodge that started in the middle of Blizzard IV, compounds the probability of doing poor damage. Further, the ability to maintain Enochian is sometimes contingent on your party members understanding that you need them to leave the mob alive (and keep it in your line of sight) for another two seconds so you can cast Blizzard IV; otherwise, you go into the next phase stuck with Fire I.


As far as DD jobs go, I only play BLM, but I have to ask myself, are any of the other jobs stuck doing 1/3 the damage they should if a single second of the rotation goes wrong?

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Originally Posted by OneWingedSora

I was getting 570-600 on BLM. Maybe cause I was using crafted accessories idk. And that's not even factoring in Selene.

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I always parse without party so I didn't get the 3% buff. Blm and smn were always 70 something behind melee jobs. Theres one time I got 592 die to ring props.

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Originally Posted by Aethel

We are fine here, No issues to report.

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"Thaumaturge Lv 57"

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Originally Posted by Rongway

In re: Leylines problems.
Leylines is fine. Side step as you pop it, and stand on the edge of the circle. AoE? You can prolly step to the other side of your haste circle. Don't stand in the middle of it and you'll be fine in many cases.

A bunch of spot on stuff

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I thought this at first but in practice many of the aoes that seem to land on us are as big as ley lines or just under leaving only a very small sliver to try to land on.

Tbh am not annoyed, am still loving blm, the aoe nerf is w/e, but we still do great aoe dmg imo, and also great st damage, the only 2 things I would liked changed is ley lines to be 60sec and fire 2 to be 110 or 120 potency. Smn getting aoe buff was a great needed change and they bring it up to blm level now if not slightly more.

If you want to do great single target damage: Go Melee.
If you want to do great AOE damage: Go SMN

Why would you go BLM, even in a fight where you can turret the entire fight with no mechanics when you can just go Melee.

^ you say a lot of smart things, and i respect your blm play but this is just plain wrong.

blm offers VERY strong single target burst AND sustained dps, its harder to work with however. the cool thing about blm is is how you can use flare to refresh AF stacks and beef up dps via aoe on a lot of encounters, like ravana. Our aoe damage isn't terrible, granted it isn't summoner.

Just for the record I do agree smn currently out performs us, just not in single target, but rather as an overall view.

According to you however, no one should ever play ninja or dragoon either.

tl"dr blm is the mario of dps i guess. not good but not bad. There are better choice i suppose.

The most optimal setup for raiders are 3 Melee and a Bard for meeting DPS checks since Dragoon still does good AoE. Casters themselves need to be addressed becuase there is no need to bring them to Raids. Casters are dealing with more mechanic than Melee since most raids are designed around melee so they can have time to turret. Black Mage will benefit from this type of raid design than the Summoner since as a turret they do more overall damage than the Summoner. There is no point in bringing a Caster since most statics are leaving out casters. Even with a caster opening statics still default to Black Mage.

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The most optimal setup for raiders are 3 Melee and a Bard for meeting DPS checks since Dragoon still does good AoE. Casters themselves need to be addressed becuase there is no need to bring them to Raids. Casters are dealing with more mechanic than Melee since most raids are designed around melee so they can have time to turret. Black Mage will benefit from this type of raid design than the Summoner since as a turret they do more overall damage than the Summoner. There is no point in bringing a Caster since most statics are leaving out casters. Even with a caster opening statics still default to Black Mage.

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Then you get smacked with a physical dmg reduction mechanic and you're boned.

Why not stand in melee as a caster?

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Originally Posted by Akiza

The most optimal setup for raiders are 3 Melee and a Bard for meeting DPS checks since Dragoon still does good AoE. Casters themselves need to be addressed becuase there is no need to bring them to Raids. Casters are dealing with more mechanic than Melee since most raids are designed around melee so they can have time to turret. Black Mage will benefit from this type of raid design than the Summoner since as a turret they do more overall damage than the Summoner. There is no point in bringing a Caster since most statics are leaving out casters. Even with a caster opening statics still default to Black Mage.

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This usually only works in paper, although it did work on fights like T8 and T12 (if you could get 3 or 2 Bennu, otherwise caster AoE shined).

SE is pretty good about balancing why you bring 1 ranged, 1 caster, 2 melee.

- magic damage vulnerabilities
- select AoE amounts, which in small quantities highly encourages only bringing one AoE machine since more AoE machines = less effective AoE machines all together, defeating the purpose
- adds which can often be duo'd by ranged partners + OT
- at least when talking about BRD + caster, the general damage contributions of BRD buffing all DoM and caster being buffed by BRD often led to BRD being worthwhile beyond just singing Paeon, and caster staying up there even if a bit below melee. Comps which use MCH will skew this balance unfortunately, a problem I hope to never face!
- more Viruses/E4E and select utility from both casters, something outside of Dragon Kick the melee lack

The 2 melee 1 caster 1 ranged comp has always been rather efficient since 2.1. Not to mention as of SCoB/FCoB, 3 melee are often company when it comes to mechanics and the flow almost always works best with a standard comp. Comps are not going to leave out casters ... we are quite strong right now, both BLM and SMN. If paired with BRD we finally have the ability to out-DPS strong melee in real fights now, it just requires skill and experience.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Why not stand in melee as a caster?

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Only viable for Summoner. It's not for BLM.

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Originally Posted by Xisin

^ you say a lot of smart things, and i respect your blm play but this is just plain wrong.

blm offers VERY strong single target burst AND sustained dps, its harder to work with however. the cool thing about blm is is how you can use flare to refresh AF stacks and beef up dps via aoe on a lot of encounters, like ravana. Our aoe damage isn't terrible, granted it isn't summoner.

Just for the record I do agree smn currently out performs us, just not in single target, but rather as an overall view.

According to you however, no one should ever play ninja or dragoon either.

tl"dr blm is the mario of dps i guess. not good but not bad. There are better choice i suppose.

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Name me a fight where the burst from BLM is needed that can't be replaced by a dragoon.
Short of a fight mechanic (Physical resistance, or magic damage only, or something like T13 megaflare) that makes it non-viable to run a caster in single target, a 3 Melee party will do more single target DPS than Duel Melee + BLM/SMN.

As you said yourself, there are better choices, which is exactly what I was saying. I don't understand how i'm wrong if you agree with me.

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Originally Posted by Meleoffs

Then you get smacked with a physical dmg reduction mechanic and you're boned.

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Yeah, and does that happen in every fight? It takes "cheese" fight mechanics to make it non-viable.

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

Yeah, and does that happen in every fight? It takes "cheese" fight mechanics to make it non-viable.

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I'm not saying it happens in every fight, nor am I saying the mechanics are good. We have precedent for them existing so why would you make the assumption that they won''t?

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Originally Posted by HaroldSaxon

Name me a fight where the burst from BLM is needed that can't be replaced by a dragoon.
Short of a fight mechanic (Physical resistance, or magic damage only, or something like T13 megaflare) that makes it non-viable to run a caster in single target, a 3 Melee party will do more single target DPS than Duel Melee + BLM/SMN.

As you said yourself, there are better choices, which is exactly what I was saying. I don't understand how i'm wrong if you agree with me.

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Single target is a small (though extremely important) part of the bigger picture. If you look at the whole picture you'll see that aside from T8 and some other turns where when you extremely overgear them the way they're handled is not traditional, caster's always got a spot.

What I'm saying is, is that blm rounds out a comp nicely, once tweaked slightly we'll be in a good position. We ST burst harder than ANYONE. We are likely 2nd or 3rd in single target period, the only melee I have issues with out dpsing are monks, granted I have foe. No one is complaining about blm aoe either... well besides that smn has better aoe... but hell that's fine we actually do more ST by a decent margin.

What we are looking at is this:

2nd~ ST overall
2nd~ AOE overall
Meh utility but eye for an eye is useful, apoc is too
We deal with adds in certain situations better than smn prob... example t13 drakes during the first orb phase. or ravana butterflies.

I use ~ mainly because I'm not entirely confident to say that yet but that's what it feels like so far.

We honestly just need uses for thunder, and less clunkiness, despite me saying that I do well there are times where I still drop something and feel like an idiot (Fire chain 1 says hi when astral fire drops while I'm casting blizz 3)

The reality is that clearing final coil pre nerf without a caster dps was a lot harder than it was with a caster. I think 3 melee is a handicap honestly in certain raid situations. There are quite a few fights that become harder due to over crowding on the boss and lack of ability to do magic damage or aoe LB in a raid setting. I'd rather have 2 melees, ranged/support, and a caster any day of the week.

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Originally Posted by Xisin

What I'm saying is, is that blm rounds out a comp nicely, once tweaked slightly we'll be in a good position. We ST burst harder than ANYONE. We are likely 2nd or 3rd in single target period, the only melee I have issues with out dpsing are monks, granted I have foe. No one is complaining about blm aoe either... well besides that smn has better aoe... but hell that's fine we actually do more ST by a decent margin.

What we are looking at is this:

2nd~ ST overall
2nd~ AOE overall
Meh utility but eye for an eye is useful, apoc is too
We deal with adds in certain situations better than smn prob... example t13 drakes during the first orb phase. or ravana butterflies.

We honestly just need uses for thunder, and less clunkiness, despite me saying that I do well there are times where I still drop something and feel like an idiot (Fire chain 1 says hi when umbral ice drops while I'm casting blizz 3)

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Yeah I'm in the, BLM is in the best spot it's ever been, camp.

I also just happen to be in the, SMN is in the best spot ever, camp :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xisin

BLM could use: a small potency buff to fire 2, not much a very small tuning, some kind of tuning to thunder, and an extension on AF by 1-2 second... and that is it.

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I'd just take leylines moving with me, and AF/UI extended by 2 seconds. Fire II is powerful enough, imo.

I don't think fire II needs a damage buff. It is similar to SMN bane in that it is your "aoe spam" type ability that is expected to be always up, and expected to scale down with multiple mobs.

Flare I would not mind having less scaling or possibly no scaling, like Painflare/Deathflare, however it will need a cooldown in that case, or lowered baseline potency to match the fact it can be used more often than painflare/deathflare.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xisin

What I'm saying is, is that blm rounds out a comp nicely, once tweaked slightly we'll be in a good position. We ST burst harder than ANYONE. We are likely 2nd or 3rd in single target period, the only melee I have issues with out dpsing are monks, granted I have foe. No one is complaining about blm aoe either... well besides that smn has better aoe... but hell that's fine we actually do more ST by a decent margin.

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There's no way you are beating a DRG in ST unless that DRG is trash. In terms of ST its: DRG > MNK > BLM=NIN > SMN

However, since people seem to think going 3x melee is the best route, I would say SMN will probably come out the highest during progression since it gets impacted the least by mechanics(NIN too I guess). The other jobs require heavy fight knowledge to be able to shine.