A class that does war crimes from Ishgard? Why am I not surprised?
BLM and PCT should literally switch places, but I suspect we will have to settle for them being neck and neck, which will only halfway solve the major problem
Buffing BLM potency is just going to change from "Why bring a BLM when we have PCT" to "OK I guess we can bring BLM if you want to".
SMN also being done a little dirty imo but not quite as badly.
Wouldn't the graph only show what people who are still getting used to the changes are capable of?
There's a few things to consider imo. The first is that this is a measure of rDPS. The second is that aDPS is a more appropriate measurement of BLM performance, at least this early in the raid cycle. The problem is, PCT is dominating in both rDPS and aDPS. I would posit this is not only due to potency, but the ease at which potency is applied. In other words, compared to BLM, the job is simply too easy to play. What I foresee with a PCT nerf is a drop in aDPS, but less of a drop as expected with rDPS. So this means it's really about what a group wants and what the player is comfortable playing.
For prog focused groups you're going to see RDM vs SMN imo. The res is still going to be the driving factor but I mentioned earlier SMN is undertuned here, perhaps due to job difficulty. This is notably why the devs didn't give PCT.res, even aside from its absurd DPS. As time goes on, more groups become experienced so the choice would be BLM vs. PCT. I'm just not sure BLM will automatically win** if you're still getting high rDPS out of PCT and it's easier to play. Just my theory but I think PCT would be fine.
I didn't realize when I made that comment that this is rDPS. Maybe they don't need to literally switch places in that case, but I'm still of the same mind that it needs nerfs.
Tldr OP should have used aDPS for their point and PCT should be scaled based on that
I'd be fine losing 15% of my damage as picto if you just gave me an AoE at level 18, YoshiP. Having literally 1 button until level 25, what is this, LNC simulator?
My guess would be their differences in DPS should vary according to the percentile looked at. Having BLM dominate on the higher percentiles while PCT is consistently good across the board would make it a balanced choice between a hard job that, in the hands of the right player, rewards with better DPS, and a job that yields a more consistent and reliable DPS due to ease of use.
Either way, BLM really are in a bad spot. I don't think Flare Star should be removed but it should get it's usage conditions changed (maybe making Despair/Flare activate the spell?). I'm confident there was way better options to remove non standard BLM without throwing a wrench on the job as a whole. They don't need to do 15% more damage than the other jobs but, at the very least, they should be at the top on the higher percentiles.
Calling Blackmage "Difficult" is a good joke, with DT Blackmages as a freaking easy Rotation, and if you know how to play blackmage you actually understand blackmage is atleast as mobile as rdm is, so theres no reason to have the class do "15% more dps" then other classes, did you ever bother to raid or anything? or why would you say such pointless things?
And people wonder why jobs are so homogeneous. Leave it to the Parsers of Light to complain about it long enough.
Such opinions should be considered harm to self and others and therefore permanently banned. You should not be allowed to have an account where you can express your opinion in public. The amount of braincells dying from both writing and reading this is way beyond acceptable. But yes, please do share your amazing calculations that gave you this magic 15% number.
As someone said, you may want to set the graph to show by Cdps or Adps
In adps the difference between picto and blm is just 1.31 of the percentile, so in terms of selfish dps they are pretty close. The problem is when you consider Picto also has a raid buff
This is to say, a 15% buff would be ridiculous, but a small potency buff to the actions you pop under raid buffs should suffice
I think that's fair as well with respect to percentile. But I still think the question is whether or not a simple BLM buff gets you there. Looking at the rotation (ie adjusting Flare Star) I guess is something I did not realize was on the table. I would think of that as a very long term change, but maybe I'm wrong.
Regardless, they're definitely buffing BLM. So we are going to see how that affects all skill levels without any meaningful rotational reworks. In the short term, it just depends on what the potency adjustment is. It definitely doesn't need to be god tier 15%, but doesn't kinda need to be? I don't think bringing BLM aDpS in line with PCT is enough. Play messy BLM well so you can be as good as PCT? I'm just not sure. It's like, hopefully you're the top 15% of BLM or just play PCT for highly meaningful DPS across all percentiles? Hmm.
I play both Blm and Picto atm, and Picto brings more dps on the go, +buffs for all, and it's more forgiving and agile.
Point is, idk what percentage should be right..but pure dps jobs should bring pure dps to counteract the lack of utilities and party buffs.
Also I think flare star is kinda awkward atm , I feel like the simplest solution would be to have it reset fire like despair does.. to allow you time to switch to ice , or make it insta cast like paradox .
I agree. They will do this for a specific reason though. If you rework BLM rotation to what it was before, that will also affect the average DPS performance. So if you increase potency and rework the job at the same time, it could result in something as unbalanced as PCT. This is why I think they will go for potency first and rotation later, even if they actually did want to rework BLM right now. It's just easier to do.
The more we talk about Flare Star the more I feel like it maybe should have just replaced Despair automatically upon meeting the metrics along with being a 1k potency attack. I also think your progress toward it** shouldn't drop by entering ice phase. That's my hot take without considering all the implications. Because imo it does feel kind of stupid in the current rotation .
Flare star could have easily been a replacement for despair and scaled with the number of astral hearts you have
So at one astral heart despair becomes flare star and has the potency it does now, every astral heart beyond that adds 20 or so potency to flare star topping out at 6
Flare star has completely overcome the need for despair but since you have to cast both the back end of your fire phase is incredibly rigid and cast heavy
As a blackmage main, I must agree. Picto is both easier and more mobile, therefore it beats BLM all around at the moment. Some higher potency to reward good BLM players for one of the more difficult rotations/classes in the game seems only fair. We can't move and have much less front end damage at most levels. I think a redmage buff would also be nice, but at least they can heal/rez.
I am happy to be done with swiftcast, but the balance with picto is obviously off imo.
It's, unfortunately, been Yoshi P's vocal stance that a job that's more difficult to play (and/or has less utility) should not be capable of more damage than any other based on that alone.
I think that's a really dumb stance, but unfortunately it's one they've made clear over the years. BLM doing virtually the same damage as SMN (which plays more like a Ranged Physical DPS and has a resurrect) is really nonsensical, but alas.