Holy and Flare diminishing returns nerf

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Originally Posted by TriksteR

What about fire 4/blizzard 4, are they going to be AoE

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Nope, single target. Our aoe rotation is pretty much the same, just significantly worse

Aww... my whm just got a little less awesome to play now. /sadface

Well, looks like I'm gonna just be focusing on Smn and Drk now with Whm being the third wheel for cures onry and weak aoe dmg. Gonna have to stick to my aeros and stones.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

Yet another case of forcing their methods of fighting down our throats at the expense of relegating skills to the garbage heap. Flare still eats all of your MP, but now there's literally no incentive to cast it. White Mage has lost their only real reason to be casting Holy too, since it was already nerfed in damage a long while ago and we're not exactly known for our insane DPS.

If they don't want us using the damned things, then just remove them from the game. Don't nerf them to the point where it's meaningless to even bother. I'm looking at you, Blizzard II.

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If you're at ~500mp and have Convert up, it's still more MP efficient and a single target DPS gain to Swiftcast a Flare

Yet another dent in my hype.

Makes me glad I don't main BLM anymore, but I'll miss the fun of actually having a powerful AoE.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Not worth it. Very stupid changes. I will just take a Dragoon instead. <3

At least I can say: "I told you so."

These changes, plus the experience changes are horrible, horrible game design choices. They are taking away what made the game.. "Fun" why have 2.5 GCDs when the spells are not even powerful?

Flare, should be taken off your hot-bar.

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I wasn't aware that mindless Holy spam or Fire II Fire II Fire II Fire II Flare was what made the game fun.

PS. Don't play BLM if you can't figure out when to single target Flare. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by TriksteR

What about fire 4/blizzard 4, are they going to be AoE [?] I'm curious to see the ''new'' blm rotation.

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Don't think they'll be AoE. New single target BLM rotation is looking like (roughly)

Ley Lines, Thunder 2, Fire 3, Enochian, Raging Strikes, Fire 4, Fire 4 (IDK how much MP this will take up), Fire 1, use Firestarters and weave in a Sharpcast after your Fire III during the downtime, keep doing that, Swiftcast Flare at 300-500 MP, Convert, Fire 1, Blizzard 3, refresh Enochian with Blizzard 4 as needed when it's about to fall off.

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Originally Posted by Balipu

To be fair, flair really needed a nerf. Sure it was the only really fun spell for black mage but come on. It can be cast with barely any mana left and would still hit the same extreme ammount. That's just cheating.

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looking at most blm ive seen they had a lot less dps then single target players.
If they dont get a nice boost in single target spells (which is yet to be seen) its really not worth playing anymore.
a mob moves. you get spell interrupted - other jobs dont have that problem
the casting times are there, and depending on the content, also have to be interrupted not to take dmg or die - yet again, other classes have close to zero or mostly instant abilites.

i don't see why there was need for a nerv.
the only reason - at least the way the content was designed in 2.x to play blm was mostly the AOE dmg (which i know was boring, but that was the mechanic, the single rotation alone was boring as hell, there was almost no rotation.
I Do hope blm get more love with the higher skills from 50-60 otherwise meh... really meh.

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Originally Posted by Anty

looking at most blm ive seen they had a lot less dps then single target players.
If they dont get a nice boost in single target spells (which is yet to be seen) its really not worth playing anymore.
a mob moves. you get spell interrupted - other jobs dont have that problem
the casting times are there, and depending on the content, also have to be interrupted not to take dmg or die - yet again, other classes have close to zero or mostly instant abilites.

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DPS isn't a primary concern for BLM, because it's a burst damage class. It is not a sustained damage class.

Interruption can be a problem, but not the majority of the time.

You're all painting a dark picture for a class that doesn't really have any issues..

On reflection, the reason they probably went to nerfing these abilities is because the moment you are fighting 3 enemies at once, AoE becomes the hands down optimal strategy, and this is multiplied for each enemy after 3.

http://abload.de/img/ffxiv-flare-nerf86xx2.jpg

As you can see, with only 4 enemies Flare reaches an effective potency of 1050. In Expert runs this starts to get pretty ridiculous. 2 Black Mages are almost always the optimal team in dungeon runs. Combined with the fact they don't have to worry about TP depletion and Fire 2 is the only high-potency sustainable AoE in the game, and i believe on paper BLM definitely deserved this nerf. They likely nerfed these to make room for other classes during dungeon content.


I'm surprised these attacks lasted as long as they did anyway. I remember TERA had a system that actually divided AoE damage between targets hit, so that no matter how many were caught in the blast, you always did a set amount of total damage. At least XIV is keeping the minimum damage at 50%.


While other damage sources were kept in check, FFXIV let AoE damage run wild all through 2.0, and the entire dungeon endgame was built around this and there was really nothing they could do about it.


It was either nerf Flare/Holy, or make the enemies too difficult to mass pull. I think this was a fair change, way better idea than the latter. Even with this nerf, Black Mage is still the hands-down optimal class for AoE, and Flare is still the strongest AoE ability. It just isn't so much more optimal than anything the other classes could achieve anymore.

I can count on one hand how many BLMs I've teamed up with...

I'm done with this thread. It's being blown out of proportion.

Nerf or no nerf BLM will still rock just like all the other jobs, they are all viable and fun, the sky isnt falling.

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Originally Posted by Wobble

Don't forget the poor healers having a coronary keeping the tank alive. ;)

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I feel for them too. If anything it usually causes the run to take longer because rather than contributing to the killing they're having to spend an enormous amount time healing unnecessary damage.

Honestly, this was the only reason I played BLM at all. With this, I'm thinking I'll probably switch to SMN or NIN for my main DPS class. I'm super bummed by this. Flare was really FUN and I thoroughly enjoyed massive pulls when on my WAR or BLM. Very sad to see this change. :(

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Originally Posted by Kojikensei

Honestly, this was the only reason I played BLM at all. With this, I'm thinking I'll probably switch to SMN or NIN for my main DPS class. I'm super bummed by this. Flare was really FUN and I thoroughly enjoyed massive pulls when on my WAR or BLM. Very sad to see this change. :(

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I switched to BLM after I started hating SMN myself and even with this nerf I'll still play on it, flare was fun to use and see all the splat but even more it's still a viable DPS class with no flare. I am a main WHM and only BLM when I am in a don't feel like curing/holy spamming. So if the only reason for playing BLM is for flare probably not the right reason. ;)

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Originally Posted by Edellis

On reflection, the reason they probably went to nerfing these abilities is because the moment you are fighting 3 enemies at once, AoE becomes the hands down optimal strategy, and this is multiplied for each enemy after 3.

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Isn't this the point of even having aoe abilities though? I mean chain pulling is still going to occur in 3.0 with or without these nerfs unless the dungeons are built around gates. Groups without these two jobs still chain pulled, and nobody was kicked from DF groups for not being one of the two. So I'm not seeing where the problem is, when all the nerf does is make dungeon running slower for comps that happen to have one of the two jobs.

Both classes were Mages. Wizards. They were meant to be aoe masters, because that was their identity. Our time to shine was during dungeon aoe pulls, while other classes could put out significantly more dps against single target bosses as a balance. That balance is gone now. May as well give SCH Stoneskin II and call it a day, lol.

Having seen another MMO nerf AoE pulls once before (Blizzard did it after Wrath of the Lich King where AoE pulls were all that happening) I'm both unsurprised and glad this finally happened. Believe it or not AoE runs aren't fun for most melee players and, honestly, how big a deal is it really to have to spend another five to ten minutes clearing the dungeon? If you're in a rush to go to work or something you probably shouldn't have queued in the first place.

I'm really confused, if flare was really a issue, why didn't they nerf it back when they nerfed holy over a year ago? Also if your going to add diminishing returns to holy, restore the original potency on it. Honestly if they felt flare was OP you would of thought they'd have made a change to it long ago. 50% is a huge nerf imo. Also do we even know how the game is going to decide which mobs are going to get the reduced effects? Will it be random each flare? Like if we double/triple flare, are different mobs going to get the full effect each cast, or is it up to RNG? smh

We're not even sure how the new skills are going to re-balance the job because Enochian and Ley Lines sound absolutely OP. Why don't we test out the job first, as well as see how this plays in the context of new dungeon designs before acting like it's the end of the world?

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Originally Posted by Wobble

I switched to BLM after I started hating SMN myself and even with this nerf I'll still play on it, flare was fun to use and see all the splat but even more it's still a viable DPS class with no flare. I am a main WHM and only BLM when I am in a don't feel like curing/holy spamming. So if the only reason for playing BLM is for flare probably not the right reason. ;)

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Well, I'm a tank at heart so really the only reason I play DPS is for a fun break. It's not like I'm switching my main, but I do think the job will be much less fun for me considering the situations I liked playing it. Hopefully SMN's new Painflare and/or Deathflare are fun enough to take the place of Flare; they certainly look fun. Here's hoping. :)

With Assize and Aero 3...i don't think much will be changing other than we change our rotation up a bit. Also spell speed may very well make aero 3 the bee knees for DOT and HOT for whm making it even easier to keep tank alive while doing AOE dmg since i always divine seal+regen+med 2 before aoeing.

How does eonichen sound op, the only official news from se we have on it is it grants access to blizzard 4 and fire 4 and that's it. I haven't seen the official eonichen but what se has told us about it so far it's a worthless skill until lvl 60

I'm just happy I stuck with SMN as my main through the FCoB bullshit. So many people abandoned the job to go BLM or NIN. I decided to up my game and show how great SMN is in the right hands. Now everyone is jumping back lol. This shows most people are FOTM mains and not loyalists.

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Originally Posted by Fatshine

I'm just happy I stuck with SMN as my main through the FCoB bullshit. So many people abandoned the job to go BLM or NIN. I decided to up my game and show how great SMN is in the right hands. Now everyone is jumping back lol. This shows most people are FOTM mains and not loyalists.

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kinda sucks for the people who were playing blm because they enjoyed it and not just because it was stronger. It'd be nice if they just balanced the casters

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Originally Posted by Urielparadox

How does eonichen sound op, the only official news from se we have on it is it grants access to blizzard 4 and fire 4 and that's it. I haven't seen the official eonichen but what se has told us about it so far it's a worthless skill until lvl 60

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I bolded your first sentence because it honestly sounds like sarcasm. We're getting an even BIGGER burst skill added to our repertoire, a skill that gives us more time in Enochian, and a circle that makes up for our biggest weakness (cast time). Add to that a skill that reduces magical damage (manaward), a skill that blocks physical damage (manawall) to add great synergy to Ley Lines, and the fact that we are the only job in this game that has an unlimited resource pool, and I honestly do not know what more you could possibly want.

Skills That Have A Purpose OR Do You Forget Level Sync exsist and level will be limited by this? And we are getting the same boost as other classes but their special phase actualy has a benefit. Bliz 4 only purpose is to refresh eonichin so i wouldn't call Blix 4 anything at all. Fire 4 isn't that impressive when you look at the skills everyone else's gets. And the fact that we essentially Have to use Leylines, manawall, and manaward with eonichin and it's not something that stands on its own. It Also Means We Can No longer Use manawall/Ward To Help IN The Fight If We Get A Aoe Target Because Then We Can't Use It with eonichin and leylines. No more using manawall to not have to move for boss attacks because we have to save it for leylines. If your cast in on a dummy or in t8 yeah its a boost but in 90% of fights where we don't get to be turrent, it's a different story

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Originally Posted by Odett

I bolded your first sentence because it honestly sounds like sarcasm. We're getting an even BIGGER burst skill added to our repertoire, a skill that gives us more time in Enochian, and a circle that makes up for our biggest weakness (cast time). Add to that a skill that reduces magical damage (manaward), a skill that blocks physical damage (manawall) to add great synergy to Ley Lines, and the fact that we are the only job in this game that has an unlimited resource pool, and I honestly do not know what more you could possibly want.

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Actually manawall just reduces phys damage now.

Looks like they came after sch as well. Lustrate is now Cure 2 -50 potency, meaning it can't be used for full effect under cleric stance anymore.

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Originally Posted by Fatshine

I'm just happy I stuck with SMN as my main through the FCoB bullshit. So many people abandoned the job to go BLM or NIN. I decided to up my game and show how great SMN is in the right hands. Now everyone is jumping back lol. This shows most people are FOTM mains and not loyalists.

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I'm a loyalist. Trained by a good teacher :3

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Originally Posted by Miakisaki

Both classes were Mages. Wizards. They were meant to be aoe masters, because that was their identity. Our time to shine was during dungeon aoe pulls, while other classes could put out significantly more dps against single target bosses as a balance. That balance is gone now.

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Haha, what? How? Even with diminishing returns, Flare is still going to put out more effective DPS than any single-target sans a limit break could ever hope to. Holy was nerfed alongside Flare, so literally nothing has changed in terms of BLM holding the AoE damage title.

Flare only has a potency of 300 with no Astral Fire. At Astral Fire III it's closer to 560 Potency, so that chart is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Drako

I'm really confused, if flare was really a issue, why didn't they nerf it back when they nerfed holy over a year ago? Also if your going to add diminishing returns to holy, restore the original potency on it. Honestly if they felt flare was OP you would of thought they'd have made a change to it long ago. 50% is a huge nerf imo. Also do we even know how the game is going to decide which mobs are going to get the reduced effects? Will it be random each flare? Like if we double/triple flare, are different mobs going to get the full effect each cast, or is it up to RNG? smh

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It's most likely proximity based, but i don't really see how it matters either way. The first enemy is getting full blast.

And I don't think Holy really needs its potency back, it was still sufficiently powerful at 200 potency, and WHM later gets Assize which is essentially pre-nerf Flare with no proration that's off the GCD.

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Originally Posted by Urielparadox

How does eonichen sound op, the only official news from se we have on it is it grants access to blizzard 4 and fire 4 and that's it. I haven't seen the official eonichen but what se has told us about it so far it's a worthless skill until lvl 60

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It has changed since then, it makes no sense for Enochian to ONLY grant those spells when it's a level 56 skill. It does something else we don't know about. Originally it was said to be a level 60 skill.

Blizzard IV is 58, and Fire IV is 60. That's like getting Kassatsu on Ninja before you get a mudra.

For all we know, Enochian could boost flare past what it currently is. We'll know tomorrow.

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Originally Posted by Urielparadox

Skills That Have A Purpose OR Do You Forget Level Sync exsist and level will be limited by this? And we are getting the same boost as other classes but their special phase actualy has a benefit. Bliz 4 only purpose is to refresh eonichin so i wouldn't call Blix 4 anything at all. Fire 4 isn't that impressive when you look at the skills everyone else's gets. And the fact that we essentially Have to use Leyland with eonichin and it's not something that stands on its own.

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How are you calling a skill that elongates your time under Enochian nothing at all? That's its purpose. You can use your exact same argument for DRG's Blood of the Dragon, by the way. Yes, level sync exists, but the meat of this game lies in endgame.

BLM's absolutely DESTROY in AoE right now, and diminishing returns to Flare doesn't surprise me at all. Right now you can Swiftcast, Covert, hardcast, use a potion and hardcast a third Flare for a total of roughly 1680 AoE potency in a mere matter of seconds, more with Foe's Requiem, and even more if you have common sense and pair it with Raging Strikes. That is absolutely broken. If ALL BLM's were good at were AoE, then yes, that would be another story, but they are great at single target and if you disagree, then you have been either playing with some seriously crappy BLM's or you need to learn how to play better yourself.

It's also important to keep in mind the increase we are getting to single target damage by Fire 4 and Sharpcast, and how Flare is still not useless for single target because a 300-500mp Swiftcast Flare into Convert will still provide you with the most MP efficient burst move.

Also, some instances will bypass level sync if you go into them with less than the required number of members, so the devs don't want you to go into lower level dungeons and faceroll Wrath of the Lich King style by triple Flaring and Holying the whole dungeon in one pull. As I wrote in an earlier post, we also have to take new dungeon designs in mind as they may discourage giant group pulls.

TLDR; If you only know how to play BLM with AoE and your single target DPS is bad, then learn to play BLM.

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Originally Posted by Odett

BLM's absolutely DESTROY in AoE right now, and diminishing returns to Flare doesn't surprise me at all. Right now you can Swiftcast, Covert, hardcast, use a potion and hardcast a third Flare for a total of 780 AoE potency in a mere matter of seconds

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Not a terrible point, but also I like how you're telling people to l2play but didn't account for astral fire, one of the most basic blm mechanics ;) Triple flare is currently 1404 effective potency

I am not an aoe blm and i have no problems with the flair adjustments just sucks that dungeon times will be slower. They also stated when over geared dungeons should take 15min which I'm good with. Bliz 4 only exsist to extend eonichan, in my post it states eonichin only exsist for fire 4 and Bliz 4. If they change eonichin to do more then that obviously makes Bliz 4 a more viable spell and would mean I dont have an issue with it. However SE has given us no such info and i have seen no e3 pics of it so I can only conclude that it does nothing else. So Don't Even Get Snappy and put words in my mouth. What I said was unless eonichin does something other then give us fire 4/Bliz 4 then Bliz 4 is a worthless skill. If they change eonichan and it does something else then that means I'm agreeing to Bliz 4 being a good spell. This is called logic. By the way the drg ability powers up their jumps.

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

Not a terrible point, but also I like how you're telling people to l2play but didn't account for astral fire, one of the most basic blm mechanics ;) Triple flare is currently 1404 effective potency

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That was a mistake I soon noticed :P and quickly edited my post, which just further proves how insane triple Flare is

Now that Enochian is no longer Lv60, does anyone actually know what it does?

We'll be using it for a whole 2 levels before we get Blizzard 4, and 4 levels before Fire IV. Which means we'll acquire it, and then have means to elongate it, but ATM nobody knows what it does.

Only allowing Bliz/Fire IV seems unlikely. Must provide some kind of damage / MP cost / utility buff.

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Originally Posted by Urielparadox

However SE has given us no such info and i have seen no e3 pics of it so I can only conclude that it does nothing else. So Don't Even Get Snappy and put words in my mouth. What I said was unless eonichin does something other then give us fire 4/Bliz 4 then Bliz 4 is a worthless skill.

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The patch notes state it's a level 56 spell, we do not even get a IV technique until after we already have Enochian. So the idea that it only allows for 2 skills (that we don't have) seems very, very, very unlikely.

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Originally Posted by Odett

That was a mistake I soon noticed :P and quickly edited my post, which just further proves how insane triple Flare is

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It's absolutely insane and needed a nerf, but I wish they'd been a bit more creative about it, or just straight up renamed it to chain lightning or something. I feel like they took all the super-fun "flariness" out of it :( It was just so damn satisfying to finish up a super long cast and watch everything explode into smithereens!

All the opportunities for rebalance that an xpac brings and the best they can do is smack away at it with the nerf hammer

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Originally Posted by Urielparadox

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It's a totally viable spell though, because you can use it to keep Enochian from falling off, therefore letting you keep using Fire 4s. It's not useless BECAUSE you have to use it in order to keep Enochian from falling off.

You didn't read, it's only viableonce we get to lvl 60 unless it has a secondary effect that they have kept hush hush on. As I stated. I never once said at lvl 60 it's not worthwhile. At lvl 60 it has plenty of use, I'm referring to as we are lvl ing not at lvl 60

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Originally Posted by Urielparadox

You didn't read, it's only viable at lvl 60 unless it has a secondary effect that they have kept hush hush on. As I stated. I never once said at lvl 60 it's not worthwhile. I just dislike a rotation inside a rotation. I'm referring to as we are lvl ing not at lvl 60

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supposedly it has a passive dmg buff, but i have yet to track down the source on that

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

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Honestly the main reason it doesn't bother me is because I'm not a fan of AoE. Mass chain pulling reduces my rotation to Fire 2 spam and Flare, or Doom Spike, or Death Blossom+ Katon or Doton depending on the situation, or Holy (and so on), and anything to discourage that is a welcome addition by me, because that's boring as hell. It's one of the reasons why I let out a sigh when I queue up as a SCH for something and have to spend my time constantly healing a tank that chain pulls and doesn't use cooldowns (I don't refuse to do this, of course, that's my job as a healer), but I could be helping a hell of a lot more if you pulled a little less and let me DPS to make things go faster.

If It's A Buff To Astral fire buff that would be awsome