BLM needs more damage

@Claire
That scath sounds like a good idea. Or give it a drain for mp/hp with a chance of double absorb. This will enable spamming Flare and help us at lower levels

While it would be a good idea to give Black Mages some offensive raid utility, I don't think it's going to happen. Even in future expansions I'd expect at most the MNK treatment, minor offensive raid utility that no one cares about because it's such a minor increase.
If this proves to be true, there's multiple ways to close the gap.
By buffing BLM damage through pure damage AND throwing them a bone during downtime, give them a way to pause the countdown on their Astral Fire/Ice duration by using Scathe to stop/increase it for a # of seconds and a meditation-esque ability that does the same thing but doesn't require a target. This goes with the Time/Black Mage theme they seem to be going for.

Another thing to do ALSO is to nerf other current raid utility. Battle Litany, Disembowel, Trick Attacks, give Shadewalker to caster cross-role and Smokescreen to melee or range cross-role.
Buff the damage of those that lose their offensive utility by something near what they lost personally from it, not what the whole raid loses.

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Originally Posted by Krisom

Another thing to do ALSO is to nerf other current raid utility. Battle Litany, Disembowel, Trick Attacks, give Shadewalker to caster cross-role and Smokescreen to melee or range cross-role.
Buff the damage of those that lose their offensive utility by something near what they lost personally from it, not what the whole raid loses.

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More powerful paired buffs are another option. Got your ninja and bard all set? Now you want some heavy hitters. Bring in your Dragoon for Dragon Eye, Monk for Brotherhood (revamp it into a much more powerful buddy buff), or Black Mage with something something buddy buff.

Some personal changes I'd suggest:

Fire IV and Blizzard IV potency changes from 260 -> 280-300 (Reasoning: Further damage is necessary for BLM to maintain its position as a good turret DPS without making it absolutely terrible as a result. Make moving less punishing.)

Foul Potency changes from 650 -> 700 (See above)

Scathe Potency changes from 100 -> 150-200. (Make this a viable, emergency mobility attack)

Enhanced Scathe Effect changes to "current duration of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice increases by 3s to a maximum of 13s." (Keeps Enochian while forced to move)

Manaward: Decrease cooldown from 120s to 60s (because we're the turret class, and beyond Scathe being a movement mitigation, this is a damage mitigation to accentuate turreting without being TOO durable).

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Originally Posted by EllieShadeflare

Some personal changes I'd suggest:

Fire IV and Blizzard IV potency changes from 260 -> 280-300 (Reasoning: Further damage is necessary for BLM to maintain its position as a good turret DPS without making it absolutely terrible as a result. Make moving less punishing.)

Foul Potency changes from 650 -> 700 (See above)

Scathe Potency changes from 100 -> 150-200. (Make this a viable, emergency mobility attack)

Enhanced Scathe Effect changes to "current duration of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice increases by 3s to a maximum of 13s." (Keeps Enochian while forced to move)

Manaward: Decrease cooldown from 120s to 60s (because we're the turret class, and beyond Scathe being a movement mitigation, this is a damage mitigation to accentuate turreting without being TOO durable).

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Thanks, I really like those propositions. Can I like you twice?

Mh better if you also post those in the other thread too

No matter how much you increase the potency of Scathe it's still a Fire IV lost, and two if you count the MP cost as well as the GCD itself. 200 potency vs 468 (or 504, if they do increase it back to 280 base) is significantly more than ANY other ranged, and again that's not to mention losing the MP to do the last Fire IV in the rotation, so more effective potency lost. This is a MASSIVE damage discrepancy, as I mentioned before.

They really need to simply remove it from the level 70 "rotation" by making another option for instant cast, preferably Fire/Blizzard under Enhanced Enochian. Furthermore, this would allow for potential Firestarter procs while moving to compensate for the damage loss, if you pray hard enough to RNGsus.

Scathe has its place as an emergency filler in the level 50 rotation, it doesn't need to be used at level 70.


Side note: You say increase potency of Fire IV to make moving less punishing, but that's counter-intuitive; that makes moving MORE punishing by making a bigger damage loss from needing to move. Outside of that and the one about Scathe, I like your other suggestions, except that I might say Foul deserves an even bigger buff than 50 potency (remember that 20 potency to a fire spell is huge because Astral Fire III multiplies it by 1.8, Foul gets no such love. I'd suggest both increasing it to 700 diminishing AND doubling Foul potency single target). I'd also add in the Sub-Zero idea that we were discussing last week.

At the time this was written, blm had (and still has) one of the highest, if not the highest, damage caps unbuffed in the game.

You might have been doing something incorrectly, but it’s an old post so hopefully you figured it out.

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Originally Posted by crc0427

At the time this was written, blm had (and still has) one of the highest, if not the highest, damage caps unbuffed in the game.

You might have been doing something incorrectly, but it’s an old post so hopefully you figured it out.

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They buffed BLM (and SAM) twice after this thread was started. BLM is fine now. It clearly wasn't before. That it took so long for the devs to acknowledge it, despite players saying it for years, is quite disheartening.

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Originally Posted by crc0427

At the time this was written, blm had (and still has) one of the highest, if not the highest, damage caps unbuffed in the game.

You might have been doing something incorrectly, but it’s an old post so hopefully you figured it out.

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At the time this was written, Summoner was better in every single way while maintaining the mobility advantage and emergency raise.

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Originally Posted by crc0427

At the time this was written, blm had (and still has) one of the highest, if not the highest, damage caps unbuffed in the game.

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At the time, an equal skill smn would either be equal, or only 200 dps behind, depending on the fight maybe even ahead. While being mobile, and having a raise, along with slight buffs to raid damage.

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Originally Posted by crc0427

You might have been doing something incorrectly, but it’s an old post so hopefully you figured it out.

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I out damaged you on each tier of omega, delta-alpha.... There was nothing wrong.

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Originally Posted by crc0427

At the time this was written, blm had (and still has) one of the highest, if not the highest, damage caps unbuffed in the game.

You might have been doing something incorrectly, but it’s an old post so hopefully you figured it out.

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Thread necromancy at its best right here folks.

For the record, I would still prefer to see more changes to the class in the direction of instant cast abilities like more guaranteed firestarters and thunderclouds. Just as I feared, the change to Fire IV becoming 300 potency makes movement even more punishing, and when there is extremely tight movement timing in places like Final Omega you're guaranteed to lose uptime, which again, high damage (read: uptime) is the ONLY reason to bring BLM due to zero utility.

Further still, adding in the "need" for addle and apoc only makes this problem worse. Breaking it down, if you don't get a firestarter or a thundercloud (dig up Sfia's old thread about the state of BLM for my suggestions on the matter) during your astral phase you have to go an entire 18+ seconds before you can use an off-GCD without clipping (to say nothing of potentially losing a Fire IV for that phase, which again since the buff means an even bigger loss). Needless to say this has ominous implications for timings of those buffs, let alone attempting to keep using your main buffs so they don't get pushed WAY behind. The same thing goes for Aetherial Manipulation; it's a great movement tool hands down but unless you get lucky enough to have a proc for it you ARE losing uptime, which as I said, is the only thing you bring to the group. It is this design that is poorly thought out about the class.

I really hope this gets through to the battle team before 5.0 decisions are finalized, which... it's probably already too late now.

Eh, I'll put up a suggestions thread for BLM tomorrow. I assume they're in the final stages of their design but it's still fun to talk about.

@Llugen, I was once one of the poor foolish souls advocating for BLM to get F4 potency increase to 300. I am sure someone will probably dig up my stupidity somewhere on the forums. The point is that I agree with you. More tight movement in fights makes moving more punishing, I see the stupidity I was advocating for and wish that the developers really thought about ways to help BLM aside from damage. Damage is awesome and I love those dcrit 40k+ F4's but I hope that in 5.0 the developers really take a look at BLM and SAM (maybe???) to find ways too help those job. Maybe pure damage is really NOT a feasible thing in FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Eh, I'll put up a suggestions thread for BLM tomorrow. I assume they're in the final stages of their design but it's still fun to talk about.

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Done.