BLM and SMN BUFFs info is coming out!! PATCH 2.3 Preliminary

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Originally Posted by Elemia

I'm ashamed somebody as ignorant as you is in my Free Company.

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Oh pray do enlighten us with your godly knowledge and skills then.
430*1.09 is not 469 dps?

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Originally Posted by Kitru

I'm pretty sure Astral Fire is a 25% increase per stack, which would put AF3 at 75%.

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AF1 is 40%, AF2 60%, and AF3 80%.

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Originally Posted by 65shion

Get ur shit together SE and give melee some love.

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I don't often say this, but

lol

The idea behind these changes were to raise the ceiling (the problem was the ceiling was not high enough for blms, a certain threshold was impossible to hit) and not raise the floor (more help to those that struggle with blm). Potency changes do just that. Potency changes help out those on the low end and those at the high end. movement changes would only help out the low end, and trust me on this monk literally takes a dump on anything that blm does in this game (except brayflox and turn 4 but really who cares about this content even as a blm i hate brayflox now), and thanks to disembowel a pt will almost always take a competent drg (keyword competent) over a competent blm in 2.2 due to how useful bards are. (in 2.2 drgs did higher single target, good aoe (not blm like but good aoe) and really good burst.

on T8 vivi, bard leads battlevoice req, then blm starts Raging strikes (yes first) Thunder 2 (having RS on T2 is ideal since its potency) F3, fire chain, chase flare as hard as possible you should get RS with your flare. (By chase i mean dont use it until you normally would i.e 400ish mp or so.) it's more important for flare to have RS than T2 so it your spell speed doesnt allow it, skip applying ragingstrikes for the T2 and apply it after fire 3, if you are lucky a thundercloud will hit and put the dot potency up (but not for long since you re apply at the end anyway unless you literally proc thundercloud on an empty tank.) I'm not getting into the basic rotation because I don't do anything different than most blms here.

use an x pot of int and food at the start and chase int pot cds, from here on don't use an int pot unless you get a proc and use it, cause omg the pot lock animation is strong. Next bard song will be paeon probably so plan accordingly. make sure to single flare every dread convert or not and double flare with convert up, don't triple flare it wastes time and damage unless you have a million targets to hit. you will probably have a foe req up for most dreads, unless ballad is up by you can take advantage of ballad anyway since it allows for flare to be cast without interrupting your rotation (ballad gives 79 mp... YES!)

I hit a dread tower once and an explosion tower once for the pt and have to move for ballistic missiles. So I do some mechanics but not a lot of them. I'm i110 with an i115 wep


The only thing a controller would hurt you on is fast reaction on abilities you normally wouldn't use as it requires more input and time than a keyboard, but it shouldn't hurt you on normal rotation/everyday business. I use a naga mouse and will never look back (I used to love my controller also until i tried this thing out, it is sick.. trust me. Allows you to cast every spell you have with just two thumbs inputs... amazing.)

The only buff BLM would need is Surecast lasting like 15 seconds and you being able to move while casting without interrupting the spell cast if under Surecast.
Also Surecast should not end after only one spell is cast as it is today.

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Originally Posted by atomicdeath

Dont know if its a typo or not, but the cast timer for Aerial slash is already 1 sec. The RECAST timer is 3 seconds. So does that mean garuda will attack 3 times faster?

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You are mixing up ability names.

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

You are mixing up ability names.

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XD yep.

In that case, these changes are worthless.

My take on the changes: almost exactly 90% of BLM damage (calculated by pencil and paper over multiple tests and definitely not a parser *cough*) comes from Fire + Fire III + Blizzard + Blizzard III, the rest being Flare and Thunder spells. So this buff should be nearly a 10~% buff as the numbers say to overall damage. Now, from my experience playing in maxed out gear and playing with nearly maxed out geared other DPS, this puts us exactly where we should be: a bit above BRD, near SMN/DRG (before counting the buff it gives BRD), and below MNK, rather than closer to BRD.

In terms of second coil, from my experience, BLM will do slightly worse (within a few percentage rather than 10%+) than SMN in T6, T7, and T9 but the gap will be much smaller than it currently is, to the point where I wouldn't call it plain inferior as I would in 2.2. The possibility of getting RNG screwed is still higher on BLM than SMN in all those turns due to how BLM plays but that's part of the job's difficulty, making the best of movement via Firestarter, Swiftcast, Aetherial Manipulation, Manawall, and Manaward occasionally. I do think BLM has the potential to beat SMN in T8 in 2.3 assuming no Ballad, as it's always been close due to the fight's MP draining length and standstill nature.

I was hoping for something like a 1.5-2 second cast on Fire, or major Scathe reworkings, but this will do for now (unless brutal coil is even more movement heavy, then maybe not so). I still think SMN is the superior choice over BLM from a min/max standpoint, both utility and HOW their damage is dealt which is more mechanic friendly, but this will let a very well played BLM keep up with the group rather than just being obsolete, so I'm happy.

While I am not unhappy with the potency boosts, I feel that it is completely disconnected with the real issues regarding BLM.

Fundamentally, BLM is punished for stacking their GCD. Every other class in the game is rewarded for using their next ability the nano-second their GCD finishes, thereby optimizing their ability-use. BLM, on the other hand, is punished for doing so.

1) Casting Fire3 right after Blizzard3 results in being able to start casting Fire3 before our Umbral3 stacks are applied, negating our decreased cast time for Fire3.

2) Casting Fire1 right after a previous Fire1 results in casting the second spell before the potential free/instant Fire3 appears. This can result in obtaining a second free/instant Fire3 before we have the chance to use the first proc, losing and wasting damage. If we wait to see if the first Fire1 gave the proc, we can potentially end up waiting for no reason at all, which makes our fundamental problem even worse; not being able to stack our GCD. ie- Damned if we do, damned if we don't.

3) We lose our Astral/Umbral stacks before the spell is actually finished casting. This causes two problems:

-Being forced to dodge essential AoEs before the spell is finished casting results in losing our stacks without the fair exchange of being able to cast the spell. This has happened to me on a number of occasions in almost every end-game fight.

-Finishing the cast of Blizzard3 with empty MP, followed by my saved free/instant Thunder3, still forces me to wait before I can start casting Fire3 to get the full effect of my Umbral3. The added wait time isn't long enough to cast another spell, but long enough to force me to twiddle my thumbs during a fight.

tl;dr - BLM is fundamentally broken on a mechanical level. We are punished when we attempt to optimize our ability-use with the GCD.

I didn't read everything. With these buff, my bread and butter Fire 1 has more potency than Fester. I will do roughly 10% more dps making me equal to my SMN in t9 and just a bit less than my Monk in T8. The change on Apocatastasis is great. manawall was maybe too good and they judged they needed a nerf. Regular BLMs will do about the same numbers than other DPS now but exceptional BLMs will just wreck numbers.