BLM feels hard, tips from veterans?

Recently started PvPing and BLM is my first job, and I'm enjoying it, but can feel rough sometimes. What's the general opinion of BLM?

Also curious to see how other people play it in PvP, maybe some people have some basic tips for the job? I got some questions about skills in particular;

Fire 2 and Flare, are they important or do people skip these completely in PvP?

Aetheric Burst, should it be tossed on specific targets like healers/mages with cast times, or do people mostly just use it as AOE dmg/instant burst?

Freeze is great, but Blizzard 2? Do people use it? Feels like it's got some self-peel potential but right now I just have it collecting dust in the corner of my hotbar

Thunder 1/2/3? I don't use any.

I'd also love some tips for stats, like VIT accessories or damage all the way, and if I should be investing PvP points into stats or always max out the PvP skills before putting into stats. Would love some help, thanks!

I mostly PvP on BLM, so either I'm bad or BLM is pretty tricky in PvP. More often than going for the glory of kill count and damage I'll do a lot of crowd control if it seems worthwhile and my team is working properly (focusing down targets and letting the others stay asleep and useless).

Really I use the Hell out of thunder III. With swift cast and sharp cast it can be a very potent on-the-go burst of damage and with the somewhat recently improved proc rate of thundercloud it's the gift that keeps on giving! If you can get it onto a few targets you can pretty much just keep spamming thunder 3 with no cost or cast time at people, though the opportunities for that perfect a situation are limited.

I rarely do area damage. It's too little to matter most of the time since area heals are much more potent than the damage of fire 2. Flare was nerfed in PvP a while ago and recently received a global nerf making it a very unattractive skill in almost all situations (to me at least). Fire 4 will serve you much better if you want to actually kill anybody, though don't count on that happening if people are actually looking at you. BLM is very potent when unnoticed, but as soon as someone is aware that you're attacking them it's trivial to get out of range, behind you, or simply begin attacking you to prevent almost all casting.

Blizzard 2 I actually tend to use more than freeze. I find that people flee very quickly from ground targets, but blizzard 2 casts very quickly and as you noticed can be invaluable to peel away from an enemy. It's also a decent skill to interrupt any and all people who might be trying to claim a node (as is freeze).

For points, well I have been investing in skills first, but I can't comment strongly in either case. I still have trouble remembering some of my PvP specific skills since I do primarily play PvE and that's how my hotbars are set up (with PvP skills on cross hotbar 2). Being at a fairly low rank I can't use current PvP gear and just use the same equipment I would in PvE. Perhaps more VIT would be more beneficial than INT, though I'm not sure and I haven't seen other BLMs do this. It might allow you to survive certain attacks that are otherwise instant death (encounters with fully buffed SMNs, melee LB, etc.), but I think it would mostly serve to buff our weak point (slightly) at the cost of our strength. BLM has little defense in PvP and has to rely on the team to survive even more than other classes.

Stick to a group (or at least a healer), try to go unnoticed, and kill/ control!

BLM / MCH are the 2 jobs I play the most in PvP.

I started out using a lot of Swiftsharp Thunder III to get procs and then slowly moved towards casting Fire to build up stacks. The best tip here is DO NOT HARD CAST FIRE III. It will only frustrate you because your targets will always run out of range. If the squishy targets are too far in the back you can use Fire IV. I like to swift Fire III for the stacks the sharp Fire I so I get the proc, eno equa raging. 2 Fire IV and Fire III from proc is 1500 potency and it basically melts anyone even a tank. I've crit over 6-7k with High/Fever. Scathe is your best friend also, can crit for 1.5-2k and it's your kiting tool against melees.

I would definitely start using Swiftsharp Thunder if you are not very comfortable playing the job yet. You can Thunder pets/turrets that are close for more procs. Most of your damage will come from Tclouds, DoT ticks, and Scathe.

Alright, thanks alot both you guys :) I'll definitely try Blizz 2 and thunder more

however Chaelyn I do not appreciate that killing adders is your favorite pasttime... merry christmas anyway >.>

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Originally Posted by Nutz

BLM has little defense in PvP

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I wasnt going to reply to this because he was asking for frontlines tips over wolves den, but this is just flat wrong, BLM's near limitless CC, blink and shields, plus their ability to still deal insane damage when you have 35 in vit and 5 vit accs, makes them by far the tankiest dps class in the game

in wolves den the entire point of a blm comp is to have a massive tanky caster that you cant leave alone because if you do he will just peel for the healer forever while at the same time putting out giant pressure on the enemy team and granting the ability to set up a very sizable burst considering they arnt building int