How's BLM looking?

I've been a casual player for a while, subbing a month here and there, and I rather enjoy BLM as it is right now. How's it looking for SB though? Would it be viable if I decide to try raiding as one? I see a lot of people going SMN or NIN, but I'm not a huge fan of either playstyle, and I'd rather not compete with half a billion RDM should I decide to enter the raiding scene :p

Well at first Glance... Summoner will likely be Nerfed into the ground for anything but the MSQ content.
BUT....

BLM as it is right now won't lose much. Fire II only loses 20 potency.... but you gain 30 Potency from Thunder II which is now AoE... and Procs on top of that. So... well... nothing was lost at all and the overall AoE Damage for BLMs will see an overall increase likely... Thunder IV is also AoE and procs too at a 50 potency.

Obviously we don't know whether it procs AoE, but likely it will since it is an AoE. And like all BLM procs will proc the Full damage all at once.

You do lose a whopping (sarcasm) 20 potency off Fire IV... which was 280 now is 260... so not much of a change because Enochian is now always on so you're no longer limited to doing it only in Enochian.

So basically you can now Fire IV for however much you want to then switch to the Blizard magic to instantly restore all your MP and then go again.

Between the Thunder AoE and Procs... nothing is lost on the Fire II nerf.

Summoner loses some massive AoE... BANE is pretty much nerfed into the ground, and they lost Bliz 2 and Miasma 2 on top of it. And they also took a hit to Ruin 3 with a 25% DPS loss as well as a 40 potency per tick loss... to their DoTs. So this job likely will not be able to compete at this point...

Red Mage is a different story... this one will be dual casting 200+ potency nukes, so its DPS in single target will be incredibly high. But this one lacks any real clear AoEs so will be limited to Single Target only.

From what i can see Red Mage may turn out to be slightly higher in Single Target. Black Mage will have Strong Single Target and Top rated AoEs... Summoner will lag behind both.

BLM looks to be in a pretty good spot. AoE they are going to be power houses as long as you dont screw up and drop your enochian. Single target wise they will also be very very strong. Of course in BLM fashion the more mobility a boss fight requires the more and more DPS you will lose. They have some new things to counter this but it still will hurt. I dont think you will see as many RDM as you will SAMs currently. as Silverquick said, RDM has very strong single target but their aoe is abysmal. Pretty much only the monk has worse AoE. SMN i dont think is as bad as many think it to be. Their AoE definitely took a hit and they are becoming more direct damage dependent. NIN looks to have gotten some pretty decent love overall and with everything pretty much a positive change its attracting some attention.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Red Mage is a different story... this one will be dual casting 200+ potency nukes, so its DPS in single target will be incredibly high. But this one lacks any real clear AoEs so will be limited to Single Target only.

From what i can see Red Mage may turn out to be slightly higher in Single Target. Black Mage will have Strong Single Target and Top rated AoEs... Summoner will lag behind both.

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How exactly do you gather this, especially by using this logic? Red Mage's spells would be in the 240-300 potency range per GCD, a bit over 280 on average. Fire IV with Enochian is a 491 potency spell, for example. And Foul is 682.5 potency, every 30 seconds. Red Mage can on avarage melee after 17 GCDs(41s with 2.4s GCD) of build up or so, far less often than Black Mage can cast Foul. So I don't really see how Red Mage's DPS is looking "incredibly high", or higher than BLM's. I would even go as far as to say that outside of Red Mage's melee combo, their DPS will be closer to Black Mage in Umbral Ice than Astral Fire.

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Originally Posted by Shayuki

How exactly do you gather this, especially by using this logic? Red Mage's spells would be in the 240-300 potency range per GCD, a bit over 280 on average. Fire IV with Enochian is a 491 potency spell, for example. And Foul is 682.5 potency, every 30 seconds. Red Mage can on avarage melee after 17 GCDs(41s with 2.4s GCD) of build up or so, far less often than Black Mage can cast Foul. So I don'treally see how Red Mage's DPS is looking "incredibly high", or higher than BLM's. I would even go as far as to say that outside of Red Mage's melee combo, their DPS will be closer to Black Mage in Umbral Ice than Astral Fire.

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Mostly because Red Mage is Dual Casting them, while I admit none of us really know the specifics of Red Mage and how this plays out in game, but they will reach about a similar level as BLM.

I am not denying Enochian potency or arguing with you over the Fire 4s, they are nasty... and even at the nerfed 260 potency with 3 stacks of fire for 80% damage they are impressive... so the nerf is not going to make a difference at all unlike the Nerfs to Summoner which kill it in places.

But you also have to dip out of Fire stacks as a BLM and go back to Ice Magic. So you only get that part time.

That's why I said the Red Mage will likely come out on top.

I didn't say BLM was going to suck or anything so I think you have me wrong on that one.

Isn't Dual Cast simply a built-in Swiftcast that applies upon having first performed a hard cast? That's a convenient utility and an actual gain where casting times are longer than the GCD, but it's not likely to prove a massive DPS gain in and of itself.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Mostly because Red Mage is Dual Casting them, while I admit none of us really know the specifics of Red Mage and how this plays out in game, but they will reach about a similar level as BLM.

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It just makes the cast instant. So with 2.4s GCD it still takes 2.4 seconds. Dual casting the 5s spells is obvious and was taken into account in my math.

On average it'd be 281.5 potency per GCD, or 2.4 seconds.

And just look at it this way.

The preliminary Umbral Ice rotation for BLM with 2.4s GCD would be something like:

00.00 Blizzard III (176.4 potency)
02.40 Foul (682.5 potency)
04.80 Thunder III (409.5 potency)
08.16 Blizzard IV (273 potency)
11.04 -(Fire rotation begins).


So during the non-melee rotation, assuming 2.4s GCD, Red Mage will be dealing around 281.25 potency per 2.4 seconds with average luck, or 117.1895 potency / second.

During this Umbral Ice rotation I just whipped up(Probably not optimal), Black Mage will be dealing 1541.4 potency of damage over 11.04 seconds, or about 139.62 potency / second.

As such, Black Mage would deal more single target damage even during its Umbral Ice rotation than Red Mage during its non-melee rotation. So how do you think it's going to go during the actual Astral Fire rotation? Not close, using the numbers we have thus far. Therefore, saying Red Mage's damage will be higher than Black Mage's is unfounded according to our current data and relies on them buffing Red Mage before release.

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

Isn't Dual Cast simply a built-in Swiftcast that applies upon having first performed a hard cast? That's a convenient utility and an actual gain where casting times are longer than the GCD, but it's not likely to prove a massive DPS gain in and of itself.

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Correct. You will also have a net gain in high mobility fights.

Black Mage changes are solid honestly. Very little complaints. Then again it's Yoshida's main job class so of course everything looks good on it ofc.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Black Mage changes are solid honestly. Very little complaints. Then again it's Yoshida's main job class so of course everything looks good on it ofc.

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Ya, and its making my decision between RDM and BLM very hard :)