PVP and BLM. The nerf and difficulty of our role.

I play blm in pvp. I played back before the AoE sleep nerf happened. I knew my role and what this classes' purpose was in pvp, it was CC and protecting teammates retreating.

With the revitalization of pvp I have now started to pvp again now after the AoE sleep debuff and I gotta say its heartbreaking. I feel the nerf they got has no warrant and it was more to cater to players who didn't know how to counter it with the ridiculously short CD of purify and sharing their unused purify with the teams healers.
This ruins the class dynamic as was intended. Blms are NOT dps in PVP, they are CC classes. That is where they shined and it was never their easily LoS/interrupted Dps that was the main focus on this class. We were ment to lock people down rather then nuke them down.

As a blm we are constantly harassed with no way of stopping multiple people on us with stuns/silences/spell breaking except ice 2/freeze and that ruins our astral stacks hard by giving us 1 umbral that is very very hard to recover from while trying to kill someone.

We can no longer save our team's healers with our sleep while they are being harassed unless we used our very long cd nightwing which is wasted with their purify usage. While trying to dps it is hard to maintain our stacks while dodging/CCing/interrupts so we barely get out any fire 4s or even fire 1s.

I used to sleep players rushing to a node or trying to break ice to stop their dps in frontlines. This is no longer the case and im reduced to a weak dps that has his los broken constantly by people running away. What is my purpose when most of my attacks are reduced down to ice to heavy someone then barely get time to cast a spell on them at all when they run away? Much of our same issues are present here as in feast with LoS/stun/silence harassment with players being able to simply step outside of range.

Why has SE not relooked at this class to figure out how to better balance it now that we are no longer a CC class or even a good dps class unless someone rushes the team alone. We are the only class that cant dps while moving in pvp unless we get a thunder proc as scathe is a joke and I find it unfair that we have our ability nerfed while other classes out there can one shot someone with the right set of CD usage.

Our pvp skills need updated and require special treatment. We shouldnt have to share abitlies with other casters and get our own that allow us to work better in these unfair enviornments.

Our pvp skills equanimity needs updated to protect against stuns/silences to make it more useful as a skill with such a long cd and short payoff with only 2-3 spells benefiting from it. Change it already to allow casting while on the go which would help fill in the negative aspect of the class.

Same goes for the instant mana, while good in some situations, doesnt benefit our class nearly as much as a smn/healer. Change it into another swiftcast so that we may also be more mobile and deal with situations more often then once a min for our regular swiftcast. We could then better dps and CC players as needed on a moments notice rather then feeling helpless as we wait for our 3 secs cast bar.

SE Please fix blms, make them CC again but also allow us to have better flexibility in pvp to match the dps of other classes since you nerfed our CC hardcore. If not soon then in 4.0 cause as a pvp class it fails in so many categories when it was somewhat balanced before and did its intended job. You gave into the whiners now I ask you to fix us to make it right.

TLDR: This class needs a major rehaul or give us back our AoE sleep. You cater to every other job by allowing them to kill others in 4 cds while the blms has to struggle and stand in the open while players LoS their dps and mock them and their now current lack of CC abilities. Allow us to dps while moving with changes to pvp skills and reduce the strict nature of managing buffs and astral/umbral fire to allow us to better be able to Dps if you dont intended to restore our CC role.

They also need to bring back full damage with swiftcast imo. BLM was never the same after they removed it, as it was a key part of the burst rotation.

That and BLM and SMN get penalised in feast if the healer runs out of MP. Mana regen is just too good if the teams are evenly matched.

There is already too much CC in PVP. Last thing we need is aoe sleep to combo with the aoe bind, and then 5 cometeors on top...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maddonious

I knew my role and what this classes' purpose was in pvp, it was CC and protecting teammates retreating.

Blms are NOT dps in PVP, they are CC classes. We were ment to lock people down rather then nuke them down.

---

That is completely wrong while blm in feast is not very good its completely the opposite in frontlines. You are meant to DPS and kill people if you CC then only if the situation needs CC on certain targets. Also mana draw is helping you to keep dpsing so its not really useless xd. If you think blm is a weak dps class then may improve?

If you think BLM is bad then what about BRD? Outside of Barrage every 2 mins it's almost useless. Plus terrible distance penalty, something mages don't have. And yet nobody complains about it.

They nerfed because BLMs had 'unnaturally high win rate' on jp servers. Fire IV in AF3 is 504 potency, 630 with Enochain and Raging Strikes damage bonuses, 2-3 in a row can kill anyone. If their spells are spammed without interruption, that will make BLM in a constant burst mode, something other jobs can do only once in 90-120 seconds. With AOE crowd control options it makes them overpowerful.

Some BLMs successfully adapted with Thunder/Sharpcast procs gameplay, which is not as bursty but much more SMN-style mobile, maybe you should try it out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SuperZay

Some BLMs successfully adapted with Thunder/Sharpcast procs gameplay, which is not as bursty but much more SMN-style mobile, maybe you should try it out.

---

You are assuming I am bad. No, I am rusty atm due to my hiatus, but of course I use the thunder proc method as its the one one with mobile burst. Fire 4 is strong yes but think of the opprotunity you hve to have to be clear to cast it without harassment. My complain in pvp is that we have to little options when players focus us or run away and we lost what made us more useful to the team. Its either they are right next to us attacking someone else or right on the edge constantly moving behind objects/out of range.

I simply think we have to little option when it comes to adapting to a situation while maintaining our dps as we have to maintain our buffs along with mp management and cant move in order to do even halfway decent damage. I simply want blms to have changes to help balance out our shortcomings just a tad so we dont feel like such a burden on our feast team. Frontlines we can do better but I still miss being able to "hold the line".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chiramu

There is already too much CC in PVP. Last thing we need is aoe sleep to combo with the aoe bind, and then 5 cometeors on top...

---

Purify is on a short cd, CC is not a huge issue to players used to it. For multiple LBs I can feel your pain but thats once every how long? And as long as your not grouped up no more then 1-2 should die from that.

This isn't about adding more CC to pvp, its about giving BLM their role back as a CC class instead of a subpar dps class. We have the least mobility in pvp with the hardest time keeping up our dps capability so back before the nerf our role was to harass players/protect our healers while the other players finished them off. Now its incredibly hard to feel useful cause the second we start running around we lose all our dps unlike every other dps class that can attack while moving. The fact that its all or nothing for our dps doesn't help BLMs and when we did CC with aoe sleep we could actually contribute. What do we do now? Get LoS or interrupted and spend more time moving to get a view on someone only for others to start beating on us. All that time moving is dps the team has lost due to the blm. Sleep the healer and they use their short CD purify, sleep again diminish returns destroy any usefulness left.

Alright so I don't think I even got past the 2nd sentence before I had to stop reading.

An AoE sleep that lasts for 15 seconds was INCREDIBLY over powered. The game literally revolved around BLM and their sleeps. The JP meta pretty much only allowed for a BLM and even in NA, if they could coordinate it (like in Light Party) it was just incredibly unfun to play against because you'd spend half of the game either bound or slept. And no, a 90 second purify is not even close to a counter considering that even if you purify the first sleep the BLM can still sleep you twice more for another ~20 seconds and bind you for 25+. AND if they sleep on DR reset (e.g. 60 seconds later when your resists reset) you wouldn't even have purify up and you'd be taking a nice 25+ second snooze.

BLM can still do this, although to a lesser degree. You can bait out Purifies with Binds and then give them a nice ~16 (8+4+2) second nap and/or bind them for another 6 seconds. And an enemy without purify is now opened up to a lot of other stuff like PLD stun locks, Full Swing, etc. It is still the king of CC which is a huge part of PvP in FFXIV.

I play Fire IV turret style in Frontlines. This style is to harass and kill opposing enemy players with this method by planting yourself in a safe spot and nuking the enemies while they hit ice. You can easily kill someone in two GCDs with two Fire IVs if they crit or someone's using Blood for Blood. We're already helpless when melee DPS use Fetter Ward, making normal Sleep AoE again wouldn't solve the issue of us having a higher skill floor to play. We still have lots of CC at our disposal such as Lethargy's slow and Blizzard's heavy.

Our weaknesses were only exacerbated by the changes to ice being more resistant to magic damage.

I agree that removing the aoe effect from sleep was quite a big nerf, and sometimes I wish I'd have aoe sleep again, but it is overpowered if we're being real for a sec. But I completely disagree with you that blm is a cc job and not a dps job. Good blm's will do good on-point cc, and o really good damage. Up to you to do both effectively. Blm has really good dps and I really love playing blm in frontlines when I have a good healer, I love the power of Fire 4. Even you may not notice while playing blm yourself, but fire 4 spam puts quite some stress on healers.

BLM in Feast v Frontlines plays very differently. If you are interested I wrote a guide on FL BLM on PvPaissa. For Feast it's not really recommended to play if it is your first time in Feast or you are playing ranked Soloq as it is one of the harder classes to adapt to in the game mode.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PotatoTree

They also need to bring back full damage with swiftcast imo. BLM was never the same after they removed it, as it was a key part of the burst rotation.

That and BLM and SMN get penalised in feast if the healer runs out of MP. Mana regen is just too good if the teams are evenly matched.

---

That would be ludicrous. Fire 4 + swift cast fire 4 would do 80% of someone's hp even without phantom dart or raging strikes

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KusoWat

That would be ludicrous. Fire 4 + swift cast fire 4 would do 80% of someone's hp even without phantom dart or raging strikes

---

Because doing Ricochet and Between the Eyes back to back doing 100% of someones health is less ludicrous.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Slib

Because doing Ricochet and Between the Eyes back to back doing 100% of someones health is less ludicrous.

---

This is the actual issue. Classes need to be nerfed before we start thinking about buffing classes. Monk and MCH are leagues above their counterparts. Once they nerf some of the more disgusting classes, we can talk about buffing weak ones. Everything is weak right now if you compare them to monk or mch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Slib

Because doing Ricochet and Between the Eyes back to back doing 100% of someones health is less ludicrous.

---

Rememeber, BLms were op enough to have our CD that we needed to use for everything in emergencies with a 1min cd nerfed while certain classes can burst you in 2 secs flat on the go.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chaelyn

BLM in Feast v Frontlines plays very differently. If you are interested I wrote a guide on FL BLM on PvPaissa. For Feast it's not really recommended to play if it is your first time in Feast or you are playing ranked Soloq as it is one of the harder classes to adapt to in the game mode.

---

The fact is over several nerfs to certain spells and cc usage we have been wittled down from our place as CC players to dps that have it incredibly hard, albiet powerful attacks. I see a few players keep saying "well maybe get better" but you have to remember im talking about the class as in individual, what you are talking about is having your static/dedicated pvp team carry you. I do not want this. I want to be able to stand on my own better then we currently are in some situations where we just feel helpless unless we pop all our CDs just to maybe kill someone before they LoS us.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MisterAdri

But I completely disagree with you that blm is a cc job and not a dps job. Good blm's will do good on-point cc, and o really good damage. Up to you to do both effectively.

---

BLm used to be more CC then DPS. At our current state we can still CC to a degree but it makes our time casting = time binded/slept not worth it as much as it used to with hardcore nefred nightwing and purify taking away our longer sleep cd easily. This is why blm in 4v4 cant win as much as other dps classes once players know how to shut you down, our dps is gimped with mobility and LoS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maddonious

This is why blm in 4v4 cant win as much as other dps classes.

---

*checks mana datacenter*
Yep, still a bunch of blms in the top 10.

Yes monk, mch, and pld played by good players (this is very important, you can't just be bad and expect to crush everyone) can shut down everything, but that's because they are broken. Not because other classes are too weak.

BLM in 4v4 is still about CC, and you can do way more than CC to a degree. The meta on Mana with a blm in the party is to sleep people until Culling time and then two shot someone with Fire IV. The way blm play is "thunder, thunder, thunder, sleep ranged 8s, blizzard melee, thunder proc, sleep ranged 4s, thunder proc, sleep ranged 2s, blizzard ranged, sleep melee 8s, blizzard tank, thunder proc, sleep melee 4s, sleep melee 2s, blizzard melee, sleep tank 8s, thunder proc, bind melee, sleep tank 4s, sleep tank 2s, bind tank, sleep healer 8s............. etc........ Culling time... burst, someones dead". This just doesn't have a place in the NA/EU meta right now, and since we have never adopted the strategy, would be impossible with the new chat restriction.

It is pretty dull, and it is extremely annoying to play against. If played correctly a blm with a good healer can make it so the other team never gets kills because they can always have a member of the other team slept, binded, or slowed. While CCing, you also get to exert free pressure with thunder procs. The box control you have as blm is also crazy because you can make the melee sleep during boxes every time.

tl;dr remove monk, mach, and pld from the game.

Still want to bring up this issue. Blm in frontlines is so useless in terms of damage unless its a thunder proc but good luck getting close enough to even cast a spell at the enemy team before they back up out of range as soon as you got close. We need more mobility in pvp since our CC lockdowns have become unusable.

Freeze is our only one left but it takes so long to cast its a joke cause no ones gonna sit in the circle long enough for it to go off unless you swift it which is a waste. We need skill changes to better reflect our role in pvp. No matter how many people say "oh just get better" or " well they have strategies" it is all in a theoretical bubble and doesnt work in the world world like on paper. Once someone in here can provide a video of them doing super well in pvp (without a static doing it all for you) then I am still inclined to believe blm needs a major buff in pvp to content with the other classes in terms of usefulness.

BLms were fine before all the nerfs and now they dont hold a candle to others.

BLM in 4v4 with sleep is still grossly overpowered. You can sleep a healer then have the team burst on another to win, even with purify, you can just sleep them again.

Petrify is too long of a recast if you ask me, if you want your AoE sleeping, give me a 5 second recast Petrify. I do not even like doing 4 v 4 because it is so unbalanced. (not blm limited though) 8 v 8 gets around of stun locking, sleep locking one healer leaving the dps burst kill someone

How about we start addressing PLD, MCH, MNK, and NIN with nerfs, SCH with buffs, then we can talk about BLM?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maddonious

Once someone in here can provide a video of them doing super well in pvp (without a static doing it all for you) then I am still inclined to believe blm needs a major buff in pvp to content with the other classes in terms of usefulness.

BLms were fine before all the nerfs and now they dont hold a candle to others.

---

You have plenty of possibilities to cast your skills in frontlines. Even in a premade you still have to play your class you wont have magically 300-400k dmg with simple scathe etc. BLM can pressure pretty hard even tanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

BLM in 4v4 with sleep is still grossly overpowered. You can sleep a healer then have the team burst on another to win, even with purify, you can just sleep them again.

Petrify is too long of a recast if you ask me, if you want your AoE sleeping, give me a 5 second recast Petrify. I do not even like doing 4 v 4 because it is so unbalanced. (not blm limited though) 8 v 8 gets around of stun locking, sleep locking one healer leaving the dps burst kill someone

How about we start addressing PLD, MCH, MNK, and NIN with nerfs, SCH with buffs, then we can talk about BLM?

---

NINs do not need nerfs. PLD, MCH and MNK are the trinity though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

BLM in 4v4 with sleep is still grossly overpowered. You can sleep a healer then have the team burst on another to win, even with purify, you can just sleep them again.

Petrify is too long of a recast if you ask me, if you want your AoE sleeping, give me a 5 second recast Petrify. I do not even like doing 4 v 4 because it is so unbalanced. (not blm limited though) 8 v 8 gets around of stun locking, sleep locking one healer leaving the dps burst kill someone

How about we start addressing PLD, MCH, MNK, and NIN with nerfs, SCH with buffs, then we can talk about BLM?

---

Are you even playing the same game?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maddonious

Blms are NOT dps in PVP, they are CC classes. That is where they shined and it was never their easily LoS/interrupted Dps that was the main focus on this class.

---

Black Mages are (or should be) a DD, not a CC class.

Summoners were (should still be) a CC class. But SE nerfed them so hard and took away most of their CC debuffs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cleanse

NINs do not need nerfs. PLD, MCH and MNK are the trinity though.

---

Oh okay, I thought there was something about NIN, seeing a NIN beat a MCH but maybe the MCH did not have the burst ready =/

They need to nerf Fire III and Fire IV too. They nerfed SMN's Painflare and Deathflare before, it would be fair to nerf BLM too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PotatoTree

They also need to bring back full damage with swiftcast imo. BLM was never the same after they removed it, as it was a key part of the burst rotation.

That and BLM and SMN get penalised in feast if the healer runs out of MP. Mana regen is just too good if the teams are evenly matched.

---

Also the fact that they do not have Recuperate really spreads them far apart from being as efficient as mch/brd. If your healers CC'd or dies. Forget about it, unless you land a sleep on the enemies without being controlled too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TiaHariberux3

You have plenty of possibilities to cast your skills in frontlines. Even in a premade you still have to play your class you wont have magically 300-400k dmg with simple scathe etc. BLM can pressure pretty hard even tanks.

---

I feel like some frontlines I'm overpowered as black mage. Then there are ones where the enemy will move in and run away, breaking casts. Then moving in more to cast would just mean my death. Sometimes frontlines can really suck as blm 8^(

Your BLM powers depend on your ability to hide/be ignored.
If you are ignored, you can cast 3 spells in 10 seconds - That's like...7500 dmg, plus a swiftcast 4th if you got it which should kill something without vit acc.
However...that's 10 seconds of having some person not moving and eating it. Also they must not press their CD. Also they must not be healed. That's a very small opportunity window.

Now if you are not ignored...just run away until they get distracted and come back for a whammy swiftcast thunder 1. Then Thunder 1 their pets/turrets/friends. Then TC whatever runs away to instakill something with 10% or less HP. That way you can feel like you're still worth it. That's what I do. I hand out a 6 second nap here. A 6 second nap there. Fish for easy kills and feel better about this really really bad PVP job.
Once my anima is completed I can switch back to a real job that feels rewarding and less broken.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TiaHariberux3

You have plenty of possibilities to cast your skills in frontlines. Even in a premade you still have to play your class you wont have magically 300-400k dmg with simple scathe etc. BLM can pressure pretty hard even tanks.

---

First off spamming scathe and a few thunders does not count as dps when a simple regen on someone is enough to counter the thunder dot. We are at the mercy of heavy rng, even more so then mch, to get our thuder procs and even then its pointless unless they have no healers.

Second with how broken some classes are, ast the most still, its impossible for blms to make a dent in dps due to how much time we give them to cure up their partners before we are able to get a 2nd/3rd attack off unless the stars aline and we have all procs ready to go instantly.

Its not simply about doing more damage, its more about being able to kill someone in a reasonable amount of time before they run away. If we are as bursty as some make us out to be this shouldnt be an issue but it clearly is to anyone who actually plays BLMs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tarta

Your BLM powers depend on your ability to hide/be ignored.
If you are ignored, you can cast 3 spells in 10 seconds - That's like...7500 dmg, plus a swiftcast 4th if you got it which should kill something without vit acc.
However...that's 10 seconds of having some person not moving and eating it. Also they must not press their CD. Also they must not be healed. That's a very small opportunity window.

Now if you are not ignored...just run away until they get distracted and come back for a whammy swiftcast thunder 1. Then Thunder 1 their pets/turrets/friends. Then TC whatever runs away to instakill something with 10% or less HP. That way you can feel like you're still worth it. That's what I do. I hand out a 6 second nap here. A 6 second nap there. Fish for easy kills and feel better about this really really bad PVP job.
Once my anima is completed I can switch back to a real job that feels rewarding and less broken.

---

You seem to understand unlike the majority of these folks. While we can "burst" that takes time, more time then any other class takes to burst in pvp. 10s..... 10s is a huge amount of time to get 3 spells off and in that amount of time the healer can heal 2-3 times not counting cd usage to take away all that damage you tried to do. This is the main issue. We are not on the same level as other classes and have no way to kill in a reasonable time frame. Not to mention anything cast with it is half damage hence why flare is no longer used in pvp cause its a joke.

Before I was not so worried about dps as my aoe sleep was strong and managed to allow my teamates to handle things but now with no aoe sleep and the hugely reduced amount of time they are slept my dps is now an issue as it prevents us from feeling like we're even helping in most cases. 6s(8s) nightwing is not enough.

Swiftcast is good but thats a 1m cd. We need to use it so much in pvp to actually get spells off that its a joke we dont have its cd reduced or a 2nd one from pvp skills. I cant freeze/thunder/fire 4/ice (for runners) quick enough to make a difference in pvp without it but due to how much everything requires swiftcast we are at a huge disadvantage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Maddonious

Its not simply about doing more damage, its more about being able to kill someone in a reasonable amount of time before they run away. If we are as bursty as some make us out to be this shouldnt be an issue but it clearly is to anyone who actually plays BLMs.

---

But I play blm? mainly? in frontlines? Anyways maybe try to get practice at the class blm is pretty good atleast in frontlines...then again you called ast broken so I cant take your opinion so serious.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tarta

Your BLM powers depend on your ability to hide/be ignored.

---

Amen! This applies to all non tanks tbh. I stay the f*** away from the spearhead as goon. Observing the crowd movement and moving in only when i know the enemy is destabilized and i can get away. I get plently of BLM kills not because BLM is a bad class, but because they get cocky, stand at the spearhead of their group or wander alone instead of being behind the line, safe and nuking the enemy front at max distance.

I invite you (OP) to review the BLM class as part of a group and not on its own. I feel you have not addressed the required proper positioning, mouvement and rules of engagement in your argument.

The problem with having Sleep have its AoE back is that people keep hitting people who are asleep, which makes them immune to sleep faster. Where if it's single target, you can control who is sleeping more than you would if it's AoE. The sleep diminishing returns might be the difference between killing them soon after or them getting away because they were needlessly slept by the AoE.

In terms of damage, you really underestimate the damage pressure that BLMs have on opposing healers. If you're sitting at a safe place casting Fire IVs on people, you're making the healer focus on healing them. Healers have cast times too. The person getting hit will try to run away as a reflex and you just switch targets when he does so. Then you force the healer to heal someone else. Sometimes I can't kill anyone (they're a good healer and what are the other DPS attacking?), while other times I can two shot a Monk using Blood for Blood.

Playing Thunder-proc-fisher makes you rely on RNG so much that I prefer to just turret away at people in the back line with Fire since that hits for a considerable amount of damage. Fire for a Firestarter proc will do more damage instantly than Thunder for a Thundercloud proc.

BLMs also scale heavily under the effects of Battle High/Fever. You don't even need Fire IV at that stage and can kill people with just Fire and Firestarter procs.

If you're dying, you're out of position.