Too much dancing

[Jamez82]

SE really screwed a lot of potential strategies when they made the BLM work the way it does nothing except players have elemental resistances. That was a big screw up on their part.

[ZephyrAM]

SE really screwed a lot of potential strategies when they made the BLM work the way it does nothing except players have elemental resistances. That was a big screw up on their part.

They didn't remove the elemental wheel because they wanted BLM to work the way it does, they removed the elemental wheel to prevent the class stacking and/or useless classes that occurred in XI, and from there they could do whatever they wanted with BLM.

If enemies have a primary weakness, groups only bring the classes that are most capable against that weakness. If enemies have an immunity, groups forbid classes that rely on that immunity from ever joining. Sure, SE could've given every class the ability to use every element equally well... but that sounds like a whole bunch of complication and homogenization with no real payout.

[Sibyll]

SE really screwed a lot of potential strategies when they made the BLM work the way it does nothing except players have elemental resistances. That was a big screw up on their part.

Elemental resistances are bad design for the players and can be bad for the bosses and encounters. Resistance on the players gates content until an arbitrary resistance minimum is met. For boss encounters I could see this working if handled properly. For example, Ifrit might get increased damage from Ice, normal damage from Lightning and be healed by Fire and so a Black Mage might need to adjust his rotation between encounters. Design like this could give depth to the class, as there would be a huge difference between someone pushing buttons and someone that has taken the time to learn how his skills interact with encounter.

The thing you want to avoid is to just add elemental resistances just for the sake of having an arbitrary number to stack. It's just hard to argue what these stats would really add to the game in terms of depth.

[Bahd_Monkey]

For boss encounters I could see this working if handled properly. For example, Ifrit might get increased damage from Ice, normal damage from Lightning and be healed by Fire and so a Black Mage might need to adjust his rotation between encounters.

Not just boss encounters but mobs as well, especially if you had mobs made up of enemies that had different elemental and physical attack strengths and weaknesses. It would have to be balanced so that no job was left out (i.e. useless) and it would make fights a lot more interesting.

And how come healers can't cast healing spells on the undead to damage them, or swiftcast rez to kill them? This is a staple in other FF games and would make for a really fun mix up of the way the game is played now.