Why is BLM getting a buff?

[Akujin]

It's happening. Get over it. No amount of whining and bickering on the forums is going to reverse that now.

[Eriatarka12]

I play a BLM I main BLM. I understand where the buff is coming from but other then fire starter being fixed I don't honestly thing BLM needs to be buffed. I am 9/10 the highest DPS in the party. Even in movement heavy fights ie Levi, Titan, Twin... I see most BLM's who don't play the job to the full potential of the class. Such as stoping their spells to use a firestarter, not using transpose or scathe when moving, little things like that. Is it just me that's doing this good? Or do other good BLM's honestly think we need a buff?

I don't think anyone here who has cleared the Second Coil is saying BLM does bad. It's just that on certain fights, like T9 which require almost constant movement, BLM suffers when compared to exceptional SMNs, MNKs, BRDs, and DRGs.

[Atreides]

I think a slight buff to their single target DPS is fine, they should not go overboard though.
Currently their DPS in Coil is nothing to be impressed about, stacking Firestarter proccs would already help them alot.
Yes they are viable, we have cleared t9 with a BLM and did fine, that doesn't mean they don't need a buff though.

[Alistaire]

Its painfully obvious who hasn't done t8 and 9 in this thread.

Or maybe some are like myself and aware of BLM limitations on those fights, but think if anything should be adjusted it should be those fights instead of the BLM job. Or ya know, maybe just go with the fact some jobs are bad at some fights and just leave it at that.

[OPneedNerfs]

Or maybe some are like myself and aware of BLM limitations on those fights, but think if anything should be adjusted it should be those fights instead of the BLM job. Or ya know, maybe just go with the fact some jobs are bad at some fights and just leave it at that.

Until groups start going "NO BLM" for those fights. Because lets face it, all other encounters have means of being adjusted to suit the party lineup. But for t8 and 9, it's the mechanics themselves causing the gap. Knowing this community, it's only a matter of time before the "NO BLM" trend starts to catch on. But hey, they're gonna do something about it anyway, so there's nothing much left to discuss about it.

Now if you were a dev, with a deadline to meet, which would make more sense to do?

1) Adjust 1 job to make it more viable for movement-heavy fights, which in a sense fixes problems such as this from occurring in the future.

or

2) Change the mechanics of 1 encounter to be less movement-heavy and also killing off the possibility of future encounters to be movement-heavy.

Now if encounters became less movement heavy, another imbalance would appear, and we would get more QQs from whichever class that does the least damage from stationary fights.

Adjusting BLMs alone would do much less to impact the overall class balance than adjusting the encounters as it is now.

[Viridiana]

How do players know that BLM's are lowest DPS single target compared to others? Aren't the programs that read these supposedly against the TOS thus punishable? So I'm curious as to where people are getting this data, and what they are comparing it to?

First, parsers are officially in a "don't talk about them and we won't ban you" status. Doesn't mean you can't use them, just shush about it. >_>

Second, even without them, you can get some sense of what classes do more damage in certain fights. It's a little more subjective at that point, but still possible.

[Raenryong]

I don't use a parse but a can't honestly answer. But last time I checked it was like 355-360 ish
But that was before I got any sold gear so I don't know what it is now

355-360 would be insane DPS for BLM on either of those fights, especially with no Echo and pre-2.2 on BLM. Was this with ACT? FFXIV-App tends to overestimate.

[Alistaire]

Now if you were a dev, with a deadline to meet, which would make more sense to do?

1) Adjust 1 job to make it more viable for movement-heavy fights, which in a sense fixes problems such as this from occurring in the future.

or

2) Change the mechanics of 1 encounter to be less movement-heavy and also killing off the possibility of future encounters to be movement-heavy.

Now if encounters became less movement heavy, another imbalance would appear, and we would get more QQs from whichever class that does the least damage from stationary fights.

Adjusting BLMs alone would do much less to impact the overall class balance than adjusting the encounters as it is now.

Fair enough, except from the sounds of it, that's not what they're doing. They're "boosting single-target dps", which isn't the problem, isn't even a problem, and doesn't address the issue.

There's also the fact that except weapon all i100+ blm gear has smn on it as well. At some point the game has to go "you should have more than 1 job to throw at a fight".

[Zell1226]

I generally get 2nd place in DPS as a BLM, only second to a good melee/summoner. Fights like Turn 6 and 7 are somewhat a nightmare, even with minimal movement it significantly lowers my DPS. Fights like T8 where I barely have to move for example, I'm pulling around 350~ DPS, 2nd place behind a monk. Turn 9 I get pretty good DPS, only because I'm aware of when to pop Raging Strikes and knowing when Nael is going to jump, positioning myself so that I don't get casts interrupted, etc. But it's more work for less reward, than say a Dragoon who only has to make sure a couple DoTs and a buff is applied to himself constantly. Getting respectable DPS on a Black Mage is more work than obtaining it from any other class.

I'm glad this buff is coming out. Black Mage was always labeled as a DPS with minimal utility, and thus should have high damage to show for it. When you must sit like a turret and cast spells in a game where dodging attacks every 5 seconds otherwise you die is the norm, there should be something to compensate. All they'd have to do is slightly increase Thunder damage/thundercloud proc chance, slightly increase Fire 1 potency, or stack Firestarters for later use (when in movement).

[Gardes]

knowing when Nael is going to jump, positioning myself so that I don't get casts interrupted, etc.

Care to share what exactly you're doing in this part? My DPS plummets during these. My party wants everybody to stay out of the circle because they want to stack in the middle for the beam. There's no one to warp to when the jump starts and I have to walk to the centre, cast one spell, then nael jumps back out to the tank position which usually means a 180 degree spin and then I still have to run back out of the circle. Scathing isn't helping at all.