BLM vs. SMN

[Garotte14]

Back in the 2.0 era, Yoshi P even said that the Black Mage AOE strength was one of the reasons why it was balanced the way it was (that its AOE was a key characteristic of BLM), yet now in 3.0, he just makes Summoner the AOE King?

Seems like a bad tradeoff.

BLM is better single target dps and pretty decent aoe

SMN is better aoe dps and pretty decent single target

This is a thing known as balance. I know it's a tough concept and it hurts so bad trying to comprehend that. Please don't work too hard.

It honestly doesn't matter. They are both great. Play them both or play neither, but quit complaining about it. It's so old.

[Deifact]

I think what they mean is, pre HW BLM was AoE king, SMN was better with single target. Now it is the other way around. (I think)

[Greedalox]

I think what they mean is, pre HW BLM was AoE king, SMN was better with single target. Now it is the other way around. (I think)

I don't think that's the scenario. Pre HW SMN did not have the tools to perform high single target dps for the most part, at least not compared to BLM.

[scarebearz]

I don't think that's the scenario. Pre HW SMN did not have the tools to perform high single target dps for the most part, at least not compared to BLM.

For most of 2.x SMN was superiour or at least equal to BLM.

SMN did kinda suck during FCoB though.

[Waliel]

Summoner was pretty much AoE BLM in the FF games of yore, so it makes more sense for it to be this way I'd say.

[Sleigh]

Hi All / Dev Team,

What Psyco and Sleigh are saying...

3.0 launched, and Yoshi P made such a *major* change to Black Mage (from AOE King to "Not So Good AOE"), and it seems like there hasn't been much chatter about it from the community.

Back in the 2.0 era, Yoshi P even said that the Black Mage AOE strength was one of the reasons why it was balanced the way it was (that its AOE was a key characteristic of BLM), yet now in 3.0, he just makes Summoner the AOE King?

Seems like a bad tradeoff.

Okay, this is actually a pretty big deal for caster balance in the past. Rant incoming.

Ever since they buffed melee in 2.1 (and even further as we went along in varying patches), the caster role has been about good ST but more importantly, being ranged and having tremendous AoE and multi-DoT opportunities. You could pretty much look at caster in a specific fight and you could say, T10 adds are why you bring a caster. T9 golems and wyvern are why you bring a SMN. T6, the bees and slugs are why you bring a caster. Etc. It was always about having some AoE involved in their DPS, or some other magically inclined reason to bring caster, otherwise you'd stack melee.

Flash foward to 3.0. Suddenly, BLM's DPS is MNK level. Makes sense TBH, it's a low utility nuke class, all it's good for is shooting fireballs for the most part. It is probably the highest in the game when Foe's is involved, at least when it gets to stand still. Okay, well that solves the "AoE must be relevant or don't bring a caster" dilemma from a balance standpoint, but then you have to have that give and take with the AoE - it wouldn't make sense for BLM AoE to be near top tier with that much single target DPS, so they canned it. I agree with that decision at this point in time; I definitely didn't understand it as I was leveling BLM and then leveling SMN, but now that I'm at endgame I get it.

Where does this leave SMN?

Well, it shouldn't beat BLM in single target. I mean, DoT classes, sure, they traditionally are higher sustained DPS to make up for their damage type which is an inherent weakness on a single target, but BLM has a lot of weaknesses to sustain that turret it can bring. So, they can't really make SMN compete head to head with BLM, it'd unbalance it pretty well all considering - that's why SMN has every other advantage. Multi-DoTs, AoE, utility, consistency, it's all there, because in a game like FFXIV, ST damage (or more accurately, your contribution to a raid's ST DPS) is king, the most important thing, why the best comp has 2 melee 1 ranged 1 caster almost every time. You don't mess around with ST damage, and one of the two casters is gonna have that advantage. So basically, they had to give SMN this amazing, easily used, cheap AoE to keep it relevant in raids, unless they chose to bring BLM DPS in line with SMN (not good!). Look at Pepsiman Savage ... if you could not multi-DoT and AoE for about 2 minutes of the fight minus the useless add phase, very nicely I might add, you flat out would never take a SMN over a BLM from an efficiency standpoint. Every turn so far is like this, they're throwing SMN a bone with A1, A2, and A3, and it's the thing that's keeping SMN competitive. A2 it might be a little over the top, but still, it's good balance in my book.

tl;dr - the shift to SMN AoE dominance is genius in my book, because it's a good way to keep a lower damage class type competitive vs its higher damage brother in all content. It lets them make BLM any vision they want, since it was locked in a mid-level damage turret with great AoE before and as long as that AoE was there, nothing could be changed.

[Akiza]

Simple the difference is between BLM and SMN is party composition if you have a Dragoon go with Black Mage as the caster if you have a Monk go with Summoner.

[SilverRhyme]

Simple the difference is between BLM and SMN is party composition if you have a Dragoon go with Black Mage as the caster if you have a Monk go with Summoner.

Can I ask why this particular combinations? (genuinely curious)
I thought you'd bring a dragoon with a summoner to help with bursts more since smn burst is slightly weaker.

[Kiara]

Ever since they buffed melee in 2.1 (and even further as we went along in varying patches), the caster role has been about good ST but more importantly, being ranged and having tremendous AoE and multi-DoT opportunities. You could pretty much look at caster in a specific fight and you could say, T10 adds are why you bring a caster. T9 golems and wyvern are why you bring a SMN. T6, the bees and slugs are why you bring a caster. Etc. It was always about having some AoE involved in their DPS, or some other magically inclined reason to bring caster, otherwise you'd stack melee.

Flash foward to 3.0. Suddenly, BLM's DPS is MNK level. Makes sense TBH, it's a low utility nuke class, all it's good for is shooting fireballs for the most part. It is probably the highest in the game when Foe's is involved, at least when it gets to stand still. Okay, well that solves the "AoE must be relevant or don't bring a caster" dilemma from a balance standpoint, but then you have to have that give and take with the AoE - it wouldn't make sense for BLM AoE to be near top tier with that much single target DPS, so they canned it. I agree with that decision at this point in time; I definitely didn't understand it as I was leveling BLM and then leveling SMN, but now that I'm at endgame I get it.

Thanks Sleigh. Great post. Thanks for the thoughts on SMN vs. BLM especially in Savage.

Your thoughts on how it was in 2.0 was why I was confused up till now, wondering why BLM lost its AOE King edge in 3.0. But your post clarifies that. Thanks.

I hope BLM remains stronger Single Target then.

[sackm]

Simple the difference is between BLM and SMN is party composition if you have a Dragoon go with Black Mage as the caster if you have a Monk go with Summoner.

umm... what? what synergy is there with a mnk and summoner. Thats kinda the big issue with MNK right now is they dont bring anything to the party if theres a DRK (drg = crit, nin = trick atk)