Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[Sleigh]

I almost feel like we're going to get a potency nerf to compensate for this change. BLM as is, is already insane, this makes me worry lol. However we are relatively mediocre if we're in a mch pt, meaning one of our major weaknesses is bard dependence.

Yes we go from generally pointless in a MCH party, to pointman in a BRD party. Kind of an issue IMO, I've received my fair share of flak for existing in A3 and A4 without a BRD instead of gearing a MCH/melee properly. I hope part of the 3.2 MCH changes involve a more universal Hypercharge, to help keep things fair.

I do not think any form of buff automatically entitles us to a nerf otherwise though. We are definitely the most comp dependent, strat dependent, RNG dependent DPS in the entire game, with as high a ceiling of potential DPS when the team and strat are right as our DPS floor is low when we merely lose the BRD or mess up once or fail to get some crits in our opener. I think if anything, a small buff to our DPS would balance us out for the bad situations while still of course discouraging BLM stacking because we're right now a long way from out-contributing NIN/DRG, and you need a BRD for BLM stacking to make sense. The ramifications of a BLM buff would mostly be SMN is even more questionable a role, but SMN needs a buff IMO regardless. I'm pretty confident in saying a BRD/MCH with DRG will out-DPS a SMN on a single target, and the difference isn't too high with a BRD either.

What SE really has to do is make sure caster is basically vital in future turns, regardless of comp, like they made solo healing/tanking redundant/impractical since T6-9. I want things that only casters can reasonably do, like a small but constant source of physical resistant enemies, or some real caster LB3 opportunities. Our niche used to be AoE gods (by raid design, somewhat) and caster LB3; our LB3 has been compromised, and the AoE identity has always been a dubious one and now we're not really "great" at it like before. "Ranged melee with Eye for an Eye" is our role now, while SMN's got an even more polarized position of "AoE machine or worst party member," depending on the fight.