Black Mage Sanctuary - A Guide to DPS

[JackFross]

I will have to respectfully disagree. Mitigating auto attacks for 10 seconds on a mob in a pack of 8 is still something. I'll use it after Transpose waiting for a mana tick. Mitigating any incoming damage is helpful. Even if it's minor.

:0

10s of Autos is 3 hits or less from that one mob. And they're going to get a 15% reduction in STR/DEX for 10s. In an 8-mob pull in the current content with relevant gear, you take ~800-1000 damage per auto - this might be an underestimation, but the lower this per-auto damage is, the more effective Virus becomes. Assuming 15% STR reduction = 15% reduction in damage output, and, let's even assume this mob hits 5 times in the 10s window.

You mitigate 120-150 damage per auto. 5 autos = 600-750 damage mitigated. That's less than 1 auto attack.

To really break this down for you as to why this is a complete waste of time, 1 single-target Cure spell from my i210 WHM heals ~3400 health. One tick of Regen heals 1300. One cast of Adloquium from my 210 SCH heals (and mitigates) ~2300. So, looking at our gross overestimation of the skill's effectiveness in even a single-mob encounter and comparing it to the volume of heals that we can do coupled with the fact that you, as a healer, should never let your tank fall below 1000 health, unless Holmgang or Living Dead is active, it speaks for itself. And that's not even considering the fact that every single healer has some percentage of overheal in mob groups which will be /at least/ 10%. And, considering that a tank is taking 1000 damage per auto from 8 different mobs, if that healer actually heals less than 8000 health over the course of the encounter, you wiped.

Every bit helps, sure, but let's not call people out for not playing to the fullest when they don't use a mathematically worthless skill in a trash pull.

That's all I'm saying.


You are right on the boss side of things, and I wasn't very clear/specific in what all I was saying in regard to Virus in those situations.



/// As an aside, question.
A6S - Blaster.

As a Black Mage, how do you handle the first (and third, if you see it) Mirage Dash mechanic? Our BLM insists on staying out of the raid for his DPS, but I'm trying to convince him that this is bad and dangerous and wrong.