Pros and cons of smn and blm

[Neela]

snip

you can repeat yourself over and over again and it still won't make it true.

@Luna
I love your sig *.* she's indeed my most favorite FF char of all times
I would kill to get something related to her in FFXIV..
After they put Squalls outfit for veteran-bonus, I got mad that there wasnt something from her for female chars...
...and I sadly doubt they will ever implement her outfit or hairstyle in the future... .____.

[GunksFoy]

Haha, jumping to conclusions about someone you know nothing about?
I have been beaten by some pretty excellent summoners, and I've seen summoners in better gear do less damage. It comes down to skill. But the average player is going to have an easier time mastering Blm and doing good damage, than they are a Smn. Some people pick it up easier, others have to practice, others are going to want something easier to play.
I'm not going to cry if you beat my dps. I'm going to give you a kudos and a GG, and go on with my day knowing I played with a good player. But on average, a blm is going to do higher damage than a Smn, and has a higher threshold.

[Neela]

i don't claim to make more dps than blm how so ever - I don't care in the end but facts are facts right? Blm could do more dmg in endgame sure by taking dmg standing in aoes, reducing the dmg-income with their shell/protect utility-skills or being supported by a healer. if you avoid aoes by yourself (what smns do regulary) and taking away the healer who should have better things to do than nullify your taken-tank-dmg, you "have" to move -> and than you are struggling hard in a direct comparison to smn. so yeah there are ways to stay on top over smn. but if smns would eat the aoes like most of the blm do while using the grey-zoned egi-bug/exploid for 100% uptime tranced-buffed-trisaster dots -> than... yeah than you would never ever climb over smns dmg no matter how hard you try. -> this is not about e-penis but about being honest to yourself.

that being said its way harder for casual/average player to master blm max. potential than smn. if you meant just pushing fire & fire procs, ice-recovery, fire & fire procs again while don't move and care about the battle field... yeah than its easier "to master" blm for sure.

[GunksFoy]

Addressing the last part first, master was the wrong word. An average blm is highly likely to do more damage than an average smn, because blm is easier in general. But yes, mastering blm and not losing too much dps to movement is far more difficult.

You don't necessarily need to eat aoes to keep up good dps. You have Aether Man up every 30s, manaward/manawall every 120s, swiftcast every 60s, sharpcast every 60s, surecast (lol), holding procs, and stutter stepping to help keep movement and damage taken to a minimum. In fights with a lot of movement, good luck to the blm. Or a fight where enochian falls off constantly, like Zurvan EX. But movement does hurt a smn too, just a lot less as you can still ruin 2, fester, pain flare, etc. I won't address the "exploit" you mentioned as I'm not familiar with it.

I'm not saying Blm is better than Smn nor do I think it's worse. But in terms of raw numbers, blm has the edge. However, I won't dispute that a skilled smn or with enough movement, a blm can/will be out dps'd.

To be fair however, the point I was addressing was that the guy who claimed I was wrong, said in his own post that a blm does more ST, then said smn and blm do the same damage. Elaborating on it like you and I are now is a fair judgement of how close they are, but just saying they do the same because one is higher ST and the other is higher AoE, is misleading. We should strive to better the community and keep them informed! Just my opinion.

[Neela]

yeah fair enough - and thx that we don't get into a tunnel-view discussion of who's the greatest. :3

in raw numbers (displayed on the screen) blms is way outstanding compared to every other dd cls not just smn - I won't disagree on that. even my example of "you are weaker on your own" is just a dump provoking argument, cause the great thing in ff is that you can push your potential with support on every cls not only on blm. its just... if I feel that someone is getting stubborn, I tend to get it too... I know not the best softskill for a discussion xD

so yeah in the end we share the same opinion they are more or less equal in terms of dmg based on grp-constaltion and players skill-level and the best of it they team up pretty well in dng runs - most probably the best dd-constaltion in a 4 grp run. <3

[Silverquick]

Just take a look at FFLogs or the SSS Dps calculator to see that a blm is capable of higher dps. Smn requires MUCH more skill to do high dps than Blm. The fact that Smn does more AoE and Blm does more ST does not mean they do the same damage. You literally confirmed what I said. I never claimed that Smns did less AoE, but as most raid and EX primal scenarios are primarily ST, a blm is going to do more damage. I didn't deny that they are both excellent and viable, I even confirmed that in an earlier post. But saying a Blm and Smn do the same damage is not true, and you shouldn't say it is, especially when you confirmed that they do not in the exact same post.

Unfortunately FFLogs don't actually back your assertion... and yes I do look at them,

I'm trying to be nice here... the reason they tend to do similar damage in the end has more to do with Casting time for BLM vs the DoTs + Pet Damage which are always on and always ticking...

So example here... BLM in 3 seconds after their cast is doing a 6000 damage spell... but the SMN has 2000 dmg in DoTs ticking, another 1000 from pet and then casts a spell for 3000 damage.

Plus the SMN always has 3000 damage on target with DoTs and Pets whether the SMN is moving or not. That's the reason the SMN ends up on the high end of the spectrum vs most jobs in Raids and Ex runs.

[ToasterMan]

Plus the SMN always has 3000 damage on target with DoTs and Pets whether the SMN is moving or not. That's the reason the SMN ends up on the high end of the spectrum vs most jobs in Raids and Ex runs.

Not to mention that Summoner has Ruin II, which is basically Ruin but instant cast. Sure, BLM has scathe while having to move, but just that alone doesn't really compare to Dots and pets along with Ruin II being used while moving

[Silverquick]

Not to mention that Summoner has Ruin II, which is basically Ruin but instant cast. Sure, BLM has scathe while having to move, but just that alone doesn't really compare to Dots and pets along with Ruin II being used while moving

True,

The flipped side though, and this does need to me mentioned is that if the Black Mage can stay in place he can beat the SMN in single target damage... but that has more to do with the Procs on the abilities. Depending on how you run your BLM, you can do multiple methods.... they're kinda roulette type damage though. One method with the BLM to extend your time in the Fire Rotation is to use Fire 1, which still does large amounts of damage and will proc Fire 3 insta-cast spells. And its free with no cost. And Thunder of course so you have two possible procs and they are very damaging.

And its not like they don't have good AoE damage either, I mean the Summoner AoE damage is stronger and faster especially at high levels... but more complicated to do.

My Rotation for AoE when doing BLM is pretty straight forward... Fire 3 to give you 3 stacks of fire on one target... then Fire 2, Fire 2, Fire 2, Fire 2, and finish with Quickcast + Flare. Its not as much as the SMN.... but still very strong AoE damage to multiple targets.

Its the Enochian or Fire IV state where the movement hoses them up.

And honestly you have to blame content on that. Its really the EX primals that do it. And some of the Raid content that excludes whole jobs and classes.

Some people when asking for this type of content don't realize how it can exclude entire jobs participation. Which I suspect is why Yoshi talked about the hard content, starting to Lighten up on that.

[Okamimaru]

I prefer SMN myself partly for the ez mode, partly for mobility, but also for versatility... I'm a place like potd I will always take smn over any of my other classes simply because I can play the role of tank, dps and emergency heal support... blm has one role dps... even if the damage is better on blm, I wouldn't want to lose the mobility and versatility of smn

[Ama_Hamada]

I'll just leave this.

When my 2 friends did a 3 min prase on dummy, and ended up with no thunderclouds, and kept casting thunder I while in ice, her SMN friend got more DPS on single target. Their top damage is pretty close, and I mean like 10 dps off or even smaller in 3 minutes.

So my take is, SMN does crazy more amounts in aoe situations while quite similar on single. Who prases better in single fights is purely from who adjusts the abilities better around movements and such.