BLM needs some love and RDM needs a nerf

[Symon17]

Increase AF/UI 3 duration by 1-2 seconds, decrease cooldown of transpose by 1-2 seconds or have transpose retain AF/UI stacks [if they really wanna grant me all my brithdays at once ] Have Aetherial Manipulation on a drastically decreased cooldown [10-15 sec maybe even less would be amazing. Reward planning and actual use of mobility skills] Really don't think Blms even need much of a damage buff at all really, although I would never ever refuse one

I agree this is the direction they should be moving in. The consensus seems to be that BLM should be putting out numbers comparable to samurai, and it can! If the problem is that those numbers aren't translating to practical fights, the thorough solution would be to loosen up the class so it isn't punished so heavily by mechanics when compared to other classes.

[Galvuu]

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I'm actually not so sure about it.
I've had a few very favourable Susie EX runs (no stuns or gaols or nonsense like that) in a no-AST, no-SMN party and I always end up around 3.6/3.7k at ilv308 (still haven't got the staff, 7 tokens...).
Last night, I had a MNK on that party (BLM/MNK/NIN/DRG, so no one getting more buffed than the other) and the MNK (ilv314) consistently outdps'd me by like 200+.
Movement might have shaved off like 100 dps, but I'm not seeing myself ever hitting SAM levels of dps as the job currently is.
Is it just the potencies themselves? Not sure... I'm not even sure if returning the 20 potency on Fire IV and Blizz IV would be enough.

That said, the AF/UI extension would be such a nice QoL change.
And give me bonus duration if I Fire with an Umbral Heart stack, because that crap happens a lot due to mechanics

I personally think that RDM is fine where it is. It's nice to have a solid dps that is easier to use. I finally can worry more about mechanics and things happening in a fight without staring at my bars. It also allows me to be able to keep an eye on my party members so I can throw a clutch heal or rez in quicker.

I don't know anything about Summoner, but it sounds like the concensus is that it should be equal to RDM if not slightly ahead. I'd be fine with that.

Black mage should definitely be buffed to do more dps than RDM.

I wouldn't stop playing RDM regardless of what happens to other jobs. I would just hate RDMs to get nerfed and take the chance that the community sees them as useless despite it probably not being that hard of a nerf anyway. Fix Black Mage and Summoner, then take another look at everything.

I think most people here don't actually want RDM nerfed. Just want it to stay the same and be used as a baseline to "fix" the other two casters, because things aren't looking so hot (I even see "no BLM/SMN" parties on the PF now >.>)

[Llugen]

BLM is putting out decent damage, but by SE's own logic, since it provides little utility, it should be the strongest damage caster, and it's not (single target), SMN is. That being said, giving Fire IV a flat potency buff would be unwise, I think, as it is definitely still strong (we don't want to break it in the other direction either).

This is why I think damage utility out of the umbral hearts or damage utility out of triplecast would be the best strategy; it rewards planning and thinking ahead but isn't just faceroll damage increase.

Edit: I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a "world class" BLM as I don't personally do a ton of straight number crunching, but I've raided all of coil/all of savage on it at a reasonably fast rate with various groups, so I think I can authoritatively say this. A BLM played properly is not quite hitting SAM numbers, but is very close. If a RDM is doing more dummy damage than a BLM something is wrong (although RDM is definitely strong)