Black Mage

[IllyriaKnotfred]

More like 50-75% since that is where the bulk of the player base is.

[Dualgunner]

Honestly it really does just boil down to numbers. Just look to logs and you can see that BLM is not in a good place compared to SMN given it gives no utility and raid dps. However small that raid buff may be- they still have more personal dps than BLM to go above and beyond their raid damage. And before anyone says "But da 90-99 percentile!" Sorry, that doesn't count- as those numbers tend to be speed clears and/or padded players simply for good logs. Look at everything below it and numbers speak for themselves.

Nono, let's be fair and give them 99th percentile.
For Alte Roite:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17# SMN is on average 10.6 dps below SAM. Factor in rDPS and it beats SAM.
For Catastrophe:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=43&dataset=99 70 points below SAM this time. A bit better but even if SMN only gave 100 in rDPS...it wins top spot again.
For Halicarnassus:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=44&dataset=99 Summoner is Halicarnassus' GOD.
For ExFaust:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=45&dataset=99 Summoner is ExFaust's GOD.
For Neo:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17#boss=46&dataset=99 Summoner finally loses to Samurai.
Worth noting that there isn't a single fight in the savage tier where 99th percentile BLM beats 99th percentile SMN.

[IllyriaKnotfred]

I was just trying to show the scope of how unbalanced it is. If it was simply just the 99th, more room for argument. When its everywherewhat argument can be made? I mean seriously check every bracket from 50-100, SMN complete annihilates BLM. It's that simple.

Oh, after checking again it seems I was off. From 0 - 100 SMN beats them all? Yup, balanced. The class that has rez utility and short cooldown Devotion raid damage is beating BLM by leaps and bounds. /rolls eyes

[Llugen]

When I said not viable at endgame I meant specifically endgame regarding team coordination and synergy, so your definition of sub-optimal could also apply. Sorry for the confusion.


It's pretty much undeniable from anyone who has played both BLM and SMN that there is a balance issue, so I think we should either get back to suggestion dumping in this thread or make a new one explicitly for suggestion dumps.

[Remedi]

DW, just making sure we use the right terms.

That aside I think we already said much, although I don't believe SE will make any huge changes in the 4.x so personally I don't expect anything more than some number changes, which could be beneficial, but maybe some notes could be kept alive for 5.0

[Solyra]

Honestly it really does just boil down to numbers. Just look to logs and you can see that BLM is not in a good place compared to SMN given it gives no utility and raid dps. However small that raid buff may be- they still have more personal dps than BLM to go above and beyond their raid damage. And before anyone says "But da 90-99 percentile!" Sorry, that doesn't count- as those numbers tend to be speed clears and/or padded players simply for good logs. Look at everything below it and numbers speak for themselves.

I agree with what you said but not exactly how you're saying it. BLM absolutely needs help because SMN/SAM and even MNK are pretty consistently hitting better numbers than BLM. At every level, not just at the top end. The top end though is where you get the very good players who are not making mechanical mistakes with the class (dropping eno, minimizing movement, efficient use of ogcd's, efficient rotations), which can be considered as playing at the skill ceiling. Trying to exclude people playing the job the best (90-98%) in this discussion misses a crucial part of job balance: what the potential is at the skill ceiling.People like that have functionally maximized the potential of BLM and are STILL having issues finding groups/getting locked out of PF, since you get functionally out-dps'ed by a 75%ile bard. That means that being the one of the BEST BLM's playing at a high level (without doing 99/100 cheese) you're still worth less than that random 70-80%ile bard/mch.

[IllyriaKnotfred]

Yep.

I agree 100%. I probably didn't explain appropriately. I'm not the best at it lol. But felt the need to talk about it.

[Komaru_Tatoro]

That means that being the one of the BEST BLM's playing at a high level (without doing 99/100 cheese) you're still worth less than that random 70-80%ile bard/mch.

cant agree more

[Shiroe]

snip

agree...., and Shinryu Ex is hell too for blm (last phase is crazy)

and as for Blm friendly, O2S does feel friendly, more than O1S (O3S depends on a few things and last phase is nuts.. and we lose a lot, when we caster LB during the Ninjas, most are dead after the LB (thats were we could shine a bit, if we could aoe ourselves)

in general, we need adds than can survive a full blm aoe rota in savage, and not just 2 adds, without having to LB

anyway, its you said, like Blm need to play near perfectly, which often takes longer than other classes,
AND/OR Blm need to have procs at the right time,
AND have to have the party (healers) that help out, with an extra heals or shields

.. can see SE wanting to get more players on SMN and shift away from Blm a maybe from Rdm a bit too (both Blm and Rdm are probably still quite a overused casters in raids), since SMN has lost players since 4.0,

but.., svcks to be Blm atm

[Shiroe]

That means that being the one of the BEST BLM's playing at a high level (without doing 99/100 cheese) you're still worth less than that random 70-80%ile bard/mch.

yes! have to underline this too..

(and its more like your worth less than any other dps)

maybe a general SS buff of equivalent 300-450 SS could fix Blm temporarily/fast (making all casts ca. 0.3-0.4 sec faster) .. till they adress and fix the real/complex Blm issues