BLM Utility ideas!

[Remedi]

I mean, if smn gets to have a raise for almost zero dps cost on single target, and actually zero dps loss for anything involving adds or a second target, blm shouldn't lose any dps for mild utility.

Raise on SMN has been broken for a while and frankly raise should not exist on casters especially since there's the double standards of RDM beign gutted for it while SMN aren't

@Reinhardt_Azureheim while blm beign the best mana shift user candidate is true from a quick glance the reality is that you can't use it unless your are in ice phase and it also is a dps loss because of clipping, meanwhile SMN has none of this issue.
And then you remember that refresh has no weaknesses, gives more MP and is aoe

[Sunspawn]

Unless a Magic Vuln has uptime like Garuda-Egi's Contagion, it can't be considered mild utility anymore. If you can refresh it like piercing and slashing it would make BLM a bit too strong (and before you go lash out for potential bias, BLM is my most played DPS and I dislike SMN to no end) since you potentially affect PLD with the Holy Spirit window and healer dps with it. Hell even Ninjutsus are often magical.

You mean too strong like TA is too strong?

[EllieShadeflare]

I still feel like the Raise debate is too overplayed in this whole discussion, because overall, dying and raising is a massive DPS loss that doesn't serve a party very well outside of places that lack DPS checks. That said, Summoner DOES need a nerf, but Raise is not the justification to do so. Summoner can hit the same levels of DPS as a Black Mage despite having Contagion, Radiant Shield and Devotion, which is something you don't see on any other class but Summoner (and Monk to an extent). Hell, look at Ninja. Ninja consistently finds itself at the lowest ends of damage versus other DPS jobs (with only the underpowered Red Mage and highly utility based Bard as lower) but Trick Attack makes up for that difference in a mostly fair way. Ninja is certainly a shoe-in, but Black Mage having access to 555 potency per cast + utility is frankly absurd and broken as all hell... which is where people come from when they complain about Summoner's potency.

Summoner definitely needs a damage nerf. Maybe a slight utility buff as a result, but it shouldn't be at the literal top tier of damage.

[Zerathor]

No. It's really just raise. The rest of smn utility is extremely negligible. If smn didn't have raise, they'd go back to bringing mch or bring a rdm for group prog. So yeah, I'd say it's 99% the justification.

But smn shouldn't be nerfed, blm should get some form of utility that can possibly prevent deaths, or a noticeable dps edge

[EllieShadeflare]

No. It's really just raise. The rest of smn utility is extremely negligible.

I'm sorry, but as negligible as that utility is, that's more effective than the raise itself. What does raise do for anyone that's not progressing? It serves as a DPS loss for the whole party and the fact remains that if people are dying consistently enough for you to be concerned with rezzing, then there's a problem with your party. Very few, if any, Extreme/Savage/Ultimate bosses are balanced to be beatable with more than maybe two or three raises due to the stringency of both DPS checks and enrages. Hell, in most cases, a raise won't save you if it's a healer or tank that's dead since the party will often dissolve rather quickly, especially if you're dealing with a boss with a major add (Byakko, Halicarnassus, Guardian) or Shinryu who gets to auto attack both tanks.

Is Raise useful for the likes of Deep Dungeon, Eureka and other low tier content? Oh, certainly. But that's not what the dev team really balances for. They tend to be more focused on balancing for raiding, where Raise doesn't matter because dying is just that painful. This is why Red Mage is almost never taken past progression: it's so weak when you stop considering Verraise that you may as well take literally any other DPS instead of Red Mage. Embolden is such a pathetic form of utility due to its drop off and its damage is just... not good in comparison to other jobs. Only Bard is weaker than Red Mage, but then you realize "wait but not only does Bard get a massive DPS boost from Dragoon, they already have some of the best utility to work with on account of them being a Ranged-DPS and also their native Bard kit!"

[Kabooa]

You mean too strong like TA is too strong?

Too strong as in every single caster is balanced assuming no permanent magic vuln.

You want stupid numbers? Put 4 summoners in the same party and see what a full 15% magic damage uptime looks like.

[Zerathor]

snip

Never once have I been asked to go from blm to smn for devotion, or contagion, or radiant shield. Guess why they wanted a smn? I'll give you a hint: the same thing they said a rdm would work for too.

You're downplaying how strong a dps raise is in ultimate or even savage by a lot.

[EllieShadeflare]

Too strong as in every single caster is balanced assuming no permanent magic vuln.

You want stupid numbers? Put 4 summoners in the same party and see what a full 15% magic damage uptime looks like.

I know I've essentially double posted since this post is so quick after my last one, but I've previously given a look at what Black Mage would need to be nerfed to in order to even accommodate a 5% vuln up.

The answer would require BLM to lose a massive chunk of their potency, with Fire/Blizzard being reduced to base 150 potency (or 297 practical potency for Fire), Fire III/Blizzard III reduced to 220 (436 practical potency), and Fire IV/Blizzard IV being reduced to 240 (475) as a maximum. The potencies for Fire I/Blizzard I and Fire III/Blizzard III didn't simply come from nowhere, these were the numbers from ARR. And this would still be a 15% damage reduction on our whole rotation to accommodate the fact that we have two healers with us at all times. And as you mentioned, Kabooa, this vuln up gets more ridiculous when you add either additional Black Mages or a few Summoners to have an even higher magic damage up time.

Never once have I been asked to go from blm to smn for devotion, or contagion, or radiant shield. Guess why they wanted a smn? I'll give you a hint: the same thing they said a rdm would work for too.

You're downplaying how strong a dps raise is in ultimate or even savage by a lot.

You're overplaying a DPS raise's potency for anything but progression. I've not once denied its potency for progression, only for afterward. Obviously, those three abilities aren't much on their own, but Summoner also brings much higher damage than Red Mage does, and the additional universal 2% from Devotion, the 10% for the summoner themselves and the healers from Contagion, and the "revenge" shield + physical vulnerability of Radiant Shield doesn't hurt either.

[Zerathor]

snip

Even in ultimate groups that clear, the raise greatly improves success rates for reclear. And for savage, if you're done with prog, why does any of this matter? You could probably clear these savage floors with 7 warriors and a healer if you really wanted to. They're a joke.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

@Reinhardt_Azureheim while blm beign the best mana shift user candidate is true from a quick glance the reality is that you can't use it unless your are in ice phase and it also is a dps loss because of clipping, meanwhile SMN has none of this issue. And then you remember that refresh has no weaknesses, gives more MP and is aoe

Then go blm perspective: ONLY can shift in UI, and if it was clipped, the animation lock essentially costed you 125 potency. If you shift in AF, it costed you 125+260 potency for the f4 you threw away. The only way for a blm to shift without loss is to get a t3p available in UI. Hell, manashift is actually part of smn opener for extending foe from the bard.

Does "only manashift while under UI" and generally using anything ogcd after instantcast(proc)s no longer go without saying? I mean come on, I thought it was common knowledge by now that it wouldn't need to be cherrypicked on a post.