Dispensers of fiery explosions, light me up... with your ideas for BLM in 5.0

[Lauront]

A bit OT but it'd make sense for SCH to be the debuffer, given its emphasis on strategy, and WHM the big (in healer terms) damage dealer.

Regarding survivability, I think the issue is not so much with having any but with the fact that the current form of it is just a barrier. It's handy because it allows you to take a bit more damage in some scenarios and avoid having to move, however if I were to think of the job's classic "defensive" spells, they're more offensive in nature, like Reflect or Return Magic, as well as some offensive spells like Drain - ironically, in the SMN repertoire.

Putting aside raid encounter mechanics, it is the type of job that protects itself by debuffing its foes so they either are unable to act or too slow to do much harm to it - this is easier to implement in PVP and solo PVE content, but for a variety of reasons it is poorly implemented in the former and situational in the latter. I wouldn't mind if Manawall became a role action or even got moved elsewhere, so long as BLM received compensating defensive utility in other forms, including revising Aetherial Manipulation to make it more like Blink and also perhaps confer some advantages when using it over and above just re-positioning.

As long as they balance damage with the job's effective uptime, and not just having any utility, in mind, it is fine. If they make raises a role action I think the argument for nerfing damage on the basis of one (again, doesn't seem to be the case) evaporates.