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

[Archwizard]

That's the trick, though, isn't it? If they run only off of stance, spammables (costs greater-damage uptime), or bankable resources, you can never really be "out of defensive CDs". Long CDs like Manaward, Second Wind, or Bloodbath would have issues, but if we actually expand on the native kits instead... no problems.

Shurri, I love you, but you gotta stop editing in your responses to posts made after yours -- most of us only know a response has been made when the post count goes up. I just reread obsessively when the thread's too quiet for too long.

But it does lead us back to problems with other job kits like RDM, DRG and Ranged, who either lack personal defenses or only have group defenses they can't stack.
For other jobs though, like SMN, SAM or MNK, it would give actual reason to regularly use their defensive stances.

But, that's for another thread.

[Shurrikhan]

Shurri, I love you, but you gotta stop editing in your responses to posts made after yours -- most of us only know a response has been made when the post count goes up. I just reread obsessively when the thread's too quiet for too long.

But it does lead us back to problems with other job kits like RDM, DRG and Ranged, who either lack personal defenses or only have group defenses they can't stack.
For other jobs though, like SMN, SAM or MNK, it would give actual reason to regularly use their defensive stances.

But, that's for another thread.

I'm sorry, but I got provoked into another spurious debate and ran out of daily posts... T.T

I feel like Bard and Machinist could sufficiently, and more compellingly, make do with external support alone for an initial blast and recovery thereafter. So long as we've enough jobs to take point-guard and those either able to take defensive stances or receive them externally in between, I think that's enough.

Personally, I don't want to see overly stackable (I know that's... vague and/or circuitous) raid defensives. I'd rather not create non-participation just by virtue of having X jobs in play. Enough to allow something when X is present, but otherwise only enough to mitigate its effect, is fine, but creating a checklist of direct counters to mechanics is, imo, not.

I don't think we can afford to put off paradigmatic changes "for another thread" when so relevant to future designs, though. These are real concerns, and while we can make temporary or stop-gap measures as well, for a nearer sake of realism, we should still always have an eye on a more comprehensive and cohesive goal.