Blue mage shouldnt be "Limited"

[ItMe]

Which segues nicely into why Blue Mage is, indeed, overpowered. It isn't good at one singular thing. It can adapt to everything. If you watch Blue Mage vids on yotube clearing O12S, they Diamond Back every major mechanic. This completely negates what is otherwise the hardest part of Final Omega. White Wind renders any intense healing phase a joke because a DPS can become a superior healer. It's the equivalent of giving Dragoon Medica on steroids. Sure, it's a DPS loss but at 50% or higher, it's a full heal for the entire party. Simply having two Blue Mages rotating that will trivialize practically any fight.

Even if a Black Mage could, theoretically out DPS Blue Mage. It can't survive any level 70 content on its own whereas Blue Mage can even without Basic Instinct. Allowing Blue Mage into parties as a regular job, makes undeniably the best DPS out of sheer versatility.

Oh my god spelled out like that...
BLU might not dominate the DPS slots. It might still get out damaged by dedicated DPS.
But for the other roles... tanks and healers might just disappear from harder content. 14 is a game about putting out damage, and if BLU can be a tank or a healer AND put out near DPS numbers...

[SpiralMask]

i wonder if the team who designed and implemented the problematic tank and healer skills in the first place might have any idea whatsoever on how to balance those skills down to normal character ranges--tuning potencies down where needed, making %-based effects into conditional potency-based effects (white wind into something akin to AST's essential dignity), tuning down the various stances to be less hyperinflated in their bonuses...

before the most recent patch healer and tank stance were vestigial enough that they could be removed entirely (lacking many key skills to support even the most basic toolkit, and only really propped up by their inflated numbers under those stances). as of now that's a bit stickier after tanks finally got a pair of proper mitigation options and healers finally got a regen, completing the quadfecta of spamheal-shield-regen-emergencyheal of the most essential basic parts for a healer class (though once again coasting on their inflated potencies).
ironically BLU's lack of reduntant healing on top of redundant healing makes healing as a BLU much more engaging compared to other healers, since they actually have a downtime activity in their DPS (an aspect that was stripped away from AST in their cards and SCH in their dot management, and simply didnt exist for WHM at all) and have to actually pick the proper healing response to the situation at hand rather than just tapping one of their 3+ free options to do so and sitting bored for the rest of the fight (it's a real shame that blu cant really make use of this comparatively fun option in any content that actually matters, with real people).

[Koka-Kola]

my assessments are that of several other parses done 3 years ago and comparing it to the stated parse of the blue mage as said before. take account to blue mage getting 100% damage boost and healing boost when soloing. thus in group play they lose the solo buff. I have calculated that without that buff, the parse of blue mage stated before has been cut un half since when solo it is doubled. simple math isnt everyone's specialty. now taking a look at stormblood parsing, black mage parse average is 14k dps. without the solo buff, blue mages dps is currently 16k burst and 8k stall dps.

now for the healing. As stated before redmage can heal and res back to back but its dps would drop. same situation lies with any class. when you stop DPSing, your dps goes down. That is obvious, but it does so even more for blue mage since the only heal you can use as dps is white wind (costly to spam with 1500 cost). Other heals dont go above 100 potency and isnt worth spamming. (if you want to factor in switching to healer mimicry, that further lowers its dps drastically)

Blue mage can also only revive once every 5 minutes where other classes do not have such a limitation.

I would figure some would understand how dps works but comparing a parse from storm blood black mage and CURRENT blue mage(excluding solo buff) is quite the gap with black mage in the lead for steady dps. 8k steady with 16k burst vs 14k dps steady.

look into dps with synced groups and compare it to other classes. you will be surprised how blown out of proportion blue mage really is compared to other jobs.

[Koka-Kola]

Now for healing. Blue mage can heal for 500 potency when in healer stance (effects dps since losing dps stance) its white wind scales with current hp and has limited range ontop of it's higher than average cost of 1500.

Summoner can heal for 400 potency (no cd) and revive (with a 8 second cooldown)

redmage can heal for 350 potency but can instacast the next heal for a total of 700 potency and can revive with no cd.



now to talk about its mechanic skipping. Diamond back reduces damage taken by 90% and does not skip instant death mechanics. this skill costs almost 1/3rd of your max mp. when the skill is active you do not regen any mp for 10 seconds while it is active. while DPSING, you cannot sustain the mp cost of your attacks, healing and your defence buffs for the cost of it all is too high to use when focusing dps. Now could a blue mage use those skills for survivability? yes but they wont be pushing damage as the cost is too much that not even lucid dreams can help with the mp recovery.

you have boost spell which is 200, a spammable spell which is 200-400, Dots cost 400-500 each(most dont stack, I use 2) instant spells cost 500 each (I have 6 instants I use as often as I can)
so 4200-4500 just by my basic rotation. That doesnt leave alot of room for other spells like white wind and diamond back as that would burn through my mp resulting in a lack of dps

[ForteNightshade]

my assessments are that of several other parses done 3 years ago and comparing it to the stated parse of the blue mage as said before. take account to blue mage getting 100% damage boost and healing boost when soloing. thus in group play they lose the solo buff. I have calculated that without that buff, the parse of blue mage stated before has been cut un half since when solo it is doubled. simple math isnt everyone's specialty. now taking a look at stormblood parsing, black mage parse average is 14k dps. without the solo buff, blue mages dps is currently 16k burst and 8k stall dps.

If you're going to not-so-subtly snark about "simple math," you really ought to check your own. The highest DPS a Black Mage accomplished in Stormblood was slightly over 10k. No job ever came remotely close to 14k. Bear in mind, this is Personal DPS, thus it isn't taking into consideration how much the Black Mage was buffed by other players like logs do nowadays otherwise known as raid DPS. Which is another reason you'll see discrepancies in parses. Logs also don't account for DoTs properly when uploaded. Simply put, Blue Mage deals a lot more than is being properly represented.

now for the healing. As stated before redmage can heal and res back to back but its dps would drop. same situation lies with any class. when you stop DPSing, your dps goes down. That is obvious, but it does so even more for blue mage since the only heal you can use as dps is white wind (costly to spam with 1500 cost). Other heals dont go above 100 potency and isnt worth spamming. (if you want to factor in switching to healer mimicry, that further lowers its dps drastically)

And by comparison, White Wind is better than Vercure by an under of magnitude. This is a full heal so long as the Blue Mage is at 50% or higher. Have a Paladin Cover them and you guarantee a party wide benediction. You can't keep ignoring how incredibly powerful this is. You wouldn't need to spam it as most bosses don't use many raid wides to begin with. Two Blue Mages rotating that can both balance their MP and DPS while keeping the party healed. That type of versatility isn't present in any other job.

Summoner can heal for 400 potency (no cd) and revive (with a 8 second cooldown)

... Please tell me you aren't referring to Physick? You do realize this doesn't scale with INT, thus dealing a laughable 900 or some negligible amount. Seriously. Physick heals for basically nothing. The fact you brought it up when I initially thought you meant Phoenix (which also isn't a great heal but hey, at least it does something) highlights you really don't understand how the jobs work. You're cherry picking examples that don't even support your argument. Neither Summoner nor Red Mage can accomplish anywhere near the raw healing Blue Mage can.

[ssunny2008]

Sry if i repeat this, i´ve checked any site in a fast way and didn´t saw it between the skill and damage discussions.

Have you ever thought about the fact, that BLU itself is just content to keep you playing?

It´s not like any other class where you get your skills while leveling, you need to find / grind them. And if you wouldn´t check any guides, you would try it on your own. On top of that you´ve achievements to farm with a mount in the end. SE doesn´t even have to bother with real balancing. It´s just like playing a special questline in your own way.

It´s comparable to relic weapons, just way more special. You did all the current content, maybe leveled any class, farmed your mounts, whatever. Then you´re going to grind those fates / raids / dungeons. BLU is nothing else, but you don´t use a standard class. It´s just extended content and should stay like that.

[Koka-Kola]

If you're going to not-so-subtly snark about "simple math," you really ought to check your own. The highest DPS a Black Mage accomplished in Stormblood was slightly over 10k. No job ever came remotely close to 14k. Bear in mind, this is Personal DPS, thus it isn't taking into consideration how much the Black Mage was buffed by other players like logs do nowadays otherwise known as raid DPS. Which is another reason you'll see discrepancies in parses. Logs also don't account for DoTs properly when uploaded. Simply put, Blue Mage deals a lot more than is being properly represented.



And by comparison, White Wind is better than Vercure by an under of magnitude. This is a full heal so long as the Blue Mage is at 50% or higher. Have a Paladin Cover them and you guarantee a party wide benediction. You can't keep ignoring how incredibly powerful this is. You wouldn't need to spam it as most bosses don't use many raid wides to begin with. Two Blue Mages rotating that can both balance their MP and DPS while keeping the party healed. That type of versatility isn't present in any other job.

On the contrary, I did my homework .I have found several black mages posts with parses attached where they have parsed 14k and summoners who have parsed 11k.(posts were of 3 years of age) The math is already done for me. I just needed to compare the difference from 3 years ago to now.

White wind CAN be powerful but at the same time it is not.

It is in the sense of output but is far less efficient and cannot be relied on when you are putting out dps that your mp cannot keep up with. Lets say I DONT dps and I just tand back and spam it. then yes, however as a DPS you do not have the luxury to waste 1500 mp on it as often as redmage does with vercure or your MP will bottom out completely. It is not a FULL HEAL as it only heals with current hp. In order to heal a player they would have to be nearby and rather close as its range is limited. A stack would have to occur. Meanwhile vercure has more range. Hypothetically there is a healer mechanic where it drops the party to 30% hp. Blue mage would heal for 30% of its hp and those around it. Now if it were to drop blue mages hp to 20% it would only heal for 20% We all know mechanics out there that can drop your hp drastically.( A DPSing blue mage will not have enough mp to cast diamond back unless they withhold alot of their attacks) If a blue mages health drops below 50% it wont be a full heal and it will be costly none the less. There is no set value as comparing it to level80 tanks, it would take 2 casts from 50% hp to fully heal a tank(If they are withing range) costing 3000 mp. That alone is too costly.

[Koka-Kola]

So in summery, white wind's limited range and cost is its ultimate downfall in comparison to other heals where the party members might not be in range and if you really wanted to heal them, you would have to get closer causing a possible second cast (IF YOU WERE REALLY THAT DESPERATE TO HEAL) My full rotation costs between 4500-6000 which does not keep up with the mp recovery. Unless they reduce the cost of diamond back or white wind, I hardly find it usable when dpsing and if I were to use it, it would be on a stacking point.

White wind is strong yes, but its ranged and power is limited just as its cost is too high to use often.



Since we are compairing redmage, Let us discuss verraise. Verraise has no cooldown as its cost is high. You can use it as your MP can handle. However blue mage raise has a 5 min CD.
Now there are several occaisions every redmage that is dpsing doesnt have good MP sustain to cast a raise in the moment to revive a downed healer or tank.
White wind is very similar in the matter where it is not something we can cast freely without a high cost.

[HyoMinPark]

On the contrary, I did my homework .I have found several black mages posts with parses attached where they have parsed 14k and summoners who have parsed 11k.(posts were of 3 years of age) The math is already done for me. I just needed to compare the difference from 3 years ago to now.

???

Three years ago would put us roughly in the middle of Stormblood (somewhere in the middle of Sigmascape’s tier). No DPS job was parsing 14k back then. Where are you even getting this data from? I’d love to see these supposed logs where BLM’s were hitting 14k in 4.x.

[Koka-Kola]

I (regretfully) cannot find the redit pose anymore so let's use a BLM's post of 8k without echo. As stated before on this thread, a solo blue mage pushed 16k and can burst 32k. that is with blues solo buff solo buff which doubles damage and healing. so without that buff it would be 8k (which I assume since this is first phase, used the instants not all at once) and burst at 16k (which I assume is all instant casts active) that would mean at tops it can deal 16k dps in a short succession or 8k in a long fight.