A few questions for the BLM mains/enjoyers

[Llugen]

You checked my profile and saw most of my clears are on SAM...

Actually, it just says your main job next to your pfp here in the forums, but that makes sense. Also as an aside my previous quip is nothing personal, it's just regarding the state of balance. The point of what I'm trying to say is no party ever would have a single qualm with taking a SAM and have to think about taking extra care or changing strats or doing anything out of the ordinary, and it still brings pretty much just as much damage. From a composition perspective, why not bring a faceroll SMN that can salvage the group and handle all mechanics with ease while feeding a SAM instead of shooting yourselves in the foot bringing a BLM that may require strats change AND losing out on backup raise (assuming you're only bringing one caster)?

And while I don't see it OFTEN anymore, I have definitely seen groups specifically locking out BLM having their caster slot set to RDM/SMN only, however, just because groups like that are few-ish and far-between-ish, doesn't mean that this is okay. You would NEVER see a group deliberately excluding SAM, is the point.

In that case it was the healer's fault not yours so you framing it as *you* causing the wipe is silly...

That's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying is I am the one who gets to PAY FOR the wipe by losing my incredible run because I can't save it, while had a different class in my role been taken it would have been salvageable.

And on your note regarding Raise being an oGCD, I would go one step further and say they should just make it a party-wide duty action on a 2-3 minute cooldown, so ANYONE in the duty can use it to raise and the CD is shared between all members. So the entire group gets a single raise every 180s (or maybe 120, whatever) and anyone can use it.

...but getting people to be as unified as the Samurai's with Kaiten is about as likely as Kaiten coming back soon(I wish it would).

'

I also miss Kaiten, but the job still feels fine and doesn't suffer or benefit from anything from not having it. In terms of caster raise, this argument is not applicable, if that is your intention.

[MikoRemi]

I more or less wanted Kaiten back in the sense of it was a good button that didn't need to die compared to merging Shoha 1 and 2 if SE wanted to solve the button bloat issue more. It does suffer but that's a topic for another thread.
I'm more talking about how people would rather complain about nerfing other peoples jobs if they're better when jobs should just get a boost up to the good jobs levels. If casters got a raise as a role action I wouldn't really care to be fair. Either we get body check city so it won't really change much, or it'll be lovely for Eureka/Deep Dungeon.

[Llugen]

It's good that you're bringing up Eureka/DD becuase so far everyone keeps bringing up "savage body check" as an argument that raise balance is somewhat meaningless, which may be true for that specific example, but savage is not the ONLY content that would benefit from uniform caster raise... 4-man dungeons especially would be really nice to have a more ubiquitous raise in, even like maps dungeon and all kinds of stuff.

[Alex1337]

Actually, it just says your main job next to your pfp here in the forums, but that makes sense. Also as an aside my previous quip is nothing personal, it's just regarding the state of balance. The point of what I'm trying to say is no party ever would have a single qualm with taking a SAM and have to think about taking extra care or changing strats or doing anything out of the ordinary, and it still brings pretty much just as much damage. From a composition perspective, why not bring a faceroll SMN that can salvage the group and handle all mechanics with ease while feeding a SAM instead of shooting yourselves in the foot bringing a BLM that may require strats change AND losing out on backup raise (assuming you're only bringing one caster)?

I'll be anecdotally honest with you; what you're describing has never happened to me and, in the very start of, even this tier, I had no credentials 0 clears on any caster and no one locked out BLM or kicked me so either this is NA specific or region specific but in EU, no one locks out any caster; hell, MCH isnt even locked out of anything anymore. When I join these groups I don't do anything special either I just do ranged things, the only exception being if it is x3 ranged where i will take a melee spot and, on P12 door boss, I chad the other melee so I can sit in my LLs as long as possible on SC1, but I generally don't expect anyone to adjust for me and the same is true when a BLM joins my grp and im playing anything else. I'm inclined to think you have had a singularly bad experience but im also willing to accept i could be wrong since i don't play your region and maybe EU is some sort of haven, either way this is no reason to throw balance out of the window and make BLM overtuned because apart from what you're describing BLM really isn't that hard.

Within the scope of what we are discussing I don't think I know anyone in any group that would knowingly turn down a BLM because mathematically speaking they just do more damage than any other caster its not even close, buffs included. I think that the only way a player would get kicked, since, again, in my experience BLM isn't locked out, is that said player isn't good enough and the same would be true if the player played braindead faceroll SMN.

If we're talking prog environment, unfortunately, only 1 dps role can raise, caster and of those only 2 of 3 can raise - Where a tight dps check is involved (P8 door) the idea will be to play perfectly in which case raise is removed from the equation and then guess who takes the throne caster-wise?

[Llugen]

Funny that you bring this up again, because literally not moments ago I just got told I won't fit in a group because access to raise, so what a coincidence:

[11:32 AM]Zera: I hear you are potentially looking for a castieboy for 12?
[11:33 AM]ProspectiveLeader: Yes. Here is my current recruitment post. Please read through this first, and ask any questions/concerns you might have. The P9S-P11S reclear statement may be changed to P12S only, but not decided yet.
[11:33 AM]ProspectiveLeader: [Aether] [LFM] [7/8] [P9S-P11S weekly reclears, P12S.P2 prog] [BLIND]

Looking for either of the following: :RDM::SMN:
Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday 6:30PM-9:00PM EST

Goal:
Fresh BLIND prog on P12S Phase 2. Clear, then get BiS for all static members. Continue weekly reclears of P9S-P11S until P12S BiS items obtained. Then, re-evaluate and likely move onto UCoB.

We are a blind-prog group. That means no guides/streams/videos or outside help of any kind. We learn all mechanics by running the fight until we develop our own strategies. No spoilers. You will need to adjust to our strategies for how we blind progged this tier. That being said, most of our strategies are very close to PF strats. If you know P12S Phase 2, DO NOT spoil anything for the rest of the group. However, you are still welcome to apply/join. Please be willing to use a mic to speak in discord during raid.

Play only with this static for P12S.P2 prog and P9S-P11S reclears. Looking for a highly consistent, highly skilled, reliable, and friendly caster.
[11:35 AM]Zera: hmm I see
[11:36 AM]Zera: looks like we probably aren't going to be a good match
[11:36 AM]Zera: I main BLM and although I have flexed SMN in the past before 6.0 I have little interest in the way it currently plays
[11:37 AM]Zera: but the ability to recover for a blind prog group is probably important
[11:37 AM]Zera: probably VERY important lol
[11:37 AM]Zera: I do like the idea of blind prog in general if the group is handling it well
[11:37 AM]ProspectiveLeader: Understood, unfortunate that it probably won't work out. If we end up opening up that requirement to include BLM, I'll let you know. Thanks for the message!

We've had a BLM for a while that left, and it has made it challenging not having that extra rez when a healer dies.
[11:39 AM]Zera: blame the shitty myopic view of the devs being utterly unwilling to see reason when it comes to caster raise, sadly
[11:39 AM]Zera: hopefully GNM will bring about change



Just because you personally do not experience this (as a not-BLM main, no less), does not mean it doesn't happen, and it happening AT ALL is proof that there is an issue, in my opinion. Again whether or not it happens to you specifically is irrelevant. It's also interesting that you mention "throwing balance out the window" for this when clearly it is because balance needs fixing that this would happen.

[Ggwppino]

Within the scope of what we are discussing I don't think I know anyone in any group that would knowingly turn down a BLM because mathematically speaking they just do more damage than any other caster its not even close, buffs included. I think that the only way a player would get kicked, since, again, in my experience BLM isn't locked out, is that said player isn't good enough and the same would be true if the player played braindead faceroll SMN.

I don't really agree with this statement. If you are not a good player with the blm you risk losing a lot of damage, with the smn at worst you lose 2 casts per minute. the smn has an almost certain uptime, the blm must study it. There are 2 classes which, unfortunately, are poles apart in terms of what is required of the player. Requests that in previous patches were not so different, albeit with the blm requiring something more.

[Alex1337]

Just because you personally do not experience this (as a not-BLM main, no less), does not mean it doesn't happen, and it happening AT ALL is proof that there is an issue, in my opinion. Again whether or not it happens to you specifically is irrelevant. It's also interesting that you mention "throwing balance out the window" for this when clearly it is because balance needs fixing that this would happen.

I'm not sure I follow anymore.

Our very first interaction was over me saying I thought BLM is fine and its borderline overturned, a view you don't share because you replied: "The amount more work that BLM is than SAM demands that it be stronger, and by a larger margin than it currently is, doubly so when it demands changing entire strats to accommodate." A view which I don't share.

Now it would seem that you want BLM to do more damage because they can't raise? How much more? So much so that groups run x2 BLM and ignore the LB gauge? That's a slippery slope, buffing a job because it can't raise when raise tax is already a thing?

And when i mention my experience this also extends to people I interact with who, to be fair have not to deal with what you quoted, though, it kind of seems like that raid lead had x2 melee already and wanted a raisebot and, since they're blind, it makes sense that they would want to extend encounters so they can see further mechanics.

But the raise conversation (something I never brought up), is also valid, this may be pure speculation on my part but I believe they brought BLM to the level they did for 2 reasons; 1. On release it actually just wasn't strong enough 2. I think they are trying to encourage groups to drop the all so common x2 melee meta, which, as much as I don't support 'metas' (play what you want) I approve of but the latter would also require a behavioral change from the community, that being said BLM does present further challenges. In any case that's pure conjecture on my part. Yes something does need to be done with raise, but I don't think raise is worth the ginormous chasm of DPS that exists between RDM and BLM currently.

I don't really agree with this statement. If you are not a good player with the blm you risk losing a lot of damage, with the smn at worst you lose 2 casts per minute.

That's subjective at best, 'at worse' a SMN can mess up alot more than just 2 ifrit casts every minute, sure that sounds absurd to you and most people but in any case, my description of bad player in this instance refers to said player dying at which point, both SMN and BLM will do exactly 0 damage and neither can raise when dead.

The discrepancy in terms of extracting the maximum potential out of BLM and SMN is NOT something which endless buffing of the job would fix if you create too big a gap bosses will be tuned around the weakest DPS since they want every job to be 'viable' they would need to account for the lower which will make any DPS check in-existent OR you never know it might swing the other way, if SE want more players to do well on BLM, they have to rework BLM to be alot more new player friendly, among other things and the same is true for any other job that still has complexities and intricacies, though I don't think they should rework BLM.

[Ggwppino]

That's subjective at best, 'at worse' a SMN can mess up alot more than just 2 ifrit casts every minute, sure that sounds absurd to you and most people but in any case, my description of bad player in this instance refers to said player dying at which point, both SMN and BLM will do exactly 0 damage and neither can raise when dead.

ok, but let's say that it is no longer a problem exclusive to the role, it is more a problem that will almost certainly cause wiping. FF bosses are becoming very demanding indeed, most of the mechanics are requiring all players to be alive, otherwise you take another 2/3 victims or the whole party with you.

But this discussion does not apply to the caster, but to any class. It's more a lack of study of mechanics (which goes beyond rotation).
Assuming you know the mechanics, the smn must know how the mechanics happen, the blm must also know how to maintain uptime.
In the first tier of EW we had a blm that never died but was last in dps, he got the mechanics right but he was ruining all his uptime, if he had played smn this problem didn't really exist.

The discrepancy in terms of extracting the maximum potential out of BLM and SMN is NOT something which endless buffing of the job would fix if you create too big a gap bosses will be tuned around the weakest DPS since they want every job to be 'viable' they would need to account for the lower which will make any DPS check in-existent OR you never know it might swing the other way, if SE want more players to do well on BLM, they have to rework BLM to be alot more new player friendly, among other things and the same is true for any other job that still has complexities and intricacies, though I don't think they should rework BLM.

Totally agree. Clearly they can increase the damage of the blm even more but in the end it all becomes superfluous, it becomes right to kill the boss first. It becomes just a treat for speed runners. The raids are designed to be cleared by the RDM.

But first the caster was in balance: there were 3 casters.
At EW everything was turned upside down because they introduced a physranged and removed a caster in the caster category. If before the smn was very close to the blm in everything, both in terms of damage and the requirements required of the player, now this is no longer the case. They removed the class that held, in my opinion, the balance of casters that had been created. If before there were 2 classes that were operationally more intricate, now we only have 1.
And even more so because of what you wrote, the blm suffers precisely for this reason: it has to compete with a class that is now almost a mono instant cast spam of a single button with possibly a ress and a class that until shB was the extremely mobile one with spam ress.

Let me be clear: the problem is certainly not the BLM.

[Kabooa]

I don't think raise is worth the ginormous chasm of DPS that exists between RDM and BLM currently.

Based on historic use rates, raise has been worth an 8-15% lead over the (Usually summoner) second highest damage caster.

When the difference is less than this, Black Mage use rates plummets to roughly equal or less than the last highest damage caster (Usually Red Mage)

Those use rates include double casters comps. Black Mage is almost never a solo caster, except in speed runs.

[Alex1337]

It's more a lack of study of mechanics (which goes beyond rotation).
Assuming you know the mechanics, the smn must know how the mechanics happen, the blm must also know how to maintain uptime.
In the first tier of EW we had a blm that never died but was last in dps, he got the mechanics right but he was ruining all his uptime, if he had played smn this problem didn't really exist.

Sure, that's absolutely possible and likely true but, I offer you the converse of what you're suggesting, a BLM which knows how to exploit every single mechanic at every single point of the fight to have 100% optimal uptime, which again leads back to my point of buffs mean nothing if the job isn't as braindead to play as SMN, giving mindless buffs because its 'So hard' vs, just reworking the job is not, in my opinion, healthy and, will make balancing the game in the broader sense alot harder, so I do not understand Llugen's take that BLM deserves EVEN more buffs because X; strat adjusts, Y; alot more work Z:?? - to expand on this SAM has to think about their castsm, sure less than BLM but they still do specifically this tier which spits out movement mechanics during 2 mins and is already at a disadvantage because SAM cannot swift or triple cast (caloric 2 can be a nightmare) NIN has to think of TCJ. The job(BLM) is clearly designed for those who want to think about mechanics relative to their rotations, so why change that? Buffing a job because they can't have perfect uptime in every single use case (lower end of spectrum) means that those at the higher end of the spectrum that do know how to have perfect uptime will absolutely destroy every other job which brings into question the balance point I brought up again.

Based on historic use rates, raise has been worth an 8-15% lead over the (Usually summoner) second highest damage caster.

When the difference is less than this, Black Mage use rates plummets to roughly equal or less than the last highest damage caster (Usually Red Mage)

Those use rates include double casters comps. Black Mage is almost never a solo caster, except in speed runs.

8-15% of what? Time spent progging? DPS/HPS? Neuron activation?

Black mage is solo in speeds because they do far more RDPS than SMN or RDM which, interestingly enough emphasizes the point i made; if you join a speed group/pf the idea will be that you NEVER raise at which point, SMN and RDM may aswell just log out considering the chasm I mentioned. Some world prog groups have their caster (particularly on last fights) prog as SMN or RDM and then switch to BLM so that the enrage/dps check are not even a point of consideration.