BLM needs a rework because of new content difficulty

[Taranok]

BLM always kinda struggle This early in a xpac. Combine that with the fact that currently for some reason they boosted a lots of job potency while BLM stayed to low and that explain why BLM is so low in the dps chart. That being said I don't think giving them 15% more damage than everyone is a good idea, espcially if you want it to be able to move while casting (lol?) that litteraly kill it whole personality and why it fell unique to play

It's struggling for 3 reasons I've come to find. 1, none of the caster gear currently has spell speed. It's hard to bis and get 2.60 sps, which is my personal maximum fire 4 cast time for enjoying playing BLM. BLM is typically suffering the closer to 2.8 it is. 2, the potencies are flat bad. This is obviously acknowledged, and is an expansion staple. I literally cannot think of a single time from ARR to now that BLM did not launch underpowered.

That's all well and good and should be fixed with time. The third bit is that BLM legitimately cannot handle the content the devs are making. Be it a dungeon, trial, or especially EX1, BLM is too much of a turret caster in a game where the devs despise turret casters. The problem is big enough that even PCT can be suffering, and it's vastly better equipped to deal with it.

PCT is better for 4 reasons. 1, their ley lines is massive. 1 repositioning isn't good enough for BLM, especially on something like EX1. Likewise, PCT's ley line only needs 5 total casts in it, while BLM wants to get closer to 11 total casts, which is just not feasible with fight design as it is. 2, PCT gets a bankable instant cast via holy in white, which can be built every 3 base GCDs stacked up to 5. Xenoglossy can't compare to how flexible holy in white is. 3, having a default 1.5s GCD is massive when you need to do minor repositioning, again, such as ex1 for the ice comets or things like volcano aoes. A PCT can just cast and dodge, a BLM runs the risk of getting nailed. The fourth and final bit, BLM is still structurally a timer-based class, and it will gladly abort out of its timers because you had to adjust or ran out of instants or what have you.

I've come to the conclusion BLM needs a rework, and going back to EW would just dig it deeper into the hole it's in. The devs don't want turret casters as a valid playstyle, and nonstandard BS is outright not beneficial to the class or the game as a whole. If the devs don't want turret casters, then BLM needs to change to no longer be a turret caster. Simple as.

Pictomancer isn't over powered it should be where it is, melees shouldn't just by default be the top.
Black mage should be where pictomancer is currently. Both should be competing jobs for non rezzing casters, which both should be equal to melees in terms of damage at the very least.

I'll never understand this line of thought because the implication is that somehow res should be taxed. If res is that big a problem then just remove it from casters outright. PCT should be balanced as a buffing DPS. Simple as. It is not a 'power caster,' it should not be balanced with BLM because BLM is in the greedy DPS category alongside SAM, VPR, and MCH.

Frankly, standard comps should be 1 caster, 1 melee, 1 phys ranged, and 1 whatever the hell you want, with 1 of those 4 being a greedy DPS. The game was a lot better when people brought 2 phys ranged or 2 casters instead of exclusively 2 melee, and trying to pretend PCT should be in the same category as a greedy DPS is just woefully disingenuous to how greedy DPS need to be balanced. PCT is no different than a RPR in my eyes, in terms of how it should be approached for balancing.

[Eraden]

The third bit is that BLM legitimately cannot handle the content the devs are making. Be it a dungeon, trial, or especially EX1, BLM is too much of a turret caster in a game where the devs despise turret casters. The problem is big enough that even PCT can be suffering, and it's vastly better equipped to deal with it.

PCT is better for 4 reasons. 1, their ley lines is massive. 1 repositioning isn't good enough for BLM, especially on something like EX1. Likewise, PCT's ley line only needs 5 total casts in it, while BLM wants to get closer to 11 total casts, which is just not feasible with fight design as it is. 2, PCT gets a bankable instant cast via holy in white, which can be built every 3 base GCDs stacked up to 5. Xenoglossy can't compare to how flexible holy in white is. 3, having a default 1.5s GCD is massive when you need to do minor repositioning, again, such as ex1 for the ice comets or things like volcano aoes. A PCT can just cast and dodge, a BLM runs the risk of getting nailed. The fourth and final bit, BLM is still structurally a timer-based class, and it will gladly abort out of its timers because you had to adjust or ran out of instants or what have you.

I've come to the conclusion BLM needs a rework, and going back to EW would just dig it deeper into the hole it's in. The devs don't want turret casters as a valid playstyle, and nonstandard BS is outright not beneficial to the class or the game as a whole. If the devs don't want turret casters, then BLM needs to change to no longer be a turret caster.

Arilaya makings some really good observations here. Is why Mao startings to think wrecking BLMs was by design. Devs doubling down on "DDR-Mobility-Is-King" fight styles whats became so prevalents in EW. Thems know that most BLMs prefer turrets-style game play so maybe, just maybe, Devs wrecked BLMs deliberately and jangled shiny new more mobile Picto job in front of players in hopes that BLMs would take baits and switch. That way, Devs no longer has to accommodate old-style BLMs when designing future fights. Is gonna become clearer when fixes come durings 7.01 to 7.05. If fixes are substantial and helps BLMs, then Mao was wrong. If fixes are just bandaids though, Mao mights still be right.

[Galvuu]

I've come to the conclusion BLM needs a rework, and going back to EW would just dig it deeper into the hole it's in. The devs don't want turret casters as a valid playstyle, and nonstandard BS is outright not beneficial to the class or the game as a whole. If the devs don't want turret casters, then BLM needs to change to no longer be a turret caster. Simple as.

If you genuinely went back to EW BLM, you could, with enough dedication, make it work on every situation you listed. Even with doing that, if Flare Star was an instant cast and every spell in UI recovered MP, you could still make it work, if they really wanna get rid of the mana tick system.

Regardless, I don't think it's a conscious "they want to kill turret playstyle". The likely- and sad- reality is that this is a mixture of the job team being both incompetent and fundamentally misunderstanding how jobs function in practice and having a massive ego. These people have a very flawed vision both of how the job should play, according to them, and how it actually plays in practice. They use the latter to make wrong assumptions/fixes that adhere to the former, which doesn't even work to begin with.
Sometimes they latch onto these dysfunctional ideas on some jobs for literal years while gutting aspects that people are vocal about enjoying. That's why everyone, JP and West alike, on multiple jobs, feel that they ignore feedback. Well, because they do, it's their way or the highway even if their way is, frankly, stupid.

2- I litterally sit on 3 xeno + 2x triple cast about 95% of the time, I don't understand how you can lack mobility. Beside the boss with the +O marker spam, (which requires a tiny bit of management), I litterally only use Paradox+Thunder for movement and that's enough.
I don't know how you play BLM, but I really don't see the need for more mobility.

You don't feel the issue in extreme 1, if it's beak and you're on the wrong side of the field after dodging the volcano aoe and the 3 small aoes under you? Completely ignoring that this is going to cost you heavily on your burst window on the triple party stack. Which also vomits fire puddles that will cost you 3/4 gcds of your Ley Lines (30% of that buff wasted, and you can't even retrace until the mechanic is over). I could go on explaining how what you're saying is wrong, but why bother- did you even use BLM on either extreme before coming here to type this out? I love how everyone just glosses over the fact that, even if you manage to somehow deal with movement by expending every tool you have, this basically incurs a 30ish or more % penalty in your burst window damage. No other job has this issue.

[Ferrinus]

If you genuinely went back to EW BLM, you could, with enough dedication, make it work on every situation you listed. Even with doing that, if Flare Star was an instant cast and every spell in UI recovered MP, you could still make it work, if they really wanna get rid of the mana tick system.

Regardless, I don't think it's a conscious "they want to kill turret playstyle". The likely- and sad- reality is that this is a mixture of the job team being both incompetent and fundamentally misunderstanding how jobs function in practice and having a massive ego. These people have a very flawed vision both of how the job should play, according to them, and how it actually plays in practice. They use the latter to make wrong assumptions/fixes that adhere to the former, which doesn't even work to begin with.
Sometimes they latch onto these dysfunctional ideas on some jobs for literal years while gutting aspects that people are vocal about enjoying. That's why everyone, JP and West alike, on multiple jobs, feel that they ignore feedback. Well, because they do, it's their way or the highway even if their way is, frankly, stupid.



You don't feel the issue in extreme 1, if it's beak and you're on the wrong side of the field after dodging the volcano aoe and the 3 small aoes under you? Completely ignoring that this is going to cost you heavily on your burst window on the triple party stack. Which also vomits fire puddles that will cost you 3/4 gcds of your Ley Lines (30% of that buff wasted, and you can't even retrace until the mechanic is over). I could go on explaining how what you're saying is wrong, but why bother- did you even use BLM on either extreme before coming here to type this out? I love how everyone just glosses over the fact that, even if you manage to somehow deal with movement by expending every tool you have, this basically incurs a 30ish or more % penalty in your burst window damage. No other job has this issue.

I mean, it would make sense to me if a hypothetical white room BLM had unbeatable damage, but movement almost always cost you damage as you say, and therefore that managing the tension between greed and safety defines the class's high-level play. I just finished farming the first extreme, and that's been my experience (and honestly it's pretty close to my experience playing EW BLM, since I mostly stuck to standard rotation and therefore mostly had the same experience of wanting to, but not necessarily getting to, always use swift and triple at the perfect places).

[Realfoxy]

...
I've come to the conclusion BLM needs a rework, and going back to EW would just dig it deeper into the hole it's in. The devs don't want turret casters as a valid playstyle, and nonstandard BS is outright not beneficial to the class or the game as a whole. If the devs don't want turret casters, then BLM needs to change to no longer be a turret caster. Simple as.

They could have easily built on EW BLM to make it friendlier to new players and easier for less skilled players to handle the increased movement. Instead they removed Ice Paradox, completely wrecked the Thunder DOT, and added a punishing 3s hardcast into the job.

Endwalker BLM easily has the tools and flexibility to handle Dawntrail content, but instead SE was so blinded by their desire to kill nonstandard that they wrecked the flexibility that made EW BLM work.

The only substantial change they made that actually made it easier was the 100% F3 proc chance, that's it.

Secondly, I want to address nonstandard for a second. The value of nonstandard, from a content design perspective, is that it gives high level players - those doing week 1 prog where job balance is more important - a way to adapt BLM to the fight design. For example, it's extremely clear to that TOP was simply not tested on BLM, with P6 being the most egregious example. Yet BLM players were able to clear anyway, due to the flexibility of nonstandard.

Simple, standard BLM did enough damage and was perfectly balanced in EW, there was absolutely no reason to get rid of it. Yes, nonstandard could give you an extra 3% damage, but if you think that is a severe balance problem that justifies an entire job rework then I have bad news for you about crit variance.

[Magikazam]

The third bit is that BLM legitimately cannot handle the content the devs are making. Be it a dungeon, trial, or especially EX1, BLM is too much of a turret caster in a game where the devs despise turret casters.

Yet despite that it still deal more damage than mobile casters in endwalker. Again, the issue rn is that Picto is overtuned and BLM potency need buff

[Rithy255]

I'll never understand this line of thought because the implication is that somehow res should be taxed. If res is that big a problem then just remove it from casters outright. PCT should be balanced as a buffing DPS. Simple as. It is not a 'power caster,' it should not be balanced with BLM because BLM is in the greedy DPS category alongside SAM, VPR, and MCH.

Frankly, standard comps should be 1 caster, 1 melee, 1 phys ranged, and 1 whatever the hell you want, with 1 of those 4 being a greedy DPS. The game was a lot better when people brought 2 phys ranged or 2 casters instead of exclusively 2 melee, and trying to pretend PCT should be in the same category as a greedy DPS is just woefully disingenuous to how greedy DPS need to be balanced. PCT is no different than a RPR in my eyes, in terms of how it should be approached for balancing.

A bit of a late reply but I will post my thoughts.

Rez should be taxed, at least I think so, theirs a argument to be said if DT will have "body checks" but even in situations where theirs body checks quick rezzes and having a caster able to rez will always be more valuable in Progression then yes. Also It should be balanced with black mage considering raid buffs, I'm not saying that it should deal similar amounts of damage to BLM but the total dps (including pictos raid buff calculations) should be very similar (Picto should be in similar lines of melees who provide a buff, while BLM Should be in a similar spot to Samurai).

If we had Summoner and Red mage do the same damage as Black Mage or Pictomancer their would be a massive reason to never pick either Black Mage or Picto theirs a clear reason why neither are usually above Black mage, I don't think they should be.

If they want to remove Caster rez I'm more then happy for both to do similar damage (Well Summoner should debatably get more casts per minute if we want to be fully fair), but I'm not aganist or for this, simply I'm just against Red mage having rez and doing similar numbers as Black mage currently, I mostly play Black mage anyway so it doesn't really effect me.

I guess this is walking the tight rope of homogenization where all jobs in a category have to bring very similar things on the table or high end players will be upset about numbers if things aren't changed, while on the other end people will be upset about taking uniqueness theirs always going to be trade offs to keeping rez or taking it away.