Black Mage - the solution for everything?

[Ryuko]

It's the stigma. People see BLM as the easiest way to do things and therefor instantly try to cater every fight to BLM's because that's what they're used to. I'm assuming you have seen the video of a JP group beating garuda with all jobs present, right? This proves that it's more than possible, but not many are willing to 'think outside the box' like that just yet.

It's the same reason most people use the SAME exact strategies to beat endgame content. Once one person does it, and it is a tried+true method, everyone else chooses to do it that way too. (Examples: The BLM burn Garuda, or the BG setup since they were the first to beat it, or the wall-stacking method to beat Chimera.) Everyone sees how it's possible and starts trying it that way. After the first group beats something and reveals their strategy, it spreads like wildfire until it is the 'known' and 'accepted' strategy that most groups attempt to adapt to.

Another reason is because gearing a class takes a lot of time and money. Double (or even triple) melding an item takes a lot more gil and/or time than many who play this game are willing to commit to. Therefore, they have to really choose... 'which class am I going to try to gear the best'? Many choose BLM, and for them, their melee gear will never compare. There are very few of us that can take the time to double/triple meld multiple classes. So, when it comes down to... "Hey, let's try a different strategy," it may inevitably look bad because the 'new strategy' involving classes that aren't geared as well simply won't put out the same kind of performance.

The stigma of BLM being the 'best' for everything also puts all other classes 'out of practice'. If you don't play other classes very often, you just might not be as efficient at them... and that is another reason the other classes may appear inferior when people actually try to play them. I encourage thinking outside the box, especially if you have a class you'd like to play that others don't often look for. When SE designs these fights, they make sure there is a way for melee classes to survive and thrive. You just have to find it... and the unfortunate truth to this is that the BLM/range niche is often easier to discover than the 'up close and person' one.

[Preypacer]

It's the stigma. People see BLM as the easiest way to do things and therefor instantly try to cater every fight to BLM's because that's what they're used to. I'm assuming you have seen the video of a JP group beating garuda with all jobs present, right? This proves that it's more than possible, but not many are willing to 'think outside the box' like that just yet.

Many people never do and never will think outside the box, because the fight isn't what they're interested in. The reward is. The fight is just an annoying "necessary evil" they need to deal with to get it. Read enough posts and "listen in" on enough conversations, and it becomes clear, many people couldn't care less about the fight, the storyline, the quests or any of the other content. They want the rewards, and that's it.

If they could press a button and get the reward with no further effort involved, I think a number of people would be ecstatic... and that's not hyperbole. If there ever was literally a "Win" button implemented, there are people who would argue "that's the way it should be". I've never seen so many people who seem to absolutely detest anything that gets between them and their reward, or put so much effort into not playing the game (hacking, botting, exploiting, RMT, etc), as I do in the MMO genre.

[Duelle]

Many people never do and never will think outside the box, because the fight isn't what they're interested in. The reward is. The fight is just and annoying "necessary evil" they need to deal with to get it. Read enough posts and "listen in" on enough conversations, and it becomes clear, many people couldn't care less about the fight, the storyline, the quests or any of the other content. They want the rewards, and that's it.

This is a sad truth. At the same time, there's a threshold for what each of us considers reasonable. I don't mind a daily grind, grinding rep, killing a boss in hopes of a drop and so on...within certain parameters. If the daily grind is korean MMO style I'm going to have a problem. If the rep grind is going to involve fighting over lolsand like in vanilla WoW, I'm going to have a problem. If the boss drops nothing or drops logs 99% of the time, I'm going to have a problem. It's really about finding the middle ground.

As far as thinking outside the box, the going with the "most effective comp" thing has been inherited from FFXI, in part because that game's mechanics encouraged jobism instead of inclusion of all jobs for every type of activity in-game. Some use the job and armory systems as excuses for allowing that sort of thing, whereas I think it's BS.

[Preypacer]

This is a sad truth. At the same time, there's a threshold for what each of us considers reasonable. I don't mind a daily grind, grinding rep, killing a boss in hopes of a drop and so on...within certain parameters. If the daily grind is korean MMO style I'm going to have a problem. If the rep grind is going to involve fighting over lolsand like in vanilla WoW, I'm going to have a problem. If the boss drops nothing or drops logs 99% of the time, I'm going to have a problem. It's really about finding the middle ground.

Indeed, though that kinda goes to the other extreme. There are people I've known who think having to fight a mob more than once to get what they're after (even if it's supposed to be a rare item) is "too much of a grind and unfair to expect of players". They hate anything that requires any more of their time or effort than they want to give to acquire it. These are the types who will cheat, exploit, hack, RMT and such, and then use the cop-out that "the game forced them to do it". I really wonder why some of these people are even playing these games sometimes, considering they openly hate so much about them.