Black Mage - the solution for everything?

[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.

[Asiaine]

Hello,

The Black Mage 'problem' existed in Vana'Diel, but not to the extent here. I have seen many 'Mana Burn' parties, and have found it adorable to see a group fo Tarus running off to do Mana-Burn together (Tarus had bonus intelligence so did the most damage).

Unlike Eorzea, being a BLM in Vana'Diel was not easy. This was the deterrent to such strategies. It took a long time to level (as did all jobs), and had the added 'cost' of buying spells (which were not cheap). Plus certain racial advantages (hard to be a Galkan BLM). Given these limitations are not present in Eorzea, there are far more BLMs available, making such 'Mana-Burn' parties all that more feasible.

The underlying capabilitiy has not changed. Only the ease of availability of BLM to carry out that strategy has changed.

That being said, people will naturally lean towards a BLM party as it is by far the easiest to do with random pick-up people or those who do not have the opportunity to learn a strategy. (If this is your first time in Garuda they would rather you go as BLM then give you 10+ fights to learn how to deal as a DRG).

Therefore the underlying 'problem' is really: Lack of acceptance by the community to embrace different job combinations when dealing with strategies, choosing to stick with what is easiest or best known.

I use 'airquotes' on 'problem', as it is debateable if this is a problem or just a sometimes-unhappy-circumstance.

Some might argue SE should step in and make it harder for a BLM-Burn party to work. Others might argue its up for us to decide how we want to win a battle.

I personally say that it's useful to have the 'easy-mode' BLM-Burn party as a way to practice the fight, then change to more interesting job combinations as a way to 'enjoy' the fight.

[kazaran]

I honestly don't see that many BLm's on my server, not full ones. THer are alot more Pug/monks, wars and paldins. Not everyone is effcient as casters and prefer malee style.

We need an RDM or Blue mage combo.

Magic isn't always the answer. It is also not the easy mode. You can cast, but not be efficient at elmental understanding, mob resistance levels, hoq to weaken them to elements to boost your combo. You can say malee is easier in that term.

Add in managing MP, and low survivial when hi.

Mages are meant to be powerfull, and malee shouldn't be in stirght up hits, never were meant to be, but mages are typically squishy in defence. That's the trade off. timing is even more essential.

Keep in mind BLM on XIV is not as rounded as XI. You do not have acess to the complete range of elemental spells. Your damage is negatiated when you have malee jobs accessign them and screwing up the elemental weakness you try to set up with another. Some will burn party so they can avoid wastefull malee based ones causing the mage to drain more mp then needed.

Hopefull that will all change in 2.0, and mobs will be more varied.

[Mortikhan]

I will bounce another idea around. Instead of just a resistance toward a class in particular why not do portioning of HP that is resistance with diametrically opposing weaknesses. Ok before you say no...let me explain lol.

Example:

Mobs HP is 100k

Blunt (25% of mobs HP)
Magic (25% of mobs HP)
Slashing (25% of mobs HP)
Piecing (25% of mobs HP)

Magic Effect = Magic 100% Blunt 75% Piecing 75% Slashing 50%
Slashing Effect = Slashing 100% Blunt 75% Piercing 75% Magic 50%
Blunt Effect = Blunt 100% Magic 75% Slashing 75% Piercing 50%
Piercing Effect = Piercing 100% Magic 75% Slashing 75% Blunt 50%

Diametrically opposing damage types would still be able to do the fight but it would make it far more difficult. You could still stack if you want to avoid a certain aspect of the fight but will be less efficient than the classes meant to deal the damage to the Bosses portion of health.

Example:

1 War 5 Blm 1 Brd and 1 Whm party:

Magic Portion of HP = War 50% Blm & Whm 100% Brd 75%
Piercing Portion of HP = War 75% Blm & Whm 75% Brd 100%
Slashing Portion of HP = War 100% Blm & Whm 50% Brd 75%
Blunt Portion of HP = War 75% Blm & Whm 75% Brd 50%

The damage would gravitate toward the weakest portion of HP first so Blm attacks would go after the Magic Portion of HP first and Brd damage would go after the Piercing Portion of HP first etc.. Once the Blms get their 25k down though they would start to do less damage vs the two 75% groups (piercing and blunt) then finally have the most trouble with the 25k of Slashing Portion damage on the Boss which they would assist on since the War would have already been chipping away at it.

I would be for switching the percentages around a bit per boss but I can't see how nerfing or making specific content to thwart slacking would benefit anything. When you do things by nerfing and content it just leads to more stacking of another class.

[Enfarious]

So to spin off of the above, which essentially gives 4 different HP pools, each weak/resistant to a different form of attack. How about Bosses that have multiple body parts, ALL of which need to be destroyed for the clear. So keeping the same 4 HP pools attach each to a different body part. Head/Arms/Legs/Torso

[BadOmen]

I think they dont need gimp BLM/THM or BRD/ARC... would be better if they add monsters specialized against these jobs, just like Colibries were anti-blm on xi, reflecting their magic, or monsters with high defense against certain weapons like arrows, that way there dont be always an unstopable job. put monsters around resistant to certain job weapon/spells/abilities/ wathever mixed altogueter. in XI monsters had diferent defense bonus against ceretain kind of weapon damage, they need make that noticeable in XIV too.

[indira]

people use parsers and parsers dont count amount of attacks done and how much per hit they only count totals all BS data people also die in fights dont mean there there weakest.

all the DD's do about the same damage. BUT people only want 1 thing in the party.

i hate being a BLM and im not the only one thats number seven in my list of jobs i want to play. i had more success in /sh party with anything in it than a LS party with mumble @_@.

[Duelle]

I think they dont need gimp BLM/THM or BRD/ARC... would be better if they add monsters specialized against these jobs, just like Colibries were anti-blm on xi, reflecting their magic, or monsters with high defense against certain weapons like arrows, that way there dont be always an unstopable job. put monsters around resistant to certain job weapon/spells/abilities/ wathever mixed altogueter. in XI monsters had diferent defense bonus against ceretain kind of weapon damage, they need make that noticeable in XIV too.

Colibri were a terrible thing. What we need is bosses with mechanics that challenge casters and ranged without punishing melee. It can be as simple as something like Shadow Crash (ground-targetted high damage/one-shot-capable attack that prioritizes ranged DPS unless there's no ranged DPS in the group). If you want to single out BLM, then add a boss with a mechanic where MP doesn't regen, even when in passive mode, and instead have adds that have to be killed to restore some of the casters' MP (problem with this mechanic is that the healer would also fall under this). There's ways you can encourage diverse comps without the mess created by TAU.