Do you think the devs intended multi-flare blm?

[Recaldy]

They were expecting fights using melee DPS but look what happened? >_>

[Moirear]

BLM dps is highly overrated. Parsing has skewed some people's perception of it further.

BLM AoE dps is arguably very high in the triple Flare rotation. But it's only really worth it as a multi-target technique. It's made way better as a BLM+BRD combination with the BRD putting up Foe Requiem first, letting the BLM triple Flare, then hitting all sorts of damage buffs, dropping FoeReq and then finishing them off. At least, this is how it is in most of the best speedruns I've been in.

BLM+BLM for instance is not nearly as effective. Towards the end of enemy health the rotation is not very good, Fire II spam works but is not as fast and effective as it were, and the Flare rotation takes too much time to warrant the overkill it produces.

Also, something I noticed is that some BLM seemingly don't understand the importance of Quelling Strikes. It seems like it was made cross-class-able for them simply for this reason. Normally a tank of equal ilvl has no problem holding hate against BLMs unless they proc and crit a lot, but it's really the multi-Flare rotation where the BLM generates ridiculous amounts of enmity on hordes, where Quelling Strikes suddenly makes a huge impact. BLMs in the endgame who don't obtain it and actually use it when needed are somewhere between "liability" and "irresponsible." Either way, it's in the toolset of BLMs, SMNs and BRDs for a reason, they create ridiculous enmity and this helps tanks manage it more easily while doing other things than just spamming Flash or Overpower just to desperately hold hate.

Finally, IMHO, there are huge drawbacks to BLM as a DPS job. First off, it's one of the worst single-target DPS jobs. BLM isn't as good as some people think in any situation where you have to kill a single, super-tough target. The other DPS are way better at this. Secondly, as soon as a fight is move-intensive (which is literally everything from T5 onward in Coil over Extreme Primal duties, i.e. all the difficult content) their dps drops significantly—BLM is a heavy turret type DPS.

[Gormogon]

Parsing has skewed some people's perception of it further.

First off, it's one of the worst single-target DPS jobs.

You were doing good into you went into that part of the subject.

What other job does a constant 1000-1200 damage then gets 2 procs than can crit for 1500-1800 without relying on buffs? What other job can pull off a single target AoE ability 3 times within 10 seconds that can hit its target and everything around it for 2500-3000 each time with just 1 buff?

That's the whole point of a burst design.

Black Mages aren't as bad as people make them out to be yet they do suffer the most when it comes to constant downtime since downtime is part of their rotation.

[Moirear]

What other job does a constant 1000-1200 damage then gets 2 procs than can crit for 1500-1800 without relying on buffs? What other job can pull off a single target AoE ability 3 times within 10 seconds that can hit its target and everything around it for 2500-3000 each time with just 1 buff?

That's the whole point of a burst design.

The amount of spell speed you sacrifice to get a higher crit rate (of not even 25%) on BLM lowers your dps slightly because of long casting times. It evens out to almost the same, either way you go. Throwing around numbers without context or timeframes to measure them by, then saying that if these attacks proc, and if they crit, they might just outburst other DPS jobs?

I don't understand your point. Are you trying to argue that BLM is the best DPS job? Because that would be a laughable sentiment.

[Akujin]

The amount of spell speed you sacrifice to get a higher crit rate (of not even 25%) on BLM lowers your dps slightly because of long casting times. Throwing around numbers without context or timeframes to measure them by, then saying that if these attacks proc, and if they crit, they might just outburst other DPS jobs?

I don't understand your point. Are you trying to argue that BLM is the best DPS job? Because that would be a laughable sentiment.

Please don't do that.

If you're going to mock one person's argument because they don't have a spreadsheet of parsed numbers between XX DPS versus XX BLM, don't assume his own argument is simply invalid, as neither of you are providing anything beyond opinion at this point.

While I'll lean with Gormogon to a point, it's all about the situation. BLMs do excel in Burst damage, as we're meant to. But if a situation is movement intensive, such as bomb lanes in Brayflox, yes it screws us up unless we just eat things and let the healer deal with it, or ignore us, whichever. A melee DPS should always stay upwards to the highest numbers in a single target fight, but there have been many instances when that's not the case with me either, in movement based fights as well. It does depend on crit and proc chance, but it's simply a chance.

It's also why that player requested a boost for all BLMs during the Tokyo event, because movement is out greatest issue currently.

Also, just to toss it in, depending on the type of content, such as Brayflox, I'll take a second BLM over any other DPS any day of the week. It was one of the things I specifically looked for during my own speedruns for my animus grind. Because whereas another DPS will require a third, or possibly even fourth flare to clear groups of mobs, a second blm 99% of the time ensured that we had everything dead by my second flare, theirs as well. So again, it's all about the situation.

[Moirear]

Please don't do that.

If you're going to mock one person's argument because they don't have a spreadsheet of parsed numbers between XX DPS versus XX BLM, don't assume his own argument is simply invalid, as neither of you are providing anything beyond opinion at this point.

...

Also, just to toss it in, depending on the type of content, such as Brayflox, I'll take a second BLM over any other DPS any day of the week. It was one of the things I specifically looked for during my own speedruns for my animus grind. Because whereas another DPS will require a third, or possibly even fourth flare to clear groups of mobs, a second blm 99% of the time ensured that we had everything dead by my second flare, theirs as well. So again, it's all about the situation.

Another redundantly belittling/condescending comment against someone else's opinion you open with there, much like "you were doing good until...", sir.

Speedruns with 2 BLM on BrayHM, IME, are slower than BLM+ any other dps because the bosses take longer. And the amount of time of BLM+BLM saved over BLM+BRD or BLM+DRG on AoEing the big pulls is usually ignorable by comparison. With BLM+BRD it's usually not enough time for another Flare, for with DRG there might be, but the speed at which the bosses die is better than the couple of seconds saved on the three big pulls each.

And I don't have spreadsheets to fall back on, but it's not just opinion. There are instance timers and buff timers like from Protect to measure the exact amount of minutes.

If you don't believe me, try it out.

[Akujin]

snipitty snip

Every single one of my SR's with Two BLMs has -ALWAYS- been faster than a BLM and any other DPS, always, no exception. You say 'That cant be true, bosses take longer' I say, get better at your job, because it's worked damn well for me hundreds of times.

And without substantial numbers, information and data to back up any of your claims, yes it is opinion. It may be correct, who's to say and you're certainly entitled to voice it however loudly you want, but without a direct comparison against, let's say, Gormogon vs whatever DPS you want, or Myself vs whoever you want, it's still an open opinion without anything to validate it against. If you want to compare data between someone random vs another random great, that's still not really doing anything to help that cause, because who's to say whats going on there. Maybe one messed up their own rotations, perhaps there was movement involved that prevents the DPS from staying in optimal position, or causes the BLM to slow down, etc.

Unless you can put two people against each other in a situation where they both start off at the same time, with the same constants, you truly cannot argue 'who's better', because there's variables going on that affect it.

Now, all of that said. In an all out match between let's say, a Monk and a Black Mage, against one mob, where both can remain in an optimal place/stance and just use their own combinations nonstop, it comes down again to chance. How often does the Monk get a crit versus the black mage's own TC/FS proc and crits. Then it can also come down to endurance. Mnk/Drg have Invigorate to give themselves back some TP, but BLMs are sitting on virtually infinite MP if they use their rotations and mp ticks properly.