Why is BLM getting a buff?

[Seiryuukishi]

Even if Yoshida and the development team had a certain play style in mind for each class/job, you can never compensate up front for the innate human ability to change something to suit its needs. Therefore adapt or die. I am certain triple even quad flares were never intended but hey someone figured out how to squeeze out every last ounce of dps a Black Mage could muster from the skill. Does that mean they are a bad player? No. They are inventive. Most likely they found themselves in a situation that called for it and thought hey I can do it this way and get better results! Necessity is the mother of invention.

[DistraughtKoala]

Ifrit? What? Lol.

[Mitsukai123]

They could be implying that the player-base could be, well, playing in a manner that they [the developers] hadn't thought of. It happens in MMOs quite frequently.

Right. This happened to an entire class in FFXI with Ninjas. When they were originally implemented, Ninjas were supposed to be a kind psuedo-puller/DPS with an excellent ability to avoid damage. Players took hold of the idea of being good at avoiding damage, and turned it into a tank by throwing throwing Warrior onto it as a subjob. Square Enix saw this, and instead of nerfing/buffing it for what they had originally implemented the job for, they went with what the playerbase was using it as and started giving it tanking abilities and gear with added enmity generation in future patches.

[Zumi]

BLM has the lowest single target DPS in fights that have a lot of movement which is why they are buffing it. Most hard core groups doing 2nd coil have their BLM go SMN for increased DPS.

[Bluevann]

Why aren't you questioning why are the other jobs getting a buff as well?

BLM is not just about AoE, it's a very situational DPS job. I very welcome a buff for single-target spells, I prefer my single target rotation over AoEing damage and am looking forward to get a buff to use it even more often.

[Gardes]

BLM has the lowest single target DPS in fights that have a lot of movement which is why they are buffing it. Most hard core groups doing 2nd coil have their BLM go SMN for increased DPS.

I can vouch for this. I got into coil only 2 weeks ago because I was a mere stand-in (that became permanent) and I wasn't saving soldiery for black mage (It was my coil class pre 2.2). They let me slide on T6 as long as we win, T7 isn't a harsh dps check, T8 they gave me the least duties (only 3 towers). T8 is probably the only turn where I get to not be so far behind the rest (i95 weapon vs 3 i110 weapons). We're in T9 2nd phase now and they're trying to turn me into summoner because they want less than 5 meteors before the golems, at least until blm buffs and we dont even know what the buffs are.

They're not pushing me too hard about it and I'm not entirely against it but 1300 tomes for a weapon is a lot and spending it on a class that I dont care for is something I've been arguing against (if i'm gonna change jobs for a dps boost, I need to catch up in weapon damage too).

[waldo]

I can't speak to other DPS jobs, but as far as black Mage goes... I don't know, sure crit involves some luck, you can maximize chances with gear, but thundercloud and firestarter, luck involved too much, could make a Mage great or worthless in some fights.

I say this just because, I'm not sure it's fair to stick the tag 'play the job right, dps is fine' on it. As it is now, just a little luck and can spam 6 thundercloud in a row and double the dps of others, or you could get none. You could go an whole turn in coil without a firestarter.

[Alistaire]

I think melee are afraid to lose out to "blm onry" please.

BLM seriously lacks in single target dps when compared to everyone else. Yes, their AOE is superior, but how often in boss fights is AoE the make or break? Not very many. (T5 it helps, but it's not necessary for example) There's nothing wrong with giving blm's more damage single target. If anything this has been a long time coming.

They did say it's not just BLM they're adjusting.

[Lucke]

BLM can help groups plow through trash very quickly. That's an advantage for having a BLM in the party. They're dmg is lower vs bosses (I guess because they have to move from AoEs instead of timing their spells right) which puts them at a disadvantage. I dunno, seems balanced to me. You can take a MNK instead of a BLM. MNKs might make the party move slower through trash because there are no AoEs, but they make up for that disadvantage at the bosses because that's where they shine. No job should shine at EVERY POSSIBLE situation.

BLM speeds the party through trash, but has slower boss kills.
Single target jobs suffer from slow trash kills but wreck bosses.

What's not balanced?

[Alistaire]

Here's the thing about that though; blms that know the timing of the fights still have good single-target damage.

So those players will become phenomenal with these changes.

Yay for bad players complaining on these forums!