Is BLM truly simple?

[SeraviEdalborez]

Not to mention SMN can do a lot of this damage while moving, BLM has to manage when they move a lot more to maintain that dps.

Good BLMs don't have problems with movement. It's not as big of a deal as people make it out to be.

SMN has to work a lot harder to get the same or slightly less DPS than BLM on most turns, and on T8 SMN has to deal with a limited resource (MP) where BLM does not.

[TheTen]

Folks, folks. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

I'm not asking if I can top DPS charts in endgame fights without work. I'm just asking if BLM is the right DPS class for someone who gets easily overwhelmed by too many skills/too much micromanagement. I don't really want to be top DPS. I just want to not be useless.

(So far, the most helpful answer has been that BRD would be better for my needs, though I heard they have a lot of DOTs to manage at 50?)

[DxWings]

Folks, folks. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

I'm not asking if I can top DPS charts in endgame fights without work. I'm just asking if BLM is the right DPS class for someone who gets easily overwhelmed by too many skills/too much micromanagement. I don't really want to be top DPS. I just want to not be useless.

(So far, the most helpful answer has been that BRD would be better for my needs, though I heard they have a lot of DOTs to manage at 50?)

I know nothing of BLM so I won't speak of that class, as everyone else seems to have already beaten it to death.
Now let's answer this question of whether BRD would be better for you or not. Seeing as you already played DRG, if you can manage DRG's DoTs and Buffs/Debuffs fairly well, then BRD won't be any harder.
Compared to DRG, BRD has no positionals, the DoTs has a moderately long timer (16-18 secs I believe). BRD only has two DoTs and one buff you need to manage, thats a fairly small number.
Windbite and Venomous Bite are the two DoTs, and you have Straight Shot as your buff.
You have a load of oGCD skills in your arsenal so you will weave those in to your rotation as you see fit. BRD has a ton of offensive cooldowns from cross classes, You have Internal Release(MNK), Blood for Blood (DRG), Raging Strikes (BRD), Hawk's Eye (BRD), Barrage (BRD).
Your DoTs are affected by your buffs so you'd probably want to pop all of these at the beginning of any fight, and DoT immediately after. After that, pop them as necessary.
BRD is priority-based class, so here's the run down.
Straight Shot Active? Yes, then DoT, if not refresh Straight Shot.
Windbite still active? Yes, then move on to Venomous Bite, if not renew it.
Venomous Bite Still active? Yes, then move on to Heavy Shot, if not renew it.
All of the above conditions met? Spam Heavy Shot.
Straighter Shot proc?
Do DoTs need renewing? If not, use the Straighter Shot Proc.
and repeat as necessary.
Last, but not least, you have BRD's song. These are situational and you have to kind of learn when to use them. Foe's Requiem when you have casters in the team. Mage's Ballad when your healer need MP. Army's Paeon when your Melees need TP.
If there's a burn phase in the fight, save your MP til that phase and pop Foe's Requiem for your caster. If no burn phase, then pop whatever is necessary for the situation.
And that's your BRD in a nutshell.

[ExiaQuanta]

Folks, folks. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

I'm not asking if I can top DPS charts in endgame fights without work. I'm just asking if BLM is the right DPS class for someone who gets easily overwhelmed by too many skills/too much micromanagement. I don't really want to be top DPS. I just want to not be useless.

(So far, the most helpful answer has been that BRD would be better for my needs, though I heard they have a lot of DOTs to manage at 50?)

Ill choose to answer this since the other classes have been severely discussed o3o

I would recommend BRD as a class/job cant get any more simpler than BRD.

BRDs Don't have that many DoTs to manage. They have Venomous and Windbite. They also have an additional 3rd DoT which is flaming arrow (funny how many BRDs disregard this skill) which is an AoE 30 second ground targeting dot.

DxWings did a pretty good job on priorities for BRDs

A rotation could be as simple as Buffs > STraight shot > Flaming Arrow> Windbite > bloodletter> Venomous>Repelling shot/Blunt Arrow > Heavy shot > Repelling shot / blunt arrow > Heavy shot spam.

Throw in your free resets of Bloodletter or free crit procs of Straight shot. Reapply dots or Straight shot buff whenever done. Flaming arrow is refreshed, than use it again.

You only need to use Straight shot whenever your buff from it is gone, or you have a free proc (ran into a bunch of bards that straight shot onry)

[Urielparadox]

You Know Many Times I've gone into endgame fights on drg or smn and slept through the whole thing and topped dps? All the time. Why? Because all you have to do is your rotation. You can read the countless threads if on t8 you blm is doing more then your smn then your a bad smn, it has nothing to do wit blm being strong. 80% of the time I get df with another blm, I decimate their dps, why? Because they don't know how to move, to me and others blm is easy because we know how to move, majority of players get on blm, have no idea how to move, how to choose which spell to fit which situation and they are awful. Same goes with any job in this game. Drg, brd, and smn are stupid easy as you rarely ever deviate from what youdo

[Aikaal]

Haha. BLM rotation is easy but the real question is : Why so many players failed to play BLM? This is the same reason why some players fail as PLD. It's easy to spam 1-2-3 right?

You'll notice the good BLMs versus the terrible ones in Titan EX and T9. If they cancel a spell each 10 second, they are not good.

[StouterTaru]

Haha. BLM rotation is easy but the real question is : Why so many players failed to play BLM? This is the same reason why some players fail as PLD. It's easy to spam 1-2-3 right?

You'll notice the good BLMs versus the terrible ones in Titan EX and T9. If they cancel a spell each 10 second, they are not good.

Dodging static mechanics is 90% knowing the fight, and 10% reacting to it.

[Synestr]

OP. Play BLM to see for sure but if your looking to just play something without to much other things going on to get flustered with or micromanagement, go for it.

ThunderII > Highest fire spell, Firespam till it won't cast anymore, transpose or highest ice spell to get mana back. Repeat. You won't be topping the charts but you will do DMG and might be more comfortable. Use any procs of thundercloud or firestarter you get. Who know's once you get comfortable with that you might start to make adjustments, and use things differently. You might be able to do things more often and learn them and when things are going to happen so you can be proactive about them.


(this is just written as a suggestion, taking out any and all factors we BLM's face during the course of a fight that encourage us to calculate whether we move or not, cast TII instead of scathe, blizzII, penta flare...etc.)

Enjoy your game!

[BobbinT]

I main BLM since 1.0, and sorta main BRD in ARR (only because I want Gridania to be my home, but won't allow class not belonged to Grid).

Both job are amongst easy one to play compared with others, but I still favor BLM because of the simplicity. Back in 1.0, BLM spell can be combo-ed just like other dps job, but this was removed in ARR and got it even easier.

One other thing I like because of it's minimize movement required, although I still miss the cast-while-moving we once have in 1.0. All you need is to familiarize your spell speed. Certain chain of casting can trigger a spell to be casted faster. One of my favourite is Bliz 3 then Thunder 3, spell casted after this will always benefit one time enhanced spell speed.

One of important spell BLM have is Sleep. On level 36, you will get enhanced trait that lets you do AOE-base sleep. Lethargy's also important for cases like coil turn 5 where you need to slow the add in last half of fight since it can one hit kill.

Mitigation spell like Apocatastasis, Manawall, & Manaward also very useful, but I personally didn't use them very often except for very heavy content based like second coil of Bahamut. BLM strength is in managing their spell while only moving as necessary as you need. I don't even need these on Titan extreme, once you master the fight. lol

Another thing that you need to familiarize with to help ease your survivability is what I call time-proccing. When you're casting, you can start moving when the cast are like 0.5 second from finished. Very useful for fights that requires to dodge alot like Titan. You can even start another cast even before previous cast finished by knowing when to time-proc this.

Overall, BLM is among those relaxed job to play for general content especially like dungeon raiding, but not to be underestimated. If you want, you can max out your DPS capability once you calculate your casting very efficiently. Each successive casting of one element will raise the spell damage until opposite umbral trait resets it.

Oh... and did I forgot to mention that BLM has virtually infinite MP? Just play your Umbral Ice trait right, and you're set! XD

[Nutz]

BLM is a pretty easy class to get used to and do moderately well with. You use a fairly low number of skills regularly and essentially can't run out of mp (though a major screw up could leave you unable to attack for up to 10 seconds). Like others have said, it's a class that can be played in a very simple manner to get by and scales up a lot based on skill and experience. The 'rotation' is simple, the DPS gains are mostly from knowing when to break out of the rotation to do something slightly different, as well as knowing when you'll need to move, doing it pre-emptively (when possible), or negating the attack with manawall/ward.