Holy and Flare diminishing returns nerf

[Malevicton]

What about fire 4/blizzard 4, are they going to be AoE

Nope, single target. Our aoe rotation is pretty much the same, just significantly worse

[Ecks007]

Aww... my whm just got a little less awesome to play now. /sadface

Well, looks like I'm gonna just be focusing on Smn and Drk now with Whm being the third wheel for cures onry and weak aoe dmg. Gonna have to stick to my aeros and stones.

[Odett]

Yet another case of forcing their methods of fighting down our throats at the expense of relegating skills to the garbage heap. Flare still eats all of your MP, but now there's literally no incentive to cast it. White Mage has lost their only real reason to be casting Holy too, since it was already nerfed in damage a long while ago and we're not exactly known for our insane DPS.

If they don't want us using the damned things, then just remove them from the game. Don't nerf them to the point where it's meaningless to even bother. I'm looking at you, Blizzard II.

If you're at ~500mp and have Convert up, it's still more MP efficient and a single target DPS gain to Swiftcast a Flare

[Adire]

Yet another dent in my hype.

Makes me glad I don't main BLM anymore, but I'll miss the fun of actually having a powerful AoE.

[Odett]

Not worth it. Very stupid changes. I will just take a Dragoon instead. <3

At least I can say: "I told you so."

These changes, plus the experience changes are horrible, horrible game design choices. They are taking away what made the game.. "Fun" why have 2.5 GCDs when the spells are not even powerful?

Flare, should be taken off your hot-bar.

I wasn't aware that mindless Holy spam or Fire II Fire II Fire II Fire II Flare was what made the game fun.

PS. Don't play BLM if you can't figure out when to single target Flare. Thanks.

[Odett]

What about fire 4/blizzard 4, are they going to be AoE [?] I'm curious to see the ''new'' blm rotation.

Don't think they'll be AoE. New single target BLM rotation is looking like (roughly)

Ley Lines, Thunder 2, Fire 3, Enochian, Raging Strikes, Fire 4, Fire 4 (IDK how much MP this will take up), Fire 1, use Firestarters and weave in a Sharpcast after your Fire III during the downtime, keep doing that, Swiftcast Flare at 300-500 MP, Convert, Fire 1, Blizzard 3, refresh Enochian with Blizzard 4 as needed when it's about to fall off.

[Anty]

To be fair, flair really needed a nerf. Sure it was the only really fun spell for black mage but come on. It can be cast with barely any mana left and would still hit the same extreme ammount. That's just cheating.

looking at most blm ive seen they had a lot less dps then single target players.
If they dont get a nice boost in single target spells (which is yet to be seen) its really not worth playing anymore.
a mob moves. you get spell interrupted - other jobs dont have that problem
the casting times are there, and depending on the content, also have to be interrupted not to take dmg or die - yet again, other classes have close to zero or mostly instant abilites.

i don't see why there was need for a nerv.
the only reason - at least the way the content was designed in 2.x to play blm was mostly the AOE dmg (which i know was boring, but that was the mechanic, the single rotation alone was boring as hell, there was almost no rotation.
I Do hope blm get more love with the higher skills from 50-60 otherwise meh... really meh.

[Twilite]

looking at most blm ive seen they had a lot less dps then single target players.
If they dont get a nice boost in single target spells (which is yet to be seen) its really not worth playing anymore.
a mob moves. you get spell interrupted - other jobs dont have that problem
the casting times are there, and depending on the content, also have to be interrupted not to take dmg or die - yet again, other classes have close to zero or mostly instant abilites.

DPS isn't a primary concern for BLM, because it's a burst damage class. It is not a sustained damage class.

Interruption can be a problem, but not the majority of the time.

You're all painting a dark picture for a class that doesn't really have any issues..

[Edellis]

On reflection, the reason they probably went to nerfing these abilities is because the moment you are fighting 3 enemies at once, AoE becomes the hands down optimal strategy, and this is multiplied for each enemy after 3.



As you can see, with only 4 enemies Flare reaches an effective potency of 1050. In Expert runs this starts to get pretty ridiculous. 2 Black Mages are almost always the optimal team in dungeon runs. Combined with the fact they don't have to worry about TP depletion and Fire 2 is the only high-potency sustainable AoE in the game, and i believe on paper BLM definitely deserved this nerf. They likely nerfed these to make room for other classes during dungeon content.


I'm surprised these attacks lasted as long as they did anyway. I remember TERA had a system that actually divided AoE damage between targets hit, so that no matter how many were caught in the blast, you always did a set amount of total damage. At least XIV is keeping the minimum damage at 50%.


While other damage sources were kept in check, FFXIV let AoE damage run wild all through 2.0, and the entire dungeon endgame was built around this and there was really nothing they could do about it.


It was either nerf Flare/Holy, or make the enemies too difficult to mass pull. I think this was a fair change, way better idea than the latter. Even with this nerf, Black Mage is still the hands-down optimal class for AoE, and Flare is still the strongest AoE ability. It just isn't so much more optimal than anything the other classes could achieve anymore.

[Twilite]

I can count on one hand how many BLMs I've teamed up with...

I'm done with this thread. It's being blown out of proportion.