How is BLM in new expansion?

[randysquirrel]

I guess we just disagree. You think Enochian is too hard to keep up, I think we should actually wait to see how much movement is needed in Alex before whining

[HaroldSaxon]

I guess we just disagree. You think Enochian is too hard to keep up, I think we should actually wait to see how much movement is needed in Alex before whining

Read what I posted. Its too hard to keep it up with an optimal dps rotation in combination with everything. With the low astral fire timer. With the reducing buff timer. With movement. It also prevents the use of thunder, and there are also issues with the Spellspeed nerf, with the Fey Glow nerf and the fact that we are using 3 second casts now instead of 2.5 seconds.

Alex isn't going to be a 0 mechanic training dummy fest. The only one that has come close to one is T8 and even then there are mechanics to do which involved; you guessed it, movement!

Its not whining, its using facts and experience to come up with a justified conclusion, rather than, for lack of a better expression, putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "lalala i'm not listening".

[Xenitan]

I find all of this a bit premature to be honest.

Nah there's already stuff that's annoying. Like that ~0.6 seconds from a cast finishing to you getting the Astral/Umbral buff. There's no excuse not to fix that now that it's a big deal.

It's not that BLMs are less powerful (though they're probably more difficult to play now than most classes) it's that those little things seem much much bigger when you're playing as tight as BLMs need to be. They're hypersensitive to things most classes can shrug off and get punished far harder than those same classes.

Have we heard a good reason that there's not enough mana to fit 5 fires into a rotation now?

Yeah, there's a lot of speculation and shitflinging and whatnot but no matter what happens in Alex, that delay between cast and buff is going to be there. The class would be much better if the buffs worked exactly like they sounded instead of those little things there just to annoy you.

[Dajinn]

i love the argument "hurr less than 2 weeks since launch and look at all the whining". one of the expansion's first major raid is about to launch and this game hasn't been beta tested by the players at all since it was announced 8 months ago. when, exactly, do you think the complaining is warranted?

[Aikaal]

i love the argument "hurr less than 2 weeks since launch and look at all the whining". one of the expansion's first major raid is about to launch and this game hasn't been beta tested by the players at all since it was announced 8 months ago. when, exactly, do you think the complaining is warranted?

There was actual tests. I'm pretty confident jobs were tested on a dummy. "SMN and BLM dps are alike, job done." Reality doesn't reflect that lol.

[Elix_Moarbase]

I think BLM players, generally, need to get over the idea that it's okay to for us to be ineffective on movement fights. Frankly, balance is when the fight doesn't matter and you can still compete. But, let's be honest here: If Alex is anything like Never or Bismark, BLM is going to have a rough time. Speaking of which, our having a spot to abuse on Bismark, doesn't mean we're good at Bismark. It just means there is the possibility for an oversight, and it's definitely illustrates how fight/design dependent we are (which, once again, isn't balance).


Black mage just isn't as fun as it could be, right now. Will it get better? I doubt it; you can tell that SE really likes their gimmicks this time around (couple that with these white knights).

[ekental]

I have a BLM & SMN @ 60. The flexibility of SMN far outweighs the minor DPS advantage of BLM.

The issue can be boiled down to:

• BLM is high risk, high reward (Enochian loss-> 30 sec penalty at worst and a huge DPS loss)
• SMN is low risk, high reward (worst case you recast 1 dot)

A BLM needs to know any fight really well to maximize their DPS, and their entire group has to plan around them being a giant turret for long periods of time.

A SMN doesn't require that level of knowledge. They can wing the fight and still pump out most of their DPS. Additionally they can do most of it while moving, and Res.

A BLM gets to edge out a SMN in DPS only in the best case scenario where they can turret the entire fight. The DPS increase itself is noticeable, but not large enough to compensate for the requirements it needs.

It doesn't take months of testing in raids to see the glaring disadvantages inherent in BLM. Hoping that SE will plan content to cater to BLM's movement issues doesn't address these issues.

[Aikaal]

• BLM is high risk, high reward (Enochian loss-> 30 sec penalty at worst and a huge DPS loss)
• SMN is low risk, high reward (worst case you recast 1 dot)

So, I'm working on my things and I'm really starting to wonder if SMN really have that huge advantage. I do give they lose less damage in progression but SMN is no exception of progression. While I do agree there are things that probably people didn't take account that I did when I was leveling my SMN. Having to move while you cast a Miasma, Bio II or Shadow is annoying. You lose your cast and you lose DoT uptime. This usually go up to 3 to 6 seconds per DoT. Add that you've lost a GCD to cast a Ruin or Ruin II that's another 80 potency lost so it is about a 115 Potency lost everytime you have to move and lose a cast for Summoner.

I would also assume (I haven't work on SMN yet) that you won't Fester if you don't have your your 3 DoTs up so you could lose Dreadwyrm Trance uptime here. While Tri-Disaster looks great, you'll most-likely clip some DoTs as they won't end at the same time. This cooldown is best used during Dreadwyrm Trance to get extra Ruin III and buffed DoTs.

Well, I was one of the first to say that BLM has the obvious disadvantage and it's easy to see it as our spam ability is 504 Potency and if we lose Enochian we spam 324/468 Potency spells. Not to mention Thunderclouds are more viable without Enochian up.

I have the trust of my group to go as BLM so I'll go there and see for myself for Alex Savage. Melees are also affected by progression has they miss more positionals on clouded territories. If someone truly wish to point a job's supremacy, there's always been one and only one method : maths. Maths do not lie. Maths can be verified. Words can be twisted.

I also went back to Lalafell, my madness ended as Lalafells are the master race of BLM. I've done some work and I feel that with base 23 Piety in certain scenarios, Lalas end (with Piety buff) with 713 MP after a B3 which is enough to cast T1 over B1 which is still 60 extra potency and more buffed by Spell Speed than B1.

I'll have more time and I am currently building on rotations so bare with me on that.

There is one thing that is the absolute truth in progression. If you run WHM + AST. SMN is required for Super Virus.

[Sleigh]

There is one thing that is the absolute truth in progression. If you run WHM + AST. SMN is required for Super Virus.

I actually don't think that's true with Disable around (10% damage down on one attack, 60s recast, works on one attack). The way I look at it, if you can survive without Disable but with Supervirus, you can usually survive with Disable and without Supervirus. Both would be very handy to have but as of right now I wouldn't necessarily let it alter your comp choice, as, aside from a purely magical enemy here or there, or Akh Morns, one attack is all that's been needed to get debuffed in the past.

Also I think people might be a little in love with BLM right now (me included I admit) due to its supremacy in Ravana, a fight where you can 99% of the time stay in place in good kill groups. I think once some real mechanics, stuff where the entire team must participate with relative frequency and urgency, come about, I think people in progressive groups might become slightly disenchanted with BLM, at least for a time. Personally I'm just trying to up my skills with both for now and will roll from there on Tuesday.

[ekental]

115 Potency lost everytime you have to move and lose a cast for Summoner.

It's comparative.

First. SMN is more mobile because all of BLM's spells that matter have cast times and some of SMN ones do not, also Ruin II.

You've summed the opportunity cost & the potency cost of the spell you're casting, which makes no sense.
You only lose the potency of that spell cast at worst. Additionally you can immediately Ruin II to mitigate the issue.

On BLM, where if you can't stutter step it you scathe, which is an opportunity cost of Fire IV. That's a big loss. Compared to a SMN, which was at worst 3 sec off a DoT.

You already know the potency of every spell and you can math out what you lose if you move. Plenty of people have already done so. Hai Hai did some good work on it AFAIK.

BLM and SMN aren't that far off in DPS on a dummy. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see SMN pull ahead if there's reasonable movement in the new raid.