BLM vs. SMN

[Lamia-Blackheart]

ive clearead a1s and a2s as both smn and blm and ive spent plenty of time in a3s as both

for a1s, blm can have a smoother adds mechanic since they can kill their adds before resin bombs are even cast and return to dps'ing the boss

we run two casters so i prefer to have one of each. i've switched from smn to blm but if we only ran one caster i would prefer to have a summoner on the team.

that being said, i believe that blm has a higher dps ceiling.

[Kiara]

Smn would be aoe king with decent sustain damage

Smn sustain in a raid environment is generally easier to keep up and can at times surpass blm due to double dotting.

SMN has the AoE advantage (best in game)

Hi All / Dev Team,

What Psyco and Sleigh are saying...

3.0 launched, and Yoshi P made such a *major* change to Black Mage (from AOE King to "Not So Good AOE"), and it seems like there hasn't been much chatter about it from the community.

Back in the 2.0 era, Yoshi P even said that the Black Mage AOE strength was one of the reasons why it was balanced the way it was (that its AOE was a key characteristic of BLM), yet now in 3.0, he just makes Summoner the AOE King?

Seems like a bad tradeoff.

[Sleigh]

Hi All / Dev Team,

What Psyco and Sleigh are saying...

3.0 launched, and Yoshi P made such a *major* change to Black Mage (from AOE King to "Not So Good AOE"), and it seems like there hasn't been much chatter about it from the community.

Back in the 2.0 era, Yoshi P even said that the Black Mage AOE strength was one of the reasons why it was balanced the way it was (that its AOE was a key characteristic of BLM), yet now in 3.0, he just makes Summoner the AOE King?

Seems like a bad tradeoff.

Okay, this is actually a pretty big deal for caster balance in the past. Rant incoming.

Ever since they buffed melee in 2.1 (and even further as we went along in varying patches), the caster role has been about good ST but more importantly, being ranged and having tremendous AoE and multi-DoT opportunities. You could pretty much look at caster in a specific fight and you could say, T10 adds are why you bring a caster. T9 golems and wyvern are why you bring a SMN. T6, the bees and slugs are why you bring a caster. Etc. It was always about having some AoE involved in their DPS, or some other magically inclined reason to bring caster, otherwise you'd stack melee.

Flash foward to 3.0. Suddenly, BLM's DPS is MNK level. Makes sense TBH, it's a low utility nuke class, all it's good for is shooting fireballs for the most part. It is probably the highest in the game when Foe's is involved, at least when it gets to stand still. Okay, well that solves the "AoE must be relevant or don't bring a caster" dilemma from a balance standpoint, but then you have to have that give and take with the AoE - it wouldn't make sense for BLM AoE to be near top tier with that much single target DPS, so they canned it. I agree with that decision at this point in time; I definitely didn't understand it as I was leveling BLM and then leveling SMN, but now that I'm at endgame I get it.

Where does this leave SMN?

Well, it shouldn't beat BLM in single target. I mean, DoT classes, sure, they traditionally are higher sustained DPS to make up for their damage type which is an inherent weakness on a single target, but BLM has a lot of weaknesses to sustain that turret it can bring. So, they can't really make SMN compete head to head with BLM, it'd unbalance it pretty well all considering - that's why SMN has every other advantage. Multi-DoTs, AoE, utility, consistency, it's all there, because in a game like FFXIV, ST damage (or more accurately, your contribution to a raid's ST DPS) is king, the most important thing, why the best comp has 2 melee 1 ranged 1 caster almost every time. You don't mess around with ST damage, and one of the two casters is gonna have that advantage. So basically, they had to give SMN this amazing, easily used, cheap AoE to keep it relevant in raids, unless they chose to bring BLM DPS in line with SMN (not good!). Look at Pepsiman Savage ... if you could not multi-DoT and AoE for about 2 minutes of the fight minus the useless add phase, very nicely I might add, you flat out would never take a SMN over a BLM from an efficiency standpoint. Every turn so far is like this, they're throwing SMN a bone with A1, A2, and A3, and it's the thing that's keeping SMN competitive. A2 it might be a little over the top, but still, it's good balance in my book.

tl;dr - the shift to SMN AoE dominance is genius in my book, because it's a good way to keep a lower damage class type competitive vs its higher damage brother in all content. It lets them make BLM any vision they want, since it was locked in a mid-level damage turret with great AoE before and as long as that AoE was there, nothing could be changed.

[Kiara]

Ever since they buffed melee in 2.1 (and even further as we went along in varying patches), the caster role has been about good ST but more importantly, being ranged and having tremendous AoE and multi-DoT opportunities. You could pretty much look at caster in a specific fight and you could say, T10 adds are why you bring a caster. T9 golems and wyvern are why you bring a SMN. T6, the bees and slugs are why you bring a caster. Etc. It was always about having some AoE involved in their DPS, or some other magically inclined reason to bring caster, otherwise you'd stack melee.

Flash foward to 3.0. Suddenly, BLM's DPS is MNK level. Makes sense TBH, it's a low utility nuke class, all it's good for is shooting fireballs for the most part. It is probably the highest in the game when Foe's is involved, at least when it gets to stand still. Okay, well that solves the "AoE must be relevant or don't bring a caster" dilemma from a balance standpoint, but then you have to have that give and take with the AoE - it wouldn't make sense for BLM AoE to be near top tier with that much single target DPS, so they canned it. I agree with that decision at this point in time; I definitely didn't understand it as I was leveling BLM and then leveling SMN, but now that I'm at endgame I get it.

Thanks Sleigh. Great post. Thanks for the thoughts on SMN vs. BLM especially in Savage.

Your thoughts on how it was in 2.0 was why I was confused up till now, wondering why BLM lost its AOE King edge in 3.0. But your post clarifies that. Thanks.

I hope BLM remains stronger Single Target then.

[Vateri]

Flash foward to 3.0. Suddenly, BLM's DPS is MNK level. Makes sense TBH, it's a low utility nuke class, all it's good for is shooting fireballs for the most part.

That'll change soon, MNK getting buffs so Caster will be back to it's 2.1-onwards role. :/

[Bklyn718]

I have both BLM and SMN at lvl 60 i184 and I prefer playing as BLM even though people have so many negative things to say about this class. Both classes are good but I feel like my BLM is more fun to play. I know people complain about the Enochian and Astral Fire timers but I rarely have a hard time keeping them up you just have to know the fight. BLM is just not as simple as it was before 3.0 and requires more skill to play effectively.

[Sunako]

These are only things that matter imo.

BLM
- Do not need "build" their damage as much as smn and good for killing small hp targets
- Better singletarget dps

SMN
- Do not lose dps that much as blm while moving or while in cc or limit break
- Better aoe dps

[Snolily]

I don't think either class is good, and i guess if you didn't play ffxi you wouldn't understand but... Summons in FFXI WERE WAAAAY BETTER AND BIGGER LOL. And blm forget about it... Blm was the bomb, blm burns and the dmg one spell could do was thousands, I think they fucked up on both classes, dots for summoner? Only fire does damage and blizzard gains mp and thunder does a dot LOL!!!! What happened to those classes? Personally {and i know most ppl in this game dont agree and i think thats weird} but i dont think these classes are even worth my time.... Whats exciting about small summons? In FFXI AND FFXV summons are huge. And blm they ruined compared to XI. You could practically solo On blm on XI but i guess that's why they made pussy blm in this game so nobody could solo. In FFXI i had every job to lvl 99 and i guess my favorite job out of them all was summoner but in this game i honestly dont have a favorite and what really pissed me off is when i lvled sch to 50 it said i already had summoner to lvl 50 and i didnt know anything about that job, whats up with that?

[AriaEnia]

You could practically solo On blm on XI but i guess that's why they made pussy blm in this game so nobody could solo.

BLM has infinite MP and huge damage burst, they can also pretty much solo many contents, you don't even have lv 50+ BLM...

I already had summoner to lvl 50 and i didnt know anything about that job, whats up with that?

Because SMN is from ARC.
You haven't even played a SMN, how did you even know the SMN is bad...

[scarebearz]

BLM has infinite MP and huge damage burst, they can also pretty much solo many contents, you don't even have lv 50+ BLM...


Because SMN is from ARC.
You haven't even played a SMN, how did you even know the SMN is bad...

Since when could BLM (or any other class) solo any content worth doing?