Dear casters... about line break....

[Inferiae]

i dunno what kinda of casters your working with but i've always seen blm/smn out dps mch even without lb no offense...hell some will even pull aggro off us tanks if your not careful also it's limit break not line break

[Lollie]

Color me confused but why if you have no melee would you hold the lb for a boss fight when you can hit packs of trash 6+ with it multiplying the damage out?

[Maero]

Pretty sure it was tested even and shown that blm lb is stronger then that of mach/Bard. I know as i used to argue the opposite until some i guess... proved me wrong, lol
On the flipside if a melee is not using lb i sure as heck will

[Aiselia]

I know when to do it in order to get the boss within the quick-kill margin.

In five of six tome runs through Fractal Continuum, the caster let loose at 20-25%. No disaster, but we wasted time on one more wave of walkin' clocks than we had to.

Disregarding that caster LB is stronger than MCH/BRD, there is no magic quick-kill margin on the last boss of Fractal. Nothing about the boss is HP-based. It's time-based on a rotation. He doesn't take more damage when under a certain percentage of health, so he won't die any faster by holding the LB.

DPSing for 30 seconds, LBing, then DPSing for another 30 seconds is the same amount of time as DPSing for 45 seconds, LBing, then DPSing for 15 seconds.

You will never have to kill an extra wave of adds because someone LBed earlier.

The only argument for holding LB would be if you're not sure if you can kill the boss before adds even with LB, so you'd use the AOE of the LB to kill the adds at the same time as hitting the boss, which the caster one is arguably better suited for as they position the LB separate from themselves, while a BRD/MCH would need to stand on a platform that's already lighting up and carefully line themselves up to hit a maximum number of targets.

However, since you're a MCH, you actually would want the person to use the LB sooner than 20% HP if it's up to LB2 by then because the sooner it hits 20% HP, the sooner you can use Heartbreak, which would be a DPS increase for you, especially if it doesn't die within 30 seconds of hitting 20%.

[RiceisNice]

With great respect for your DPS and skills --

When there are no melee in the party -- I can do more damage to a single boss with LB than you can, mere machinist though I might be. So please... when the boss gets down to 20%, leave the LB to me. I know when to do it in order to get the boss within the quick-kill margin.

In five of six tome runs through Fractal Continuum, the caster let loose at 20-25%. No disaster, but we wasted time on one more wave of walkin' clocks than we had to.

It occurs to me that machinists are so rare these days that other classes have little familiarity with their capabilities. Too bad.

Ranged LB does less than caster LB as other people have said; It's still 10% across the board from what I see, but that only means that the numerical difference becomes more significant as it increases.

And you're typically better off killing the clocks linearly with a ranged LB anyway. If you're still struggling to kill the boss before the extra wave of clockworks with a caster LB, you're sure as hell not gonna kill it before the spawn with a ranged lb.

oGCD oriented nature of BRD/MCH (IE as long as a BRD/MCH doesn't lose many oGCDs for the whole fight, you can look at LBing as losing raw BRD/MCH DPS without CDs, if that makes any sense), a distinct difference in DPS regardless between BLM and BRD/MCH, and BLM loses the most DPS period from LB3ing, it being particularly bursty in how it does its damage, and even if you keep Enochian you have to spend time after it ramping up.

It's not the most common opinion for BRD/MCH to LB3 over a BLM but I'm a firm believer in it, now and for future progression.

The BRD/MCH would need to skill shot it without being able to see their telegraph. This already causes some downtime in trying to position for it, which may not be made up with overall dps if you factor in the lower damage (especially on the scale of LB3, where it's roughly a loss of 600 potency on each target if the value is 10%). Not to mention the width is incredibly small even for LB3 (if you even get that far anymore), you'd still need to do careful positioning to hit all the mobs in A2S. Not to mention a BLM shouldn't be using it when their enochian is active anyway (and considering that the fights are really scripted, it's something you can plan for, but it also means you can pre-aim the LB for things like landing phase or liquid gaol spawn)

[Arkenne]

Why?
I understand SMN being first choice because pet and DoTs keep hurting the boss while the player casts LB, but why are BRD and MCH both in front of BLM even though caster LB is stronger?

Enochian is a pain

[Atoli]

Enochian is a pain

I never use LB with Enochian up. What a waste. I time the LB with Enochian running out anyway.

[JackFross]

Pretty sure it was tested even and shown that blm lb is stronger then that of mach/Bard. I know as i used to argue the opposite until some i guess... proved me wrong, lol
On the flipside if a melee is not using lb i sure as heck will

This mentality really annoys me. So many casters I run with just assume I'm not going to LB because I refuse to break a combo to do so. People shout LB as I hit Heavy Thrust - you can be damned sure I'm gonna do another 5 GCDs before that LB drops - but it *WILL* drop. So so so many casters get antsy and prematurely shoot the load when you could have waited 10 seconds and I'd have dropped a Bladedance or Dragonsong Dive to do way more than yours did. I was in A3 today - LB3 was ~75% full, so I was waiting on that when one of the SMNs decided to just drop their LB at around 40% on the boss.

Casters need to stop doing things like this. Trust that your melee will use it. And if they don't, blame them if you wipe.

[OneWingedSora]

snip.

Its not something you can just "plan for" as sometimes it will screw with your rotation. For example, in the case of A3S, I start a new Enochian refresh after sluice/digi because there are no movement required that can potentially interrupt you during that part so it's perfect to pop all your buffs(RS+Pot+BV foes) at that point which also lets you get a boosted flare + convert on the limb + boss.

Not to mention, the animation lock for BRD/MCH LB3 is faster than a BLM.

Its all situational on the fight and your CDs timing.

[Whiteroom]

I thought ranged was about 2-3% less than caster. Not that it matters much in anything but raid/ex trials content. Also, Limit Break.