How's BLM looking?

[MagiusNecros]

Black Mage changes are solid honestly. Very little complaints. Then again it's Yoshida's main job class so of course everything looks good on it ofc.

[Kryzen]

Black Mage changes are solid honestly. Very little complaints. Then again it's Yoshida's main job class so of course everything looks good on it ofc.

Ya, and its making my decision between RDM and BLM very hard

[Zoloe]

Either something is wrong or I'm just confused about how BLM works now. One of my characters is only 44 BLM, and Blizzard III is a lvl 40 skill, but it's greyed out like I can't use it on the skills list. Also, when I try to use it, because it's still on my hotbar, it says I haven't learned it yet. What's the deal? Any idea?

[XiXiQ]

Black Mage changes are solid honestly. Very little complaints. Then again it's Yoshida's main job class so of course everything looks good on it ofc.

BLM was dreadful in HW - not because of the rotations, because of the mechanics it was commonly presented with - it's long overdue for fixing.

[MagiusNecros]

BLM was dreadful in HW - not because of the rotations, because of the mechanics it was commonly presented with - it's long overdue for fixing.

*BLM was dreadful in HW because of things not related to the job class*

K.

If anything the only issue was Ley Lines being too small and it still is.

[XiXiQ]

*BLM was dreadful in HW because of things not related to the job class*

The classes need to work with the mechanics. BLM never did in HW. Thankfully that entire debate is moot now.

[Shayuki]

In case you still doubt Black Mage's ST damage, here'd be an Astral Fire rotation assuming Umbral Hearts and cooldowns, assuming 2.4s GCD:

00.00 176.4 Fire III(Triple)
02.40 491.4 Fire IV(Ley Lines, Lucid Dreaming)
04.80 491.4 Fire IV
06.84 491.4 Fire IV(Sharpcast)
08.88 340.2 Fire I
10.92 491.4 Fire IV
13.36 491.4 Fire IV
15.80 491.4 Fire IV
18.24 491.4 Fire IV
20.68 453.6 Firestarter(Swiftcast
22.72 491.4 Fire IV(Convert)
24.76 491.4 Fire IV
27.20 491.4 Fire IV (End Fire rotation but let's continue until...)
29.64 176.4 Blizzard III
31.68 682.5 Foul(... This)
33.72 -

That's 6743.1 potency in 33.72 seconds assuming 2.40 GCD, or 199.97 potency / second. That'd be, what, 70% more than Red Mage's non-melee rotation?

So how much does this amazing melee burst by Red Mage then do?

- Corps-a-corps 130
00.00 210 Riposte(Embolden)
01.50 348+504 Zwechhau(Fleche)
03.00 564+156 Redoublement(Displacement)
05.20 638+348 Verholy(Contre Sixte)
07.60 302.4 Verstone
10.00 -

From this point on, you still have about 10.75 seconds of Embolden left, at an average power of about +7.5% over its duration. So let's add that to Red Mage's non-melee rotation's average expected pps, and we get +94.484 potency.

In total, this 10 second Red Mage burst sequence therefore managed to deal 3070.4 potency worth of damage, or 307.04 per second. But as it lasts for only 10 seconds, and considering how mediocre Red Mage's sustained PPS is while building up mana(Clearly worse than even Black Mage's Umbral Ice sequence), it's really not going to be even close to Black Mage in single target damage without some major changes to what we currently know. Especially as we consider that Black Mage's Astral Fire sequences will be far more common than Red Mage's melee sequences. In fact, for Black Mage, the Astral Fire burst is pretty much the default scenario and Umbral Ice only happens for a short period of time whereas for Red Mage the melee sequence is a very rare moment of burst and without Embolden, Red Mage has to wait for far longer to perform one melee sequence than it takes for Black Mage to perform a full astral / umbral rotation.

Ok... supposing... and only supposing... I assume you are correct...

And the Red Mage won't hold a candle to BLM... and with the Summoner Nerfs there's obviously no way in hell he can even approach it at this point post Nerf...

You do realize it means BLM is looking at a large nerf in the future correct?

I'm pretty sure the Red Mage is capable of coming out on top. But of course we'll see. And you better hope he can...

Still I don't think you're correct... there is no way in hell a zero cast time on their second spell is NOT going to affect anything.

Well, what is there to suppose? I just use the current information we have available. It's not like I'm making it up out of thin air. The information is there.

What you could suppose is whether or not they will buff Red Mage before release, I guess. But my money's on BLM being the strongest caster, and it's not close at all. Only raid utility or major balance changes before release could change this in my eyes.

[Silverquick]

Well, what is there to suppose? I just use the current information we have available. It's not like I'm making it up out of thin air. The information is there.

What you could suppose is whether or not they will buff Red Mage before release, I guess. But my money's on BLM being the strongest caster, and it's not close at all. Only raid utility or major balance changes before release could change this in my eyes.

Well we'll see.

Obviously none of us know at this point. And I never doubted BLM single target damage... as you can see from my first post...

But I do think RDM will be able to come out on top.

You are right though, we won't know for sure until the expansion comes out and we can see how it actually plays first hand.

[Vallhallix]

RDM may not be as strong as BLM, but she sure is cooler.

[Cynfael]

RDM may not be as strong as BLM, but she sure is cooler.

Even if release numbers for RDM truly aren't that competitive with those of BLM, I suppose it's possible that RDM might see some love as a raid progression helper since they can rez and fluff downed healers.

I suspect that BLM will be deliberately positioned to have a higher damage ceiling since RDM inherently has more mobility with constant Dual Cast procs, likely making it more forgiving to play. I suppose it also depends on how challenging SE deems its Black and White mana balancing act to be (emphasis on how difficult SE thinks it is, not necessarily on how difficult it actually is).