BLM needs some love and RDM needs a nerf

[Shiroe]

It seems like Square Enix disagrees. BLM has the second highest damage potential in the game and is expected to output numbers comparable to SAM

On a dummy, a blm could possibly even out dps a sam, if it is in melee range (auto attacks), and has over the whole parse time "a bit proc luck"..., I felt too, that blm are maybe OP for that reason

BUT (!) in real fights, seems as if blm are (during most of bosses) lower than even brds and ofc rdms dps.., cause of "movement and punishment".., besides blm almost dont get buffed (at least rdm gets buffed a bit more)

with zero utility and often lowest or close to lowest caster dps in fights (other than Lakshmi maybe), blm have a hard time getting in pfs or statics.., something aint right
(should be: no utility = high dps on fights, .. not only on dummies, just like Sam....., besides Sam gets so many buffs too)

[Clarkamite]

BUT (!) in real fights, seems as if blm are (during most of bosses) lower than even brds and ofc rdms dps.., cause of "movement and punishment".., besides blm almost dont get buffed (at least rdm gets buffed a bit more)

)

Definitely not the truth. Perhaps it is true in your experiences but I would challenge that any BLM who has a good understanding of his/her gameplay will never be suffering to the point of being lower than Bards. The day a Bard beats me in DPS is a day that I spent most of the fight dead. BLM is in a pretty solid spot right now. To say they are absolutely getting crushed? Not accurate.

EDIT: Let me give this tidbit just to be fair. My understanding going into Stormblood was that they were going to raise the floor on all jobs and I can understand how the floor on BLM may not seem to be that much higher than it was before. I personally am comfortable with the challenges associated with doing respectable DPS on a BLM but I can certainly see how it may not necessarily be much easier than it was before. Movement is still pretty punishing if you're not ready for it and that can really mess you up if you keep getting the shaft. I still think they are not in need of any serious buffs but I can understand how someone could come to that conclusion

[JunseiKei]

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There's been lots of discussions in the past as to why FFlogs is not a serious source for accurate information on job DPS in comparison to one another. It's simply a leaderboard of players on certain jobs in certain group positions. There is far too much number padding to make most the information reliable.

[Galvuu]

snip

There's a no balance option now... which is what I generally refer to.
Plus, even if all parses were padded... well, all parses were padded.
If you multiply everything by some constant (take this has a heuristic), the relational results should still be valid.
Plus, the entirety of the 75%, 80% and 90% are not padded. The 99% surely is, but below most parses are quite fair (as you'd able to verify yourself, should you wish to).
That's why I also restrain from using 95%+ to illustrate any point.

[Xiozen]

Even if all 3 do identical damage, RDM is massively superior thanks to every other mechanic. Whether or not you like how they play doesn't change the fact that RDM has instant cures and raise on every second cast available, which impacts mobility, survivability, and utility..

Interesting observation by mentioning RDM seems to have superior mobility, survivability and utility compared to BLM and SMN, which makes it, according to what I am reading from your post, the obvious caster choice amongst the others named...

As mentioned previously, all three DPS caster jobs play differently... RDM is mobile, BLM not as much, SMN is also mobile.... survivability... RDM does have dualcast capability to be applied to it's Vercure spell (results speak for themselves), BLM while not possessing any native cures, does have a utility to prevent damage (regardless of its effectiveness) it does exist... and SMN has pets (titan---pre-4.0 was effective, not as much now) and utility... this depends on whether or not utility from how your discussing it is meant to impact the party or the individual... and we can discuss all day each ranged DPS caster's utility... doesn't again, change my point... RDM is NOT superior to the other jobs in my opinion, it only offers a different play style.

Anyone looking for what RDM has to offer and finds it enjoyable and I say go for it; same to be said for BLM and SMN...for I have witnessed extremely effective BLMs and SMNs who are outstanding because they are able to play the job "effectively"--however the same can be said for RDM... also leaning into this learning curve for the jobs are their complexity...as its fairly obvious that when compared to one another, RDM is not as complex as both BLM and SMN in their game play for various reasons.

[NovaLevossida]

Definitely not the truth. Perhaps it is true in your experiences but I would challenge that any BLM who has a good understanding of his/her gameplay will never be suffering to the point of being lower than Bards. The day a Bard beats me in DPS is a day that I spent most of the fight dead. BLM is in a pretty solid spot right now. To say they are absolutely getting crushed? Not accurate.

75th percentile rankings of the new EX primals are depressingly close on Lakshmi. BLM is ahead more on Susano, but not enough I think to look at it as DPS with no utility versus bard DPS with utility. And in both fights, still below RDM for how easy it is and its utility. I suspect a few of the new raid fights are going to have very unfavorable rankings for BLMs.

[Clarkamite]

75th percentile rankings of the new EX primals are depressingly close on Lakshmi. BLM is ahead more on Susano, but not enough I think to look at it as DPS with no utility versus bard DPS with utility. And in both fights, still below RDM for how easy it is and its utility. I suspect a few of the new raid fights are going to have very unfavorable rankings for BLMs.

I suppose that's a fair enough assessment. I can only speak from my experience and like I said, in just about everything I've done I haven't been anything other than crushing it in terms of the groups DPS. We'll have to see what happens once the serious raiding starts I guess but I've never been excluded from a group or told to switch and I've main'd BLM since Turn 1 and all the way through the A4S. Even stuck with BLM in the early Second Coil days before they buffed us to make our ST stronger and I remember at the time thinking that felt unnecessary as I never had trouble with movement. I've always felt powerful and until that changes I'll always feel like buffing us is superfluous. Doesn't mean I won't enjoy any tweaks and it certainly doesn't mean that I'd argue against getting a buff.

I think if BLM's are indeed not up there consistently close with other jobs, then I'll change my tune. I think that'll take some time. Even now it seems a little early for casters to have mastered the fights. Even myself with everything on farm currently, I wouldn't even remotely say I've maximized my DPS and my numbers are pretty close to the tops that I see on the charts on FFlogs. Just my two cents.

[jamvng]

I think if BLM's are indeed not up there consistently close with other jobs, then I'll change my tune. I think that'll take some time. Even now it seems a little early for casters to have mastered the fights. Even myself with everything on farm currently, I wouldn't even remotely say I've maximized my DPS and my numbers are pretty close to the tops that I see on the charts on FFlogs. Just my two cents.

I've had almost 80 clears on Susano and 50 on Lak as BLM. Even at 99% percentile, we still lose or barely match RDMs in damage in these fights. BLM just suffers more from movement and mechancis than RDM but does not make it up with more DPS. It also brings no utility. I believe if they intend BLM to be the SAM of ranged DPS, there should be QoL or buffs to it. It only gets worse when you go to the 70-80 percentile ranges.

[PockyStyx]

BLM should definitely be doing more damage than me.

But seeing as they don't want to nerf SAM atm, I don't think I can see them nerfing RDM in any significant way.

Probably just going to see SMN and BLM brought up in potency or something. . .

[Lelila38]

Well, we lost poteny on F4 with the new job "balancing" in 4.0. I believe bringing that potency back up to what it used to be would go a way in the direction we need. Since they took away our Apoc for a role skill, we Blm don't have anything party utility wise left, thats unique for our job, so going by SE's own logic, we should be doing damage equal to Sam, as we too are a job without any group utility. On top of that we suffer a lot from movement, so at least let us hit harder if we get to stand still.