BLM needs some love and RDM needs a nerf

[soslinky]

You can check out Galvuu's other thread. It sheds light on how the 4.0 skills and their proposed changes to our rotation is ultimately futile. It seems that SE did the "This piece gear is different because the colors are different" treatment on us. The PPS of the 3.0 rotation is almost the same as our 4.0 rotation. The only significantly good thing Stormblood gave us is the incredibly powerful AOE potential thanks to T4P and UH letting us Flare>Foul>Flare every AF window.

Feels bad man.

[Galvuu]

You can check out Galvuu's other thread. It sheds light on how the 4.0 skills and their proposed changes to our rotation is ultimately futile. It seems that SE did the "This piece gear is different because the colors are different" treatment on us. The PPS of the 3.0 rotation is almost the same as our 4.0 rotation. The only significantly good thing Stormblood gave us is the incredibly powerful AOE potential thanks to T4P and UH letting us Flare>Foul>Flare every AF window.

Feels bad man.

I edited it with a few propositions to solve the issue.
It's not much, and it doesn't change any of the rotations or how the job plays, but we'd get around a 10% dps buff VS what we have now, and the 4.0 rotation would actually be worth using, although it'd still be the hardest by far.

[Llugen]

It sheds light on how the 4.0 skills and their proposed changes to our rotation is ultimately futile. It seems that SE did the "This piece gear is different because the colors are different" treatment on us. The PPS of the 3.0 rotation is almost the same as our 4.0 rotation. The only significantly good thing Stormblood gave us is the incredibly powerful AOE potential thanks to T4P and UH letting us Flare>Foul>Flare every AF window.

Feels bad man

Personally I see no problem with BLM being weaker single target damage than summoner but stronger aoe damage, the thing is that would mean they have to design fights well around that, which they're generally terrible at doing (See also, all of patches 2.2 and 2.3).

The main issue here is that SMN is stronger single target AND provides significantly more utility (magic/physical vuln, devotion, raise, the role pool skills), and then everyone knows red mage is god tier utility and does pretty decent damage as well.

[Galvuu]

Personally I see no problem with BLM being weaker single target damage than summoner but stronger aoe damage, the thing is that would mean they have to design fights well around that, which they're generally terrible at doing.

The main issue here is that SMN is stronger single target AND provides significantly more utility (magic/physical vuln, devotion, raise, the role pool skills), and then everyone knows red mage is god tier utility and does pretty decent damage as well.

The issue is that both (SMN and BLM) are considerably weaker than MNK/SAM/NIN/BRD/RDM (and that's 5 strong picks for 4 slots, so we're sitting this one out with the DRGs and MCHs).
The graver issue for BLM is that our new tools/mechanics outside of Foul made us weaker in most raids. So when I'm farming EX primals or doing Deltascape, I'm pretty much always better ignoring the Umbral Heart thing and just using Triple/Foul.
So a third of my new toys are actually rubbish.

[Ferrasper]

Personally I see no problem with BLM being weaker single target damage than summoner but stronger aoe damage, the thing is that would mean they have to design fights well around that, which they're generally terrible at doing (See also, all of patches 2.2 and 2.3).

The main issue here is that SMN is stronger single target AND provides significantly more utility (magic/physical vuln, devotion, raise, the role pool skills), and then everyone knows red mage is god tier utility and does pretty decent damage as well.

What everyone else said basically. Only having BLM be good at AOE would only make them good for expert runs, and that is about it. They would have no use for raids or anything else. BLM needs to be the top caster dps at AOE and single target for us to be taken to raids because we do lack the utility. I do think we should have numbers close to Sam like in the 4500 range of damage for single and Aoe.

[CecMiller]

Personally I see no problem with BLM being weaker single target damage than summoner but stronger aoe damage, the thing is that would mean they have to design fights well around that, which they're generally terrible at doing (See also, all of patches 2.2 and 2.3).

The main issue here is that SMN is stronger single target AND provides significantly more utility (magic/physical vuln, devotion, raise, the role pool skills), and then everyone knows red mage is god tier utility and does pretty decent damage as well.

I know this is a buff BLM thread, but please - who do you think you're fooling? SMN better single target? Summoner is currently the worst dps at almost every percentile. BLM is above them for every percentile as is Red mage. If you don't believe me, just check here:

https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/15/#dataset=70

Not even going to comment on stuff like devotion (hint: It's garbage). SMN will almost never be using mana shift as it hurts their dps a ton more than it hurts a BLM's or RDM's. SMN's use for the new virus is just an extra wyrmwave atm. What SMN has over BLM atm is the ability to raise, slightly less time in turret mode (you wanna be casting Ruin 1 or Ruin 3 most of the time and standing still in bahamut casting Ruin 2 because bahamut is dumb), and either its magic buff or its phys buff. It won't use both as there is a huge mana cost to switching pets (and you MUST use swift otherwise its even more silly). Further, shockwave from garuda (the knockback) shares the cooldown with radiant shield (the phys buff which only activates when you get hit) and therefore if you've used shockwave on garuda, it's even more pointless to switch. Even with the magic buff that summoner has, it STILL deals less damage than RDM and BLM both. The main reason you took SMN over BLM in 3.0 was raise. In 4.0, RDM was introduced which is just summoner, but better in every way save buffing magic damage. No bahamut to block your view, far easier to play and master, swift cast on demand, better mp management, better dps, by far less punishing for messing up mana vs. missing an aetherflow move or dying for that matter and a better party wide buff which is far more responsive/easier to use. I'm fine with RDM being the caster of choice to bring for prog/meta parties. I'm not fine with it being better than summoner in almost every way.

Play around with the percentiles and tell me where you see the stronger single target damage of the summoner. BLM needs a buff and SMN also needs one. The fact you think SMN's single target is superior to that of BLM's is laughable. If you're trying to make a case for buffing BLM's try to avoid comparing BLM to summoners which is in a worse state for more reasons than a simple "dps" problem. The fact of the matter is, the current standings are RDM > BLM > SMN. SMN is the lowest caster damage WITH contagion (A 10% magic damage boost every minute for 15 seconds). If SMN didn't have that ability, bless them - they'd be doing even worse. RDM is just superior to SMN in almost every way. The only thing RDM's lack is a way to buff magic classes, but lets face it, tanks and melee dps tend to do more dps than healers or casters to begin with and at least their buff is an instant cast and you don't have to fight retarded pet AI to get it off. Contagion is a piece of shit to use. According to the parses on fflogs, SMN is the 2nd least played(or parsed) classed after MCH and to compound the above problems playing SMN below 70 is complete crap.

Now, regarding the BLM situation, I would hope it does similar to SAM dps. It is silly that samurai is able to dish out the damage they do whilst not being as heavily as affected by mechanics like BLM is. At the same time, I see no reason why SMN should be so low in the standings of dps when it IS harder than both BLM and RDM to maximise your damage. Once MCH/DRG are buffed, if no changes are made to SMN, it'd be bottom of the dps being beaten by BRD and MCH across most levels of play and that's just sad. There will always be 1 class that is the weakest, but I think it's unfair that it is summoner considering how difficult it is to execute well.

With 4.0.5, we should hopefully see both BLM's and SMN's being buffed and/or RDM's being toned down. The current standings just show RDM's complete dominance over the other 2. The only time BLM beats RDM or comes close to beating them is at the 99th percentile (BLM is ahead by 1 dps). SMN is not even involved in that contest of which caster deals the most dps. It's sitting in a solid 3rd place.

[Llugen]

@CecMiller, I know this is like 5 days too late, but SMN played to perfection can put out higher numbers than a BLM can, whether or not FFlogs reflects that matters little to me. Feel free to read Eirene Snow's extremely detailed guide on how ridiculous it is to play SMN and you'll see what I mean.

Also, response at large, BLM already does marginally less damage than SAM, or let me rephrase that, I do marginally less damage than a SAM when I play it #subtlebrag. BLM has always been about planning ahead and movement and the whole song and dance (or lack thereof) so slight potency buff(s) or the aforementioned suggestions I gave back on an earlier page would help with that just fine, and just a LITTLE bit more movement relief would be all the class really needs.

Oh and a MP nerf for Thunder III and/or a MP pool increase would be nice too. It's frustrating to end up with not enough MP to cast when entering ice sometimes.

@Maero, by SE's own logic, the ability to resurrect a dead player is "extremely strong" and RDM can literally raise 5 players in 10 GCDs with MP left to do the rotation (if lucid is up). That is the the most broken thing that SE has ever implemented into the game, period. Please nerf RDM.