Black Mage

[Cynfael]

What about the fact that, because of how mana shift and umbral ice work, you can grant healers additional MP pretty much every time its off cool down? I'd say thats pretty valuable.

This would be more impactful if Mana Shift were A) more frequently necessary and B) more frequently available. No one is bringing a BLM over a different caster because of it.

[Llugen]

Manashift is best used on Summoner now because their MP no longer directly translates to damage and running out via rotation is just about impossible, furthermore, BLM can only use it best when in ice, and while their MP is "infinite", this provides a lot less window of opportunity than you might think. If I was a designer I would give BLM a special "mana channeling" cooldown where the BLM tethers to a player and over 5-9 seconds channels MP straight to them. This would be a cool take on BLM utility while "staying true" to its mana manipulation-based lore.

A fire-aspected damage potency up debuff from Blizzard IV would be the perfect way to increase BLM's damage, make Blizzard IV completely relevant, and NOT buff other magic damage/PLD/healers, but I think we should be embracing "the utility" of magic vuln up if anything. The recurring theme of this thread is that raw damage on a class will NEVER even weigh the same as utility, let alone be even stronger, so if the issue is with BLM being in raid then utility is a must. I feel particularly obligated to hammer this home especially to anyone saying they "just want more explosions, man" and would point out that perhaps it holds true that, as someone earlier in the thread elegantly said, utility for high-end is basically a must, so if you don't play high-end, then please reconsider your sentiments.

Someone earlier also brought up that it has no synergy with 2 minute cooldowns. This is a big problem, admittedly, especially after taking summoner for a good test run (bahamut is pretty much up during every hypercharge and that is really well-synergized), so perhaps changing Ley Lines to be 120s recast but lasting for 45 seconds (or more, even) would be meaningful. This, with a change to Convert to be 60s or 120s would fix "the synergy problem".

I'm beginning to like more and more the idea of double Foul potency on a single target. I wish there was a more meaningful way to pitch ideas to the Devs.

@Kabooa, if all spells in Umbral cost no MP, that would go a very long way into solving the issue of reliance on server ticks for MP. This is one of the suggestions I plopped in the thread back on page like 13 or something. Another really important one of note would be if Thunder refreshed the Astral/Umbral timer, as that would mean no need to cast Fire I to refresh timer if you get a Thundercloud during fire, which would mean possibly another Fire IV for more potency, and it would also mean more meaningful movement so you don't have to worry about losing the timer or transposing.

[Galvuu]

snip

You're gonna be hard-pressed to stay in place for 45s to make use of that lengthier Ley Lines though. 30s is already quite challenging.

It's not that pure dps doesn't work, it's that the balancing team seems scared to give it the proper numbers so that it actually works.
Even if the dps was equivalent to something with raid utility, the strategy would be inherently worse because it's "all eggs in one basket". Bad mechanic rng or an unlucky death would make the team with a selfish dps job lose more than the one based on pure raid aoe buffs and synergy, so even if the numbers were the same, the synergistic approach would be more consistent/resistant to failure. They just love to force this same meta on us for no good reason.

The Foul thing is a good idea though (it's the same as a potency adjustment, but it works and I guess there's some element of reward there for always using every Foul charge).


(P.S.: I'm not "out to get you" btw. It's just that I often disagree with your suggestions- like the longer Ley Lines, which I think would be useless in practice due to mechanics- but they're not dumb, and your logic/what you're saying is sound, so I normally reply with counterarguments. I respectfully disagree with your position, even if I see merit in it. If someone says something stupid that I disagree with, I don't feel compelled to engage it in discussion)

[Remedi]

What about a reverse on ley lines? 20 secs durations and 1 min CD? up for every contagion/trick attack

(I also agree with the foul proposal imho I think that overall it's potency is a bit lacking all things considered)

[Llugen]

I think a longer ley lines would be fine if Between the Lines brought the circle to you rather than you to the circle. Or maybe they could implement another skill that does it so you can have both. Maybe Convert should give you infinite MP for 12 seconds like thin air does, but even in that case you'd have your phases out of sync and that really affects the synergy issue.

Your input is appreciated, and even after how many times I've said about the flat potency increase being a bad idea, I'd still TAKE it; no one is going to be angry about a buff, but I don't think that it's really getting at the heart of the issue. "Turret DPS" just is plain bad design for tiers with loads of movement, and fixes to movement issues would go further in increasing damage than just increasing the potency and hoping that you don't get picked or have to work it out, etc.

And about your last point, that is ultimately why I think there should be NO class that offers "purely raw damage as utility" but each should have at least something outside the role pool. As someone put, even SAM has slashing down if you're running PLD/DRK/DRG/SAM, which is still more utility than BLM can say it has. That one guy's Meltdown suggestion would be neat, or the magic vuln, and I would STILL argue the raise purely for balance and something involving MP recovery or speed buff to the party.

[Ferrinus]

If they wanted to increase spell potency they could just change the “improved enochian” trait to give us 15 or 20 percent rather than ten. Whatever they do, I strongly believe that Flare should continue to have the highest or tied-for-highest potency of every spell that isn’t Foul.

I still think that hearts should halve fire spell cast times (not recast times) and that each time you spend any your Foul should get extra charge, so that Foul synergizes with spell speed, B4 is unambiguously good, etc.

[Llugen]

I think at this point it's pretty much universally agreed upon that umbral hearts need love, and I would also assert that Thunder III could use some love (AF/UI timer refresh, additive rather than refresh dot up to 60 seconds, proc duration increased to 30 seconds), and between those two things, most of the "low damage" issues with the class would be fixed (consider another Fire IV per phase due to thundercloud and not needing Fire I, or not needing to cast thunder in ice because your dot timer is already high). Afterward, it would be largely whatever can be helped as far as movement/uptime is concerned (the Thunder refreshing timer suggestion would help with this as well).

I'll disclaim yet again that not all classes need to be "excellent" at progression (like rez dispenser is), but it's pretty obvious that BLM is a little too far below where it could be and still be "tough". These many factors all come together to establish that BLM is in a bad place, not any one of them independently.

[zuzu-bq]

If Thundercloud itself lasted longer would make easier to juggle it inside stack refreshing already.

[Waliel]

I still kind of like my I had in another thread, so throwing it out here:

I quite enjoy being the super selfish deeps that doesn't provide for the rest of the party, so how about something that reinforces that idea? An inverse raid buff of sorts. A trait that increases BLM damage by X% for every DoM (except other BLM) job in the party. You'd always have at least two healers so that would be the baseline. Call it Mana Battery and have the tooltip be "Leeching minute amounts of Aetherial energies from other magic users," or something.

Could maybe also push caster comps to be more viable ever so slightly, though it would require some other changes too. It wouldn't also throw the 4 man dungeon balance out the window.

[Llugen]

Hmm, that sounds intriguing but I don't think it would be extremely viable until there is a caster tank (hopefully BLU and hopefully in 5.0, cross your fingers).


To illustrate a different way, you're in a party and you want people who are going to help buff you and synergize with you. This is why everyone loves NINs and ASTs; people want to be fed, not to feed. Furthermore, what Galvuu said earlier about putting all your eggs in one basket with a "pure damage" class is very spot on; even if it WAS more damage in total, you're taking a much higher risk with a much higher potential for error.

Not all classes necessarily need to provide heaps and heaps of utility like BRD does, but every job should bring at least SOMETHING to the table that is meaningful for the party, even if it is as simple as SAM's slashing down. Asking extremely selfish classes to be desired and useful in party play is paradoxical when there are other jobs that are not selfish and still do as well if not better (see also: SMN)