Black Mage

[NovaLevossida]

This is a really big issue. SMNs are already doing as much and more damage than BLM with a combat raise in the kit. They're getting some much needed QoL changes, but it looks like they're getting straight up buffs too. I don't know in what world it makes sense to buff SMN up with how it's already exceeding BLM and not touch BLM at all. And to that end, even SAM isn't that far ahead of SMN. Maybe there will be some surprise job changes in the 4.1 patch notes, but I'm not optimistic. I get the impression no one at SE can really play BLM to begin with from how YoshiP fumbles his BLM openers all the time and BLM launching in 4.0 with such a janky rotation due to MP issues. They're clearly not too afraid of making a caster powerful given the SMN changes coming up.

[Karshan]

This is a really big issue. SMNs are already doing as much and more damage than BLM with a combat raise in the kit. They're getting some much needed QoL changes, but it looks like they're getting straight up buffs too. I don't know in what world it makes sense to buff SMN up with how it's already exceeding BLM and not touch BLM at all. And to that end, even SAM isn't that far ahead of SMN. Maybe there will be some surprise job changes in the 4.1 patch notes, but I'm not optimistic. I get the impression no one at SE can really play BLM to begin with from how YoshiP fumbles his BLM openers all the time and BLM launching in 4.0 with such a janky rotation due to MP issues. They're clearly not too afraid of making a caster powerful given the SMN changes coming up.

Dw it's mainly QoL and not straight up buffs (we haven't seen potencies either, the changes are just an overview). They don't change the power, just simplified some things.
Right now SMN really only needed QoL cause damage is good, just need to make it easier to acces it (you need to know the fight as well as a BLM cause it's a frikin nuclear power plant control room at times and just like BLM with positionning, it doesn't go well in progress)

But we gain utility, and if fflogs translates devotion the way it does with radiant shield, then yes it will be too much. We can't have a SMN doing the same as the black mage damage wise WITH rez and devotion, that's not balanced.

[nakaflocka]

Dw it's mainly QoL and not straight up buffs (we haven't seen potencies either, the changes are just an overview). They don't change the power, just simplified some things.
Right now SMN really only needed QoL cause damage is good, just need to make it easier to acces it (you need to know the fight as well as a BLM cause it's a frikin nuclear power plant control room at times and just like BLM with positionning, it doesn't go well in progress)

Turning a single target skill into an AoE skill is absolutely a buff unless they happen to massively nerf the potency, cooldown and/or duration from it's current iteration.

But we gain utility, and if fflogs translates devotion the way it does with radiant shield, then yes it will be too much. We can't have a SMN doing the same as the black mage damage wise WITH rez and devotion, that's not balanced.

Whether it's attributed to the SMN or not doesn't matter, what matters is the raid DPS gain.

[Jukebox12]

Turning a single target skill into an AoE skill is absolutely a buff unless they happen to massively nerf the potency, cooldown and/or duration from it\\'s current iteration.


Whether it\\'s attributed to the SMN or not doesn\\'t matter, what matters is the raid DPS gain.

What skill

[Karshan]

Snip

Yes utility is highly buffed (yet again, we don't know if it will stay 5%, they never said it), but none of the changes affect personnal damage, as it should be since SMN is now very good in that field (didn't use to be that way 3 months ago).

So please don't talk about buff when it affects the raid, talk about utility. Otherwise it conveys the wrong idea that SMN deals too much damage, leading to a nerf.

Devotion should have been raid wise from the start, but with 2% not 5%, and all the other changes should have been there the 20th of June as well. They're just correcting mistakes they made with 4.0. I would gladly lose the DoTs buff (THAT was a buff) if the playstyle is being set right again.

As for BLM, though I think they should stay at that level of damage, they should be given a little utility so that a SMN only 100 DPS under on't be automatically chosen over him cause of utility.

[Llugen]

Pretty much all we can do is pray. I've submitted numerous times about this, and had previous threads about it here, where no one seemed to understand what I was saying.

As if it wasn't already RIP enough.

Pray to the SE gods that they realize that summoner is about to be insane.

Attention, Square Enix: The logic that pure damage can somehow outweigh party utility/buffs MUST STOP. Also, check yourselves because SMN (supposedly "lower damage" than BLM) is ALREADY doing higher damage than most BLMs, and you're about to buff them further.

[Neela]

Attention, Square Enix: The logic that pure damage can somehow outweigh party utility/buffs MUST STOP. Also, check yourselves because SMN (supposedly "lower damage" than BLM) is ALREADY doing higher damage than most BLMs, and you're about to buff them further.

the only thing which has to be stopped is this rumor...

funny how top tier cls' always get a shot if they got company - with this changes smn and blm are getting closer for the majority of the playerbase with a casual skill-level. just fair not more.

even before 4.1 in my opinion Eirene Snow and his few buddys in the top ranking list should have OUTDPS any other caster cause of the effort they were able to master - but we know it hadn't worked like that. for me those current changes just pushed the casual lvl on pair with blm and rdm but might be a reward for those who know the cls in out to climb even higher. those few on top just deserve to beat blm/rdm now - IF it really comes to this situation.

well time will tell like always ^^

[TsuKoj]

It feels bad enjoying blm, but knowing the healers prefer you on rdm for prog and everyone prefers you on brd for everything else. I can also feel everyones groans when I ask my group to make a change to play around my positioning.
Blm gets punished twice for being ranged, once with long cast times which puts their uptime on bosses lower than melee on most fights, and again by having their dps reduced compared to their melee counterparts.
I'm apprehensive of 4.2 for blm without any changes/buffs. With blm being the only immobile job after 4.1 with smns getting instant ruin3s in dwt, I'm unsure if the fight designers for deltascape 5-8 will keep in consideration of blms immobility when 4/5 ranged classes have on demand mobility.
I honestly like blms playstyle and rotation atm, it feels very satisfying to do well(95%+ you know where with no brd/nin in pt ) on blm since it shows your mastery of the fight.
However I feel blms need an identity. Either they need to go one way and put their dps up to par and be top dps equal sam (both blm and Sam should probably be even higher post 4.1 buffs to other jobs)so that even though your useless to the group, at least you have personal satisfaction, or give them utility to rival monk/smn so they can actually help the group out a little.

[Myon88]

Something you need to note is that the impression that SMN is putting out impressive numbers is party due to the fact that radiant shield damage produced by the entire raid is being attributed to the summoner. It would be kind of like if the extra damage done thanks to a ninja's trick attack was added back to the ninja instead of the other 7 people. It's a bit of a grey area as while it is a raidwide buff that requires a party to capitalize on it, it provides raw damage via extra attacks instead of a being stat buff like other job's raid buffs that increase damage indirectly.

I'm not saying they're fine even disregarding radiant shield completely - maybe they're still too high, who knows? But for the sake of fairness, factors like this are important to keep in mind. The moogles that sit on your shoulder and help count your damage aren't very good at counting dots too (maybe because the numbers are too small), and there's a lot of weirdness happening there.

It's easy to get the impression that certain jobs are disproportionately weak or strong if data is interpreted in a certain way, but only SE knows the full story at the end of the day.

[PFM]

I have nothing to add, only that it's sorry and amateur that the developers have let it get to this point.