Black Mage

[zuzu-bq]

Yeah B4 spot is so good that the biggest reasons we cast it are so our MP ticks don't get screwed up and we have time to cast Fire IVs while Foul charge instead of being "wow I really want the rewards from B4". Great spot for an ability to be: patch up some of the job's issues.

[Remedi]

Well with Ultimate clared and the comments from the guys who took WF we could start saying some things about all of that don't you think?

[IllyriaKnotfred]

Well with Ultimate clared and the comments from the guys who took WF we could start saying some things about all of that don't you think?

Not really, no. You can't balance jobs by difficult content like that. Its simply just not possible.

[Cynfael]

Not really, no. You can't balance jobs by difficult content like that. Its simply just not possible.

Agreed. WF teams are outliers; you don't get a proper picture of overall class balance by examining a small set of encounters executed by the best-coordinated and most practiced teams of players.

Besides, (reasonable) arguments for balance rarely allege that a Job is completely non-viable. There is a huge difference between "X Job can't do this" and "X Job is at risk of being underplayed because it consistently underperforms compared to Y and Z Jobs in the same scenario."

[TsuKoj]

Sure we could, isn't that the goal? Imo if a job isn't good for the highest level of available content, it isn't well balanced.
Anyways theres not much to say from the tweet since all it said was they changed jobs to clear it faster specifically, and it's doable by non-optimal comps, and caster players(specifically smn) don't have to switch to brd to clear. All of that info is already known, but just because a job is viable doesn't make it balanced. It should be fun, and while being fun includes having an smooth rotation it also includes challenge, desirability, and being able to fulfill its intended purpose/having a purpose. I like the blms rotation, and I love that blms challenge is in fighting and executing the fight rather than fighting against my rotation. But, atm blm has no desirability and no purpose to it. It brings nothing unique to the party that isn't filled by another class doing it better.

[Cynfael]

Sure we could, isn't that the goal? Imo if a job isn't good for the highest level of available content, it isn't well balanced.
Anyways theres not much to say from the tweet since all it said was they changed jobs to clear it faster specifically, and it's doable by non-optimal comps, and caster players(specifically smn) don't have to switch to brd to clear. All of that info is already known, but just because a job is viable doesn't make it balanced. It should be fun, and while being fun includes having an smooth rotation it also includes challenge, desirability, and being able to fulfill its intended purpose/having a purpose. I like the blms rotation, and I love that blms challenge is in fighting and executing the fight rather than fighting against my rotation. But, atm blm has no desirability and no purpose to it. It brings nothing unique to the party that isn't filled by another class doing it better.

I can't speak for Illyria, but what I'm alluding to is that some players inevitably come up with arguments like "DRK doesn't need help because it was used in WF." You can't discount that kind of argument without also discounting the argument that a given Job is disadvantaged because it isn't chosen in a WF comp.

What you can do is look beyond this handful of players in this one encounter and examine the frequency with which Jobs are selected and how they perform. I am an avid BLM and dearly want to see the Job made more competitive, but WF scenarios don't provide the kind of data or enough of it to support the argument for BLM (or any other Job) improvement.

[Remedi]

I disagree there are some things that could be said tbh and some conclusions that could be expected from the future tbh, I wasn't talking about simply balance but more about context.
Also talking never hurts.

[IllyriaKnotfred]

The issue is that every suggestion has been more or less made already. The numbers speak for themselves from 0-99% parses. SMN stomps on BLM in all of them. Many suggestions have been made in this thread on how to improve BLM without sacrificing it's identity. Personally I feel the first step is simply giving us back the 20 potency SE stole from Fire/Bliz IV at the start of Stormblood. It was completely unwarranted and i'll never understand why they did it.

[Remedi]

I agree, what they said does not change anything for us truly, I'm a bit torn on the fact that they first say that they had to go meta for the kill but they also advise you to go with w/e you find fun tbh, no gonna call them out for this but it kinda stings.
I think they wanted to say that the true meta is playing your A game in the end but they didn't commit fully.

I do believe that BLMs can clear this content, I did saw some BLMs putting nice numbers and honestly I think that we can also work the movements of the fight
This however doesn't change our status, actually we are in a greater pickle

Why? Remember what Yoshida said about ultimate? They said that it would be a very hard fight for BLMs. This means that they expect very few BLMs clears of this content, which probably will translate with them not really tacking a look to the job.

And personally I don't think that 20 potency buff will cut it as we have already said we kinda lack that synergy with group buffs or 2 min CDS, actually we really lack a burst option.
Maybe I'm overdramatizing but this is why i think we should be as active as ever to make our voice be heard

[Lunafreya]

Anyone know the optimal blm set up this patch? Is it direct hit over crit or crit over direct hit? Any bis?