BLM needs more damage

[EllieShadeflare]

By the end of HW, BLM and SMN became close to equal becausw we FINALLY got the neccessary SpS and Crit to mitigate our worst issues. And YoshiP did directly address some issues both at launch (making Enochian from being a clunky, unpleasant mess like in HW to "oh hey, I'm being rewarded for playing my Black Mage the way I always should. Neat!") and in 4.05 (The cast time nerf was a GODSEND) but SB caused issues to crop up, especially with SMN's massive buffs.

The biggest takeaway is that turrets aren't viable, and BLM is the ultimate Turret... for better or for worse, since our only mobility options are Scathe and Triplecast, but they're still insufficient. One of two solutions should happen:

Help BLM mobility or increase BLM damage by 10-20%. It's mechanics thwt fuck us up, but the latter option comes with the risk of turning BLM into a must take for more turrety fights (like OS2).

[Airget]

I had a few ideas that might help BLM, it's basically a Buff that can only be applied to DPS however it's not a buff that helps the DPS rather it amplifies the BLM's elemental powers as long as the party member remains alive.

The idea with BLM is easily Fire, Ice, Thunder, Every 1 min and 30 second from when battle start you build up your Enochain, when you have had Enochain up for 1min and 30 seconds you can apply your first buff to a DPS.

Thunder could have 3 stages, Potency, Duration, Instance abilities that doesn't influence global Cooldown.

Ice would be Increased Blizzard IV charges, Freeze becomes a placed DoT and Instance MP recovery

Fire would be increased Fire III proc, Fire IV potency, Flare potency

The downside of course is in order to gain all 3 buffs you would need to have the buff up for a total of 1 min with the 2nd and 3rd tier being gained every 30 seconds but you also can't apply the next buff til you have had enochain up for another 1 min 30 seconds.

Now maybe it would make BLM to powerful but it could easily be said that you can't apply the buff to another BLM, it can only be applied to DPS, so you'll only be able to use all 3 inf 8 man trials and when using it you have to hope that the other 3 members stay alive since if they die or you die you lose the buff completely and have to rebuild it.

In my mind I feel this would allow BLM to remain the "selfish DPS" with it's own build up mechanic that relies heavily on the survival of the party.

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Another simpler idea is Triple Cast can reset when using Scathe, this would allow moments when BLM need to move but can still use Scathe and opportunity to gain a "free charge" of Triple Cast to use again while on the run rather than Scathe.

[Zfz]

I'm not a particularly good player, so I'm never gonna be doing like top 5% dps anyway. Instead, I would appreciate if there are small tweaks to make BLM less punishing. Things like each Fire 4 reduces the cooldown of Enochian by 5s, or maybe Transpose automatically clears Enochian's cooldown, or other similar tweaks that literally don't make any difference to the top-end of the dps performance but help a lot with the bottom end.

[Llugen]

ANOTHER BLM thread. Yay!

About halfway through I stopped reading the posts since they stopped being productive.

I'll say here the same goddamn thing I said in Sfia's thread like a dozen times: BLM damage should be supplemented by increased mobility and intricacy over flat potency buffs. Consider:

Allow Thundercloud to refresh Astral/Umbral timer. This would in turn mean 7 Fire IV per Astral phase which is a potency increase, as long as you get a proc (making Sharpcast Thunder III even stronger).
I really think an additive Thunder DoT would fix a lot of issues. There would be less incentive not to use procs or to wait (especially if it also refreshes Astral/Umbral timer), and would give you more procs in the long term, meaning less need to hard cast Thunder in Umbral, etc.
Consider both the current state of Thundercloud AND the way that Thunder Ready works in PVP to further reward high damage output from the caster in PVE.
Allow for a Firestarter "combo" from free Fire III to free Fire IV.
And for the love of god get rid of needing to use fire 1 in the rotation to refresh Astral. Maybe upon the successful usage of three umbral hearts with Fire IV it automatically grants you a Firestarter proc.
Do something more useful with scathe. Anything. Perhaps just make it cost no MP so the Astral MP table doesn't get messed up from it. Oh and while you're at it please remove it from the list of Sharpcast procs.


Rather than flat potency increases which are boring and don't fix real issues, make life easier for the job to do higher damage. Give some benefit to the Polyglot timer through procs or spell speed, and possibly make Foul double potency if it hits only one target (or does an additional 10% damage every time it is charged)
Increase the damn proc timers to 30 seconds to match the other casters. Please and thank you.
Magic Vulnerability +10% on Blizzard IV would be fab
Allow Freeze to give Umbral Hearts post-68 during aoe rotation, and make it instantly give you Umbral III alongside a trait that lets you use it for zero MP when your MP drops to zero (after Flare)

Convert is in desperate need of fixing so please do either of the following:
-Convert becomes 60s recast and remove the HP penalty
-Convert stays 180s recast and gives a full MP bar, three Umbral Hearts, a Firestarter and a Thundercloud, and refreshes Astral III.

Lastly, give us a shorter recast on Aetherial Manipulation. 20s or even 15s would be great. And, while Between the Lines is great, there should be ANOTHER spell that brings the circle to the caster so that either/or could be used where appropriate. This could be the spell that "replaces" the Ley Lines button when it is used.


PS: One other thing for consideration, since the devs are so bent on BLM being a hardcasting turret, consider letting BLM move while casting any spell at the cost of +20% cast time and GCD for the spell. This would certainly be incentive still not to cast while moving, but also give BLM at least a LITTLE more leeway as far as handling mechanics goes than it currently has.


PPS: Do SOMETHING that gives the job two minute synergy. As mentioned in the other thread, one of the biggest reasons that BRD NIN MCH SMN SCH work so well together is that all their two minute windows line up and work together Any one of Trick Attack, Chain Stratagem, Hypercharge, Foe Requiem, Devotion, Radiant Shield, etc. by itself isn't extremely strong, but TOGETHER they are a force to contend with. One way this could work is any time the Enochian buff is used (including right at the start) it gives you a fully charged Polyglot off the bat. This would potentially mean a charged one AND using Enochian for another one during Trick Attack, etc.

[Dualgunner]

The sheer combined uptime. I'm unable to get in game but devotion not only increases damage but healing too; radiant shield is one of the longest physical dps buffs in the game and boss pending gives tons of added potency damage on top of that. Compare that to blm's nothing and rdm's 1/6 uptime (20s / 2 min) on embolden.

[Karshan]

The sheer combined uptime. I'm unable to get in game but devotion not only increases damage but healing too; radiant shield is one of the longest physical dps buffs in the game and boss pending gives tons of added potency damage on top of that. Compare that to blm's nothing and rdm's 1/6 uptime (20s / 2 min) on embolden.

Devotion is 2% on 1/8 affecting 8 people, Embolden is avg 6% on 1/6 affecting 4-5 people. And the way buff stacking works, point is on embo. Plus I don't know if you play SMN but timing it is a bit difficult (come on garuda, it is AN ORDER). So please, devotion is not "amazing". It is good utility. It is as it should have been from the start.

Radiant shield is very good, but only a little better than contagion if you play contagion right. I think the 50 attack works on a cooldown as well (won't hit 8 times if 8 people take an AOE).

So SMN has good utility, but not "amazing", otherwise it would have thrown off meta comp powerful synergy already.

What I find very true that DPS of SMN is 200 to 300 points too high right now and he needs a nerf (but a smart one, a ceiling lowering without affecting the base).

And the opposite for BLM, a 200 to 300 points buff (be it flat potency or a mechanic improvment)

On RDM, a buff also (100- 200 points ?) cause it is true he is treated like a bard while having nowhere near the utility if no one dies.

[Neela]

snip

this is honest & true - would sign that tho.

radiant counter physical dmg taken so no not all 8 grp member will trigger it and like Karshan said con can be better if you are able to time it right. and since when is dbl range meta? before ultimate dropped it cleary wasn't so what are u talking about gunner? : /

@Galvuu

get a clue about what? everybody knows why they changed their setup - I just said it wasn't meta before and nobody should assume that all player follow the meta, whats the point in your ultimate bla? that wasn't even the point. so maybe you should get a clue whats the point of the previous post was before brabbeling stuff in a whole different context.

[Galvuu]

@Galvuu

get a clue about what? everybody knows why they changed their setup - I just said it wasn't meta before and nobody should assume that all player follow the meta, whats the point in your ultimate bla? that wasn't even the point. so maybe you should get a clue what you are going to answer and what not?

Get a clue because you don't understand why dps compositions are the way they are for this specific fight.
If you did, you'd understand why they can change their Paladin for Dark Knight without making a clear unlikely, and why they can't change any of the dps jobs for Black Mage.
And you'd understand why this issue is very relevant on Ultimate.

Also, these players- the super high end of the playerbase- are the people who define the meta. These people don't follow anyone, they're the ones that carve out the path that others follow.
By definition, they are the ones to set what's viable and what's not. If a new meta comp shows up, it's because they figured out that it's better (although this wasn't the case, it was a player preference thing).

[zuzu-bq]

The META (Most Effective Tactic Avaliable) is made by pure math. There will always be one team comp that is the best without any buffs or nerfs happening that composition won't change. Not only that but the meta party is far more significant than equiping a said BiS.

Guy just played DRK because he liked it and the team was ok with it. While it can shorten up the clear chance a bit, it won't do it by much if the team is skilled enough. Now on the BLM side, everything else you remove for it makes you lose an extremely powerful ability for progression and in exchange you get nothing but a job that will either die surprised by mechanics you don't know or low damage to play safe and not die for those said mechanics.

[Llugen]

Sigh if I had a nickel for every time I had to explain this

2% from Devotion by itself does not seem like much, but consider that 2% plus the 2% from Radiant Shield, plus it shares uptime with Stratagem, Trick Attack, Hypercharge, Dragon Sight, Embolden, and Foe Requiem.


THIS is why even the smallest percentage is a lot: party synergy. BLM has no two minute synergy. This is a big issue.

Classes that are able to maximize burst windows and minimize "coasting"/filler are generally stronger when everything well-timed and synergized, and the more the merrier as far as this is concerned.