My Analysis of BLM's issues and why it is currently the worst DPS class.

[HaroldSaxon]

I'm against of using the meta argument to evidence problems in the balance because that can be applied to any instances in which a meta is born and frankly expecting all jobs to be meta viable is naive, but Why so many ppl coming around and saying what haroldsaxon and many other players have said is wrong?
It's true that BLM is 3-4 in personal dmg but it's also true that once you factor in rdps of all jobs he's second to last beating only RDM which still has a spot because of chain raise.

I mean come on

Expecting all jobs to be meta viable is naive I agree. But its unhealthy to have the same 4 classes being meta, and its also unhealthy to have classes so far away from the meta like BLM. SE did do a good job with SMN

[Remedi]

Tbh my point was more towards ppl arguing that BLMs aren't in a hard place and that ppl should l2play which honestly is aggravating, there's difference between beign ignorant and simply closing your ears off.

What I said about meta is just a minor opinion of mine that maybe I should have worded better, I mean you are not wrong that the 4 same classes shouldn't be meta forever.

[HaroldSaxon]

I agree completely. And I was just having a discussion based of your post - it did bring up a good point.

[Tsilyi]

I'm still not sure why you're not in favor of numbers research and true job balance.

[Altera]

I will also chime in on this issue being a BLM main since 1.0.
This current state BLMs are in, makes me as well feel I am slowing down my raidteam as I bring zero raidwide benefits to my team, and even when playing the BLM to the best of my abilities, other DPS jobs can do same amount personally or even more + add in they also buffs the whole raid as well.
BLM lost Raging Strikes with nothing to fill the burst void, we lost our only raid buff Apocastatis be having it been made Role ability, and Manashift we pretty much need to use while in Ice stance, but then we also need to wait a while for that MP tick to get us to full MP so we can go back to Fire.

So, BLM no better DPS than any other job, zero raid buff/utility, Damage uptime issues and high punishment if mess up more than any other jobs gets punished for messing up = Less worthy to bring BLM over any other job. But not 100% worthLESS. That space between Worth less / Worthless is a big difference.

If the changes announced in the Liveletter tomorrow if any is showcased at all in the LL, is not good changes, and I dont mean pure potency buffs, I am considering for the first time since I made my character in July 7th 2011, to quit playing the BLM, and possibly quit my raidteam so they can bring someone else. I never ever change my job, but I also won't be selfish and just feel I am holding my team back.

The changes to BLM, needs to be substantial, and I dont care if they remove/rework/add new spells and abilities to make that happen.

Here are a few things they can pick and choose from what I feel should be done

Procs should be able to use OGCD so we dont have to wait for the timer to reset to start casting something new.

Remove Blizzard4, make use of Freeze instead with the added bonus that it puts Frozen/Fragile state on target, making it take X % damage from ALL sources, allowing for raidbuff, and making Freeze actually worth having in our Spellbook.

Bring back the Lighting spell Burst, as we have Flare and Freeze, we used to have Burst in 1.0, and it did more damage the lower our HP was, which can be awesome replacement for loosing Raging Strike. Say on Charybdis putting us to 1HP making Burst do insane damage.
1.0s Convert also completly reversed our HP/MP. Say MP was at 10, and HP was max, Convert would drop HP to 10 but give full MP, another use of Burst which is on the cooldown timer of Convert so cant spam it all the time.

Reduce the CD on Aetherial Manipulation.

Change Scathe to do more damage than it currently does, and make it so we can only use that while moving.

Add in another ability: Aura or Haste, Aura gives partymembers increased Critchance, Haste is ofc Spell/Skillspeed increase.
A new ability, from 1.0: Blood Rite - Spill your own blood in a ritual to increase partymembers damage / reduce incoming damage. Costs HP to cast.

Make leylines work only for BLM for its normal durations, but when it ends, it explodes similar to AST heal/damage aoe, putting the leylines effects on partymembers but not the BLM during that stage.

Increase Manawards potency or reduce its current cooldown time, allowing us to risk not avoiding some incoming damage and keep casting. I would love for BLM to NOT become too mobile, but make us approach mechanics differently than other classes, giving BLMs a better unique identity.

Hopefully they will reveal everything in the LL tomorrow. But I just dont know if I should get my hopes up even a little bit :/
This happened to my Unholy DK back in 4.1.3 in WOW as well, making Unholy DKs unwanted for raids, where I quit raiding for 3 months until they fixed they class again as I dont do FOTM class changing. I find the one job I love the most, and I play the game until the class is no longer fun.
The game content itself might be awesome and all, but when the class you love is in a poor state, the content itself feels unfun

[HaroldSaxon]

I will also chime in on this issue being a BLM main since 1.0.
This current state BLMs are in, makes me as well feel I am slowing down my raidteam as I bring zero raidwide benefits to my team, and even when playing the BLM to the best of my abilities, other DPS jobs can do same amount personally or even more + add in they also buffs the whole raid as well.
BLM lost Raging Strikes with nothing to fill the burst void, we lost our only raid buff Apocastatis be having it been made Role ability, and Manashift we pretty much need to use while in Ice stance, but then we also need to wait a while for that MP tick to get us to full MP so we can go back to Fire.

So, BLM no better DPS than any other job, zero raid buff/utility, Damage uptime issues and high punishment if mess up more than any other jobs gets punished for messing up = Less worthy to bring BLM over any other job. But not 100% worthLESS. That space between Worth less / Worthless is a big difference.

If the changes announced in the Liveletter tomorrow if any is showcased at all in the LL, is not good changes, and I dont mean pure potency buffs, I am considering for the first time since I made my character in July 7th 2011, to quit playing the BLM, and possibly quit my raidteam so they can bring someone else. I never ever change my job, but I also won't be selfish and just feel I am holding my team back.

The changes to BLM, needs to be substantial, and I dont care if they remove/rework/add new spells and abilities to make that happen.

Well, we do more damage than RDM but we bring less than it to the table, but I agree with this completely. I don't agree with your proposed changes though

Here are a few things they can pick and choose from what I feel should be done
Procs should be able to use OGCD so we dont have to wait for the timer to reset to start casting something new.

This idea would completely change Black Mages rotation because we would need to start clipping in order to use the procs, and Black Mage is the only class in the game with no damaging OGCD's - which is an inherant part of its identity.

Remove Blizzard4, make use of Freeze instead with the added bonus that it puts Frozen/Fragile state on target, making it take X % damage from ALL sources, allowing for raidbuff, and making Freeze actually worth having in our Spellbook.

I don't see the point in removing Blizzard 4. It certainly should have more power given to it because right now its only a situational spell.

I don't think giving Black Mage a constant raid buff would be healthy for the game and it wouldn't be unique. I think having Black Mage as the caster sustained "carry/selfish" dps class is a good design choice, its just that SE haven't implemented it well.

You are right that freeze is useless, but I prefer Blackcat's idea - let it give us 1 Umbral Heart so it replaces Blizzard 4 in our AOE rotation.

Bring back the Lighting spell Burst, as we have Flare and Freeze, we used to have Burst in 1.0, and it did more damage the lower our HP was, which can be awesome replacement for loosing Raging Strike. Say on Charybdis putting us to 1HP making Burst do insane damage.

I'm not aware of what Lightning burst is. As a design direction - i'm not against having a class that does sustained DPS rather than burst (which is what BLM currently is). The issue is that the synergy between classes relies on raidwide burst - and its not healthy to just give every class burst. I think a healthy way of combating that would be to give more single target long duration raidwide buffs.

1.0s Convert also completly reversed our HP/MP. Say MP was at 10, and HP was max, Convert would drop HP to 10 but give full MP, another use of Burst which is on the cooldown timer of Convert so cant spam it all the time.

I agree that convert is awful right now. I like this idea that the cooldown is long.

Reduce the CD on Aetherial Manipulation.

I haven't really felt like i've needed a lower CD.

Change Scathe to do more damage than it currently does, and make it so we can only use that while moving.

Scathe would need to have a 0 mana cost to be worth using for movement.

Add in another ability: Aura or Haste, Aura gives partymembers increased Critchance, Haste is ofc Spell/Skillspeed increase.
A new ability, from 1.0: Blood Rite - Spill your own blood in a ritual to increase partymembers damage / reduce incoming damage. Costs HP to cast.
Make leylines work only for BLM for its normal durations, but when it ends, it explodes similar to AST heal/damage aoe, putting the leylines effects on partymembers but not the BLM during that stage.

As I said above regarding giving BLM raid buffs.

Increase Manawards potency or reduce its current cooldown time, allowing us to risk not avoiding some incoming damage and keep casting. I would love for BLM to NOT become too mobile, but make us approach mechanics differently than other classes, giving BLMs a better unique identity.

In principle its an interesting direction, but the problem is that BLM can't use OGCD's while casting, and furthermore I feel like its less of a challenge to play that class. Its an interesting option for some mechanics, but I enjoy the challenge of maintaining uptime in current raid content.

Hopefully they will reveal everything in the LL tomorrow. But I just dont know if I should get my hopes up even a little bit :/
This happened to my Unholy DK back in 4.1.3 in WOW as well, making Unholy DKs unwanted for raids, where I quit raiding for 3 months until they fixed they class again as I dont do FOTM class changing. I find the one job I love the most, and I play the game until the class is no longer fun.
The game content itself might be awesome and all, but when the class you love is in a poor state, the content itself feels unfun

Agreed

[Remedi]

Frankly we can expect potency buffs or spellcast reduction since they said they are gonna do just that also they mentioned usability which can be anything, but expecting a whole ovehaul is essentially asking someone to be disappointed.

[HaroldSaxon]

Frankly we can expect potency buffs or spellcast reduction since they said they are gonna do just that also they mentioned usability which can be anything, but expecting a whole ovehaul is essentially asking someone to be disappointed.

Put it this way, potency buffs would be more than what I expect from SE given Yoshi-P's last comment:

Q. Will BLM become stronger!!!!!!?

A. If you look at DPS alone, BLMs are already strong, but the adjustments will allow it to be used more comfortably.

[Remedi]

Tbh that is a bit of a nitpick because he said dps alone which probably means personal only and it isn't really false, I mean if BLM did had some raid utility it could work even with current numbers not to mention he is still good enough to clear the content, the problem is that opther jobs are better one way or the other.

[Baka_Neko1]

y'all are dumb. forced movement mechanic? use triplecast. getting knocked away and fear losing enochian?? pop transpose while you still can. need to go somewhere??? so does your party member AND you can teleport to him. don't have raid buffs???? DO MORE DMG SCRUB. it's not hard to always be top dps by a mile as blm. following my quick guide up here ^^^^^ you can do enough dmg to more than justify you being there. no res? your teammate shouldn't have died to that mechanic anyways.