[BLM Suggestion] Raise spell using Foul stack.

[Kabooa]

Scathe is good when the boss is about to force long downtime though. That's all the spell had been used for since ARR. And its a good niche for it to fullfill. Sometimes I miss RDM having something alike on similar situations where I could squeeze an instant GCD but had just used a Dualcast.

I would 100% try and get greedy for another F4 than bother settling for Scathe.

[zuzu-bq]

Then your cast gets canceled and you get nothing at the end. Of course I'm not saying mindlessly scathe, know the the exact timer at the boss jump and do both the F4 and the Scathe instead of and F4 and a cancelled F4. Ideally using TC or FS instead of Scathe.

[GunksFoy]

Then your cast gets canceled and you get nothing at the end. Of course I'm not saying mindlessly scathe, know the the exact timer at the boss jump and do both the F4 and the Scathe instead of and F4 and a cancelled F4. Ideally using TC or FS instead of Scathe.

That scathe will add so little to your dps that you would be hard pressed to notice it. And if you're having to fall back to Scathe when moving, it means you didn't prepare enough or wasted your Swift/Sharp/Triple Cast. Somewhat useful during progression? sure. But even if you use 5 scathes throughout a fight, it's unlikely to be the difference between the boss dying and not. And honestly, if you used Scathe that many times, you were doing something wrong.

EDIT: And I forgot slidecasting. Slidecasting is also a way to move without Scathe that's monumentally more efficient.

[zuzu-bq]

So you're saying it isn't worth it because the DPS gain is small. Yeah I guess all that sub stat optimization people do is just as whorthless then. Also this is for when the boss jumps or forces downtime. You shouldn't generally scathe in movement because of its MP cost. And nah Scathe rarely gets used more than twice. TL;DR: My argument was that Scathe does fill a niche even though it's a bad skill in general. Removing or merging it with Foul wouldn't make sense. In case you didn't get what I meant.

[GunksFoy]

snip.

I agree merging it with Foul is dumb. But generally, yes, min maxing sub stats is worth very little. My point was that Scathe is awful in any situation. Even when the boss jumps, I doubt you would even notice a difference in your dps from 1 fight where you did it to another where you didn't. A single crit causes more fluctuation in your DPS than a single Scathe. At the end of the day, Scathe needs a rework. It could be completely removed and not impact Black Mage dps even a little bit.

Someone made a good case for Scathe being used against low level mobs for quick kills, which is valid enough, but taking the extra time to stop and cast a spell, which is only slower because of the stopping bit, isn't going to slow you down much.

[Zerathor]

We're going about this all wrong. Instead of raising party members, blm instead needs to gain a 50% dps increase for 10 seconds when somebody dies as a passive by leeching off of their souls. Still remains selfish dps, and compensates for lack of raid damage for a duration that the person who died should be rezzed. problem solved.

(inb4 organized suicides become required for blm parse padding)

[Zerathor]

snip

you know all those times you finish a cast on a mob that needs to die and after your f4 it just has about 1% left? like maybe airplanes in o7s, or the ghost on o5s. it works as a quick slap to finish the job instantly when you know you otherwise would have needed to spent time casting, or use a cd.

[Kabooa]

you know all those times you finish a cast on a mob that needs to die and after your f4 it just has about 1% left? like maybe airplanes in o7s, or the ghost on o5s. it works as a quick slap to finish the job instantly when you know you otherwise would have needed to spent time casting, or use a cd.

GCD''s a GCD. By the time you register you can scathe this, you're going to finish that Fire X.

[Zerathor]

GCD''s a GCD. By the time you register you can scathe this, you're going to finish that Fire X.

It's a gcd you can be moving with, and it's instant so you can use it as a window to use an ogcd without clip. It's still niche, but it's a good purpose.

[Kabooa]

It's a gcd you can be moving with, and it's instant so you can use it as a window to use an ogcd without clip. It's still niche, but it's a good purpose.

You don't know something's going to be in scathe range until well after a cast has already started. Better to just finish whatever you started and AM on over to where you want to be. The difference is negligible outside a great many uses, and if you're using Scathe a great many times, you aren't gaining any advantage from it.

Scathe is worthless.