Thread: What is the Caster Role for 5.0 Going Forward and Where is balance?

Originally Posted by Kabooa

You put.

The raise.

Into the caster role section.

And give it a 5 minute cooldown.

Boom, done, everyone is happy, buff Summoner and Red Mage.

I mean, I'm all for nerfing Verraise (... I'm imagining the possibilities of Verraise as a multi-charge ability on a lengthy CD per charge) and possibly SMN Resurrection if it means making RDM and SMN better for the jobs they're supposed to do while still retaining the emergency tools, and I'm for giving BLM more utility so their contribution isn't solely based on their damage output, but I'm not necessarily certain this is the best route for either?

For starters it basically just takes the old issue with Erase to an extreme: It stepped on the healers' toes, making it preferable for casters to expend their cooldowns first before the healer expended MP. (Looking at the state of RDM right now, I wouldn't call that much of an improvement.)
Granting with a 5 minute cooldown you'd only get it about twice per encounter, maybe 3 if it was used early, and such a long cooldown would ideally be saved for if a healer went down or had no MP to bring up a tank, but with the way raises work it would be easy to lose the CD without clear communication of who should use what and when.

Second, it means not only taking Resurrection away from ACN (which means needing to go through the whole route of giving one to SCH that is available to them retroactively so they don't fall behind CNJ and AST in synched content, which means either finally separating SCH from ACN or making all Raises a role action), but also giving one to BLM which... doesn't really fit BLM from multiple perspectives even outside of balance. No Black Mage through the FF franchise has had a Raise ability, because the job has always been about crippling enemies and reaping selfish benefits.
Which, to be clear, I believe both of which still have highly utilitarian opportunities, particularly in the field of throwing out debuffs, or enhancing damage in a manner where the BLM reaps the most benefit.
But at its core, the express definition of "Black Magic" is "everything White Magic isn't" and vice versa. I could sooner see BLM being the only caster with an interrupt (Pain? Curse? Fog?) or getting Reflect under the pretense of a groupwide "Spikes" skill, than a Raise.

Quick reply because it ate my last one.

Erase had multiple issues that made it underwhelming. Any number of buffs to it could have fixed it. The skill did not step on any healer toes. No more than the TWP does. Clemency, which trades dps for healing is an example of stepping on Healers toes.


Black Magic isn't the opposite of white magic. They are two seperate schools of magic that have created different paths for very similar effects. Black magic focusing more on destruction and White Magic more healing. White magic still has a very powerful destructive toolkit. They both draw on ambient Aether. They both can manipulate that Aether into greater magic reserves [thin air manafont.]

Raise on BLM makes about as much sense as it does on any magical class. When 5 magic classes know raise, and typically at a low level, it can be assumed that it's a fairly simple spell that shares its roots all across the arcane.

Not saying I want BLM to receive raise, but thematically, BLM are adept in many schools of magic. A raise wouldn't break lore to me if it's a generic role ability taught to all would be mages.

I think this is the first time I've heard someone argue the problem with Erase was that it was too weak. In fact largely all the feedback I've seen about it was "bring it and Apocatastasis back".
My concern with it, which I suspect the devs shared, was that each caster was encouraged to take on some of the burden of healing in order to save healers the effort of casting Esunas for any kind of DoT. That in itself could just be argued under "utility" like Paean, until you get to a point where purging DoTs becomes the casters' job that healers pick up slack on, by way of free instant oGCD Erase always being preferable to Esuna.

I'd argue that "White Magic is capable of destruction just like Black Magic" is a gross oversimplification. For starters, while Stone, Aero and the Holy series are damaging, they're nowhere near as destructive as any Black Magical equivalents as a point -- and to make that comparison against Black Mages invites the claim that Black Mages "can" self-sustain through Manaward, but likewise, nowhere near as well as White Mages, nor the same way (White Mages beseech the Elementals for aid to make their spells cheaper, Black Mages just rip straight from the life of the land to recover their reserves faster).
In which case, the pair are quite literally Yin and Yang. Even if we argue the definition of "opposite" versus "inverse", that doesn't mean Raise is as open to the Black Mage as anyone else, especially if the Black Mage is incapable of even the most basic healing that "every other caster" has as a stepping stone. That's like skipping to surgery without knowing any first aid.

Hence "I could see BLM getting Reflect sooner than Raise," since we at least dabble in barriers.

BLM has never been better.
I did a E4 run yesterday as BLM, and managed to dodge everything while maintaining Enochian, with barely any downtime thanks to nicely timed TC/Xeno procs, and well timed Swift/Triplecast. I probably had less downtime than the melee, given all the times you have to run away from him.

So the claim that "if you have to move your damage plummets" is blatantly false.
You just need to learn to play a mobile BLM. Learn to slidecast, work out the best times to triplecast, hold onto those procs a little longer for movement phases.