BLM Miser Burn Strategy

[Kaeko]

There was a small argument I had with Valk over how to approach this setup. Valk was insistent that we max out the DPS for proving the concept at the expense of viability for incorporation into a normal speed run; whereas I was trying to see if we could just kill Miser within 2 minutes without sacrificing setup time to streamline this with a speed run.

Ultimately, the way this was done in the video is not viable for a speed run; however, you can really streamline this with a 5 chest run by only sacrificing the paeon of war to give the BRD and WAR 3000 TP to start (we basically wasted 15 minutes prepping just to get the 3000TP to start for 2 characters). Everything else is actually the same.

All that is really "required" for this to work setup wise is Battle Voice Minuet and possibly an NQ ballad. I say possibly because the first time we did this the BRD accidentally forgot to Ballad period and there was no Paeon of War so the melee started with 0 TP. We did the fight with no MP regen, no starter TP, one of the BLM was out of range and lost about 5000 damage, and still got it down in 2:01. So I'm confident that this strategy actually streamlines very well if you just remove the Paeon of War and go WAR BRD WHM BLM x5. This is pretty much what we normally use anyways.

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Regarding the idea of "top DPS", I personally find the idea a very misguided way to assess the viability and strength of a strategy; however, if we are to indulge in such an argument, BLM will produce higher numbers when completely optimized. I'm very sure of this especially if it takes a Corselet MNK to break 160 for you guys, when we have multiple single socket gear BLMs breaking 150 on just a 2nd attempt. Formula-wise, MATK and INT scale better for damage over melee stats so going into a decked out gear argument only favors BLM more as well. I'd be interested to see Actus parsed in a strategy like this one.

I think the reason BLM has the advantage here is because you can open with Firaga + Excruciate + Collusion at distance. This gives us an initial first strike burst of 1,500-2,000 damage per BLM at basically time = 0 seconds that you just carry with you until the end of the fight. I actually made a curve that showed how DPS from a BLM whittles down as the fight lingers - it starts incredibly high around the 700 mark after 5 seconds, then obviously falls continuously as the fight drags on. If you ever reach the point where MP = 0, it free-falls as opposed to a steady 150 MNK as you mentioned above. This actually seems in line with what Yoshi-P wanted out of BLM, since he stressed BLM as a job with top-tier 'burst' damage that quickly fades as MP runs dry.

But again, to reiterate the point, the ultimate goal should be to kill Miser within 2 minutes WHILE streamlining it with your 5 chest run setups. A DPS war between MNK and BLM is fairly pointless in my opinion. So is trying to say a 1:50 kill beats a 2:00 kill in merit somehow. I'm positive the BLM setup we use can do this with fairly minimal gear requirements, similar to a MNK method. It's just another alternative for LSs that cater more towards mage over melee.

EDIT:
Regarding your question about adds. If we fail to kill it within 2 min in our usual runs, we just sleep the tenders and go back to killing. If we're off, we're usually not so far off that we can't kill it with an extra minute, so we don't have to worry about the tenders waking or hearty victuals popping. A heavy BLM setup has the advantage of if shit hits the fan, you have 5 AoE sleep spammers and Miser is easier to get out of the pool because your DD is completely ranged.