Will BLM ever get a party buff?

[ZiraZ]

I feel that BLM is very well realized with its party contribution at the expense of having more dps... However, I would welcome a lot more personal utiity. Like another charge from Manaward, or a new 3-minute self cleanse from a stack of vulnerabiity.

It would be cool if Leylines were some sort of beacon that would leave aetherial residue so you could always Between the Lines back to its position until you would set a new one.

What more dps?
at this point every job should have party utility, including NIN, DRG, BLM and SAM if they are gonna keep the dps-utility system so unbalanced.

[Grave_KNT]

I feel that BLM is very well realized with its party contribution at the expense of having more dps... However, I would welcome a lot more personal utiity. Like another charge from Manaward, or a new 3-minute self cleanse from a stack of vulnerabiity.

It would be cool if Leylines were some sort of beacon that would leave aetherial residue so you could always Between the Lines back to its position until you would set a new one.

Another charge on Manaward would be great. I'd like it if they made it so Aetherial Manipulation (the roller skates power) could be used on enemies like Sage's Icarus.

[ty_taurus]

I'm leveling Black Mage now since the Summoner changes made me feel like I need a different, more in-depth sorta caster class to play with, and at level 62 now I still feel a little wanting for something extra. I think that mostly stems from the fact I seem to only have GCDs outside of a few personal buffs like Leylines and Sharpcast, and no party buff to grant to others.

Which is odd since I thought BLM was historically always the offensive buff guy in the Final Fantasy series? I mean, I've not played EVERY game in the series, but in FF1, the only time when my party Black Mage didn't have the Boost spell was when I hadn't gotten to a town with it yet, and in FF9 I adored Vivi's elemental combos with Steiner. Both would be valid options for a 15-20s buff like most DPS seem to carry but-...

For some reason BLM is the 'selfish' DPS class that only contributes big damage to the group. Why is that? It has to be an intentional design choice given how long it's been in the game, but I can't imagine why this job, of all things, is the only one that lacks any sort of party utility. Especially given both the other casters get Raise somehow! (Even Blue Mage sorta does, and that's not even a full fledged job!)

When will Square let me catch my Dark Knight's sword on fire, and/or fill the Dragoon with even more bloodlust?

As someone who's played every final fantasy, I have to say Black Mages that offer any sort of support are by far the outliers in the series. FFI had Boost, yeah, but that's kind of it. I wouldn't really call Steiner's magic sword a form of Vivi's Support, more just exactly that, a combo attack. Black Mages have had debuffs that could be considered utility like sleep and slow, but those were pretty rarely effective and largely inferior to just blasting enemies with your most powerful spells.

[Altera]

I think the idea of pure dps and gradients of support dps is fine, I just think the balance in terms of damage is a bit funky right now. Personally, I like black mage being just about blowing enemies up and would hate to see that philosophy go.

Well considering RPR and MNK now seems to do same and better damange than BLM, i fear groups will start to deny BLMs access to party groups like they did in Stormblood. Why bring a pure DPS without party buffs and utilities when they can bring RPR who gives party damage buffs, and AOE heal Dot which is strong and has a way better chance of damage uptime considering how much movement there is in the Savage fight. Even double Triple cast and Swiftcast isnt enough for some of the movements needed for max uptime unless utilize procs and such very efficiently. But that could mean having to way using them incase you have to move etc

If they do not balance BLM/MNK/RPR/SAM before 6.1, I will not be pleased if i start to see PF start denying me access again when i wanna do things on my own outside my static

[Anacrusys]

It would be cool if Leylines were some sort of beacon that would leave aetherial residue so you could always Between the Lines back to its position until you would set a new one.

I think BLM should have a teleport forward ability on a short CD. Useable while casting but can’t go through obstacles. Why restrict movement back to a fixed spot. This also eliminates the advantage one player has over another with respect to fight knowledge.

[BaconBits]

I think BLM should have a teleport forward ability on a short CD. Useable while casting but can’t go through obstacles. Why restrict movement back to a fixed spot. This also eliminates the advantage one player has over another with respect to fight knowledge.

Hard disagree. What's the point of knowing a fight if every Tom, Dick, and Harry can do the same thing as an experienced player by just winging it?

[Anacrusys]

I was strictly referring to leyline placement as the only spot you can move back to, and how fight knowledge affects it more than any other movement skill in the game. What other job has to move back to an exact spot? Exp. A first time on the boss dancer can dash anywhere like an experienced dancer. A first time on the boss BLM has an extra disadvantage in not knowing where to drop leylines. In sum, fight knowledge affects BLM far more than any other job. Okay, let’s forget about the fight knowledge aspect. Moving on.

The teleport forward would be far superior to between the lines. It would also allow them to remove 1-2 other hot keys (if you guys agree) and replace them with more interesting skills. I’m assuming they added xenoglossy and amplifier because everyone complained about movement. amplifier is a wasted unecesssary hot key they could replace

If you added the teleport, you could remove between the lines, xeno, and amplifier and add two new cool skills. Or at least amplifier if you want to keep xeno. Lastly, it would also be nice if your cast would finish wherever you teleported to. So teleporting mid cast would not interrupt the cast. I know it would work extremely well.

[BaconBits]

Why would any BLM worth their salt want to trade in Between the Lines for a bog-standard forward teleport when they could just AM to someone that's already in a safe zone, or heaven forbid, just move out of the way with either Triplecast, Swiftcast, Xenoglossy, Thundercloud or Firestarter procs and Umbral Ice Paradox, then zip back to their Leylines?

You're trying to solve a problem that already has multiple solutions.

[Anacrusys]

I forgot about AM that would be another skill to replace. AM is terrible on console, you can easily be dead by the time you target someone with the dpad. So now we could add three totally new skills! and have better mobility with the teleport in any direction than all these other movement skills combined. I’m sure people would like three new interesting and engaging skills without adding more hot keys. I’ll throw this out there maybe high dps melee range skill(s) SMN and RDM both have melee range skills. We now have a teleport to get in or out of melee range.

[Shurrikhan]

Will BLM ever get a party buff?

Probably not, but... why would it need to? Unless you mean that in terms of non-rDPS utility, such as the old Apocatastasis buff, I'd rather BLM just stay the Carry than be dependent upon party performance to do its full rDPS.