Dear Bioblaster

[Gserpent]

Exactly! It's a total of 16k damage but spread out over 9 seconds. It feels like: "You go there and get under the range of their 3 Dragoons or I'm keeping all those skills to myself!" And for what? A DoT they can easily heal away? No way I'm spending Analysis on this garbage, either, especially if all that does is add a pathetic slow they won't even need to remove because I'm now well within range of most things they'll want to throw at me anyways.

Maybe it would be worth if I could hit the entire party with it, but getting close to an entire 5-man team?! Are you insane?! How do you think I'll make it out alive from that move? No ammount of Guard in the World will save my squishy behind.

16k damage over 9 sec is pretty good. The issue is the short range. I don't think it needs a range extension, but it should just not be part of the core rotation. I feel like the MCH class fantasy is picking the right tool for the job, meaning you'd separate all of the Cid-tools and retune things from there. Bioblaster could be your close range, high damage weapon (this would normally be the flamer, but a channeled cast is not going to function in the fast pace of the PvP revamp.)

People keep discounting dots and I think it's because they don't realize how important attrition is, especially at high skill. Players above a certain threshold of skill are *not* going to die to burst or CC chains with any regularity, because they know better than to put themselves in positions where that's likely to happen. They'll Guard it, their teammates will protect them, etc. You'll sometimes be able to pop someone, but it's not common. Instead, at higher levels of play, attrition is the primary goal. Your targets are prioritized based on their remaining mana (and whether or not they have Purify or, especially, Guard available.) Forcing someone to pop one of their four potions to recover from a dot is significant. Better still if you can apply that to multiple targets (which is why SCH is so strong.)

Heavy is also pretty useful. It's the weakest of the various CC effects, but it also lasts the longest and is very problematic for healers, casters, and pretty much anyone else without a readily available dash. Being stuck in the open is a death sentence (higher skill players avoid being burst down primarily by hugging corners and pillars to quickly LOS if they are targeted, after all.)

I think Bioblaster is completely fine as-is. The only issue is that you are forced to use it in order to access other tools. I think that entire design is against the concept of MCH as a whole. Instead of needing "Bioblaster Ready" or whatever, they should just handle it like NIN mudras - all of your tools share the same 2 charges, and you cannot use the same tool twice in a row. Maybe they could add optional combo bonuses for using specific tools in a chain, but I feel like Analysis already kind of covers that idea.