Discussion: How To Make BLM More Relevant

To be fair, people in general were always and will always be that inept. They always needed coaching. They always needed the when to ws party chat macro.

And the skillchain properties are confusing at best. How a weaponskill (like cdc and fudo) can close darkness or light depending, makes no logical sense, they're complete opposites but the weaponskill that went first changes which property they use. That's extremely un-intuitive. and don't even try to figure out immanence, that ***is illogical as hell. lightning + wind = wind? Light + earth = distortion?

Not to mention, the vanilla game still doesn't show the TP accumulated by your party members...

It actually can, though IIRC it doesn't show for pets or alliance members outside your party.
Addons are lovely, but the vanilla client got some serious QOL over the years.

I think something we forget is that vanilla has done an absurd amount of QoL updates over the years. It's pretty impressive.

Another statement that to be fair, is forgettable because it took so unreasonably long to do. Things like seeing your parties tp should be day zero. Not 10 years later QOL improvement.

And thats not even a "complain to complain" thing, the games intent was to skillchain, but at the same time made it as complicated as possible... because... reasons?

I think the intent was to force people to communicate. Same reason why the game lacked a tutorial, and why it still refuses to give you an arrow on a mini-map to follow for every quest.

Though I do have to wonder why the TP thing is a hidden text command instead of something more overt. Or why it requires a command at all...

the vast majority of "vanilla QoL improvements" are basically the store brand versions of your favorite brand names. No one wants Kirkland Ketchup when Heinz is on the shelf right next to it.

Or, if you don't favor that analogy, then the SE versions of such QoL improvements are the Wish.com versions of the products you really want. Sure- scrolling through facebook they look the same, but once you actually get the product you discover how cheaply its made and only does half of what the real thing does.

Equipsets, ghetto TParty, all of 'em- just poor imitations of what the playerbase created because they understand the needs of the players so much more than SE ever will, or ever has.

I think a neat way to get BLM back into the game would to allow them to bestow an elemental charge to the party, similar to SCH's weather effects, that turns all damage, for a period of time, into the element they cast.

If you brought a blm to a fight that favored earth damage, the ranger could still use their mythic ws but the damage would then be converted to earth elemental damage instead of light.

Like in Lilith moments, fetters, etc. fights, the damage can be elementally funneled.

The strategy involved would also require the BLM to be "knowledgeable" about what they are doing so they don't fudge it up and have everyone thunder V'ing Dhorme Khimaira (that happened once in early dynamis days, our RDM chainspell thunder V'd it to lvl 500, not knowing it lvls up, and i'm sure it is still out killing people.)

It could allow them to bring their damage and MB values, but added utility and creative ways to build parties.

Just a thought.

That's outside the box, and that would absolutely get blm some action indeed.

Feels crazy broken though. Basically giving free reign to fire leaden salutes of any element instead of darkness and light based savage blades etc

In 99% of situations, elements only involve damage reductions from baseline, not increases. Changing the element of something that already does magic damage like Leaden would be situationally useful, but I don't see any real use of changing physical WSs to elemental unless it turned them into hybrid WSs or something (which would basically be an instant 99999 machine for any currently relevant physical WS).

there's definitely opportunity for it be implemented wrong (the SE way) or right, but if done properly it let's blm join the "broken" party instead of creating one.

Geriond, in my mind I see physical WS creating SC's that "contain" the element the blm casts as the primary element, with the originals supporting it. That way the resist factor is against the blm infused element and can potentially help melee breakthrough resistances on certain mobs/fights/gimmicks.

I'm of the mindset after playing this game since day 1 that everything is able to be zerg'd into the ground if the players are geared enough, regardless of jobs. This would just let BLM show up more often to the fights.

Again, just spit-balling.

Maybe another idea is to allow blm to create elemental resonances. If a blm pops the JA and/or MBs unresisted it creates a fetter, or an elemental, that fights for a period of time casting the spell that was MB until either another MB is made of a differing spell, or an opposing elemental SC is performed (dark then light would negate a blizzard resonance). This would allow the BLM to continuously pump out damage to keep up with melee damage while they wait for their next opportunity. it would also require strategy again to make sure when they pop the resonance ja they are prepared to make it matter.

Issues BLM have isn't just magic damage but the damage they aren't doing when preparing for the next burst/spell while melee are tp'ing like mad and spamming. They need a "spam" like attack form. Also, like certain fights where a mob absorbs an element or changes resistances, they need to know their stuff. Just like a melee needs to be careful on certain mobs.

Not sure what happened with the italics lol

Hell i'll keep going. Blm could have a buff that as long as they aren't resisted and only cast damage based elemental spells, they build up a MB bonus making non-MB'd spells actually start to hit hard outside the window. If the blm casts a debuff or stuns the mob, it resets or cancels the effect until the timer is up again. It gives them a turret effect that helps penetrate magic defenses the longer they can sustain it and the party can keep them protected/refreshed (something that used to be a thing).

Do you understand what mechanically is making BLM garbage for damage? You would have to nerf everyone else by 70-90% and even then it might not be enough with multiple DD's. This isn't a "a few jobs are a little out of balance" situation, it's fundamental mechanics of the game that make casting for damage bad.

For starters there is a long global cooldown of 3s, which is 50% higher then what weapon skills and job abilities have (2s). There is absolutely nothing that can be done about this, no matter how much fast cast you have, there will be a 3s period after casting a spell where you just stand there looking pretty. This is brutal for sustained damage.

Then there is the "resist wall", a 60% damage reduction effect that lasts 5s and was designed to discourage having 18 BLM's time nuke Divine Might, yes it's from that era when doing over a thousand damage was noteworthy. Rayke can be used to cut it down to 30%. This mechanic is beyond stupid and should of been removed a decade ago.

The only way you can deal decent damage is via magic bursting and that runs into the 99K damage ceiling. Yes BLM's would need to be dealing hundreds of thousands of damage per burst in order to make bursting worthwhile. Other damage sources are just that much better. Stacking multiple Nukers (BLM/SCH/GEO/RDM) ends up slamming into the aforementioned resist wall issue. I believe BLU is the only one who doesn't have to deal with this and only because their nukes are treated like elemental weapon skills. Funny thing is this makes BLU a better "nuker" then BLM, they don't need a SCH to setup SC's and you can have multiple of them just cycling through their spells.

The fix is pretty obvious, reduce the cooldown to 2s, remove the resist wall, then look at add a percentage of INT as a direct bump to base spell damage. Around 30% for the lower tiers and maybe around 80% for the big Tier VI's. Change Cascade from 10% of TP as MDMG to 50% or more of TP and bonus damage on magic burst.

That is how you make elemental nuking viable, not just for BLM but also for GEO, RDM and SCH. BLM gets the biggest benefit but the others can contribute damage without "nerfing" the BLMs nukes. No fancy mechanics that will get used for one week, then completely ignored in favor of far better existing methods. Just solve the root cause and the problem will attend to itself.

If you want a lazy solution that invites BLM to join the zerg, that's easy! Pick one or more:

• Give 'em a trait or stanced JA that makes all their burst-specific stats work on free nukes. The magic burst was inside you all along!

• Alter Occult Acumen and Cascade to give black mage something equivalent to a magical ranged TP & WS cycle. Make OA for BLM scale with MAB or damage and change Cascade to a flat % boost with a 10 sec recast, or something.
  

• Give R15 Laeva a +x% MAB buff.

They don't have to tear down the resist wall or even make BLM top tier, they just need to give the job a viable playstyle that doesn't rely on burst.

The 3s global cooldown and resist wall make any attempt at casting for damage completely futile. A Ranger and / or Corsair shooting for TP and using Leaden / True Flight / Hot Shot / Wildfire will do better damage then any elemental caster outside of maybe Blue Mage. Heck a RDM/RNG using a bow will end up doing more damage with Flaming Arrow (assuming correct buffs) then a Black Mage nuking.

Generic melee DPS party

DD1 (or Tank)
DD2
COR (DD usually)
BRD (Can be a DD too)
GEO (Can kinda DD)
WHM

That is 2~4 or even 5 sources of damage right there that do not interfere with each other. The primary DD(s) can be using their strongest WS, typically in the 40-70K range while the COR/BRD/GEO can all heavily contribute damage. The WHM stands at range and just toss's Curaga onto everyone non-stop.

Generic SC party

Tank
COR (roll or closing SC)
BRD or RDM (buff / debuff and heal)
SCH (making SC maybe heal depending)
GEO (not nuking)
BLM (the DD)

In most cases the COR is gonna end up being the "real" DPS when they make darkness of distortion, the Leaden + Darkness SC is gonna eclipse whatever the BLM is contributing and the worst part is the GEO / SCH / RDM can't contribute much damage without messing with the BLM's chained bursts. Without that 5s 60% they could at least contribute something but if they attempt to MB they could end up taking 60% out of the big nuke and definitely take 60% out of the secondary and tertiary nukes as the SC gets extended.

COR is limited to darkness and fire damage. Make target resist those heavily on top of big PDT (even better, only heavily resist Fire, but absorb Dark) and your COR cant do any damage at all.

Well, yeah. A BLM with Lathi or Grio shouldn't get close to what R15 DP/Gastra can do, and right now if you drop a BLM into a comp that isn't going to burst the WHM can probably out-DD them.

Give that BLM the ability to free nuke for ~80% of their normal burst damage every 5 seconds and toss out a mega nuke every 20-30 sec, though? They can probably approach the output of THF or Savage COR, while standing at range and with far less TP feed. I think that'd be more than enough to get people using it again, with no danger of BLM armies returning to shake up the meta.

Idk if this was covered recently but perhaps adding a trait for mage jobs (adjusting Occult Acumen maybe?) that makes Melee with a Staff or Wand on a Mage-Primary job act as Non-Elemental Magic Damage? Possibly with some extra range maybe? And with no resist wall nonsense?

I remembered the Dolls from the OG-COP Airship fight using those annoying “Pulse” attacks whenever they switched to Mage Mode. This could give BLM/Mages a chance to be a part of Zergs without DRASTICALLY changing their gear arrangements (apart from needing more DT and HP)

And maybe a boost to Elemental WS to make them viable?

Idk, just a quick thought. Sorry if it was already covered.

I think this is the most realistic solution.

1. Add more area where you need all elemental damage types (beside dark and light) so bringing any melee DD covering just 1-2 types wont cut it. Can be many enemies with different resistance or one enemy with changing resistance.
2. Create mechanic, where only elemental magic is viable, but only when its magic bursted (I think this should be technically doable by some easy to implement solution).
3. Add fights with target having DT that can be reduced by proccing !! when doing all kind of stuff, like using different weapon types, magic bursting different elements etc. So basically the more versatile is your party the faster you can kill it, but you could still kill it MUCH slower doing brain dead melee DPS only.
4. Add same WS wall (same as on Dynamis wave 3 NMs/boss) to more stuff (technically not BLM related, but it's in line with other points :P)

I think people want to play BLM because of casting playstyle. Changing BLM to another TP/WS job with a twist is not a solution.

The basic mechanics of elemental magic damage make it such that BLM armies will never return to meta.

I don't think you fully understand how far behind casting damage is from everything else. Once per 5s, pulease, I've done at least two 40~70K WS's in that period of time. BLM's would have to be doing over 100K every single cast non-stop to be worth considering for a DPS slot, with current mechanics. The inability for casting damage to stack immediately takes it off the table unless a fight dictates it must be used. If I need elemental damage there are better places to get it then a BLM.

This is obviously ***.
100k every 5 sec would be 20k DPS. That's around twice more than most top melee DPS (especially in real game scenario, where it can be way lover. Even less if you fight many monsters and need to switch targets). Only some warcry, mighty strikes war with tons of buffs can go close to that (still less).

ffxiah: braindead DDing for so much dmg is not fair!
also ffxiah: let BLM free cast for MB dmg.

ppl who want to play BLM want to time MB nukes. free nuke only ever was viable befor you hit the dunes and from there on out it was pretty much always MB nukes.

suggesting to change that is first of just as, if not more, braindead as melee DD spamming savage blade and second it's like the change to BST pet commands range. it would change what BLM always stood for and it won't make ppl who want to play BLM happy.

So I'll say it again


BLM is a DPS therefor it competes with other DPS for the same slots. Targeting and addressing the root cause of problems is how we fix them, not using snowflake logic.

This is just like the "MNK sucks they really need to fix MNK" situation. Tons of clueless folks giving all sorts of silly "not more damage" reasons. Those who knew the mechanics put it simply "make H2H WS's better". Making H2H WS's better ended up fixing the issue by placing MNK into the same DPS bracket as SAM/WAR/DRK/DRG, which are all primary DPS jobs.

You've definitely got more insight into this than I do, and I agree what what you're saying.

But that's kinda what I meant when I said everyone needs to be taken down a peg. If we're to the point where as players our only limitations are the fundamental ceilings of the game's underlying engine, there's a problem. We're hitting an unbreachable cap for damage, so we're grasping for the ability to cast in greater quantity instead.

I agree that we need the arbitrary walls removed. But that's still not going to fix Black Mage outright. And the idea that we'd be making the job into a faster, more sustained-damage caster I'd argue isn't the correct fantasy for a Black Mage. So unless we just keep raising that damage cap and giving monsters more HP to compensate (which indirectly nerfs everybody else anyway) our best option would be to just nerf everybody outright.

I think the first step to solving this issue would be to reevaluate what we really want Black Mage's identity to be.

To warp you when you forget your warp ring.

Nah, nobody forgets their warp ring. Black mage's identity is just to warp you when you need to travel faster than the rings 10 minute cooldown can handle.

Behold! The new Black Mage rework!