BLM and the upcoming update

[Okan]

Well as mentioned by a previous interview, they mentioned that SE was wanting to nerf BLM. "We've always felt BLM is too strong." Nothing is confirmed that this update will affect BLM, but I'm believing it is. Their key concern is manaburns from my point of view. I believe they'll increase resistances over time, much like Sleep and Ballista. There is also the BLM LS on some server that does everything with BLM/NIN and does really good from what I've seen.

How do you think SE will nerf BLM in the future?

[Not Kuno]

I don't mind too much if they nerf blm soloing a bit but there are some things in this game you need blm and that'll suck if we get nerfed.

[Okan]

I don't mind too much if they nerf blm soloing a bit but there are some things in this game you need blm and that'll suck if we get nerfed.

I agree. I feel BLM should be nerfed to a degree (I'm BLM too so don't jump me for that.) The job is insanely powerful. I'm just curious how they'll effectively nerf BLM while leaving them a useful job. Or will BLM turn out like DRGs and RNGs. Will we be invited last in to PTs and DRGs getting invited before us?

Atleast my next job planned isn't a high concern job.. It's going to be my "fun" job.

[Sekkite]

If they nerf the damage of BLMs, they really need to increase the power of other jobs to pick up the slack.

[Septimus]

If they nerf the damage of BLMs, they really need to increase the power of other jobs to pick up the slack.

No, it's more fun if you newf a job to make everything take longer.

Oh, and take away drops from NMs so high-end gear becomes even more expensive...

[Okan]

First off, mind you I'm only going off speculation that an update is coming out next month and that they recently mentioned lowering BLM's power.

I think the reason they'd nerf BLM is to increase other jobs "usefulness" at end game. If you look at the Black Angels(?).. They had a SMN, DRK, THF, and like... What? 10BLMs and they destroyed Aspido in about 5 minutes? Well, they wiped at around 5%.. That's only 10 BLMs though... try using 18RNG, 18THF, 18DRK, 18WAR, 18XXX... Chances are they won't do near as much to Aspido as 10 BLM did...

[Sekkite]

Well if melees could put out damage equivelent to a SA 150%+TP WS from a distance without even having to stand behind the mob and if melee damage wasn't so greatly reduced on most HNMs, then yeah, just maybe they'd do as well on aspid.

[Quicklet]

It's bad to measure a job's power by using a mob that's specifically designed to be strong against one type of attack or another as an example.

As far as current endgame goes, BLMs aren't as overpowered as it might seem, notably because a lot of new stuff has 50% magic immunity, so BLMs are actually underpowered for most cutting edge stuff. As far as "easier" stuff, the main advantage of BLM over melee is that dmg / TP given to mob is much better in the case of BLM than for melee. If SE wants to fix that, they should fix it on the melee end like they've started to, not on the BLM end which already is in position to be surpassed by other jobs.

As far as endless chaining in sea, SE can easily just nerf pet exp and be done with it if that's the issue. There are a lot of other jobs that can exp just as well if not better than BLMs at 75, so you can hardly say that's a reason to nerf them.

Overall, the strength of BLM is greatly overexaggerated in a lot of cases, or it only appears to be a strength because of the weakness of melee in a lot of cases. If BLM is disproportionately powerful in certain instances, then it's probably because of the way SE designed the encounter and not because of the way the job works. If BLMs have some kind of adjustment to the way they do damage to mobs, it will probably only be when new spells or abilities are released to them.

[Okan]

I didn't necessarily mean sea mana burns... They do it in KRT and they do it in sky too on Golems. I don't quite understand why they'd decided to nerf something 4 years in to the game now...

[Nikko]

its my opinion that they have been slowly nerfing BLM as time goes on. Compare BLM power after each expansion, they are weaker and weaker situationally.

First you have base FFXI, where blm is pretty much end all in terms of excluding other jobs. When you add zilart, all the sudden BLM is weakened because they make mobs with insane resist rates (gods) or longer fights where enmity for mages is a serious issue.

Moving along CoP comes out, and wyrms are created which straight up take 50% less DMG from elemental magic. Also there is jailer of temperence who is almost immune intirely to BLMs.

By saying BLM is "too strong" and that they have always been working on correcting that, i am 90% sure SE means they have been, and will be, shaping new encounters along with the current trend of limiting the use of BLMs, as to curve any monopoly on what is and isnt considered a viable damage dealer. Thats why i think they will NOT change the BLM job.

[Kiro]

Well knowing SE they won't do something as simple as higher resists over time, they'll probably take away all -ga 3 and IV spells. :O

[Zigma]

As far as endless chaining in sea, SE can easily just nerf pet exp and be done with it if that's the issue. There are a lot of other jobs that can exp just as well if not better than BLMs at 75, so you can hardly say that's a reason to nerf them.

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no.

Maybe 3 war with adaman hauberks, each with his own ridill brd whm rdm in uleguerand range yes but from my point of view, I have to dissagree with you on that.

[Sekkite]

Each expansion?

BLMs were balanced before Rise of the Zilart came out.

BLMs were horribly overpowered when Rise of the Zilart came out.

BLMs still shame melee when Chains of Promathia came out.

[Okan]

As far as endless chaining in sea, SE can easily just nerf pet exp and be done with it if that's the issue. There are a lot of other jobs that can exp just as well if not better than BLMs at 75, so you can hardly say that's a reason to nerf them.

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no.

Maybe 3 war with adaman hauberks, each with his own ridill brd whm rdm in uleguerand range yes but from my point of view, I have to dissagree with you on that.

I think Quickley is right that other jobs could chain better and longer, but the issue I see is that there are not enough mobs in other places to keep the chains. D. weapons will usually run out around 40's. MNKs maybe 50-60s before chain. In sea, the mob summons the pets that are VT and easily killed.. Therefor making it possible to get EXP Chain 498403489349803498409384 with enough time and patience.

[Quicklet]

I think Quickley is right that other jobs could chain better and longer, but the issue I see is that there are not enough mobs in other places to keep the chains. D. weapons will usually run out around 40's. MNKs maybe 50-60s before chain. In sea, the mob summons the pets that are VT and easily killed.. Therefor making it possible to get EXP Chain 498403489349803498409384 with enough time and patience.

Which is why they could easily do one of two things: nerf pet xp, or limit chains to a certain number before automatically starting over.

[Zigma]

As far as endless chaining in sea, SE can easily just nerf pet exp and be done with it if that's the issue. There are a lot of other jobs that can exp just as well if not better than BLMs at 75, so you can hardly say that's a reason to nerf them.

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no.

Maybe 3 war with adaman hauberks, each with his own ridill brd whm rdm in uleguerand range yes but from my point of view, I have to dissagree with you on that.

I think Quickley is right that other jobs could chain better and longer, but the issue I see is that there are not enough mobs in other places to keep the chains. D. weapons will usually run out around 40's. MNKs maybe 50-60s before chain. In sea, the mob summons the pets that are VT and easily killed.. Therefor making it possible to get EXP Chain 498403489349803498409384 with enough time and patience.

the problem with this is like you said, not enough mobs, black mages have a infinite supply of it and thats what give them the advantage over the other jobs. Even with EXP chain 498403489349803498409384, the amount of exp you will get by doing a non-blm pt up there would be a lot from what I see.

[aurik]

Or they could modify the monsters to not respawn a pet instantly every time it gets killed. Occasionally (1 in 15?) waiting 1 minute to spawn a new pet would break that chain nicely.

[thestalkmore]

Nerf the god damn pets, it's very simple . SE was brain dead when they created a mob that summoned easily killable VT pets, that's a fault of the mobs, the fact that some BLM was smart enough to exploit it isn't something that should be punished by revamping the entire job. Comparing WAR's (or any melee for that matter) to BLM is like comparing apples to oranges.

By selecting to play as a WAR you sacrifice the ability to dish out damage equivalent to your manapool in turn for being able to take hits, feasibly use utsusemi, transfer any generated hate to another person, get drops from hnm , etcera, etcetera. If warriors were able to generate 1500 damage out of thin air, recast utsusemi until they lost hate, use a weaponskill shortly after and finish off with another 1500 damage nuke coming from a nonexistant manapool it would be time to nerf WAR.

BLMs are not overpowered, SE has just not had the foresight (something which they've lacked when making a lot of decisions) to make a select number of situations which happen to be easily exploitable by the BLM class. Nerf RDMs for their incredible soloing ability, nerf utsusemi again for being able to absorb all direct damage, nerf THF main and sub for being able to transfer hate to someone else, nerf BST for making teh petz atak eachothur, and in actual seriousness, nerf retarted mobs that make the BLM job the crucified posterboy of the FFXI world.

BRB gonna go get critical'd by nidhogg for 100000 damage.

[Okan]

Nerf the god damn pets, it's very simple . SE was brain dead when they created a mob that summoned easily killable VT pets, that's a fault of the mobs, the fact that some BLM was smart enough to exploit it isn't something that should be punished by revamping the entire job. Comparing WAR's (or any melee for that matter) to BLM is like comparing apples to oranges.

By selecting to play as a WAR you sacrifice the ability to dish out damage equivalent to your manapool in turn for being able to take hits, feasibly use utsusemi, transfer any generated hate to another person, get drops from hnm , etcera, etcetera. If warriors were able to generate 1500 damage out of thin air, recast utsusemi until they lost hate, use a weaponskill shortly after and finish off with another 1500 damage nuke coming from a nonexistant manapool it would be time to nerf WAR.

BLMs are not overpowered, SE has just not had the foresight (something which they've lacked when making a lot of decisions) to make a select number of situations which happen to be easily exploitable by the BLM class. Nerf RDMs for their incredible soloing ability, nerf utsusemi again for being able to absorb all direct damage, nerf THF main and sub for being able to transfer hate to someone else, nerf BST for making teh petz atak eachothur, and in actual seriousness, nerf retarted mobs that make the BLM job the crucified posterboy of the FFXI world.

BRB gonna go get critical'd by nidhogg for 100000 damage.

For only 100k? He hits me 200k.

Well, I'm not going to argue that. I agree that should happen, but I think the problem is that none of us work for SE. We can't go to work and make this suggestion. Even though they say "We take suggestions seriously", they probably laugh at us. All I'd want in the end is the GC99s to drop the abjurations of their ground equivalents.. On Unicorn the two LS that make 99% of the claims are using hacks..

[Not Kuno]

Nerf the god damn pets, it's very simple . SE was brain dead when they created a mob that summoned easily killable VT pets, that's a fault of the mobs, the fact that some BLM was smart enough to exploit it isn't something that should be punished by revamping the entire job. Comparing WAR's (or any melee for that matter) to BLM is like comparing apples to oranges.

By selecting to play as a WAR you sacrifice the ability to dish out damage equivalent to your manapool in turn for being able to take hits, feasibly use utsusemi, transfer any generated hate to another person, get drops from hnm , etcera, etcetera. If warriors were able to generate 1500 damage out of thin air, recast utsusemi until they lost hate, use a weaponskill shortly after and finish off with another 1500 damage nuke coming from a nonexistant manapool it would be time to nerf WAR.

BLMs are not overpowered, SE has just not had the foresight (something which they've lacked when making a lot of decisions) to make a select number of situations which happen to be easily exploitable by the BLM class. Nerf RDMs for their incredible soloing ability, nerf utsusemi again for being able to absorb all direct damage, nerf THF main and sub for being able to transfer hate to someone else, nerf BST for making teh petz atak eachothur, and in actual seriousness, nerf retarted mobs that make the BLM job the crucified posterboy of the FFXI world.

BRB gonna go get critical'd by nidhogg for 100000 damage.

You're my hero.