Comments from the Devs

[Elcura]

I wasn't saying your melee skills would be interrupted, but you might run down the combo timer and have to start over in addition to missing a few auto-attack swings.

Bolded is what I meant by "interrupted" if it wasn't clear. Playing MNK at the levels available in Beta (admittedly I haven't done Ifrit on it much) you'd get into a rhythm and having to break that rhythm on long boss fights drives me crazy and can only be hurting my deeps.

There's a couple of things that makes melee a bitch during intense fights. Keeping your cycle/flow going and dealing with attacks/damage mitigation. Usually one conflicts with the other, and one has to consider that in fights where the enemy moves more often than you do that ranged classes will have the advantage of keeping up DPS that melee classes will not (due to range, position etc).

Ifrit is the kind of fight where you're the bitch that needs to run, Moogle is the kind of fight where they're the bitches and we're trying to get in that ass.

Well yeah, you're right that it's fine to do less damage if you are ok with that and having fun but most end-game groups want efficiency and if they can increase that efficiency by say 10% by taking a different DD over a BLM they will. That's just how shit works whether you like it or not. It's about balance not being top of the parser. Not playing a class doesn't fix balance, you just end up with a class that no one plays because it doesn't perform well enough.

We will wait and see how it performs in the 50 fight before drawing conclusions but it is not wrong to have concerns.

Stop playing with dickheads then. If you got a group that doesn't want you to play BLM (that you fucking love) because it's 10% less efficient than whatever the fuck else then find better people. There's no excuse for job exclusion other than people being asses, and there's no reason for class stacking either.

It's wrong to have concerns about the basics of a playstyle that is completely unavoidable. I mean, what else is there to suggest? All spells should be cast on the move? Instant? I dunno, if you have a choice between dodging and casting, you pick one and deal with the consequence. It's the same as any other job. If your concerns are about dicks being dicks, that doesn't really have much to do with BLM, does it?

[Reve]

- The dev team has designed endgame events to outright kill players
- (The Labyrinth of) Bahamut is so long, it pretty much requires players to 'save progress' as they proceed through the dungeon

I am in full support of anything that makes the BF cry or ruins their immersion. I'm just excited for hard content; not that I particularly enjoy hard content. In fact, I don't really like it too much because of the stress levels. I just can't wait for those BF people to get a full wipe because they think they are 2badn'tuff because they easily cleared the baby's first dungeons (lv.15-20) in FFXIV and did CoP in FFXI.

[Churchill]

idk what you're going on about, we already know people who play ffxiv are bad. 1.0 gave a clear view of that between dungeon speed runs, garuda, darnus hard, and ifrit x.

hell, just ifrit hard and moogle and you'd find enough bads to never pug again.

[Churchill]

Duty Finder: Not even once.

[Sephiroth]

Stop playing with dickheads then. If you got a group that doesn't want you to play BLM (that you fucking love) because it's 10% less efficient than whatever the fuck else then find better people. There's no excuse for job exclusion other than people being asses, and there's no reason for class stacking either.

It's wrong to have concerns about the basics of a playstyle that is completely unavoidable. I mean, what else is there to suggest? All spells should be cast on the move? Instant? I dunno, if you have a choice between dodging and casting, you pick one and deal with the consequence. It's the same as any other job. If your concerns are about dicks being dicks, that doesn't really have much to do with BLM, does it?

At the end of the day it's not about people being dicks. I'm not going to hold a group back playing one job if I can do more damage on another. It's different if that's your only job and a group won't let you play as that, but if you have a few jobs and you're good at all of them you play the best one for the content surely?

I'm just going to wait and see on this one, it's pointless trying to draw conclusions off a level 20 fight where the available abilities are limited. But I've voiced my concerns and it's something we should be looking for as all classes need to be balanced.

I'm not against casting on the move, surely there's better ways of interrupting a spell. But it's a design decision they have made and most likely won't reverse so hopefully they can make it work.

[Vuitton]

If someone hasn't pointed out yet (I skipped some posts), for THM/BLM on Ifrit, when to cast spells is very important if you don't want to get interrupted as much. In 1.0 you had to time your spells because you'd potentially get animation locked after the spells goes off and right when Ifrit does something to you. Now you need to time your spells to minimize interruptions. Wait until he uses an ability and then cast. If you're not sure, wait until he uses one and then start your cast.

Also, don't stand near other people. That way you don't need to move because they got targeted with something.

This is also something that is not unique to THM/BLM. CNJ/WHM need to worry about all of this as well because they're healing.

[Elcura]

At the end of the day it's not about people being dicks. I'm not going to hold a group back playing one job if I can do more damage on another. It's different if that's your only job and a group won't let you play as that, but if you have a few jobs and you're good at all of them you play the best one for the content surely?

If that's how you want to play, sure. My point is that ultimately it doesn't matter what you play as long as you enjoy it.

Most end-game groups don't strive for efficiency until they know the content well enough to optimize their runs, and by that point you should have enough knowledge of the content to know what you want to play as, what you can play as and what you should play as. If that matters to you and your group, then maybe you might get some exclusion, but that's your decision as a group that you made for yourself. It isn't something imposed on you by the game so ultimately it's a personal issue. I'm sure you already know that though.

Yeah, classes might still need balancing, but that's a terribly boring numbers game and definitely not something we're all so experienced in to gauge correctly.

[Vuitton]

In 1.0 even with the animation locks and spell interruptions, BLM was one of the highest (if not the highest) DPS for Ifrit. So, just because you don't like it doesn't mean the job is terrible. Who knows now, but just saying.

(Also, everyone has to stop DPS and start running during Ifrit. And I doubt everyone has instant DPS abilities they can spam while on the move. Everyone is in the same boat.)

[Kiarax]

MNK is the only class without a real ranged tool. Howling Fist is 10y range but dat 5 min CD. Only other option is Shoulder Tackle to reapproach. Unless you have a BRD to keep topping up TP you're not gonna wanna spank away all your TP on ranged attacks in longer fights anyway. Point is moot though, BLM has Scathe and Swiftcast for a reason.

[Alkar]

Let's not forget that THM/BLM also gets Thundercloud. That thing already activates quite often with 2 Thunder spells, 3 is gonna be even better.
Honestly the only reason why running towards Ifrit seems to work for me is that it's a straight line and I'm always facing him. If I go left or right there's a chance I take a small turn and get hit. Hard and Extreme will be quite interesting to see, especially with triple Eruptions.

[Ksandra]

In 1.0 you had to time your spells because you'd potentially get animation locked after the spells goes off and right when Ifrit does something to you. Now you need to time your spells to minimize interruptions. Wait until he uses an ability and then cast. If you're not sure, wait until he uses one and then start your cast.

Repointing this out since it sounds like (sorry if I'm wrong) seph didn't know to do this. You can time your spells so you never need to interrupt them in the first place by watching the abilities and casting just when ifrit does plumes.

[Enygma55]

Job exclusion is mostly people not trusting other people on those jobs. If I remember correctly, one of the first Ifrit Extreme kill videos had 4 DRGS and a THM and they raped it. The THM was so badass that he took little to no unnecessary dmg.

For a while everyone was scared to fight Ifrit EX with a team of WARS. Sure it would take twice as long to beat (20 mins vs 10 mins) compared to other setups but people go with whatever is comfortable within their group. If your group is not comfortable with you being on BLM in the Ifrit fight then that's a personal issue.

Also with astral fire or umbral ice up, casting time is cut in half so ~1.5sec to cast. BLM also has those 2 ManaBarrier skills that can absorb dmg and the instacast skill if push comes to shove.

I'm inclined to believe that ARR will not be as restrictive with class/job choices as people are imposing on themselves. Once people master the mechanics of their class/job, it'll be a matter of preference.

edit: Re-read the Thundercloud trait, it potentially has the ability to spam any thunder spell non stop instacast with no manacost. Thats pretty wicked.

[Obsidian]

You can do the Beta Ifrit with 4 WHMs just spamming Aero and kiting, so there's approximately zero reason to ask someone to change jobs for it, or anything else currently available. All the dungeons are doable with three people if your fourth is dead weight.

[Sephiroth]

I'm seeing a lot of talk elsewhere about BRD outparsing BLM but it's too hard to say how it will work at end-game right now. This is likely to be with BRD not using the -20% damage songs, which in turn boost DD output of jobs like BLM. Job exclusion is brought about by an improperly balanced job system and whether you like it or not it will happen if classes aren't balanced, just as it did in 1.0. We all want every job to be equally useful and this is why it's important to check the balance and highlight any issues.

Thundercloud is great but I disagree that it has the potential to spam thunder non-stop. Once you cast your first thunder spell the effect disappears and you're back to the 5% RNG.

[Elcura]

Job exclusion is brought about by an improperly balanced job system and whether you like it or not it will happen if classes aren't balanced, just as it did in 1.0. We all want every job to be equally useful and this is why it's important to check the balance and highlight any issues.

Does it seem like anyone is saying anything to the contrary? Job exclusion is also brought on by terrible enemy/level design, there's a lot of work that goes into creating an environment where everything is equal (enough) but also different.

Only, there isn't an issue here. If the numbers don't match up then that's something else, but talking about highlighting issues with playstyle is just redundant. That isn't going to change. This is mostly just about whether BLM is even worth playing because it has to move. Just seems ridiculous to me.

Finally, it seems obvious that parsing better than someone else seems more subjective right now. If player A is better than B, he'll probably parse better. This will likely be the case until the ultimate efficiency autism nerds find the ideal rotations and shit. Even then depending on boss design, it'll come down to how competent a player you are rather than what job you play.

[Sephiroth]

This is mostly just about whether BLM is even worth playing because it has to move. Just seems ridiculous to me.

Well not quite. It was more about whether having to move (which interrupts casting) puts BLM at a disadvantage in fights like Ifrit due to the majority of its abilities not being instant like they are on other DD classes. As you've pointed out it puts other classes at a similar disadvantage like MNK, though I can't see where it does that for BRD because nothing seems to rely on positioning or standing still there. I can't speak for DRG however.

Admittedly it's too early to say BLM is a bad DD choice for Ifrit, end-game version will be very different when we have our full arsenal of abilities. With more abilities comes more potential instant cast triggers and if you keep those for when you know Ifrit will use an ability it shouldn't be too bad. But we'll see.

[Hyan]

Regarding the red circle problem, does the game register whether you got hit or not based on the mob finishing the skill's preparation time before you got out? There is currently a delay between finishing the preparation bar and performing the animation/the circle going away.

[Alkar]

Regarding the red circle problem, does the game register whether you got hit or not based on the mob finishing the skill's preparation time before you got out? There is currently a delay between finishing the preparation bar and performing the animation/the circle going away.

Yes, this is the biggest issue other than random lag spikes. Eruption is one of the worst offenders in this case as the delay between damage registration and the actual animation is way too long.
It seems like most of these issues are design decisions though. For example: Cures do not register until the animation is done (like damage in general) however Overpower registers immediatly when the skill is used (if you use Overpower and the target is slept during the animation you won't wake it up).

[Gulkeeva]

I went to testing the red circles, it may be something else for people, as it doesn't seem to be as bad as people show/say they are... possibly another factor?

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/116...=1#post5807326

[Fereydoon]

Well not quite. It was more about whether having to move (which interrupts casting) puts BLM at a disadvantage in fights like Ifrit due to the majority of its abilities not being instant like they are on other DD classes. As you've pointed out it puts other classes at a similar disadvantage like MNK, though I can't see where it does that for BRD because nothing seems to rely on positioning or standing still there. I can't speak for DRG however.

Admittedly it's too early to say BLM is a bad DD choice for Ifrit, end-game version will be very different when we have our full arsenal of abilities. With more abilities comes more potential instant cast triggers and if you keep those for when you know Ifrit will use an ability it shouldn't be too bad. But we'll see.

Running out of AoEs on BRD moves your songs out of range potentially, losing couple ticks. On top of BRD already having -20% damage while singing. Otherwise that's fairly accurate, nothing to stop you from running around and shooting on ARC/BRD.