interesting

[layoneil]

i never said oyu dont need blms to kill the cop dragons, its absolutely necessary

and i did say it's absolutely NOT necessary to have a WAR or DRK or DRG, score one for BLMs being overpowered because they are absolutely necessary when other jobs are absolutely not.

congratulations you have access to a lvl 75 blm and duo with them, that means nothing to me, you were in the ss of the 18 blm aabc, you could tell a level 1 warrior how to hit enter on thundaga3 when everyone else does and do it no problem

score 2 for BLMs being overpowered. want to give a Lv 75 NIN in a standard AA Alliance to the same level 1 WAR and see if you're going to win? that's what makes BLMs overpowered, sometimes it's just the job and not the player. the job is so ridiculously overpowered you can give it to a Lv 1 WAR and still be able to conquer what should be one of the more challenging BCs in the game.

good job supporting my point.

like someone mentioned, every job is powerful in its own way. theres no other way to put it, just because you cant solo, doesnt mean that you job is gimp, the whole game isnt about soloing or killing a few things with only blms, send only blms to kill faf, wont work, send only melees to kill him, wont work to well, you need a little of each job to do things

the first part you're beginning to get it, no one says a BLM can do everything, it's the second part you don't get.

you need a little of each job to do things

that's a lie because you don't need a DRG or DRK or WAR ever.

[NynJa]

I've seen screenies of standard XP parties getting chain 5 450 xp.
Hell, I've gotten chain 5 300 xp on my lv30 sam TANKING yuhtunga without a PL.

Proof please. 300 is possible. 450...normal party, as in with melees: no.

http://web.njit.edu/~ars3/ffxi/pol%2020 ... -51-67.jpg
Not my pic, so I hope he wont get pissed.
That is RDM BRD BLM NIN WAR MNK I believe.

And I recall reading they got like a total of 0 AF's and 50 currencies total.

Fact is they still did it.

What the fuck is the point of doing dynamis if you're going to get 0 AF2's and 50 currency ??

i never said oyu dont need blms to kill the cop dragons, its absolutely necessary

You dont need blm's ??
We have one blm in the main alliance for wyrm fights. Do you know what that person does ??
Stun -ga's, and MAYBE cast a few -na's / erase if they know a -ga isnt due up.
Any reason why a drk/whm cant do that ??
Oh, thats because they are better used at doing 1k+ SA Ground Strikes...

[Daemonxel]

that's a lie because you don't need a DRG or DRK or WAR ever.

LoL thx alot

[rahskala]

I think saying BLM is overpowered because Manaburn tactics take no skill is a bit of a stretch. It's true that a trained monkey could hit the button at the right time just as well as anyone, manaburn is a limited part of what a BLM does. Besides, a trained monkey could replace a lot of jobs with a bit of creativity/some carefully applied bananas...

During non-burn XP parties, a good BLM has to play just as smart as any other job does. You have to pay attention to party hate (If you steal hate there's a very real chance that you're going to die), your own MP usage (You need to save some extra MP until the end of the chain so you can bang out #5+ fast enough), and melee TP (so you aren't already in the middle of a nuke when they decide to start and miss the burst, or so you don't overnuke and steal hate).

This doesn't count for endgame stuff, but there's more to EXPing than simply pressing a button to make the peoples fall down. Most people don't care how a BLM performs as long as they see magic bursts happening, so that's all they pay attention to.

[sekaran]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y179/sekaran/450.jpg

NIN, MNK, RNG, BRD, RDM, BLM PT.

[Banigaru]

Ya'll must not use your blm to their full potential. BLM can put up some pretty awesome numbers in Wyrm Fights. 500-800 Thunder 4s and I've seen MB's do over 1k. Blm is powerfull but their strenth ends at their MP bar, and you can't buy MP like you can buy Arrows. If you try to fight IT+++ w/o a bard you get resisted like crazy. I think like alot of other classes that can solo, BLM has their limits.

[Kazen]

Do windy 9-2 and see a blm with no mp limit 5 floods -.- (i know theres better spells but still)..

[nivlakian]

The Black Mages have been way too strong and ever since we released the game, and we've been trying to make them weaker.

I find it funny that this was said considering it seems that they haven't really tried at all... they've done just the opposite.

Examples:
Merit Point Categories that increase damage
Elemental Staves
New Equipment boosting MAB (Igqira Weskit, Novio Earring, etc)

Since the NA release, I don't think I've seen an update do anything to alter BLM to make it a weaker class.

Orfeo: Solution to anything in this game: throw more BLM at it

Wrong! The solution is throw more SMNs at it. Hate-free 700+ damage x (# of smn) to even the toughest mobs in the game every 50s-1min O~K! wwwww

Maguspk: well, the only solution to making bst weaker would be to weaken mobs in an area that are charmable

No... in the case of Tiamat, just make the mobs (the ones usable on Tiamat) much more charm resistant, impossible to charm, lesser charm duration on them, make them get intimidated by Tiamat or something.

Think a little more creatively, making various things weaker is not the solution to everything.

Maguspk: personally a job that has to basically solo its way to 75 and is very rare deserves to be "overpowered".

No one "deserves" to be overpowered in a team oriented game. No one forces BSTs to solo their way to 75. They PT with BSTs and do 'normal' PTs at times. It's a personal choice. They have the option to solo to 75. It's not like the invite to join PT command is disabled when you change jobs to BST.

In either case it's possible to get to 75 eventually.

In terms of solo play, RDM is capable of solo-ing harder mobs in a similar fashion to the way BLM does and in some cases they can melee it to death as well. NIN, MNK, THF can solo with high evasion combined with Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni along with various haste items.

High chain PTs were doable with WARs in Sky, MNKs in KRT, etc. I suppose no job derserves any chain higher than 5 right!?

layoneil: BLM suffers from similar problems RNG had.

Similar perhaps, but only in the sense of high offense combined with decent defenses (given by subjob).

However, BLM unlike pre-patch RNG did have penalties on high level monsters. The Gods and CoP Wyrms have Magic Defense Bonuses reducing max possible damage along with high resist rates.

If you look at the damage an individual BLM has done, it doesn't look so great. However, you keep using a large number of them and it adds up. Then cycle them out as they run out MP, then it's even more. With RNG, they never needed to be cycled unless they died. Their damage was still high with great accuracy.

It seems more due to the potential cycling of damage that the job would need to be altered. An individual BLM's damage capability is finite due to MP even when not considering the magic defense bonuses and resists.


About the picture with Thundaga III on Ul'hpemde. See: http://www.thedayofragnarok.com/images/ffxi/0204.jpg



The AA fight could be easily altered so it's not possible to be Manaburned. The initial step would be to space the AAs out so it's not possible to GA them all at once. However, since the BC is supposedly doable with 17, I guess people would just have a PLD run in first and Invincible. I suspect though even doing that, the Taru would tend to stay away and cast a spell initially. (note: I have never done 18BLM AAx5)

Anyway, fixing the all BLM BCs does not necessarily require changing the job, but changing the mechanics of the BC itself.

In the end, I'm not saying the job does not have issues that may warrant it being changed, but it seems there's a lot of things that deserve nerfing based on the arguments shown here (high chains, being able to solo, etc).

There are alternative methods for seeking balance.


People have suggested ways to alter BLM such as:
Adjusting the chance for some spells to be resisted.

Adjusting the emnity resulting from some spells.

Subjecting a target to multiple spells of the same element will result in an incrementally greater chance for the spells to resisted for each one beyond the first. (this one is possibly a problem for mobs that only have one elemental weakness)

Adjusting damage from -aga spells so it does much less than it does presently when hitting multiple targets.

Adjusting chance of resisted damage on -aga spells depending on the number of mobs hit.

[sekaran]

Do windy 9-2 and see a blm with no mp limit 5 floods -.- (i know theres better spells but still)..

I practically solo'd the Wyvern and half of the Manticore just using Chainspell and Thunder 3

[Kazen]

lol i soloed the wvyern for the most part Mighty strikes Rampage > Icarus wing > Rampage ajido pwned the manticore though

[Hiruke]

lol?

This thread is awesome.

By the way, any comments that every situation can be solved by throwing more BLM at it is a grossly incompetent assertation and I will not be party to that kind of idiocy. Some situations you can apply this strategy, many others you can not. Maybe you should try actually participating in endgame encounters instead of reading about them and maybe you'll have some semblance of understanding. You may as well be trying to teach astrophysics out of your cardboard box there on the street next to the Internet cafe you log in from.

One thing you should probably all stop doing is getting caught up in taking everything so literally. So do you ever need specific melee jobs? Will you wipe to Genbu because you didn't have a WAR? Or a DRG? No. But that's because melee jobs are pretty interchangeable. You don't need a specific job, you just need a melee, preferably one that can do a worthwhile skillchain. There are some jobs with limited replacements. If you need Refresh, you can only get an RDM or BRD. If you want a tank, you can get a PLD or NIN... sometimes a WAR or a MNK.

Speaking of which... WAR can't tank until they have Utsusemi: Ni? lol? I've seen a WAR/MNK tank the Ouryu PM BC better than most PLDs. You have more than one SJ choice, kthx. We could just as easily be complaining about NINs being overpowered because they can solo stuff. Can DRKs solo Steelshells? No. Can a NIN? Yes. Could a NIN (pre-patch, I guess, haha!) solo Serket? Sure. Could any other job? Not a chance (RDM/NIN, maybe, if incredibly lucky... Death Scissors w/o shadows up = death, and RDM/NIN can't keep shadows up as well as a NIN, because not very evasive). So should we gimp NIN too? They can do things we can't! Sure, go ahead and do that. See how well you do at anything when your tank can't tank anymore. Try using PLD for anything and everything? Hope you like wiping.

Sure, BLM can trivialize many encounters. The aforementiond Ouryu fight is a terrible, horrible fight. But if you have a few BLMs and the correct strategy, you can make it very simple indeed. To use another CoP example, you can't do the same thing with the Mammet fight. Try to throw a bunch of BLMs at it and you'll get slaughtered. Throw a bunch of NIN at it and you win. zomg NIN are too powerful! Btw, as far as xp goes, MNK, RNG, and WAR PTs own the hell out of BLM PTs. And WHMs and SMNs can make similar PTs as BLMs. (This is all at 75, mind you, if you want to talk about playing around in the sand, you can go back to the box.)

The reason people are jealous of a BLM's power is because they aren't easily replaceable by any other job. You can have any combination of melee in your PT, and so long as they deal good damage or can produce an effective SC, you're good to go. But if you want a BLM, you pretty much just need a BLM. Even with healers you can go RDM, SMN, or WHM.

Oh, sky gods takeable by nothing but BLMs for damage? Are you insane? Even the most potent BLMs do terrible damage on gods except on an MB or with ES. Normal casts are basically a waste of mp. Gods are easily takeable with 1 or 0 BLMs. As long as you have stunners, you're good to go. Speaking of MBs... BLMs often need melee in order to produce effective damage. Why are you so concerned about how powerful a BLM is? Does it threaten your job security? No, it doesn't. You're just jealous that a BLM can do some things you can't, like KS30 fights in under 2 minutes, defeat the AAs with a single cast, etc. Does the fact that they can do that ruin the game somehow for you? If they were unable to do these things, would there be some magical opportunity that opened up for you that would somehow make your experience in the game more worthwhile?

Sure, BLMs (with a support team of healers and refreshers) can defeat Dynamis zones also. Wipe out every monster and even wipe out all of the repops with ease. But is this going to prevent you from doing normal Dynamis? I kind of doubt it. Because there are plenty of non-BLMs who also want to do Dynamis, and, honestly, BLMs would probably like to have a shot at their BLM AF. Doing Dynamis with 40-50 other BLMs isn't going to get them any BLM AF, especially since the ones who do get their AF will probably stop showing up to those cities (and replaced by BLMs who still need it).

So, basically, if you really want to argue about this, please make clear in what way it will improve the game and/or give you more opportunities to enjoy playing this game if BLMs are nerfed. In what way will it help you? RNGs getting nerfed opens up the possibility of other jobs getting more invites and/or being comparably as effective on gods, etc. as RNGs. RNGs have often edged out other melee in the past. Who do BLM edge out? What do you have to gain from them being nerfed?

Yes, BLM are powerful. But nerfing them... What does that do? Besides hurt everyone? If BLM are made less effective (and they are already highly resisted by endgame monsters), then things can only get harder for you and your LS. The smaller your damage output, the longer the fight, the more opportunity for mistakes, the better the chance of a wipe. Try doing all of your endgame monsters and especially Dynamis without any BLM whatsoever and let me know if you really want them to suck at their job, or if you'd rather stop being jealous of what other jobs can do and you can't, and focus on what your job can do. Every job has a niche.

Some mobs are resistant to magic, or physical, or slashing, or piercing, or bludgeoning... Some jobs can make different SCs when paired with other jobs. It's about working together, not about wishing you were some kind of crazy triple-jobbed 75 NIN + 75 BLM + 75 RDM that has Utsusemi: San, can solo everything, nuke everything to death, and keep mp up like wow in your face. Want to cry because melee can't typically solo anything? Ok, try doing all your endgame activities with only mages and tanks, and no melee or DDs of any sort. Good luck with that, too. Get over yourselves, already, and focus on where you're useful instead of where you're not.

[Octavious]

Some mobs are resistant to magic, or physical, or slashing, or piercing, or bludgeoning... Some jobs can make different SCs when paired with other jobs. It's about working together, not about wishing you were some kind of crazy triple-jobbed 75 NIN + 75 BLM + 75 RDM that has Utsusemi: San, can solo everything, nuke everything to death, and keep mp up like wow in your face. Want to cry because melee can't typically solo anything? Ok, try doing all your endgame activities with only mages and tanks, and no melee or DDs of any sort. Good luck with that, too. Get over yourselves, already, and focus on where you're useful instead of where you're not.

Best point of your whole damn speech, /seconded

[sekaran]

Yea. M9-2 was insanely easier than I thought.. the first time I did it, was hard cause we tried to do it normally.. second time, chainspell owned it. Another time I did it for a friend, we had like 3 RDMs and it was over so fast..

[Twolves]

Serket doesn't do death scissors and plenty of jobs /nin could solo him before this last patch.

DRK/NIN can solo steelshells fine also ._.

[Sekkite]

Borisan has my picture of a 3650 Spiral Hell 5600 Darkness on a Om'hpemde :D

[Faranim]

You can't use selective examples as "proof" that any job is overpowered.

Just because an alliance of BST can kill Tiamat doesn't mean the job is overpowered.

Just because 18 PLD's can't win the AABC doesn't mean PLD is useless.

Just because 18 BRD's is probably the most worthless alliance you could ever create in the game doesn't mean BRD is useless.

No Job is ever required for anything in this game. Last time I checked anyone at level 74 can sub DRK for Stun.

When we're doing Tiamat, I'd sure as hell rather have 2 Melee + 2 BLM than have 4 BLM + 0 Melee. SAM, MNK, WAR, DRK are all insane damage jobs in the end-game, ESPECIALLY on CoP Wyrms. Like I said before, you must not have very good melees on your server if you think that BLM can so vastly outperform melee on end-game HNM.

SAM + WAR can do a Darkness skillchain for around 3k damage every touchdown. 2 BLMs doing 2 Magic Bursts per touchdown can do, at most, 4k damage, but usually more around 2-3k since hitting a MB for over 1k is quite rare. Both jobs have to logout to reset their hate. The same thing applies to Fafnir as well (plus on Fafnir your melee do 100ish damage per normal hit)


BLM-only Dynamis is a joke. Sure they might clear quickly and easily, but their drop rates go down the tubes due to the way Item Drops work in this game. Meleeing the mobs increases the drop rate (not directly, but more people interacting with mobs = more chances for items). Our average City Dynamis nets around 10 AF2, but only around 200 Currency because we only allow BLMs to nuke stones (we are planning a whack-the-stone trip soon to test currency drop rate). If you have THF placed in the right places, you can get City runs with currency counts above 400. We've had City Dynamis with almost 20 AF2.

BLM has its ups, but it also has a lot of downs. People don't seem to take that into account, there are a lot of drawbacks to using tons of BLM for something (just like there are drawbacks for using tons of RNG, or tons of any single job).

I think that skilled BLM (and mages in general) are just more common than skilled Melees, so it gives the perception that BLM are more capable of getting lots of EXP. Melee parties are equally (if not more) capable of earning the same kinds of EXP.

[Elcura]

Just because 18 BRD's is probably the most worthless alliance you could ever create in the game doesn't mean BRD is useless.

I know someone who would disagree with you.

[Desi]

actually ill take that back its not absolutely necessary, you could send a rdm and brd to sleep the bombs at the zone at jorm, and maybe just sleep all the vrtra summons (not logical but could be possible).
in regards to your 1 war playing 75 nin in the bc, send a lvl 1 war to play blm in a normal aabc, or any other fight, its not going to turn out well.

war and drg arent necessary but they are great to have, drg is actually very very useful on the CoP dragons, SATA ws onto the drg and have the drg superjump, 1500 dmg draws alot of hate and it is gone right away, dont tell me thats not useful.

try doing cop dragons or anything else for that matter with no whms, you put up a stupid arguement that just because a job is always needed, that it is overpowered. whm is used for almost everything, pld or nin, brd and rdm. all of these jobs have their benefits and their weaknesses.

as i have said many times, blms are powerful if they are played correctly, as are any other jobs in the game. just because it is overwhelming in 1 aspect, doesnt mean it doesnt suck at another. plds are good at tanking, holding hate, etc, but arent too good with damage for the most part(pld/thf owns) rdm is pretty much all around, in the end all the jobs even out for the most part.

[Septimus]

Hiruke brought up a bunch of very good points. Job interchangeability is a huge issue. If you can't find a DRK, you can get a SAM, DRG, MNK, WAR, or THF and your party will be pretty much the same. You can argue DPS and XP per hour, but the differences will be subtle. Try to replace a BLM with a DRK or RDM as the dedicated nuker (the only two jobs with a native Elemental Magic skill) and then check the numbers. BLM and SMN are the only two jobs that are proficient at turning MP into damage (in different ways), whereas there are a ton of jobs designed to poke the mob with pointy things.

Square did a bunch of things wrong with this game, I think one of them is the TP system. The current system may be fine for XP parties (well, not really), but for HNMs that need an alliance, TP is a monstrosity. Because of it, the arguably highest DPS class in the game has to sit on the sidelines until a three minute job ability comes back up, use it, then sit on the sidelines again. These mobs also have amazingly high evasions, so even if you want to use regular melee DD, chances are it will be ineffective compared to the TP given to the mob.

So the result was to throw Rangers at the problem, high damage per TP given, fairly high accuracy, blink away hate- hurray, end game encounters suck less! Bring on the nerf bat! So what is the logical solution now? Throw Black Mages and Summoners at the problem, and let Square keep the nerf bat close.

If Square wants to fix the problem, they need to make end game mobs that are more melee DD friendly, give them defense and evasion that are a bit higher than regular XP mobs, make the TP moves less sodo-tastic (since you are going to want 9-12 people whacking on the mob), but give them super high HP and resistant to nukes except for magic bursts. End game activities still take forever, but every job gets to be involved.

And for the love of all things bright and beautiful, stop it with the Enfeebling magic resistant mobs. All right we get it, not every mob can be enfeebled, but I would like my job to be slightly more needed than a level 60 cook who can churn out Yagudo Drinks.

[layoneil]

actually ill take that back its not absolutely necessary, you could send a rdm and brd to sleep the bombs at the zone at jorm, and maybe just sleep all the vrtra summons (not logical but could be possible).

i've tried it, don't recommend it
[removed broken link]

hope you have a lot of BRDs and healers for Vrtra summons because RDMs can't help sleep most of them.

and yeah there are certainly other ways to deal with adds, but hardly more efficient.

giving inefficient ways to replace BLMs doesn't help you defend your point.

in regards to your 1 war playing 75 nin in the bc, send a lvl 1 war to play blm in a normal aabc, or any other fight, its not going to turn out well.

no, it isn't. that wasn't the point.

you put up a stupid arguement that just because a job is always needed, that it is overpowered.

i just argue point by point, that was far from my only argument.

here's a run down of major points
- trivialize many difficult BC encounters
- trivialize the difficulty of most Dynamis areas
- higher XP chains than most standard PTs starting at much lower levels and requiring much less skill/equipment
- highly desired if not required in most alliance/HNM situations
- ability to solo a wide range of mobs

just because it is overwhelming in 1 aspect, doesnt mean it doesnt suck at another.

that's a lot more than one aspect.

in the end all the jobs even out for the most part.

no, they don't. the game isn't balanced, stop pretending that it is.

you need to start listing more things when it's beneficial to have other jobs in place of BLMs. like when one character has both BLM and ??? leveled, in XYZ situation, it would be better to not come as the other job and not come as BLM.

the problem with BLM is they have way too many good points wrapped around one job. most jobs don't have this many Pros, that's a lack of balance.