The BLM Problem

[Icemage]

I know there has been a lot of discussion about the somewhat recent BLM "nerf", but I think the issue still needs to be addressed in a more comprehensive way.

Issues with BLM

• XP parties
  BLMs seem to be functioning just fine up through around level 60-62, but once parties get close enough to start XPing in Treasures of Aht Urhgan zones, the hyper-active spawn times of enemies in these zones makes BLMs very unwanted in experience point parties, as they must spend the majority of their time resting - which is not possible when the parties are engaging new enemies every 30-60 seconds.
  
• HNM
  Aside from some previously mana-burnable arena fights, the Magic Resistance nerf hasn't done all that much to affect BLM damage at all on HNMs. I was watching a Fafnir fight the other day with several BLMs, and despite a hefty amount of free nuking (non-magic bursted), they were still dealing pretty much normal damage. In other words, the Magic Resistance nerf seems to be a paper tiger except in time-critical battles like BCNMs.
  
• Merit Points
  Things aren't quite so bleak on the front for BLMs once they pass level 70 or so, since they can then join in manaburn parties to reach 75, but even so, the best manaburn parties still don't don't quite hold their own with the best TP-burn melee parties.

Proposed solutions
Far be it for me to complain about the state of affairs without suggesting a fix, so here's one idea to address the above problems.

• Make Magic Bursts temporarily reduce monster defense, the duration of which is linked to the amount of damage done by the strongest magic burst.
  
  This gives melees a reason to invite BLMs into TP-burn, since they can increase the killing speed of the party even only casting one spell per fight.
  
• Make failed skillchain attempts (i.e. another WS that occurs during the skillchain window) reduce the damage of the un-chained weaponskill.
  This will nerf TP-burn slightly since players will have to coordinate their efforts so that they either complete a skillchain or allow enough time between weaponskills to avoid making one.
  
• Make elemental damage spells that are not accompanied by a Magic Burst increase the Magic Resistance of a NM more than a Magic Bursted spell.
  This is just a safety measure to encourage players to include melees into their strategies when fighting NMs, rather than just nuking them down to nothing (which is still happening).
  
• Increase the Magic Resistance limits of various NMs
  I'm still seeing 2000+ damage magic bursts on HNMs who have been repeatedly freenuked on a number of difficult NMs. That seems way too high - the penalty for misusing black magic should be much stronger IMO.

Icemage

[Omniblast]

Re: The BLM Problem

Hmm. If I'm reading this correctly. I think that with a randomly nuked spell. Your "Free Nuke" magic resistance should go up, then with a Magic Bursted Spell, Magic Resistance should go down. I.E. If things are done according to SE, we'd kill stuff faster.

[Jei]

Re: The BLM Problem

They really need to give old school PT some tougher mobs to kill at 75. The same way we level up from 1-60 : /

[Macht]

Re: The BLM Problem

[*]Make failed skillchain attempts (i.e. another WS that occurs during the skillchain window) reduce the damage of the un-chained weaponskill.
This will nerf TP-burn slightly since players will have to coordinate their efforts so that they either complete a skillchain or allow enough time between weaponskills to avoid making one.

This looks rediculous. So you are stating what in this? WS do their basic damage and if two are a combination it results in the SC effect that is the bonus damage. It's already losing it's bonus by the fact that the SC effect (bonus damage) doesn't fire.

Aside from that it's quite clear how the system works in this matter and suggestion is just asking to break the game design which is likely to result in horrible effects. Then of course this also is forcing WSs to be used only for SC'ing effect or else they are to become practically worthless.

Don't know the parties you've been in but in ToAU the ones I've done our BLM often only needs to cast 1 spell every other mob fight. His attack is key integral part of ending the fight in approx. 8 seconds. Party even designed the stratedgy for this purpose with two attack stradegies 1 involving when the BLM has MP and 1 for when the BLM needs to recover.

In effect while the BLM has MP we kill faster then the zone can regenerate the mobs, when he's out of MP and recovering we are fairly in line with the zone's regeneration. It does quite well with a good party and a BLM. Also in ToAU after our SC and the BLMs MB the mob is either dead after that or very close to it, don't see how reducing it's defense is going to be of any benefit.

[Mhurron]

Re: The BLM Problem

They really need to give old school PT some tougher mobs to kill at 75. The same way we level up from 1-60 : /

Why would anyone go up against tougher mobs when the ToAU areas are so easy for most of the games population?

However, there was a problem with the way Black magic did damage, as in there was no real elemental strengths except against just a few mobs like elementals. Something that was 'strong' to Thunder should be weak to Stone but unless you were fighting a Thunder Elemental, Thunder would always do significantly more damage unless you had the next tier Stone but not next tier Thunder.

Even that though is pretty much irrelevent. If ToAU mobs weren't as easy as they are and the change to elemental resistence was implimented, no one would notice. The problem isn't the change. Most jobs can level faster in the new zones without a BLM then they can with so invites dry up. The player base is always going to do things the easiest way and only the easiest way.

[tdh]

Re: The BLM Problem

Maybe I'm just "Old Skool," but I still feel that a BLM is still a very important part of building a party. Sometimes it does take the BLM a little while to adjust to the fast killing pace, but after a while they're doing a lot of work later on in the chains to keep the killing flowing. So when I hear BLMs can't get invites, it's a shock to me.

I'm still a guy who really enjoys the skillchain. So in my static, we set up a Skillchain or two for the mages to blow up. But I still feel that BLMs are needed to finish off the mobs fast, and I do the best I can to invite them. Problem I'm running into is that some of them are "Manaburn ONRY," or just aren't any around seeking. I've had to take to sending /tells to BLMs that aren't seeking hoping they'd like to join us anyway.

I however would like more VT~IT+ mobs for Lv.75! As much as I do enjoy a good TP Burn, (Nothing like 27k+ EXP in 3hrs in Sky.) but I also like a more "Traditional Setup" with a PLD and a big Skillchain to destroy mobs for good 7~10k an hour. (PLD, MNK, DRK, BLM, RDM, SMN has worked well for me at one of the few VT~IT camps at Lv.75. 1k+ Asurian Fists > 1k~1.5k Spiral Hell, then all 3 Mages MB for roughly 2500~3000dmg. Awesome EXP provided you can find a BLM.)

I like the idea of lowered DEF after a Magic Burst, but in a lot of instances I don't think there's much mob left after the MB at the later levels, and at the lower levels BLMs are already doing most of the work and are popular party members. (Usually.)

[Icemage]

Re: The BLM Problem

This looks rediculous. So you are stating what in this? WS do their basic damage and if two are a combination it results in the SC effect that is the bonus damage. It's already losing it's bonus by the fact that the SC effect (bonus damage) doesn't fire.

Have you been in a TP-burn party lately? No one skillchains because the bonus damage is negligible and there's no BLM to magic burst anyway.

Aside from that it's quite clear how the system works in this matter and suggestion is just asking to break the game design which is likely to result in horrible effects. Then of course this also is forcing WSs to be used only for SC'ing effect or else they are to become practically worthless.

Reading comprehension is your friend Macht.

My suggestion was that as long as WS were used in rapid succession (i.e. within 5 seconds of each other), they'd suffer a penalty if they don't skillchain. If you do it solo, and no one follows up, there's no harm, no foul. This leaves melees alone, except when they make poor decisions.

And for your information, the game design is already broken. FFXI's combat mechanics revolve around skillchains and magic bursts, and there are precious few parties that do either one these days post 62.

Don't know the parties you've been in but in ToAU the ones I've done our BLM often only needs to cast 1 spell every other mob fight. His attack is key integral part of ending the fight in approx. 8 seconds. Party even designed the stratedgy for this purpose with two attack stradegies 1 involving when the BLM has MP and 1 for when the BLM needs to recover.

My last 20 parties in ToAU zones contained either no BLMs, or was a manaburn party. No one mixes BLMs into a TP-burn party, and no one brings anything except a refresher or two to a manaburn party. THAT is how broken the mechanics are now.

In effect while the BLM has MP we kill faster then the zone can regenerate the mobs, when he's out of MP and recovering we are fairly in line with the zone's regeneration. It does quite well with a good party and a BLM. Also in ToAU after our SC and the BLMs MB the mob is either dead after that or very close to it, don't see how reducing it's defense is going to be of any benefit.

Maybe because you won't need to magic burst with a super-hyper-expensive Tier IV, -ga III or AM II nuke? The only things I see BLM75s cast these days are Ancient II, IV or -ga III for damage. Those spells cost an enormous amount of MP, and result in a LOT of downtime for the BLM.

Face it, BLMs heavily disrupt the flow of a TP-burn party. They alter the kill speed on certain spawns, which increases the likelihood of multiple spawns at a bad moment when you're not equipped to handle the extra load, and they require a lot of extra care since you can't roam very well with them for fear of leaving them stuck behind a spawn.

I had a BLM in my semi-static party on my RDM from level 63 to level 71. She was outparsed by the melees in every session, and basically was only there to cast the odd free nuke or Sleep/ga II. She wasn't a bad player; it's just that BLMs just don't work well in that sort of setup. Not that we did poorly, but we could have done even better had we replaced her with another melee, and we all knew it.


Icemage

[Macht]

Re: The BLM Problem

Don't know about your server then. Guess it's really F**** up. I see either TP Burn, Mana Burn, or the regular party. This is post 62 and see all 3 work well, the mages in the parties I've been in don't even have AM II spells, they've used cheaper spells since finding they dealt just enough to finish the mob after a Sidewinder -> ______ skillchain that deals one part of the damage.

Frequently BLM doesn't need to rest once the area has been cleared but still does just so he wouldn't be a burden. We've killed mobs in 8 sec. some times in successions of 12 sec. each mob and not once had our BLM suffer. Which is why I don't see this problem. BLM hardly, if even, goes below half their MP.

Aside from that if you've forgot the SC result for HNMs are not just effecting BLMs they effect WSs as well.

It isn't the game design that's broken, it's players logic that is thinking that getting a 3rd SC damage almost equal to your closing damage is insignificant. I've closed many Transfixition SCs for near 80%-95% of the damage my WS did. If you want to add that little annoyance it really wouldn't do much but encourage a TP party to have at least a job that can SC almost anything with 1 WS. For example Sidewinder can open and close quite a few combinations, as well as many of SAMs WSs doing the same. Haven't discouraged TP only altered it's party aspects if anything.

[Sabaron]

Re: The BLM Problem

• Make Magic Bursts temporarily reduce monster defense, the duration of which is linked to the amount of damage done by the strongest magic burst.
  
  This gives melees a reason to invite BLMs into TP-burn, since they can increase the killing speed of the party even only casting one spell per fight.

Interesting, but is that really to crossbow users who use their bolts to do this or people who pick up an acid-type dagger? This seems like adding an ability to an already powerful character at the expense of something done by characters who are less likely (possibly slightly so, but still) to get an invite such as a RNG or THF.

• Make failed skillchain attempts (i.e. another WS that occurs during the skillchain window) reduce the damage of the un-chained weaponskill.
  This will nerf TP-burn slightly since players will have to coordinate their efforts so that they either complete a skillchain or allow enough time between weaponskills to avoid making one.

That probably wouldn't do much. A lot of times TP accumulation speed is so varied among the fighters that when they launch, they're not even close to the window anyway. I think it would merely be an annoyance.

• Make elemental damage spells that are not accompanied by a Magic Burst increase the Magic Resistance of a NM more than a Magic Bursted spell.
  This is just a safety measure to encourage players to include melees into their strategies when fighting NMs, rather than just nuking them down to nothing (which is still happening).

As you say, you only notice the MR on time-intensive NMs anyway. It just forces cycling of elements or even flip-flopping. I don't have any idea how long the MR burst lasts, but are you suggesting increasing MR on normal spells so much that even just casting a non-burst is detrimental to the effort? There are some lines in here that are very difficult to see--on one side, there's what we have now, on the other there's "BLM? {No, Thanks}" in BCNM which, I believe, is the opposite of what you want. This would be a tweaking issue with the NM MR system. Magic Bursts happen infrequently enough that especially on BCNM this could potentially be crippling to a BLM. What's good for HNM is not necessarily good for BCNM. Perhaps a tweak to the HNMs individually would shake things up a bit rather than applying the changes to the class.

• Increase the Magic Resistance limits of various NMs
  I'm still seeing 2000+ damage magic bursts on HNMs who have been repeatedly freenuked on a number of difficult NMs. That seems way too high - the penalty for misusing black magic should be much stronger IMO.

Again, this appears to be an issue where the HNM power is too low for the "average" HNM group. That being, a large, finely tuned group of very specialized characters. Perhaps this was not what SE had envisioned when they designed the HNM's and this might call for a little adjustment. This is more along the lines with what I said above. Adjustments to individual HNM's might be in order. Of course, increasing the power of an HNM is also dangerous in that it then locks out smaller groups from HNM activities and places the advantage more squarely upon the uber-HNMLS groups, which, at least on Asura, do not seem like they would be enjoyable to me--the leaders are draconian, strict, greedy, and generally unpleasant as far as I've seen--forcing the destruction of alternate LS pearls, forcibly pre-empting activites such as XP parties without even recommending an apology. All in all, very unfriendly people with whom I do not think I shall ever have any association with. That being, of course, an example of two larger HNMLS's on Asura--I have no idea how many there are--I just know I'd never be in either one of those. I suppose I've been "colored" badly by the bad experiences others have had with HNMLS's, but I'd rather try to do Vrtra with my more friendly non-HNMLS buddies than sell my soul to some stuck-up draconian oligarchy just so I can kill a big monster. Of course, spawn times as they are, and powerful as HNMLS's and Gilseller groups are, I don't think I'll ever actually see an HNM whose name is shown in red.

[seq]

Re: The BLM Problem

Don't know about your server then. Guess it's really F**** up. I see either TP Burn, Mana Burn, or the regular party. This is post 62 and see all 3 work well

i don't know what server you are at, but it seems fun in there.
all i see post level60 is TP-Burn which includes No BLM at all, and Colibri (which is waaay too weak and a EXP PT's best friend) likes to reflect magic on anyone in the party like... this:
BLM starts casting Firaga.
Colibri starts casting Firaga.
PT wiped.

i've casted Stone1 on one of them as DRG/RDM and got reflected for over 30DMG, this is one step BLM suffers around that level.
make BLM un-reflectable?

edit:
i'de say make chains on IT mob a 50+EXP boost, and keep chain on T mob at 20EXP that way players will consider fighting IT mobs and Skillchaining (fun).

[Karinya]

Re: The BLM Problem

ToAU mobs just have way too low defense. That's why melees are overpowered on them.

They're very weak in general, compared to original, RoZ or CoP monsters of the same level, but especially they have terrible defense.

BLM is fine in places like Moongate, Uleguerand or Lufaise. But few melee DDs want to go there anymore because they can do much more damage to colibris, imps or puks.

HNMs needed to be made softer targets for melee to reduce the all-nuke-all-the-time strategies against them, but exp mobs were fine. What we got instead was new super weak exp mobs and no change to HNM. SE dropped the ball on rebalancing melee vs. magic damage.

BLM is still too strong on HNM relative to all other damage dealing jobs, but now in addition, they're left behind in exp as all physical DDs benefit hugely from the weakness of mobs.

So I'm still waiting for the update that says "The difficulty of certain monster types in Aht Urhgan areas has been adjusted."

[Icemage]

Re: The BLM Problem

Don't know about your server then. Guess it's really F**** up. I see either TP Burn, Mana Burn, or the regular party. This is post 62 and see all 3 work well, the mages in the parties I've been in don't even have AM II spells, they've used cheaper spells since finding they dealt just enough to finish the mob after a Sidewinder -> ______ skillchain that deals one part of the damage.

You had a standard Skillchain + Magic Burst party that has made 14K XP per hour? I find this highly doubtful. I had this setup at level 65 with a nearly perfect setup (RDM BLM BRD DD DD Tank), and we barely cracked 8K per hour going as fast as we could.

Frequently BLM doesn't need to rest once the area has been cleared but still does just so he wouldn't be a burden. We've killed mobs in 8 sec. some times in successions of 12 sec. each mob and not once had our BLM suffer. Which is why I don't see this problem. BLM hardly, if even, goes below half their MP.

Exaggerate a bit, do we? No BLM can fire off a nuke every 12 seconds and not be drained of MP. Not to mention that even in ToAU zones, respawn rates would not keep up with that sort of kill speed.

Aside from that if you've forgot the SC result for HNMs are not just effecting BLMs they effect WSs as well.

They do? Pretty much the only thing I do lately is HNM. Skillchain damage just isn't that impressive. It's nearly always at least partially resisted except by very weak NMs, so your "bonus damage" is usually minimal.

It isn't the game design that's broken, it's players logic that is thinking that getting a 3rd SC damage almost equal to your closing damage is insignificant. I've closed many Transfixition SCs for near 80%-95% of the damage my WS did.

And how many Transfixion skillchains did you have that got fully resisted down to 1/10th damage, and what was your average? I'm all ears - I did a lot of unusual skillchains while levelling Bard, and I can tell you even with Threnody on, neutral element skillchains rarely produce full damage more than 30% of the time when fighting VT+ or IT enemies; usually less. Even on monsters that are weak to an element (Fusion on Goblins, for instance), it's rare to see full damage from the skillchain.

Aside from level 2 or 3 skillchains agaisnt enemies that are weak to a specific element, skillchain bonus damage is extremely fickle and usually negligible.

If you want to add that little annoyance it really wouldn't do much but encourage a TP party to have at least a job that can SC almost anything with 1 WS. For example Sidewinder can open and close quite a few combinations, as well as many of SAMs WSs doing the same. Haven't discouraged TP only altered it's party aspects if anything.

I'm not trying to nerf melee here, only punish poor playing skills, and give BLMs an opportunity at the same time. If players don't want to form a skillchain, so be it, let them do them more than 5 seconds apart and it becomes a non-issue. I hardly think you'd switch melees simply because of this sort of change when all you'd have to do is wait a moment longer between weaponskills to avoid it entirely.


Icemage

[Raydeus]

Re: The BLM Problem

You had a standard Skillchain + Magic Burst party that has made 14K XP per hour? I find this highly doubtful.

I've been in regular xp parties that have broken 12k an hour, but I have to note these were really good players, and I'm not talking about gear here, but about real skill. Although I'm aware that's kinda too much to ask from the vast majority of players.

(And yep I'm also aware even that is not as much xp as some burn parties make, but I don't care much about what others do or how much xp they get).



That being said, I think boosting SC-Magic Burst party play would be a good way to solve the issues most people have about TP-burns.

The moment people is able to kill VT-IT mobs fast enough in a regular party so they catch up with TP-burns in terms of xp/hr that's when people will stop complaining about Utsusemi, simply because it's all about XP/HR and not really about /nin melee.


Right now the game as it is seems to reward senseless spamming of WS, spells and melee attacks.

So, increasing the MB bonus and the SC damage (with it's correspondent resistence up period of time afterwards to avoid abuse) would be a good thing since it would encourage players to coordinate and get real advantages as a consecuence of playing skillfully.

Make failed skillchain attempts (i.e. another WS that occurs during the skillchain window) reduce the damage of the un-chained weaponskill.
This will nerf TP-burn slightly since players will have to coordinate their efforts so that they either complete a skillchain or allow enough time between weaponskills to avoid making one.

I don't believe it to be a good thing to punish players for having poor playing skills, if players want to mindlessly spam WS then good for them, I'm more interested in rewarding those that put real thought, skill and effort in their party play.

[Taskmage]

Re: The BLM Problem

All the experience I have with high level blm play is through observing others, but there certainly seems to be a problem to me. I've probably had a party with a blm in it twice at most in the last ten levels, and it's very common to see my 60s blm friend seeking for three hours in a night to no avail. Even at lower levels blms seem to be underappreciated. It took me five days of seeking with my 37 blm to get the two party invites I needed to get to 40 for CoP missions.

True or not, I think it would be a good thing to increase the benefit of actually coordinating a skillchain and magic burst. I don't think there's any arguement that renkei isn't a good play mechanic, but they're so rare to see nowadays. It seems to be the consensus that the additional damage from the skillchain effect is less than the damage that is lost by not having everyon fire off their WS at 100%, that is if one person gets to 150 tp by the time their partner gets to 100 tp, they would have been better off damage-wise to use their tp on 5 WS instead of 4 WS and 2 SC effects, since the SC effect will on average do less than half the damage of a WS, due to factors like resistance, misses, lag, and interrupting effects like sleep, stun, and amnesia. It's just so much easier to spam WS as soon as you get TP, and the results range from insignificantly worse to significantly better.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The BLM Problem

Have you been in a TP-burn party lately? No one skillchains because the bonus damage is negligible and there's no BLM to magic burst anyway.


Reading comprehension is your friend Macht.

My suggestion was that as long as WS were used in rapid succession (i.e. within 5 seconds of each other), they'd suffer a penalty if they don't skillchain. If you do it solo, and no one follows up, there's no harm, no foul. This leaves melees alone, except when they make poor decisions.

And for your information, the game design is already broken. FFXI's combat mechanics revolve around skillchains and magic bursts, and there are precious few parties that do either one these days post 62.


My last 20 parties in ToAU zones contained either no BLMs, or was a manaburn party. No one mixes BLMs into a TP-burn party, and no one brings anything except a refresher or two to a manaburn party. THAT is how broken the mechanics are now.


Maybe because you won't need to magic burst with a super-hyper-expensive Tier IV, -ga III or AM II nuke? The only things I see BLM75s cast these days are Ancient II, IV or -ga III for damage. Those spells cost an enormous amount of MP, and result in a LOT of downtime for the BLM.

Face it, BLMs heavily disrupt the flow of a TP-burn party. They alter the kill speed on certain spawns, which increases the likelihood of multiple spawns at a bad moment when you're not equipped to handle the extra load, and they require a lot of extra care since you can't roam very well with them for fear of leaving them stuck behind a spawn.

I had a BLM in my semi-static party on my RDM from level 63 to level 71. She was outparsed by the melees in every session, and basically was only there to cast the odd free nuke or Sleep/ga II. She wasn't a bad player; it's just that BLMs just don't work well in that sort of setup. Not that we did poorly, but we could have done even better had we replaced her with another melee, and we all knew it.


Icemage

This is essentially the same thing that was going on last year with arrowburns. No skillchains, no tactics, just burn. BLMs were never invited, except that ToA zones weren't in the picture just yet so the problem wasn't pronounced from 62-65+ as it is now for BLM specifically. High level merit zones were few back then and RNGs pretty much wiped the floor with every mob in places like sky, making EXP hell for any nearby PT hoping for some EXP that night.

However, I don't think we need to nerf the damage jobs do. There are lots of ways to fix this, but the problem is do we really want all PTs to become mage-dependant again? It took Sanction and Empress band combined to make chaining T and VT viable to players, it was valid well before these things, but back them we wanted IT++ and needed BLMs to make good EXP per hour happen.

It cannot be denied, ZM and CoP zones were rather inflexible toward melee and favorable to mages, ToA reversed that trend. ToA zones are unfavorable to mages in general, but incredibly unfavorable to BLM.

High respawn rate and physically weak mobs have forced the /NIN sub down everyone's throat and made TP burn more popular than ever, increase spawn times and up DEF a bit and this would change things and pull BLM back in to the picture.

People are content to think this game is perfectly fine so long as they're getting thier 10K+/limit point per hour, but lets face it, level 75 shouldn't be "bonus time" or a vacation from real PT tactics. It should be just as much work to merit as it was to EXP. Skillchains and magic bursts should be happening, but as of now, they're not.