New Power for Blms with update

[Icemage]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

- Who said anything about being within melee range? Since when are BLMs in AoE range in sky parties? You get a skillchain, you magic burst, Decorative Weapon dies. I've never been in a PT where BLMs were eating Whirl of Rage (and if you are, well, you need to stand back a bit, now don't you?).

- Aerial Armor so the OTHER BLMs don't have to cast Blink (not to mention it absorbs 3 hits instead of 2). Would have thought this would be obvious - are you guys sure you're level 75? Or just so locked into the "common wisdom" to see past the cookie cutter builds and see where there might be opportunities?

I mention these because I've seen BLM/SMN used in manaburn parties, many times, by a lot of players who know what they're doing. It works fine - in fact, it works better than all BLM/RDM or BLM/WHM since it increases resting time for 4 other mages, with the limitation on burn parties being your MP flow. I haven't yet seen someone brave enough to try BLM/PLD in a burn party, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it out of hand if there was justification for it.


Icemage

[Sethe]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

/PLD: Auto-Refresh, Flash, Shield Bash, Holy Circle, Cures. Useful in sky XP parties against Decorative Weapons.

Shield bash... You're the one who bought it up saying it was useful in Sky.

I'm sorry, but you have Lv.75 jobs in your signature but you're acting like a total noob on this subject. There is no significant argument that can be made for /SMN or /PLD over /RDM and /WHM.

Aerial Armour is not a reason to sacrifice stoneskin, phalanx, cures and INT. You need to start seeing the things you are giving up in order to be a gimped BLM.

[Kutu]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

You get an extra shadow yes. You lose the ability to cure yourself, which eats up the mp of others when you need cured, thus being counter productive to what you just posted and negating its effect. I would rather have stoneskin and blink available to me in order to minimize any damage i take than 3 shadows. If your burn party is any good you really shouldnt be taking damage at all through SS and blink.

For shield bash you need to be within range, like melee range in order to use it. If your not meleeing, whats the point of it?

[Taskmage]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Some people don't understand that subs can be situational. Just because a sub is considered the best, doesn't mean that's the sub you should use all the time in every situation. Nin is stupid to sub before level 20 or 24, but you still see narrow-minded people subbing it in Valkurm because it's the "best sub." /whm is a perfectly good sub for drk from 1-20, /mnk is a perfectly good sub for thf before Viper Bite, /nin is a good sub for mages in Promyvion, /drk is awesome for rdm against HNMs, and with /drg a rdm can solo mission 5-1. None of those subs are the "best" for those jobs but they all give tools and abilities that make them superior in certain situations.

/pld gives cures, flash, and auto-refresh. All useful tools. It's obvious that /rdm and especially /whm offer tools beyond cure that will make them better in the majority of situations, but in fights where status effects or AoEs aren't an issue, or your abilities to counter those effects are redundant with another party member, /pld offers extra mp from auto-refresh in exchange for -nas and curaga without sacrificing the ability to provide backup spot curing when necessary. That's ALL the OP was trying to say.

The appropriate place to use /pld may not be an experience party, but that doesn't mean it might not prove useful in certain BCNMs or NM fights, or in Ballista. Pld as a sub now provides bonuses that a blm might find situationally useful. Just because it isn't the mainstream subjob doesn't mean you should discard it out of hand as ever being a useful or valid choice.

Stop saying "cookie-cutter!" Everyone! The only time anyone ever uses that word, whether they're using the accepted subjob or just trying to be different, is when they're trying to justify their subjob without even considering the reasons why that sub is good or bad or why another subjob might be better.

[Jememytehpwnor]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

/PLD seems to only be good for WHMs in KRT for Holy Circle, thirty seconds of intimidation every five minutes saves a lot of mp.

[Icemage]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Shield bash... You're the one who bought it up saying it was useful in Sky.

No, I mentioned it as an ability you get. You can theoretically use it as a second Stun on the rare case where your MB doesn't quite kill something.

I'm sorry, but you have Lv.75 jobs in your signature but you're acting like a total noob on this subject. There is no significant argument that can be made for /SMN or /PLD over /RDM and /WHM.

I see and use unusual subs in every circumstance, and am in one of the best HNMLSs on my server. We experiment constantly with unusual combinations, and you know what? Sometimes they work.

Our latest experiment came at Vrtra battle a few weeks ago where one of our Summoners subbed Corsair for the Pet Accuracy roll. We won (with 38 people), and our results seemed to be improved overall, with a shorter overall battle time than previously. But I'd bet someone like you would be crying "noob" over the unusual sub since /WHM is "of course" the best sub for summoners, right?

Aerial Armour is not a reason to sacrifice stoneskin, phalanx, cures and INT. You need to start seeing the things you are giving up in order to be a gimped BLM.

Stoneskin is a valid point, but chances are your Bard (or RDM, or both if you have a BRD + RDM manaburn setup) is casting Cures anyway, and... amazingly enough... you have 3 shadows instead of two with /SMN.

INT? Don't make me laugh. I'm betting the BLMs I XP with have significantly better gear than you do(full zenith, full AF2, and a partridge in a pear tree), and most of them won't touch +INT with a stick. You don't get resisted much in merit parties, and even 30 points of INT isn't going to change that. Besides, Summoner sub gives more INT than RDM sub (as I said, are you sure you're level 75?).

Phalanx? Please stop. Phalanx from a BLM/RDM stops a whopping 22 points of damage per hit as BLM/RDM (C- enhancing). You take maaaybe two to three actual hits for damage on a bad pull as a BLM in a manaburn party, so you just spent 30MP on Phalanx for 44-66 HP of damage in a worst-case scenario. Most of the time the monster gets perhaps two attacks in before it's dead, between Lullaby, Horde Lullaby, and Stuns, and those are often stopped by blink shadows.

Cures? There's 4-5 BLMs in a manaburn party, plus a Bard who is probably subbing RDM or WHM. Losing cures off of one BLM is not going to materially affect your party's recovery ability, while having a third blink shadow from Aerial Armor actually gives you more time to finish casting.

Sure, a BLM/SMN is *by themselves* more vulnerable than a BLM/RDM or BLM/WHM. But they make the other BLMs (and the puller) in a manaburn party safer, and they save the other mages time from casting Blink to give them more time to rest for MP. Do I need to spell it out for you any further?


Icemage

[Amiricle]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

lol its unbelievable how resistant the average person is to new ideas or change. In any case I support the original poster and agree 100% with Icemage & Taskmage.

-When Im goin solo, yea I sub Rdm 99% of the time, but it sure isnt for phalanx which I dont use. Its for fast cast & gravity.

[Gwynn]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

People really need to learn to at least put a foot outside the box. I agree with Icemage and Taskmage, standard subs have their uses, but adhering to them strictly 100% of the time because you're too narrowminded to do anything else is only making you weaker in the long run.

[nugzkraka]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

lol... no

/PLD has no fuctional use in any type of fight or party situation.

[sevenpointflaw]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Sure it does. Certainly as WHM it has a few uses. More so if there is a BLM around to D2. Since I'm not 75 yet, and don't have both Utsusemi with /nin, I've found that the extra boost given by PLD (auto refresh, shield bash, and isn't the shield proficiency below 37?) all come in handy when I'm help people do mid-level stuff, or if I'm duoing with another mage. Or if I'm sharing hate with someone 'cause I'm meleeing and main healing for a quest NM, etc.

Really, most of the subs are useful on semi-regular basis if you are open to unique party set ups. Especially when you're doing stuff like lets say G2. I mean, if you have three white mages meleeing, one with /pld to stun the tiger before it AoEs is kinda nice. Sometimes, you just make due and if you think outside the box, making due often means that *gasp* you end up learning something new about the game.

[Jei]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Yes you get cure, but at what cost? Everything else give you cure too, and a far more useful things to use on top of that.

/Rdm offers self defensive abilities while /Whm also offers party friendly spells like all the ~na spells. What does /Pld offer that is actually helpful to the group? Except for Cure I really don't see anything else to be helpful. Especially skeletons most annoying moves are their AoE, not the single target ones. Stoneskin is a far superior defensive choice. And I don't know how Blm/Smn can even compensate this, when every single Blm should be able to blink/SS by themselves already. And I don't think saving a little MP from casting these spells will even help with the over all EXP rate at all. Since Blm burn parties main MP resouce is from actuallysitting down and heal...

Might as well /Brd if you want the MP refresh that bad. At least you can offer it to the entire group.

nothing against thinking outside the box. I do it all the time. But there are things out there that I just can't see the way it can work. Not efficiently anyway. Yes you'll survive, yes you'll be nuking just fine because all your important spells are all available to you with your main Blm already.

[Dairuka]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

While I obviously can't speak in terms of Final Fantasy XI's gameplay, regarding the Main-jobs, and specific Sub-jobs given that I haven't played the game since one month after release. I can tell you that thinking outside of the box is only for the unique minds who can read past the numbers and find a flaw in the system that everybody lives by. I personally like to think of it as being Neo of the Matrix, because that world had unbreakable rules too.

From what I've learned through second hand forum-knowledge, Mana-Burn groups weren't an everyday thing. I hear they were discovered by somebody thinking outside of the box, doing something that people thought was stupid at the time. I mean, who could conceive a nearly all caster group, when the status-quo was at least one tank melee and one DD melee? Things change, and people's minds and hearts will have to adapt to these changes, just to keep up with the new status-quo. Maybe a few tests with BLM/PLD's will do just that. Maybe it won't and will be just another pointless option to take, just to be unique from the thousands of other BLM's.

Personally, I'd rather be one of the people who will see this as a boost, simply because of the wide range of possibilities regarding new styles of playing a BLM. I can almost see the smiles on the faces of people who enjoy exploring new venues like this, it warms my very soul. More MMORPG's need to boost classes and stop the nerfing.

I find it much more optimistic than the types of people who see it as a negative or unimportant occurance simply because they're deadset in how they play their game. I don't mean to sound insulting, but such negativity has been known to breed bigotry, elitism and ignorance, I sincerely hope those of you who judge this are willing to at least give it a try. You may actually like it. Even if you don't, you can always revert back to your old playstyle with the knowledge that you at least gave it a try.

Anyhow, regardless of how anybody views this change, people will always think their way is right, and theres no way you can argue them out of it. Just remember that even supposedly proven logic and infallible testing can be shown to be wrong. Humans were meant to be flawed.

Edited: Please note that this entire post was made for the first page (I'm running on the 50 post per page result option). I did not realize there was a second page filled to the brim with proper information until after I posted.

[Djonma]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Lovely discussion ^^

Can I just say, as a Paladin player, that the abilities you're pointing out you'd gain with subbing pld are massive hate drawers.
Shield bash and sentinal draw a lot of hate.
And Flash is even worse!
There's a reason pld's use those abilities.
I can keep hate in a fight without ever voking if I need to.

You want to lose a TON of mp to be able to get the mob hitting you instead of your tank?

I'm not saying it won't be good in situational fights; I've not been to sky. But I can see a poor little blm with not very much defence getting hit a lot if they use pld abilities much.

I'm all for trying different jobs and sub jobs; I play war as war/drg for the massive damage, I'd worry about hate though with /pld.

[nugzkraka]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Sure it does. Certainly as WHM it has a few uses

This is a BLM post... its assumed BLM/PLD lol

[Sethe]

Re: New Power for Blms with update

Actually, SMN subbing COR seems an interesting idea for HNM fights where their primary role is damage. However I would imagine them to be using Pet Attack role instead of accuracy as Nether Blast cant miss.... but whatever. You obviously know best.

Zenith has little to no place in a black mages gear setup (except mitts of course), especially not full Zenith - so dont know where you are coming from in that respect.

AF2 is purely situational, and you can get much better gear, some of it is ok, only the hat I would wear over what I have now, and legs on elemental days.

Thanks for the thought though - come back when you are 75 BLM and have more of a clue about BLM gear, ok?

Your arguments arent actually any good any more - saying phalanx, stoneskin, and cures are worth losing for Aerial armour is freakin stupid. You are obviously just arguing for the sake of it now, so take it elsewhere.