Discussion: How To Make BLM More Relevant

How are you bringing 12 blm's into Sheol Gaol or Sortie?
Dyna-D bosses have TP moves that exceed casting range, so the theory of "casting from a safe space" is no longer valid.
Whos making the skillchains if theres no melee? a SCH? It takes two charges to make a skillchain, which can be done every 66 seconds (33 seconds per charge).

Theres a huge amount of fear mongering in regards to what would happen if the nuke wall were removed. There are multiple things in the game that are more efficient than this "invincible army of BLM's" that go unchecked.

And they all should have been fixed too.

But, They. Ain't. Gonna.

I'm not going to call them invincible, but you can't argue it isnt extraordinarily safer, you can always have a 2nd sch, was already established their dmg can compete with blm anyway, always has. If TP moves arent a concern for the tank you can even go the ranged avenue and just have them make stuff whether it be off a sch or by themselves. They're still largely out of range, feed almost no hate, and by themselves feed very little TP compared to most other forms of damage.

You can make a similar case for ranged stuff also but ranged, at least previously fed tons of TP, and built a lot of enmity, which got lowered considerably with gear/hover shot in rng case but theyll still generate easily more than what bursting generates per dmg.


Right now, yeah, atm it doesnt matter, take it all away, pets/ mages/ ranged make it all equally busted imo, but if they continue to add on content you've now got to build around that

Oh, well that's news to me! This has been tested? I was under the impression that it does refresh, similar to -ja stacks, just based on the past few weeks of sortie runs. I haven't performed any placebo-controlled double-blind trials, but anecdotally I don't notice any MB spikes within the 10-second burst window from immanence skillchains except for when the COR QDs. I'd love to see the data if you know where I can find it. I'm not quite motivated enough to test this on my own. Plus, an hour in the library can save a day in the lab.


T6 followed by -ja can be done in < 5s (-ja spells cast in 1.4 seconds with capped FC). However, point taken if the BLM is the only one MBing. My entire point was about improving party damage. In most Sortie groups now, every mage is bursting so there's a high probability that the BLM will get nuke walled by another caster (if in fact the nuke wall penalty doesn't refresh). BUT, even if that's the case, I don't think 3 non-BLMs standing around not bursting for fear that they'll inflict the nuke wall penalty will have the highest net party damage. If you're a SCH or GEO with good nuking gear and you're buffed to the nines, why wouldn't you magic burst? If you're doing more damage than the penalty you're imposing, it's a net gain for the party.
If the BLM-only method hits for 99,999 > 5s > 99,999 in one MB window
that doesn't beat:
BLM hitting for 99,999 > SCH#1 for 80k > GEO for 50k > SCH#2 for 50k > BLM for 60k > SCH#1 for 40k > GEO for 30k > SCH#2 for 40k
If in fact the nuke wall doesn't refresh and instantly resets after 5s, that further reinforces my point here because someone will also spike damage within that 10-second burst window. If everyone is doing strong unpenalized damage, the mass-bursting strategy will always in this scenario. If you're getting resisted, that's a different story entirely (See: Ongo). I'm talking about a Sortie scenario with a high-tier team of nukers doing 6-figure pre-cap, pre-penalty damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyxkAbeEXls another bump for our guy in the trenches breaking stuff down, for nuking strats. Terrific narration. Morgan Freeman might have been the next best option. I'd settle for a Mike Tyson nukewall narration just because.

I'm not talking about specific fights or content because then we will end up in a rabbit hole of going over 20 different events with 100 NMs with varying mechanics, resistance levels, and strategies.

There are definitely limitations on a lot of content which would prevent a 12 BLM army from nuking a single SC and killing a mob from 100%, sure.

My opinion is just that from a game design perspective you can't consider melee DPS and BLM to be the same, or that they should do comparable damage, because there are other factors involved with melee that aren't involved with BLMs. So necessarily they will have to be different. If you don't force BLM to do less damage then they will become the pervasive strategy for anything where it's possible, because it requires much less tanking and healing support and once you have the gear it is, I'm sorry to say it, braindead to MB a skillchain.

I will freely admit that BLMs do more than MB, they have buffs and debuffs to think about, and they use TP more these days than they used to in the past, they have to manage their MP, sure...but the consequences of screwing those things up are a slightly slower kill. The consequences of a melee being in range during, say, Dancing Fullers or Ebullient Nullification, are much higher. The consequences of a melee pulling hate during Kalunga and getting Volcanic Stasis'd are much higher than "Oh, the BLM didn't get a second nuke off during that SC". Or a melee being hit by weakness, then immediately hit by an aoe spell or the add in a V20 fight and one shot.

It is my opinion that the class diversity and the different strategies which are available, both in a single piece of content and across the variety of content we have, that makes FFXI such a great game. Despite what many people put forth, there is not a single strategy to beat every NM in this game. You can SC+MB most of the game if you want, even if the meta doesn't suggest it. You can Savage blade spam half the game, but there are many fights where that is not an option. There is content where AOE is really effective, and some where it's useless. It's a very well-designed, unique experience and people should accept it for what it is rather than trying to insist that all jobs be useful on all content, because "muh favorite".

One last thing, sorry for the wall of text but...I think the reason Savage spam is so prevalent is because it engages the most people. If you have a SAM doing a 5-step and BLM magic bursting all the SC, that means the BRD, COR, and any other player playing a melee job are doing absolutely nothing. If you're in an 18 man omen alliance and you have 2 WAR, 1 SAM, 1 MNK, 1 DRK, 1 RNG, 2 COR, and 2 BRD, it doesn't make sense to have a SC+MB setup.

There's also just the fact the SC dmg aspect quickly fell off comparitive to just spamming a WS endlessly, was always the struggle there really, if it was worth waiting for a sc+mb to finish, then wed do it, we used to in fact, but melees got stronger so now its more efficent to spam, replace SB with just about any other WS results the same, there's at least still some value in multi-stepping if its just you on the target vs just hitting the same WS endlessly(weapon depending)

SC MB worked because melee couldn't build tp fast enough to break a sc window. and they couldn't do 99k ws.

The game has simply gotten too fast for that archaic ***. It didn't evolve with the game. Some things get left behind.

Even if you break the burst damage cap and make it a MILLION instead of 100k they're still not going to want to do it.
(in general, not on blm specific things like again, ongo, obviously) butmuhwsspam!

It does not refresh, it's 5s and the tests are buried somewhere on the bg forums.




The wall opens when the nuke lands not when you start casting it, the game enforces a 3 second global cooldown after casting a spell, this prevents any action from being initiated. You gotta be allowed to press the button, then have the action start and finish within a 2s window. As you said the lowest you can possibly get Thundaja / Tier V to cast is 1.4s giving just a half second margin of error, not very likely. A single BLM can chain nuke such to hit the window right as it's coming open, but introduce another caster and they can start "stealing" the window and inflicting a -30% penalty to the BLM's next nuke.

Typical chain is Ja -> Tier VI and maybe a Tier V if the SC can be extended (what we did with Ongo). The Ja is started before the SC closes so it lands right as it's opening, the Tier VI will land right at 5s, then it's possible to sneak in a low tier for bonus damage right before it closes. What happens if a second nuker is present is they can "steal" the windows and cause the Ja and Tier VI to do reduced damage, which might be very bad depending.

Remove that silly 5s crap and people can each individually chain nuke into the window, the BLM does the Ja -> Tier VI while the SCH, RDM and GEO toss Tier V's and IV's. Also the bosses in sortie tend to have 60~70% (-30~40%) damage resistance to the elements you are bursting with, the lowest is the area E boss with 85% (-15%) damage resistance to earth. Not as bad as Ongo but by no means "weak" to magic.

Subsequent -ja casts don't refresh the timer either.

A half second margin of error is very doable. Anyway, I was just making the point, it's not like it's something you'd WANT to do, after all. I'm just here to play devil's advocate that removing the nuke wall won't bring BLMs back into high demand. I don't know what will, mind you, but I don't think that's the answer.


It doesn't refresh the timer per se, but they add stacks, each of which lasts 60 seconds (110 with empy +3 legs). So after 5 casts, you can maintain 5 stacks even though the old ones are falling off after 110 seconds.

Edit: That's how -ja spell stacks were explained to me a few years ago, anyway. Let me know if you have knowledge to the contrary.

I haven't independently verified this and there isn't much primary testing available, but based on my reading of the BG wiki page for cumulative magic, I don't think that's how it works. The YouTube video someone linked (very helpful stuff) that you starred in implies the same thing, that it works like DNC steps.

Here's the text from BG wiki:
"Each time a cumulative magic spell is cast, a hidden debuff is placed on the monster which makes the monster take 5% additional damage from damage of that element for 60 seconds. Each successive cast of the same cumulative magic spell on the same target (from any player) will increase this elemental damage boost by an additional 5% of base damage; however, the window is not extended and will end 60 seconds after the first cumulative magic spell hit the monster."

So it sounds to me more like if you cast one every 10 seconds you have 10 seconds of 5%, 10%, 15%, & 20% bonus damage, and then 70 seconds of 25% bonus damage, then it drops to 0% again and you have to re-apply stacks starting at 0.

Could test it with Stone 1 spam on something with a decent amount of HP

Instead of doubting and wondering, just do it.

Longer to type a reply than to literally test it.

I'm on another character crafting right now, maybe I'll do it later this evening, if you haven't already done it by then of course.

Testing done. It works exactly as described above.

Stone does 387
Cast Stoneja, Stone now does 406
Cast Stoneja again 30 seconds later, Stone does 425
Cast Stone after 60 seconds from the original Stoneja, it now does 387.

Extra -jas do not add any duration at all, and they wear off the same time your original stack did.

Which is just another reason to get wicce chausses +3. Not only are they BiS damage in the legs slot, but they also increase the -aja debuff window to 100 seconds total. That allows you to get stacks higher and buffs the damage longer. Empyrean Body, legs, and feet +3 are all staples now. Slightly off topic I know, but still worth reiterating.

Not to be a pedant but...I am. It increases the duration to 110 (if you're talking about +3 legs) and doesn't let you get any more stacks in, since the stacks cap at 5. But it does buff the damage longer, so that's very nice. Definitely a high priority item for serious BLMs

No Different than bringing 12 RNG to Delete ALL while PLD keeps everyone SAFE, right?

Anyone claiming playing BLM as being too EZ.
• The only actual Difference between BLM vs RNG is Enmity itself.
SE decided BLM should generate no Enmity via MBD.
• No different than RNG spamming Coronach
• No different than WAR simply spamming Savage Blade
— Other than you are now needing a WHM that’s not AFK atm when you eat AoE

Other than BLM actually being forced to time their Actions while RNG just spam WS nonstop like everyone else atm.

The actual Problem w/ BLM is a Universal FFXI epidemic.
— The Dmg is way too Extreme for anything to make any sense whatsoever any longer Balance wise

The Jobs are Balanced minus a few exceptions to the Rule.
All while the only actual Balance residing in Dmg Mitigation comes via 99,999 being the Cap + DT itself vs specific forms of Dmg Taken

two words: Mana Wall

six words: Mana Wall, Enmity Douse, Enemy TP

I don’t even use it. I see it is indeed rather Broken w/ a 5:00 duration but I don’t even need to abuse such

BLM don’t pull any Hate as is. It’s basically Coronach every MB.
If I am Free Nuking yeah sure but that’s not even the path of Highest DPS.

Have zero need for Mana Wall nor even Enmity Douse.

RNG has /DRG w/ Super Jump now not to mention Coronach.
It’s literally nothing but a BLM outside of Danger Zone.

Even just a RDM casting Flash can hold Hate vs Gastraphetes RNG doing Trueflight every so often. All while RDM just Kites. “Difficult”

Do you see a problem with a job saying:

"I have a JA to completely empty my enmity, but I don't even need it because I've never had to worry about enmity in my entire life"
AND:
"I have a JA that makes me completely invincible, but I don't even need it because I've never had to worry about dying in my entire life"

?

That's the point. Also: the mob gets 100 TP per spell which is, it turns out, lower than the amount of TP a RNG gives a mob by shooting it for 1000 TP and then using Coronach.

Neither Does RNG have to worry so LOL

I get what you are saying about Enmity but that’s SE deciding such strictly cuz BLM controlled their HATE via low Tier Nukes and intermittently casted a Tier VI to MB w/ if possible back before the Hate became nonexistent.

That’s certainly a way to reduce DPS if SE seriously opted to do such. Though such is literally Counterproductive.

Keep me busier not AFK on my Jobs. Decrease the Cap to FastCast instead & also speed up Animations so Mages are more Hyper Active.
—> FFXI combat is way too sluggish & slow atm on Mages

Tone down the actual Dmg itself

How to Fix FFXI
— FastCast now caps at 90%
— All Macro to Link spells together pressed Early
— All Dmg reduced by minimal 50% if not more
< No more 99,999 >
— Mobs attack faster but Mages must respond Quicker too
— Allow us to Job Change anywhere at any location
< It’s 2022 why dafuq I need a Moogle to change Jobs for >

Thank God you're not a game designer.

Brain too Slow. Gotcha.
< not seriously against you having an opinion >
Rather have velocity than Standing by tbh.

The game too slow & I am constantly waiting on Casting Animation just to link my spells.

Added last one to the List cuz that’s extremely annoying in FFXI
Which would actually simply Remedy the whole sluggish Mage control aspect found in FFXI itself on its own

your suggestions reek of someone who wants to play a different game, but can't give up their progress in this one.

Awesome - thanks Maletaru!! I'll update my video with what I've learned. While it won't alter my strategy, it's important to communicate accurate information. I'm finally off work, so I'll do a quick test to verify nuke wall as described (and to have the evidence on hand) and update accordingly. Cheers.

A faster more reflexes oriented Mage game doesnt equate to a Different game

I'm very curious about your results about the nuke wall because mine have so far been pretty far from what is described on BG wiki.

I can confirm the 5 second wait before nuke wall fully dissipates but it seems to decrease in potency over the 5 seconds. In addition I'm not getting consistent 30% even with basically simultaneous nukes, depending on tier of nuke I've been getting ~10% - 40% with higher tier nukes contributing more for initial amounts which then decrease over time.

In addition while the nuke wall definitely builds over repeated nukes the dissipation over time seems to help a lot unless simultaneous nuking (like in a MB with multiple nukers), I tried 8 t3s in a row with 2-3 seconds between each to try to build the nuke wall and while the nuke wall was growing it was very slowly growing and I was still losing less than 30% damage by the end.