This is exact logic that bugs me though, because the SC itself does damage even without a MB, proportional to the damage of the closing WS. 100% for a tier 3 chain, 60% for T2, and even the no-effort T1 does 50% damage.

In other words, even in the crappiest low-level party with bad synergies, you're breaking even as long as the 50% gain from the closer makes up for your lost damage from doing a weaker opener. Two sword users in the dunes should be doing burning->fast for scission instead of fast+fast, because although burning blade is bad damage, it's not "less than 50%" bad. If you can manage a T2 SC like most parties can, the opener only needs to be 40%.

Once you get access to the T2 weaponskills, you can do T3 chains that double the damage of the second WS. As in, you're ahead on damage if your opener WS does literally any damage at all.

And remember: this is before even considering bonus damage from the MB.

It's not that it's too hard, it's just less efficient. If a melee's WS is dropping a mob's HP by some odd %30-%35 (like they often do 50+), and you have 3-4 melee doing so, they barely even have time to build TP without a skillchain once things get up and rolling. Mob gets pulled, someone vokes to establish hate, at about %85 HP 2 melee fire off WS that will either kill the mob on teh spot or drop it's health to %15 - without bothering to chain. The last bit will get whittled down building tp for the next mob and your total time to kill is what? 30 seconds if the party is a little slow? If your puller is quick you could have double digit chains starting at 52. Chain 5 is no longer outstanding, it's the bare minimum that I'd accept out of any given party.

Everything depends on the party and the camp. If melee's weapons are a mismatch, using subpar skills to force a mediocre skillchain just to fluff a BLM's ego is potentially crippling the party more than helping. Casting a Freeze for 1K damage then sitting for 60 seconds doesn't cut it anymore. It did in 05 because everyone was so impressed with the flash and panache of skillchains and magic burst that no one sat down and did basic mental math. One melee using a 2 handed weapon does ~100 damage a strike (or more if well geared). It takes 9-10 strikes for most melee to reach 1000 TP. Same melee does a weaponskill for 300-500 damage (or more depending on level/gear/subjob). Total damage in the time it takes to build TP = 1.3-1.5K minimum starting at about 50-52. Never has to stop for MP. Blm casts Freeze - 1K on a magic burst, then has to sit and rest for a minute because they've blown about a third to half their MP pool on a single spell. Will cast again next skillchain - if MP permits. In almost any given case a mediocre melee doing 1.3K damage in the time it takes to reach 1000 TP is > a mediocre BLM doing 1K damage in the same time frame. And Melee don't go OOM.

Skillchain damage not factored in because that can exist without a BLM in party. And this is before we consider how many WS an hour those melee would miss if they sit on TP waiting for a skillchain partner who inevitably TPs at a different rate than they do. If one player is consistently firing off a WS at 1.3-1.4K understand that waiting for a Skillchain partner is costing that player some %30-%40 of their potential WS. Further still, the first weaponskill often doesn't fire off until both are above 1.1 - 1.2K, so both melee are actually losing a significant chunk of damage per hour to make this happen.

In a nutshell, DOT beats out Burst damage by a wide margin in this game and in most XP party scenarios you get more damage in less time (thus more XP within that time frame) with any DD that isn't a BLM in that party slot. With higher levels and better gear, that gap only gets wider. There are exceptions to the rule, but in general that's how the game works. The exception is when the party has full and proper support. COR + BRD or RDM + either COR or BRD can feed the BLM enough MP to make them an asset rather than a liability because they can do more than cast 1 high damage spell every 30-45 seconds. 4x BLM BRD + RDM currently holds the record for fastest I've seen a mob go from %100 to 0, and among the highest XP per hour I've seen at any camp. A good Mana burn party puts SC + MB parties to shame. Bard pulls mobs to camp, sleeps them, BLM time nuke and stun/re-sleep if the thing doesn't die on first cast. Rinse/repeat and watch the XP flow like water. Added benefit: they can camp places normal parties can't. There won't be any bomb toss when a mob isn't fed TP from melee strikes and melts in 12 seconds or less anyway.

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I love skillchains, and everyone should take a minute or two to look up a couple they can use for the party they are in, but the blm not getting invites is all because they need to rest for mp not cause noone will give them a mb oppurtunity. In a lot of cases a Blm will work just fine, even though imo this game has always needed a bit more mp regen options.

It is a shame more parties don't use skillchains and it's not only because Black Mages miss out, choosing the right element and weapon skills actually boost the damage they would normally do when closing them and you get free damage as a bonus (it's not surprising to see someone closing Distortion with Sturmwind and having their damage almost reflected in the skillchain damage).

And of course most of all it makes people pay attention and socialise! As mentioned I remember ancient magic bursting and having to be on the ball timing everything right, it's fun to cooperate with each other instead of mashing away at mobs in silence.

BLM isn't worth inviting for many of the reasons already stated. BLM has to rest, resulting in downtime, melee DDs don't. There's no reason to go out of your to set up a skillchain, it wastes time and TP while the DDs wait to WS, any TP in excess of 100% could have gone toward another WS. Ideally the mob is dead in well under a minute and there won't be time for a skillchain and magic burst anyway. I don't think its reasonable to expect other players to more or less voluntarily get less exp just to indulge in the nostalgia of magic bursting.

I had a few good manaburns while I leveled BLM, but they require require the same support jobs players want for TP burns (BRD, COR, RDM) that are always in high demand and its usually a lot easier to set up a "normal" exp party with random DDs. I can't think of any regular exp camp you'd typically use 50+ that wouldn't yield less exp/hr due to having a BLM in your party in place of a support or another DD that isn't a terrible camp in the first place, like Boyahda Tree or Kuftal in the mid-50's, either.

I also think there's a bit of a problem with exp camps 65+ in general, there's really not much after Boyahda Tree's 62+ camp aside from turtles in Gustav or other 75 merit spots that offer comparable exp/hr. Most of the 65+ camps suggested on the wiki require access to endgame areas, don't have enough mobs, or both. A camp with eight or ten mobs on a 15 minute respawn timer is not a viable camp. Dhalmels in Bibiki have huge HP pools and can often break chains with repeated uses of healing breeze while still only yielding ~200 or less base exp in the high 60's, tigers in Kuftal spam AOE paralysis and claw cyclones, goblins at any level are usually out of the question for obvious reasons.

Theres a point where base exp jumps up to compensate with the large xp pool needed for the next level. I believe its at 50. The birds in that higher lvl bibiki bay area (Tragopans) did not get the memo. They are IT mobs giving base exp of 140 to a party of 6. That is incorrect. And it turns it into a crap camp.

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This made me laugh

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SapaJoee / SapDaddy

Best PLD on Nasomi
Best BRD on Nasomi
TopShelf MVP 2017-2020
Voted Nasomi Server Player of the Century Award
Sackholder in TS

Quite a few camps after 62, Den of Rancor, gustav tunnel, Moon, Cape terrigan, dragons aery, kuftal tunnel, bibiki bay and ect.

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Kasion

I make a lot of parties and am not personally familiar with these camps, other than birds in Bibiki. Can you post these in the exp camps thread (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5524&start=60) with some detail on levels/camp locations/targets and I'll be happy to put together guinea pig parties to get the xp values. I didn't play over 60 in retail, so am not familiar with camps after Onzozo toramas and those birds. If they're taken, I'm basically up a creek. I'd happily put together a party but people always leave it to the organizer to also pick the camp. That's not my expertise, so I rely on the chart from this XP page, and one of my own that I keep. Would love more people to contribute additional camps.

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~~Guedj~~
WAR37 MNK10 WHM38 BLM61
RDM18 THF63 PLD15 COR24
BST75 BRD46 RNG12 SAM71
NIN37 DRG60 SMN70 BLU15
DRK0 PUP0

When I'm looking for an atypical party location I usually use Campsitarus. The only issue with it is that the primary camp locations are very ToAU heavy, which doesn't really apply here.

You'll find most of what he's listing in there.