General

@Ecyz: I've hit 10m/line with infinity and 190k range fully buffed.

[quote=LightSpiral]@ise3 : So other than being unique, what is it that makes F/P effective as an end-game character?[/quote]
The ridiculous damage
Any nooby F/P can still hit over 1mil per line with Mist Eruption. It doesn't even take much to hit 2mil per line anymore thanks to RED.

play i/l cuz bish and f/p sucks

@ise3 : So other than being unique, what is it that makes F/P effective as an end-game character? I guess I've just always had an affinity for the class since beta, for some odd reason. I chose Bishop when it was easier to level, but since the game has changed so much, I'm considering returning to F/P. It's difficult to make a decision when you're out 100m+ but although Bishop is somewhat enjoyable, I've never really wanted to be a support character. I have a 7x I/L back in Scania...I was never too impressed with it, personally.

@ise3 is right about Megiddo (700 * 30sec = 21000% total damage unaffected by PDR), as well as Haze obscuring bosses. It's hard to tell when PB or Blackheart will cast Reflect when you can hardly see the animation (though PB's DR buff is active the instant the animation starts so it's kind of a moot point). They need to fix it so the effect goes behind buff icons/overhead DoT markers (like the ones for Breath/Teleport/Paralyze/Mist).

@DemoDango: I don't find it hard at all, just be telecasting the whole time and cast paralyze and poison blow every 15 seconds or so. Otherwise you're just spamming flamehaze+misteruption.

@LightSpiral: F/P doesn't become OP for bossing until they actually get the no cooldown mist eruption which is a lvl 155 hyper. Otherwise they're stuck with the old playstyle of spamming paralyze until mist eruption is available. But with about a 100k clean range (which was probably around 60k pre-red) I hit 4.5m crits with mist eruption (9 lines) and around 1.5m with flame haze (6 lines). Casting both of them takes about 2.5 seconds.

The biggest problem with fire poison is that flame haze obscures bosses so it's hard to see their DR buff at times. I usually have ifrit attack during this time to test if it's safe to attack.
Also, we aren't very flashy :< no map darkening skills or anything. Our hyper hits only one mob for 4200% but it has a 700% dot damage for 30 seconds which makes it one of the better hypers for bossing. Meteor shower has a super long 45 second cooldown but being on cooldown is better than not being on cooldown.

@ise3 As far as end game goes, how are you finding F/P? I'm a level 155 Bishop and have been hopping around jobs on my explorers. I made a FP back in beta and have always had a soft spot for them. I used my job coin on another character, so it'd cost a pretty penny (125m) to switch at this point...but I'm almost inclined to try.

The whole Open Job Adv concept is very interesting. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether you'll like a character at level 60 or 80 or even 100. Even though it's expensive, it's kind of nice to be able to switch around and find a character whose playing style fits yours without having to re-make character after character.

@ise3: Hard to maintain as in it's hard to time it so that the number never goes below 5.

Nope. Bishops is the best currently.
Not just support~ (Want proof? check my channel, check ThatWasMyKil, and there are other GREAT Bishops).

thanks guys. Im going to make a f/p with the job change coin thing today.

Its all going to be biased And i agree with above the most.. everyone is different

They all each have their own unique play styles. Find one that suits your play style, instead of asking which is superior.

IMO F/p mobs better than I/L, but that's just me, maybe o.o

[quote=DemoDango]F/P has the highest skill cap of all the mage classes. You have extremely high potential damage, but it's hard to maintain. Simply put, you get extremely bursty damage even at low funding amounts if you pull it off right.

The tradeoff is a lack of real party-friendly skills and a hard time mobbing effectively compared to I/Ls.

Bishops are pretty swell but their main weakness is not in attack power; it's the inability to turn off the Holy element. Many, if not most, bosses have holy resistance. Elemental mages can turn their elemental traits off with a buff.[/quote]

Hard to maintain? .-. they even put a number at the top of the screen for you now. And yes the damage is very high, I have 100k range unbuffed and I hit 4m x 9 with mist eruption. Back in the days of pre-unleashed, I could very rarely hit max damage with a 25k range combining mist eruption with infinity. On the other hand, mist eruption had a 10 second cooldown in those days (5 with hypers, back to 10 with lag). And then RED made mist eruption no cooldown so yeah, we OP

I agree that our only use in parties is damage, lagging everyone, and meditation, but F/P is does not have a hard time mobbing at all. Paralyze hits 8 mobs and only does slightly less damage than Chain Lightning. On bosses, Paralyze actually trumps chain lightning because of the damage over time, although to be fair, paralyze is hardly used in bossing thanks to no cooldown mist eruption. It's just that I/L have a really good mobbing skill, so F/P aren't known for their mobbing.

All in all the class stereotypes go like this:
Bishop: Support, HS
I/L: Mobbing
F/P: Bossing

F/P has the highest skill cap of all the mage classes. You have extremely high potential damage, but it's hard to maintain. Simply put, you get extremely bursty damage even at low funding amounts if you pull it off right.

The tradeoff is a lack of real party-friendly skills and a hard time mobbing effectively compared to I/Ls.

Bishops are pretty swell but their main weakness is not in attack power; it's the inability to turn off the Holy element. Many, if not most, bosses have holy resistance. Elemental mages can turn their elemental traits off with a buff.

im making a bishop and i want to know about this too so i can decide whether or not i should switch jobs.