Black Mages - Tell Me About Your Job...

[Lauront]

I'd regale you with a song of Fire and Ice...

But I'm no BRD.

In all seriousness, what Squigley said. I'd recommend having a backup job that requires less extensive knowledge of raid mechanics if you're intending on raiding much, so that you can do a few runs on it before entering a given fight as BLM. Depends on how brave you feel and your group's attitude to doing content blind.

[Seraphor]

I'd regale you with a song of Fire and Ice...

But I'm no BRD.

In all seriousness, what Squigley said. I'd recommend having a backup job that requires less extensive knowledge of raid mechanics if you're intending on raiding much, so that you can do a few runs on it before entering as BLM.

There's something to be said about learning on the job, so to speak.
Playing it as BLM will teach you exactly when you can or cant move, and where to stand, because dying will drill it into you!

For example, I started Ridorana as BLM, and screwed up so much. By the third run, i managed to get through the whole raid without dying or dropping enochian.
So long as your party knows its your first time, you shouldnt cause any trouble, screw ups are expected in DF or learning parties.

[Frizze]

Is there like a level 60-70 guide for the job that isn't focused on savage-level rotation?

If we ignore openers for a second, the basic rotation is very easy to learn.

Single target: You want to cast all the Fire 4s you can without dropping Eno, you want to keep your thunder dot ticking, and you want to minimize the time you spend in your umbral stance. So you use Fire 4 as your primary damage spell. Ideally after every 3rd cast youll use Fire 1 as a filler to maintain Eno(you can trim this to after every 2nd if the fight requires you to adapt). When your mana is out you use Bliz 3 to switch stances. Thunder 3 is your dot, cast it during your ice stance. Bliz 4 gives you a buff that allows you to cast a little bit more in your fire stance - its often a net gain but not always. And finally, Fire 3 is your spell to switch back to your more damaging fire stance. You also have 2 procs, firestarter and thundercloud. Generally, the fire one makes a great substitute for a normal Fire 1 in your rotation(though you can use it almost anywhere in your damage phase and it isnt a total loss) and the ideal use for the thunder one is often when you would normally renew your dot(if its going to expire then using it anywhere that wont cause you to lose eno is generally ok, the less ticks remaining on your current DoT the better) - though both are adaptable to fit the fight situation. If you get that much down right, then use of your buffs(triple, swift, sharp, sure, and wall) should come fairly naturally. And just doing the rotation right(without optimizing) already puts you on good footing - better DPS then some of the lower classes and far beyond the people who play BLM wrong. In practice, this is what it looks like minus the opener.
F3 F4 F4 F4 F1 F4 F4 F4 B3 T3 B4 repeat

Multi-target: You want to cast all the Flares you can without dropping Eno, you want to keep your thunder dot ticking, and you want to minimize the time you spend in your umbral stance(this should sound familiar). Until level 66 you use Fire 2 as your most cast spell(though not your primary damage). Flare is primary, but its casting cost forces you to work around it. Thunder 2/4(one replaces the other) is your DoT(procs can be used as needed). You can use Bliz 3 to phase change, but often youll actually be casting down to 0 mana so instead that forces you to use Transpose to switch. Bliz 4 is ignored before level 66, and becomes very important after(the mana buff allows you to double flare every time through your rotation). And finally, Fire 3 is the ideal way to get back into your damaging phase. Lets look at the rotation.
Pre-66: F3 F2 F2 Flare Trans T2/4 repeat(hardcasting F3) Post-66: F3 Flare Flare Trans T4 B4 repeat(hardcast F3) In either of these, you can add Convert Flare and Ether Flare after the final flare when they arent on cooldown.
You can also add 2 F2s into the post 66 rotation(before the 2 flares) if you need to. If youre dealing with 6+ targets this ends up being a small damage gain(and if youre dealing with a weak tank and cant use lucid/diversion, this helps slow down your enmity growth a tad).

Then at 70 you get Foul. Big hard hitting AoE. Use it during your ice phase for both single target and multi.

[PyurBlue]

If youre dealing with 6+ targets this ends up being a small damage gain

Fire 2 is never a damage gain over Flare in a realistic sitaution. The 6th+ enemy will take more Fire 2 damage than Flare damage, but the damage dealt to all 6 enemies is 988 potency for Flare compared to 480 for Fire 2. In terms of potency per second Flare is a 154% increase provides 154% of the damage done by Fire 2. Flare is really powerful. It's even a damage increase over Fire 4 against just two enemies (but only a pps increase if swiftcast is used).

As far as BLM in general goes, it's a pretty simple class to play. I would even say it's a little too simple before level 60, but once you gain Enochian and the related skills it starts to become interesting. You may need to adapt to its stationary nature if you're more used to a mobile class, but I wouldn't say that you need to have a fight memorized perfectly to avoid dying and deal decent damage. Planning your moves steps by step really only comes into play when you're trying to seriously optimize. Slidecasting, triplecast, swiftcast, sharpcast, Aetherial Manipulation, Between the Lines, and procs give you a fair amount of mobility. The worst things that might happen to a new BLM are excessive casting of Fire 1 vs Fire 4 just to keep Eno up and losing Ley Lines by putting them down at bad locations/times. You won't be the top damage dealer doing this but you'll be far from useless, and contribute much more than a BLM that drops Eno or dies.

[Rongway]

A well-played BLM is one that is intimately familiar with the fights, to the point that you know when and how to make the most use of the variety of buttons that have "Additional effect: Ignores mechanics." Fights on BLM might seem stressful at first, but you have lots of buttons for helping you deal with things. Teleports are on short timers, so you can move around without walking. Some AoEs you can eat with Manaward. Ignore knockbacks with Surecast. Just keep calm and use your cooldowns.

You can also add 2 F2s into the post 66 rotation(before the 2 flares) if you need to. If youre dealing with 6+ targets this ends up being a small damage gain

It becomes a 1 potency/second gain at 23 targets, though.

[Shiroe]

Blm is one of the easiest class in dungeons,.. relaxing easy
(though its aoe needs a build up before fully unfolding, unlike Rdm aoe)

But Blm is the hardest in raids and ex-trails
(so hard that Blm are sometimes considered "bad" early on in PFs / with Pugs, when new fights are out, ..due to their deaths and low dps till the fight is optimised)

on the other hand, in a static or when a fight has been learnt, its got great dps

(just some fights with heavy movement can still be a pain, when counting in proc rng or other player postions for teleport;.. but when the rng and everything else does fall into place, Blm us very satisfying)

Leveling up Blm can be tedious, since pre-lv 60 and 70 its boring / too simple..., at 60 there is q big jump in difficulty, that can scare some off at 1st

[SwarleyMcSwarls]

Black mage is a dream job for dungeons and casual content. Make sure you read your tooltips and some good info on the job. And then you can proceed to flare and foul everything to death as you laugh at the other dps as they kneel before you and your almighty black mage power.

[Kaiten_kenbu]

When people say don't play with fire, they obviously haven't met the BLM.