Black mages. . . .

[Nakiamiie]

...I said it a long time ago, there was nothing wrong with the AoE toggle for spells, as long as the potency was reduced and/or MP cost was raised for AoE, which I hope they are planning at some point.

I'm hoping this is temporary and it wont be the same in ARR.With TP being fulland regenerating on its own plus less animation lock, its like a indirect nerf to the THM unless they do something to help them attack at weaknesses better.

Use TP to toggle spells from single to AoE or focus the damages to a single target?

I, too, really enjoyed the AoE toggle for all spells. It was a nice feature and a bad move to take it out. Please bring it back!!!

[AmyNeudaiz]

Personally, I think both BLM and WHM are horribly boring in this game. All they do is cast the same 1-3 spells repeatedly. Occasionally they cast a different 1-3 spells, but not usually.

Mages need battle mechanics, not just to stand there casting the same thing repeatedly.

I personally find WHM to be entertaining. Although it's not my first pick when I get to choose what job I'm going as, I don't gripe when I'm asked to WHM. It's all really just preference. It gives you more of a sense of importance than being X-Y-Z DPS and some people really like that (I know I do.)

[FF4ever]

didnt u guys notice that some spell chain combos turn aoe into single cast, as far as spells go there is plenty. BLM has all kinds of element spells. but as far as THM goes it can heal and buff so its good for back up and can hit hard also with the spells it has, animation lock? dont you guys know how a wizards works? in role play when a mage casts a spell they enter a meditated state of of trance, thats not animation lock that is the caster prepairing to cast., if u want to stop the spell mid cast
go to CONFIG>SYSTEM and chose ACTION RESELECTION CANCEL. if u use a JA and are caught in a crack ur just sol

water will come soon for sure. mayhaps a higher lvl, take it easy

[Reika]

didnt u guys notice that some spell chain combos turn aoe into single cast, as far as spells go there is plenty. BLM has all kinds of element spells. but as far as THM goes it can heal and buff so its good for back up and can hit hard also with the spells it has, animation lock? dont you guys know how a wizards works? in role play when a mage casts a spell they enter a meditated state of of trance, thats not animation lock that is the caster prepairing to cast., if u want to stop the spell mid cast
go to CONFIG>SYSTEM and chose ACTION RESELECTION CANCEL. if u use a JA and are caught in a crack ur just sol

water will come soon for sure. mayhaps a higher lvl, take it easy

Well, pretty positive thinking but pretty much missing the point entirely. First of all, we are talking about THM, not CNJ. stone-stonra / aero - aeroa you can turn them from aoe to single target, wooptedoo. but, nothing turns thunder/thundara/tundaga from single to aoe, nothing turns fire/fira/firega from aoe to single, blizzard is always single, blizzard doesnt combo to blizzara, blizzara is always multi and is just stupidly implemented, thm/blm cannot even use stonera or aeroa, blm cannot even use stone/aero and neither of them can become multi. Blm doesnt have all kinds of elemental spells, it has 3. And all the spells you learn through job quests need to be redone. As someone said, they are just cheap debuffs and do not deserve the name of legendary black magic - and burst is an outright waste of MP.

And by animation lock I was talking about melee characters. Seen in the gameplay footage for AAR at gamecon, Weaponskill animation lock aka inability to move during a weaponskill is greatly reduced in time.

nothing is good in this current magic system. Current fights are all tunder-thundara-thunder-thundara-thunder-thundara-thunder-thundara- Freeze when you get low and need to rest MP. Thats utterly whack. BLM should be able have a larger variety of single target spells they can throw at an enemy, not thunder all day long for single, fire all day long for aoe.

[FF4ever]

naaa i didnt miss the point at all, 1st thing i wasnt speaking on "cnj" or whm ither. and as i stated before SE will add more spells for blm at higher lvls or 2.0 its a given.. not positive thinking =/ its a fact what else would u think they would do =/ , the current spells are good and do heavy damage aoe or not, the thunders can deal way more damage than dd starting out before manaburn, maybe the mobs u are bursting on are "resistant". or mayhaps u didnt notice that the damage from burst is based on low hp =/ given the fact that u and no one else have said nothing about WS and or melee on ur forum except for ur last post here, id say ur just ranting <<<<<<< and if u are meleeing mobs u cant down on blm/thm animation lock shouldnt be ur onry concern.........

[Reika]

Nah bro, the current setup is stupid and lazy, and i'm not ranting.

Did burst with about 200hp left and it did less than a thundaga crit. give that i can cast thundaga every much more often than burst because of its 15m cooldown, any smart person would come to the conclusion that burst is pretty stupid. you can also get way more damage just sticking to thunder-thundara for high single target damage output which any smart person who puts up with boring blm play would also do.

But this isnt really a debate about how to do damage or how to stop animation lock, which you also ignored what i was talking about.

you say i'm ranting, i say youre just trolling, givin the way you called them wizards, and just said onry.... Either that or you just cant grasp what is stupid and broken about the current magic system.

[Kiote]

WHM's job is to cure, so aren't they more or less going to cast the same kind of spells over and over? Cure, Cura, Curaga, Regen, Esuna, occasional nuke for debuffs. There's not a lot to being a healer.

Yes, as a White Mage you should be casting these same kinds of Spells Fairly consistently, but there should be additional mechanics that come in to play. A Reason to move. A reason to think on your feet instead of follow a repeated pattern. This is why people clamored for that Bubble spell in the original Trailer. Even healers deserve active participation in the Battle. They should not have to stand there 100% devoted to ensuring Cure goes off.

BLM has it even worse. They don't even have to worry about let people die.

[Jinrya-Geki]

naaa i didnt miss the point at all, 1st thing i wasnt speaking on "cnj" or whm ither. and as i stated before SE will add more spells for blm at higher lvls or 2.0 its a given.. not positive thinking =/ its a fact what else would u think they would do =/ , the current spells are good and do heavy damage aoe or not, the thunders can deal way more damage than dd starting out before manaburn, maybe the mobs u are bursting on are "resistant". or mayhaps u didnt notice that the damage from burst is based on low hp =/ given the fact that u and no one else have said nothing about WS and or melee on ur forum except for ur last post here, id say ur just ranting <<<<<<< and if u are meleeing mobs u cant down on blm/thm animation lock shouldnt be ur onry concern.........

You must not have black mage/thaumaturge leveled.

You thinking Burst is good is more than enough proof.

Thinking any other spells besides the Thunder>Thundara combo is good and hard hitting your badly mistaken. Even mobs weak to fire, you'll do more damage with Thunder combos than Fire combos. Miser is my argument.

Flare's DoT is laughable, it's not even worth considering, it's damage isn't outstanding either for an Ancient Magic spell.

[KoujiGeki]

ok then SE should make all DD have on 3 weapons skills. The first 2 combo and do the most damage the 3 one does piss AoE dmg. Then i think everyonbe would know how bad BLM is really. The fact is that Blm isnt all that weak its just so liner and boring thunder thunder thunder fire. thats it.

[LeonRegulus]

I don't know about you guys, but I use almost all of my spells regularly throughout AV/CC speed-runs. No they're not all OMFGWTFHAXORBBQ powerful, but they all have their uses.

Thunder combo: Most damaging, and quickest to fire off. Makes sense considering that's kind of how lightning works in RL.
Blizzard/Blizzara: Blizzara sees the most use to finish off groups of near dead mobs without having to cast the slower fire spells. Entire line is for slowing down/immobilizing targets. Once again kind of ice's thing.
Fire Combo: Great AOE damage for trash mobs. Most utilized in CC for trash mobs/Princess. Set something on fire, it spreads, hence AOE.
Burst: Solid damage for a fast spell that has a relatively low MP cost. Not as strong as thundaga crits yes, but can be used to help quickly finish off bosses. So far any boss that you can use BLM on, burst comes in handy. Not the most powerful 15min, but still probably gets more use than say Dragonfire Dive or Hundred Fists.
Freeze: Amazing ability to lower enmity while still dealing fair damage.
Flare: Probably the most reliably controlled AOE in the game, adds DoT. Only downside is proximity to mobs. Not everything can be OP.

Therefore calling the current design of BLM/THM bad, is in itself. Could it be better? Yes, which class couldn't? If you ask me just making all spells do same damage with different elements, and having an AOE toggle, like you are asking for, is the real dumbed down system. At that point you only have two decisions per fight. One: What's it weak to? Two: Single or multi?

As for the complaint that not all elements are present or have same amount of tiers, well there's a limit on abilities per class, for balancing purposes, and who's to say they won't be added in later with expansions/jobs/lvl cap increase? They can't just give you everything off the bat. And using the argument about wizards vs. mages is just a lol concept.

All in all BLM is a fairly complex class when played right, so the question is: Is the system broken or is it the player's concept?