How I Suggest Improving Black Mage

[Alhanelem]

3 full minutes of free nuking seems too good to me.

However, much of the suggestions heavily focus on either damage for a job that already caps damage

If BLM already caps damage, why aren't people using it? several other jobs wish they could do that. I'm not one of those people who sees BLM as super weak and needing the crap buffed out of it. In fact I'm confused why "I cap damage" and "I'm not strong enough" can be used to describe the same job. Is it MP? Is it enmity?

I do not believe the nuke wall should be removed,

This is something we've talked about and again, I disagree. I generally oppose artificial, job-specific restrictions like this that have no justification other than "we said so." Same goes for things like the BST command range limit and Astral Conduit. Both of which can be at least partially addressed with tweaks to the abilities themselves (conduit) or other minor changes (make the BST command range slightly higher, but still shorter than before to allow a little flexibility)

Bringing up or implementing special job and content specific ability restrictions only serves to highlight the flaws in how those effects were designed in the first place, and how that is what should be addressed rather than changing the content. Conduit for instance can be made less OP without content-specific restrictions preventing its use entirely.

Provide BLM access to Earth Crusher, Sunburst, and Cataclysm natively

And SMN as well. SMN has higher staff skill than BLM. I've been using /SAM with my melee setup, occasionally using sekkanoki and apogee to do double darkness magic bursts (or magic bursting both darkness with Matsui-P when he's available). While my focus has been on this, using GoT, it seems really dumb that essentially being the highest skill staff user that might actually use it, I lose access to most of the magical WS by subbing a job that would help me use them. SMN has more reason to gain and use TP to make skillchains with summons. So if BLM's melee capability is increased, then so too should SMN's.

[Sp1cyryan]

3 full minutes of free nuking seems too good to me.


If BLM already caps damage, why aren't people using it? several other jobs wish they could do that. I'm not one of those people who sees BLM as super weak and needing the crap buffed out of it. In fact I'm confused why "I cap damage" and "I'm not strong enough" can be used to describe the same job. Is it MP? Is it enmity?

This is something we've talked about and again, I disagree. I generally oppose artificial, job-specific restrictions like this that have no justification other than "we said so." Same goes for things like the BST command range limit and Astral Conduit. Both of which can be at least partially addressed with tweaks to the abilities themselves (conduit) or other minor changes (make the BST command range slightly higher, but still shorter than before to allow a little flexibility)

Bringing up or implementing special job and content specific ability restrictions only serves to highlight the flaws in how those effects were designed in the first place, and how that is what should be addressed rather than changing the content. Conduit for instance can be made less OP without content-specific restrictions preventing its use entirely.


And SMN as well. SMN has higher staff skill than BLM. I've been using /SAM with my melee setup, occasionally using sekkanoki and apogee to do double darkness magic bursts (or magic bursting both darkness with Matsui-P when he's available). While my focus has been on this, using GoT, it seems really dumb that essentially being the highest skill staff user that might actually use it, I lose access to most of the magical WS by subbing a job that would help me use them. SMN has more reason to gain and use TP to make skillchains with summons. So if BLM's melee capability is increased, then so too should SMN's.

You already get infinite free nuking as long as it does damage with the AF body. Allowing a body change is minor for a 1H ability.

People are using BLM. So a better way to rephrase that is why isn't BLM more ubiquitous if it can deal out 9s. Well, besides the obvious factor of not all foes taking magic damage well. BlM requires SCs to deal that damage, and that requires more work than spamming one WS and AFKing. BLM as a magic damage dealer with a condition is great. The issue is how the community rejects conditions. There are a few edges to round out, and I don't think damage is the issue for BLM.