Black Mage

Those were some fixes for other problems, the fact that BLM does not do enough dmg is something that either requires SE to shift their wiew on the game or simply committing to their formula without further ado and ignoring ppl wanting dps buffs on their support jobs because they cannot see the greater picture.

That aside I don't really think it'll avoid a meta in the competitive scene, Players will always try to find the comp that does the most mathematical dmg no matter how small the gaps.

It goes without saying that using PF to exclude some jobs atm is not really something I would endorse.
All jobs in the game are fairly ok regardless of what we believe and the metas to work require a certain amount of skill to be played something you honestly cannot expect from PUGS.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

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To say "all jobs are fairly okay regardless" is very misleading though. Do you think it's okay for a job to have no unique strength? Nothing which personally sets it apart from others? Because currently BLM is that.
Let me reiterate AGAIN. Because this is NOT okay.

There is no situation in the game where a black mage is not a hindrance to your team when compared to the alternative jobs you could bring.

No, given the current situation we are far away from beign a hindrance really, yes other options are better at the same skill level, but it takes more to be a hindrance.

I don't want to downplay the problems of the class or anything mind you. I think however we need to have a clear background of what we are talking because from to be honest I feel like that ppl are exaggerating some points and making it look like that you can't clear anything with a BLM, which is false.
Now if ultimate comes out and it's really a freakish hell for BLM like yoshida says than yes something has to be done.
But we don't have knowledge of coming raids, Hell for all we know ultimate will punish you so hard for dying that you won't be able to be ressed at all......so RDM will be in trouble too? Probably yes

As for the double ranged meta, SE doesn't want to get rid of the phisycal vulnerabilities but I think they'll have to find a way to break it one way or another

I agree with Sfia, there is nothing you can bring a BLM and say "BLM will do this well" because any other job can just do better. Be it dungeons, progression, farm, speedruns and even casual happy maps and canals. At this moment BLM exceeds in absolute nothing even when played perfectly.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

No, given the current situation we are far away from beign a hindrance really, yes other options are better at the same skill level, but it takes more to be a hindrance.

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If you can provide more to your team by playing literally anything else you are actively hindering your teams performance. It's a game where you are able to play every job on one character. You have the ability to swap and be more use.

While that is true, the reality is that not all players even on high end play perfectly all the jobs. Besides My point was that while not excelling at anything, BLM are not acting poorly,
I repeat Yes, other jobs do it better at the same skill level and the class has some problems, however it's not yet completely wortheless for it requires to be in much worse condition for it to be.
I'm not downplaying any of the problems we have discussed so far for they are a fact and something needs to be done .

Once ultimate comes out I'll probably change my opinion

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Originally Posted by Sfia

A lot of suggestions here are great in terms of quality of life at lower play (fixing scathe usage etc.) but really it seems like most people are missing the mark on what I have said.

Even when played with absolute perfect execution Black Mage does not do enough of anything to justify it's slot in any end game situation.

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BLM definitely need to have their ceiling raised, but focusing on quality of life at lower level is probably the single most important thing to make a BLM usefull to any group.
Just take a look at Rabanastre logs: https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/18#dataset=50 at the 50 percentile and below (that is half the BLM population doing rabanastre !) the class is literally the last in personnal dps.
Playing it correctly in mechanically intensive fights is quite difficult and currently far beyond the reach of most casual players.

The problem with BLM is more that at the top level the players understand that it isn't doing nearly enough to justify its place in a group compared to other classes, and at low level the gap become so wide that you begin to question taking a BLM because of the risk of getting a bad BLM that will underperform so badly you instead choose to take a more stable DPS that can at least press a button every 2 minute to boost everyone else.

Simply boosting the potency of fire IV / foul would only widen the already too large gap between top and bot BLM. I really do like the idea of increasing the duration of the Thunder, at least 30 sec would make it last until the next UI phase.
After that I would propose some buffs to fire I, sure It may cause problem with Blizzard IV not being used everytime by top players, but it would enable weaker player to at least do decent damage if they happen to drop enochian, which will happen a lot when not used to the class.

The change I would really like is to make fire I a bit more usable when on the move. Making it instant case would probably be OP and quite frankly not sounds too BLM to me, but I would love a base 1.5 cast time (still 2.5sec GCD) that way we could use a Fire I to weave OGCD during it with a minimal potency loss and gain 1 sec per cast of movement.

I'm not pretending these disparity issues don't exist, in fact some pages ago I made a couple of suggestions of my own.

But that doesn't change the fact that even with a more friendly or forgiving rotation a BLMs contribution to their team is unacceptable.
QoL changes would ideally bring up the performance of less practiced or skilled players without effecting the upper ceiling - which is great... but for the issues I am talking about here are largely useless.

I firmly believe that all classes deserve utility of some kind. Not all need "equal" utility, but BLM offers nothing (not even "damage", as we've outlined throughout this thread). That being said, raising the floor on the job would still help, hence the timers/movement suggestions.

Convert needs love
Umbral Hearts need love
"movement"/timers could use love

As far as damage up on bosses, I'd love to see 10% or 15% magic damage from Blizzard IV, but outside of that I don't see anything happening in this department until 5.0. Designing new skills mid-expansion seems pretty off-limits, but applying mechanics that already exist (magic vuln) to an existing skill in a sensible way definitely fits.

Firestarter II trait is another thing I'd like. F4 can proc it with 30 increased potency or so. Pretty please?