@OP
I'm sure you know this already that Black Mage is a job that revolve around party play in which case it is most effective.
Final Fantasy I-V BLM had only access these elements. Fire, Ice, and Thunder. In some cases they also had Quake.
they also have spells like poison, sleep and bio while other jobs took care of the other elements, dots and debuffs.
edit: so i think the direction they're going with currently is bringing back the old school final fantasy jobs/classes into this modern age final fantasy world.
