black mage to many buffs!

First and foremost I am leveling my black mage for the last role quest line... however I'm finding it kinda nightmare to keep up with due to how many buffs this job has...

I swear it has triple the buffs of my warrior or white mage at lvl 80 ... and I was wondering does anyone have any macros or anything to make it slightly easier (i'm on crossbar as a ps player)

BLM effectively just has one buff. All of it is tied to the same mechanic: Enochian. I.e. just worry about maintaining Enochian and everything else will just manage itself.

I'd advise you to keep some buffs into the "same category" (maybe place them near each other in your crossbar), and most importantly, learn the different fights so you learn when to use them. Fights are really different, some fights with really low mobility will mean that you can use Triple Cast for burst damage (using instant GCDs to setup leylines, plan a swiftcast for Despair, or using Manafont to give yourself some more burst after an instant-cast Despair...) but fight with moments of high mobility (the last boss of Holminster as an example, when he begins to spin and cast a ton of aoes) requires you to keep spells like TripleCast so you can survive AND deal damage.

Ideally, every buff BlackMages have can serve two purpose. The first one is to deal more damage, and the second is to keep dealing damage while moving (or simply not taking damage so you don't die). I don't advise macros at all, except maybe EtherManipulation, but you have to be certain that you'll teleport to a player that can consistently "be good", so it's definitely not that great in pug content.

You ideally want to learn to use procs (Thundercloud, Pyro, Triple/switftcast, Xeno...) as a mean of mobility and only that. Because if you do that, then all of a sudden, most of your buffs become only "mobility" abilities and it becomes much easier to track them and not get lost on how to use them.

Also yeah, supreme goal is to use Enochian once and never use it again, be it in dungeon or in high-level content. This one you can put somewhere else, as having it available often will not encourage you to learn how to avoid wasting it.

Hope this help ! :)

There is really nothing that should be macro'd as BLM.
Just keep practicing, once you understand the flow of the job, you'll be fine :)

I had quite a bit of confusion about BLM when I first tried leveling it years back, probably because I made the mistake of trying to do it in Palace of the Dead. I was really only level 30something trying to play it at 60 with no knowledge how the skills progressed and what changed. When I went back to play it again, I leveled it entirely outside of PotD, and things made way more sense...when I could actually slow down and look at those new skills I was getting. The job definitely has a nice flow once you understand it, and it just gets better and better from 50 to 60 to 70 to 80.

I found that BLM was one of the harder classes to map out for controller, partially just because how many versions it goes through pre-max level (pre-60 especially). It's still a bit wonky, but it mostly works for me now.

BLM just got too much stuff going on at once.
Mana, Lightning, Enochian, Ley Lines and risk of interrupts on top of the all.
Lighting never procs so you forget to reapply and when you do it causes enochain to drop off.
Accidentally cast fire 4 too many times and enochain drops of.
Accidentally start hard casting fire 3 and mana is screwed.
Enemy stares at you? Interrupted and screwed!

Got to move? Extra screwed.

If you have to know a fight perfectly for a job to function properly then that job isn't particularly well designed. The biggest issue is just how punishing one mistake for this job can be, and how simple mistakes have such an cascading effects while playing this job that ultimately makes it insufferable to play.

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

I found that BLM was one of the harder classes to map out for controller, partially just because how many versions it goes through pre-max level (pre-60 especially). It's still a bit wonky, but it mostly works for me now.

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BLM is hands down the worst job to do in levelling low level rulettes because of this.

I mained BLM through ARR to SB, and levelled it up through ShB too, and it's honestly not too bad on Controller if you have a decent set up.
Have all damage dealing skills on the main two xhotbars, which is the main thing, then use expanded for utility.

BLM should have another counter that only maintains if you keep your lightning buff up consecutively for three full cycles of duration, and when it procs it gives you an instant Lightning spell with a tripled potency double the length debuff. While we're at it give them Fire Hearts that make Umbral spells instant cast from Astral mode, give them Astral Fire-like damage increases, and makes them instantly refill your mana by a set amount per spellcast. In return make it so Blizzard 4 and Fire 4 only award one Heart per cast, and Umbral Ice only gives 1-ice passive mana regen without casting spells. Also give both modes extended individual timers, but they also tick down in the other mode, and if you drop off one you need to hit reduced-CD enochian to start it again.