Originally Posted by
Colt47
Black mage can do good damage, it's just that the weight of each of its actions is a lot higher than other caster jobs and therefore the mechanic they use to juggle said actions is a lot more punishing than the other casters. Like if you lose your astral fire while mid-casting despair, you lose the damage from the spell as well as the time spent attempting the cast. Not to mention if the echolochian gets dropped entirely and there's no instant cast cooldowns left, getting back into the right motion also costs significant amounts of time.
Let's just say BLM is one of the least new player friendly jobs there is in the game. The other one up there is probably DRK due to the challenges it has with mitigation.