The (Possible) Shape of Black Mage to Come
Greetings. I've written a few threads on the current state of Black Mage, and with 7.08 right around the corner, I've realized that a large amount of discussion, on both the NA and JP side, is the idea of a Black Mage rework.
While I am not intrinsically opposed to the idea of a rework, I am very cautious about this, because for a large portion of the job, it works fine. Even more so, some of the ideas proposed are rather poor.
1. Reworking to a burst style DPS
One of the parts that Black Mages enjoy about their job is their relatively flat damage profile. While it leads to below average buff feed, it also allows them to not have to cram a bunch of their spells into a short window along with everyone else, and it makes the class more unique, it's part of their identity to have this type of damage.
While the same thing happened to Paladin, I feel it's a lot less applicable, as they've shown they can balance classes with flatter profiles, like BLM back in Endwalker, or even VPR now.
2. Healer GCD's
If you've played Pictomancer, you should have noticed by now that a large chunk of their mobility comes from their shorter GCD's and longer recast timers in a lot of their moves.
To be frank, I am unequivocally against the idea of giving Black Mage healer GCD's. It's the class identity to have these long commitments, in exchange for the damage it puts out. It's very satisfying to just get into a flow of casting Fire 4 after Fire 4, and finishing it off with a despair? Amazing. Shortening our GCD's to such a degree can really kneecap that feeling, making us into a lesser copy of Picto.
3. Removing UI and AF.
The idea of removing UI and AF has been floated around before, and once again, I am very much against this idea. This has been a part of the class since ARR, and every single part of our job is focused around this, the careful balance of refreshing AF, putting out as much as you can within that, then going back into UI to do it all again. By removing it, you're nixing one of the most satisfying things to pull off, and something that intuitively teaches players how to efficiently play the job.
That's all the ideas I could remember being brought up, but the bottom line is that we don't need a rework. There's just a handful of changes that need to be made for us to coast on by pretty comfortably. 7.05 was a great step in the right direction! To sully all of that with an uneeded rework, is a spit in the face to us, and all the devs who made Black Mage what it is.
PLEASE IGNORE THIS I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THIS IN THE JP THREAD INSTEAD OF THE EN THREAD