I hate being a Black Mage

If your main class is Black Mage, then you may find this post to be either an insult to your favorite class, successful in proving my own stupidity, or both. However I want to make it clear I am not implying that the class is broken or unenjoyable for others, I personally just can't use it and highly regret choosing it as my starting class.

Reason 1: Unfriendly to lag - As a black mage, or any castor class (in-theory), the only cast-canceling status more detrimental then Silence and Paralyze is a sketchy connection. My dps will severely suffer when participating in a crowded FATE. This is because my character is actually executing the skill long before the cooldown on my screen is finished, often resulting in recasting to fail, sometimes twice in a row. Because of this, I may even lose the chance of switching from umbral ice stacks to astral fire or vice versa.

Reason 2: Situational Skills - In example, Freeze. Despite looking through different forums and black mage guides it doesn't make sense to me. There are other skills similar to that; skills that should be used in special situations, and proper execution of these skills would, in theory, paint someone as a viable black mage user. I have a hunch that such skills would only be used in end-game, which, for me, is a terribly far journey (I'm also a bit jealous of players who have 3-4 levelcap classes already).

Reason 3: Sleeping enemies don't stand out - Needless to say, sleep is a very powerful skill. However, I don't know how to stop people from waking enemies up. I guess its important for tanks to use aoe to pull groups of mobs, but when the pull fails and the healer dies, we all die. The effective time for sleep gets cut in half everytime it gets used on the same enemy, and therefore it becomes a moot effort trying to recast sleep when the healer is getting attacked by enemies that are separated from the pull. Then again, this could be a result of a lack of coordination, but I've never been a tactical person.

Reason 4: Shares the same close range weakness as healers - In situations where tanks aren't available, such as underpopulated fates, I often get destroyed by bosses since I cannot move whilst attacking. I often scream in silence when I see dragoons and monks mocking bosses when they just laugh in their face as they swipe them while skipping merrily away from a massive area attack. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the closer range dps classes do more damage then the castor dps types?

Reason 5: AoE Attacks are not meant for solo play - If you do not have at least 2 tanks in the area or in your party, area of effect attacks is the worst thing you can do as a black mage since you cannot move while attacking, and higher level mobs are capable of canceling your casting. I think this class has the best AoE ability (not sure), but at any rate its not the smartest thing to do by yourself, at least, in my experience.

I'm pretty sure that with the combination of the high black mage population and the general amount of discussions of the class, a lot of people do in-fact enjoy using it. And I can see why, the class is well designed and highly dynamic. I just don't recommend it for stupid people, such as myself.

Stick it out - BM top sustained DPS XD

You're at a bad time right now when transpose seems to be too slow and you don't have Ice 3 along with Magic and Mend II yet. Freeze and Lethargy are kinda useless, but the other skills are pretty good.

Manawall and Mana Ward can save you -> Apocatastasis, I swear, does more then it says (Or else perhaps SE's typing is fubar).

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

If your main class is Black Mage, then you may find this post to be either an insult to your favorite class, successful in proving my own stupidity, or both. However I want to make it clear I am not implying that the class is broken or unenjoyable for others, I personally just can't use it and highly regret choosing it as my starting class.

Reason 1: Unfriendly to lag - As a black mage, or any castor class (in-theory), the only cast-canceling status more detrimental then Silence and Paralyze is a sketchy connection. My dps will severely suffer when participating in a crowded FATE. This is because my character is actually executing the skill long before the cooldown on my screen is finished, often resulting in recasting to fail, sometimes twice in a row. Because of this, I may even lose the chance of switching from umbral ice stacks to astral fire or vice versa.

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Sadly, this has nothing to do with anything but you.

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

Reason 2: Situational Skills - In example, Freeze. Despite looking through different forums and black mage guides it doesn't make sense to me. There are other skills similar to that; skills that should be used in special situations, and proper execution of these skills would, in theory, paint someone as a viable black mage user. I have a hunch that such skills would only be used in end-game, which, for me, is a terribly far journey (I'm also a bit jealous of players who have 3-4 levelcap classes already).

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Situational skills are part and parcel of any MMORPG, it is just how it is. However, you can put yourself in to positions to force the use of those skills more often, choice is yours.

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

Reason 3: Sleeping enemies don't stand out - Needless to say, sleep is a very powerful skill. However, I don't know how to stop people from waking enemies up. I guess its important for tanks to use aoe to pull groups of mobs, but when the pull fails and the healer dies, we all die. The effective time for sleep gets cut in half everytime it gets used on the same enemy, and therefore it becomes a moot effort trying to recast sleep when the healer is getting attacked by enemies that are separated from the pull. Then again, this could be a result of a lack of coordination, but I've never been a tactical person.

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Lack of group coordination and synergy is not your fault, either tell your group members to stop waking them up or let them tank them and die.

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

Reason 4: Shares the same close range weakness as healers - In situations where tanks aren't available, such as underpopulated fates, I often get destroyed by bosses since I cannot move whilst attacking. I often scream in silence when I see dragoons and monks mocking bosses when they just laugh in their face as they swipe them while skipping merrily away from a massive area attack. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the closer range dps classes do more damage then the castor dps types?

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Not sure what you are asking here, do you want to be able to tank fate bosses? If that is what you are asking which is how I am assuming it due to your paragraphs structure, we all know this is silly. Kite or die, simple.

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

Reason 5: AoE Attacks are not meant for solo play - If you do not have at least 2 tanks in the area or in your party, area of effect attacks is the worst thing you can do as a black mage since you cannot move while attacking, and higher level mobs are capable of canceling your casting. I think this class has the best AoE ability (not sure), but at any rate its not the smartest thing to do by yourself, at least, in my experience.

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Hmmm, after what I have read to here, I am feeling you need some more experience playing a BLM maybe? AoE attacks for solo gameplay is never ideal unless you are capable of rounding up 4+ mobs, Freezing them and AoEing them down.

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

I'm pretty sure that with the combination of the high black mage population and the general amount of discussions of the class, a lot of people do in-fact enjoy using it. And I can see why, the class is well designed and highly dynamic. I just don't recommend it for stupid people, such as myself.

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That is because it is the easiest class to play with very little skills used to maximize DPS, where other classes have some very intricate rotations that involve many skills.

BLM is literally a 4 button wonder, 2-3 if you macro your skills correctly.

I definitly agree with some of this stuff, tho it's not what bothes me the most.

Even tho i wish i could sleep our melees with the mobs, so they dont wake them ~
What is frustratating: I with my eq (AF stuff and ifrit wep at least..) do lest dmg than our new lvl 50 (with the 45 af armor etc) bard it's kinda sad.

/edit
i'm used to mages with 30+ skills i have to actvly use, i miss that! T_T

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Originally Posted by Kassiekane

Reason 3: Sleeping enemies don't stand out - Needless to say, sleep is a very powerful skill. However, I don't know how to stop people from waking enemies up. I guess its important for tanks to use aoe to pull groups of mobs, but when the pull fails and the healer dies, we all die. The effective time for sleep gets cut in half everytime it gets used on the same enemy, and therefore it becomes a moot effort trying to recast sleep when the healer is getting attacked by enemies that are separated from the pull. Then again, this could be a result of a lack of coordination, but I've never been a tactical person.

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make a little macro using:
/mk ignore1 <t>
/ac "sleep" <t>

if they still don't get the mob is not to be touched, then it's better to let them die.
give it another chance i'd say, at the very least.. don't judge a class on how it performs during fates.

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Originally Posted by Tyl

I definitly agree with some of this stuff, tho it's not what bothes me the most.

Even tho i wish i could sleep our melees with the mobs, so they dont wake them ~
What is frustratating: I with my eq (AF stuff and ifrit wep at least..) do lest dmg than our new lvl 50 (with the 45 af armor etc) bard it's kinda sad.

/edit
i'm used to mages with 30+ skills i have to actvly use, i miss that! T_T

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I miss Voidwatch too...

You'll find most of these problems fade away at 50, except for Freeze being useless.

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

You'll find most of these problems fade away at 50, except for Freeze being useless.

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Sounds about right.

BLM is definitely my favorite class out of the ones I've played so far. I just love ripping off chunks of mobs' life bars. Sure, we have to deal with interrupting casts to survive attacks, but melees are in the same boat where they lose DPS time if there's an attack centered on a mob that they have to pull off of it.

I partied with FC people going through the story dungeons and once I got the multi-sleep trait at 36 they were happy with how much it trivialized trash pulls. You can't always get that level of cooperation in PUGs though, especially with a WAR tank who has to rely on Overpower for keeping threat, or overzealous DPS who want to hit whatever they feel like or spam AOE attacks.

There's nothing I can really say that can make you like BLM more, so if you're not enjoying how it plays as a whole you might want to try out something else. SMN has less of a role in crowd control so you won't feel pressured to get sleeps off and they also have components for AOE damage, but it's a different beast than BLM whereas there's a bit of a ramp up time in your damage getting started vs just blowing up stuff immediately. BRD is another ranged option, or you could always try out the melee DPS classes.

Well your never wrong this is actually cons of blackmage but its doesnt mean that it doesnt have pros. Every job has Pros and Cons its just not your playstyle.

Honestly I hate blm more in ARR than 1.0 Idk, people might disagree with me, but in 1.0 I felt the combos were better, and the spells were better, now its just meh. I switched to SCH I've been happy on that job, having thm before acn helped.

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Reason 1: Unfriendly to lag - As a black mage, or any castor class (in-theory), the only cast-canceling status more detrimental then Silence and Paralyze is a sketchy connection. My dps will severely suffer when participating in a crowded FATE. This is because my character is actually executing the skill long before the cooldown on my screen is finished, often resulting in recasting to fail, sometimes twice in a row. Because of this, I may even lose the chance of switching from umbral ice stacks to astral fire or vice versa.

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Every class hurts from lag. You should be able to get a decent enough computer & connection to have problems like this in only a very few cases (Odin, Behemoth, Svara, etc).

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Reason 2: Situational Skills - In example, Freeze. Despite looking through different forums and black mage guides it doesn't make sense to me. There are other skills similar to that; skills that should be used in special situations, and proper execution of these skills would, in theory, paint someone as a viable black mage user. I have a hunch that such skills would only be used in end-game, which, for me, is a terribly far journey (I'm also a bit jealous of players who have 3-4 levelcap classes already).

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I suppose BLM do have a larger than average group of useless or nearly useless abilities. Freeze, Apocatastasis, Aetherial Manipulation, Surecast, etc. I'd take a few good ones and some useless ones over all mediocre abilities though.

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Reason 3: Sleeping enemies don't stand out - Needless to say, sleep is a very powerful skill. However, I don't know how to stop people from waking enemies up. I guess its important for tanks to use aoe to pull groups of mobs, but when the pull fails and the healer dies, we all die. The effective time for sleep gets cut in half everytime it gets used on the same enemy, and therefore it becomes a moot effort trying to recast sleep when the healer is getting attacked by enemies that are separated from the pull. Then again, this could be a result of a lack of coordination, but I've never been a tactical person.

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Making sleep more visible might not be bad. However, this really all comes down to player decisions. A sleeping mob takes zero damage (unless DoT was applied before sleep), so if you don't actually need sleep to stay alive it's probably better not to sleep at all. Powerful when you do need it though.

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Reason 4: Shares the same close range weakness as healers - In situations where tanks aren't available, such as underpopulated fates, I often get destroyed by bosses since I cannot move whilst attacking. I often scream in silence when I see dragoons and monks mocking bosses when they just laugh in their face as they swipe them while skipping merrily away from a massive area attack. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the closer range dps classes do more damage then the castor dps types?

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Monks and Dragoons also can't attack (well, minus 1 weak ability maybe) while kiting. Bard is the one who can really maintain full damage output while moving -- and that's why Devs have commented that they will be nerfed. Typically, caster DPS types will do more damage: 1) area effects are more frequent closer to the enemy, 2) melee are required to travel to the enemy before they can begin DPS, 3) melee has abilities that require being directly behind/beside enemy to get full value. Devs have also commented that melee is due for some improvements (details unknown).

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Reason 5: AoE Attacks are not meant for solo play - If you do not have at least 2 tanks in the area or in your party, area of effect attacks is the worst thing you can do as a black mage since you cannot move while attacking, and higher level mobs are capable of canceling your casting. I think this class has the best AoE ability (not sure), but at any rate its not the smartest thing to do by yourself, at least, in my experience.

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It's kind of true that AoE aren't meant for solo play. However, in group play they are at times FAR more important than single target. And BLM is pretty much king of area attacks.

I started out as tank and chose BLM as DPS spec after seeing all in action. Haven't regretted it at all.

For Sleep - I always ask the tank to number enemies, if they aren't. So I know which ones to sleep.
If other players are going nuts with AOEs, I ask them to stop because they are waking enemies that I slept.
If the players can't follow these two directions then I'll just let them die, leave the dungeon and find a better group to play with.

If your tank is hitting everything then you probably should be using fire II and blizzard II to aoe the enemies down instead of trying to sleep them given that he/she is any good at tanking. I found dungeon leveling to be better than fate leveling just because I couldnt perform well in fates (not being able to see enemies) but you have to put up with dps wait times.
If you are fairly geared you'll probably out dps most everyone and draw aggro with a couple crits if you aren't careful in fights where you don't have to move around very much and we are very good at killing adds most of the time.

Freeze right now is absolutely terrible and only seems semi useful in Garuda Hm to freeze her feathers but theyll just move once hit.

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Originally Posted by Tyl

/edit
i'm used to mages with 30+ skills i have to actvly use, i miss that! T_T

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Try summoner then, it's got more than 4 buttons to press. :)

I love being a BLM, but I've got a set group of friends a play with. If I dungeon grind with randoms it can be a little frustrating but I adjust my style of play with the Tanks style. If other players are waking my sleeping enemies I kindly ask them to stop, if they dont then I stop sleeping them....I rarely ever use my AoE attacks while in dungeons but they aren't useless when soloing. just my two cents

1) Everyone has lag issues. .
2)Freeze and Lethargy feel and sound a lot like PVP skills. They are just thinking ahead:). Also Lethargy on a boss to slow his auto-attacks is a good idea.
3)You can mark the enemies to help your mates out but, there will always be people that cant understand the concept. Patience is a virtue.
4)Mages can not tank, but they sure can kite. <<hey look a use for freeze : 0. If you dont like kiting dont play ranged classes. : )
5)AoE is not meant for solo play, never was, these are abilities to be used while in a party. You have to be careful when you are soloing BLM. You can blow one target up no problem, once you start linking it becomes an issue but with practice and blizzardII you will see that this can also be done by kiting slowing. I.E 2-3 TARGETS - Lethargy on one target, walk away, sleep other target, blow up the one in front of you, move on to the next one that is slowed, asleep for last. gotta be quick on your toes (fingers).

Really? Black Mage is a four button class? Have you played it?

Your right. To be a BLM it's four buttons and a lot of prayers. To be a Black Mage you have to have situational awareness, a more than basic understanding of tactics, and the ability to USE whats at your disposal in the right order / appropriate times for highest damage. Anyone (BLM) can kill something. Only a Black Mage can Nuke them. :P

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Originally Posted by HoroBoro

Freeze and Lethargy are kinda useless, but the other skills are pretty good.

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I'd disagree about Lethargy being useless, it works on a lot of things you wouldn't expect it to. Also once you get to Turn 5 Lethargy can quite literally be a life saver on the Dreadknights.

Freeze yes though, I don't think anyone's found a worthwhile use for it. Some have mentioned Garuda's feathers but you're probably better off just using a well timed Flare on them.

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Originally Posted by thegodthatwas

Really? Black Mage is a four button class? Have you played it?

Your right. To be a BLM it's four buttons and a lot of prayers. To be a Black Mage you have to have situational awareness, a more than basic understanding of tactics, and the ability to USE whats at your disposal in the right order / appropriate times for highest damage. Anyone (BLM) can kill something. Only a Black Mage can Nuke them. :P

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BLM is probably the second easiest class to play after BRD. It's not really difficult.

Sleep is only a crutch and should only be used when your tank is really really really bad, otherwise why not increase your chance for thundercloud procs and spread thunder II to each mob in a pull?

At least you're wanted for Turn5 endgame >_> I started leveling Blackmage cause my "summoner isn't as well suited for the fight"

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Originally Posted by Taemek

That is because it is the easiest class to play with very little skills used to maximize DPS, where other classes have some very intricate rotations that involve many skills.

BLM is literally a 4 button wonder, 2-3 if you macro your skills correctly.

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I'm guessing you never played a BLM, PLD, BRD or a SMN. If you're macro'ing anything other than target markers on sleep (maybe a party message) or maybe raging strikes into fire, then I can already tell that you're not preforming well as a BLM. DPSing effectively on a BLM is all about double dipping. And if you don't know that is, you're probably being out dps'd by the tank.

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Originally Posted by PessimiStick

BLM is probably the second easiest class to play after BRD. It's not really difficult.

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I can tell you out of the 5 I have played:

BRD is by far the easiest to be effective at. Dot, spam macro and use straighter shot proc as it pops... /yawn

PLD is a close second though. Debuff and enmity in the same skill combo... rotate defensive cooldowns (mine are macro'd together other than hallowed ground) there is nothing else he has to do to be effective... a couple skills off global cooldown for added dps.. simple. spam flash in aoe situations followed by mana steal 2 combo if no brd.

BLM doesn't take as much skill to play as the WAR imo, but it sure takes a little bit of understanding of how the mechanics work and how to take advantage of them. Knowing which rotations work best in which situation makes a huge difference.