Calling Black Mages

How is your end game Black Mage experience? I used to have a lvl 60 BLM years ago and lost the account long after I'd quit playing because the e-mail account to which it was tied no longer exists. (E-mail bombs would hit me daily so I got rid of it)

I'm level 63 on a brand new account (once again playing the masters of destruction) and I'm now remembering the frustrations I had with the job so long ago. Mistakes are very costly which I can accept- don't screw up and you're good. In other words, get better- try harder.

The real frustration lies in perceived mistakes. If I have to move, I lose my rotation. If I get interrupted at the wrong time, I lose my rotation. And the higher the level of the dungeon, the more mechanics, and us Black Mages seem to be priority number one for AoE attacks! I did a dungeon Trial a couple of days ago where the boss intersected blue lines over and over during the whole phase and over half of them were intersected right underneath my feet. Several of the others merely had me standing on one of the blue lines as they extended from another player and only 3 casts had me where I didn't have to move at all. I spent the whole phase trying to launch into my rotation. Meaning I did little if any damage at all.

With Enochian and Fire and Blizzard IV, mistakes are very expensive. I don't yet have triple cast so every second counts in order for me to maximize my use of Fire IV and not lose Enochian.

I must admit that I'm getting pretty frustrated and considering a class change. Any encouraging words?

play a different class? if you're frustrated with it and it's not fun for you try something else. i personally prefer SMN and RDM over BLM anyday as I don't like having to keep up Enochian as I think it's annoying.

Black Mage is an intuitive class that expects the player to have a mindset in which they need to learn how the fights operate towards an almost finely detailed level of clarity and focus. You're either able to start memorizing the mechanics and fight patterns of certain bosses and learn to also improvise on the fly, or you can't.

The class isn't for everyone and really, the only way you can learn to get better or possibly enjoy the class is if you don't mind practicing to get better and learning or finding ways to keep your uptime going even as mechanics and mistakes are happening, even when other party members are being absolutely detrimental towards you and trying to kill you.

It's a love/hate relationship. You either like it or you don't. It's not a perfect class and it's definitely not tuned for everyone to be good at or enjoy. Easy to learn, difficult to master.

Ah, black mage. I love my class. I also hate my class. I struggle with it immensely and anyone around me knows how much I struggle. I can't swap mains though, I just can't. I know I physically can, I emotionally can't.


For end game, o5 can go bleep itself. O6 is much much better for black mages and a lot of the boss mechanics line up with a lot of our rotation. The changes to cool downs of Aetherial Manipulation and Transpose have been a godsend (although I have learned to avoid transpose like cancer and instead rely on swiftcast more). Having aetherial manipulation on a mouse over macro has also been helpful. The new primal isn't TERRIBLE on black mage once you know the fight. Learning it on black mage was rage inducing as was Byakko (Byakko moreso, actually. He has farrr more movement mechanics ((balls, large aoes, etc))).

Black mage opener and rotation are easy to learn but difficult to master and do well with. It's a class that requires you know the fight inside and out and so, for that reason, I have swapped to healing for progressions. I've done very well with AST in the new primal and it's the class I learned the fight on (I started with BLM, then moved to RDM, and then said screw it, went Healer. MUCH easier).

If you're getting frustrated with it, maybe give it a break for a little while and pick up something more mobile and see how you like it?

BLM is definitely one of the more frustrating jobs. You really have to know the fights to be effective. I got mine to 70 and never touched it again. I'd recommend trying smn and rdm out and then deciding which you prefer. But if you really like BLM, stick with it. There are some really amazing BLM out there.

Honestly, I dont know how my boyfriend manages to main a BLM, specially when I'm running dungeons within on my bard and see how much I have to move. I'm asking him from time to time and he mainly tells me that yes, it takes a lot of practise and that he basically has the more difficult fights 100% memorized so he knows excatly when to move, when to hit the next cast and how to handle every mechanic without losing dots and buffs.

Personally, I couldnt do that - I stick to my bard (or actually my paladin...) which gives me a lot more freedom to move around and not worry to much (keeping songs&dots up is easy enough - you hear me, bards out there?!).
That comes at a price though: My bard will never be able to hit the numbers of his BLM.
A properly played BLM is one of the classes that deals the most damage. You put in a lot - you get out a lot. You need to be willing to do that though - BLM is one of the more complicated and complexes classes out there.

So no, sorry - I dont have any real encouraging words for you (besides the whole: If you're good at it, you'll deal an aweful lot of damage) because what would be the point of it? Why should anyone encourage you to play a class that frustrates you - for very good reasons, I might at! Why would you even want to play a class that you dont enjoy? Just because you always played BLM?
Not every job has to appeal to everyone - and BLM doesnt has to appeal to you anymore with the changes they've made since HW. Dont clinge to something thats not fun to you anymore, just because its habit. Leveling is fast, RDM starts at 50 and is both fun to play (subjective opionion, obviously) and much more forgiving (actually a fact).

My only advice would be: Get your BLM to 70 and see how you like Foul and Triple-Flare. Its pretty amazing. Dont sweat over dungeon-runs to much - losing Enochian once in a while isnt the end of the world and dungeons are a place to learn. As long as you're no ice-mage you're fine.
But dont force yourself to play a class you dont enjoy anymore - and maybe ask yourself what you do enjoy in a class and pick one that fits the bill better!
There is no shame in droping your mainjob in a videogame - find something that you truely enjoy!

BLM has a simple rotation and unless you mess up Enochian you can easily recover from mistakes with a quick Transpose.

The only issue is that you have to put more effort into learning the fights than other classes if you want to maximise your DPS. Fortunately that's only for endgame raids and since dungeons are braindead easy you can save yourself from messing up you rotation with a Swiftcast or slidecasting.

Black Mage takes a lot of practice to do well with, you will either click with the class and start memorizing fights and act accordingly or you will struggle a lot, its a very rewarding class to do well with, you deal the most dps in the group by a country mile.

Most end-game statics dont take them though, because "muh utility" and "muh parses" so dont expect recruitment to be smooth if you stick with it, finding a static as a black mage is a very frustrating expirience, ull see people much worse than you enter statics better than ull ever have just because they have utility and you do not even if you compete for the same spot.

Well, the 2nd sentence was more of a small vent but yeah, Black Mage is difficult but very rewarding.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nabril

Black Mage Woes

---

It's not that hard....you got it made in the shade.

Pre 4.xx?? (not sure..cant remember) Transpose had a longer cooldown.
Now its "stupid" easy to keep your enochain up.

No...I didn't mean that in a "git gud" context... I'm saying you need to work on your rotation. As in DONT GIVE UP....KEEP PRACTICING....you'll get it nailed down soon enough.

And don't treat it like its a "set in stone" - you have to be fluid. If you end up moving - you kick transpose or flip the gauge to its opposite with various means you have at your disposal.

And don't forget Scathe....scathe is your friend if your on the move and can't fire off anything.

Its quite fun....you just need to think on your feet.
Aside from that - black mage is only fun at 70.....pre-70 - is just not worth it for me.
Get to 70....its worth it.

I'm no pro black mage....but I hit harder than most.

Thanks for the responses. I read every post. Lots to think about :)

My favorite dps :D

Well basically you have to understand the what are your emergency skills and how to use them in situations where you have to move

1. Your main emergency skills are instant cast Fire III and instant cast thunder
2. Your secondary emergency skills are Triple cast and swiftcast, use these if you have to move (swiftcast taking priority over triple cast, use swift first)

We have it in our minds that black mage can't move but really if you stay the perfect distance where you don't have to run too much after an emergency skill you're fine. In most of my extreme primal runs I do the most most damage as blm compared to everyone else. Also, don't see transpose as a dps loss, keeping enochian going is more important.

I've been pretty lucky most of my PUGs as a BLM, and had people that were either very patient with my mistakes or were willing to teach me mechanics, and that really helped a lot. I've been playing around with different classes lately, but nothing really speaks to me like the big explosions. By no means am I a great BLM (I'm still trying to get the hang of AM and getting used to scathe while moving), but according to my friends' parsers I do fairly well at normal raids in PUGs. That being said, I prefer to learn a fight as a RDM, as it feels a lot more forgiving of mistakes, and is much more mobile.

Eh..to be blunt its a worthless job.

Ever since HW launch, its been so bad that they have been doing nonstop changes to try and make the core idea work. The initial HW idea of it had such tight timers that it was a chore to play. And while they did loosen it up, keep in mind HW had relatively slow movement fights for a lot of them; the difficulty was in the rotations of the dps jobs.

They introduce stormblood, and its cool! I mean, they fix so much about it, it seems great. But SB seems to put a huge emphasis on movement now that it just wound up keeping the same level of difficulty. They wound up expecting you to make use of movement abilities far more than any other job to deal with the core idea, which is the turret dps. But then they go and make fights take a bunch of movement, and the movement seems to keep increasing over time.

It does have really high damage potential, but the level of skill required is very high for that, and the added damage itself really doesn't add much. I mean, if you do other dps classes to the same level of skill, you should output more than enough damage to be fine in any content.

It's just the turret idea really can't exist with lots of movement. and its a bit unfair to blm that they keep trying to prop it up

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nabril

The real frustration lies in perceived mistakes. If I have to move, I lose my rotation. If I get interrupted at the wrong time, I lose my rotation. And the higher the level of the dungeon, the more mechanics, and us Black Mages seem to be priority number one for AoE attacks! I did a dungeon Trial a couple of days ago where the boss intersected blue lines over and over during the whole phase and over half of them were intersected right underneath my feet. Several of the others merely had me standing on one of the blue lines as they extended from another player and only 3 casts had me where I didn't have to move at all. I spent the whole phase trying to launch into my rotation. Meaning I did little if any damage at all.

---

In my experience three things improve the playability of BLM. First and most important, you have to understand the rotation and have a solid feel for it. This is a little bit of study, and a lot of practice. Having a feel for it allows you to keep your spells going when the mechanics ramp up because you dont have to actively think about what spell you should cast next. Understanding the components lets you know when you can alter or clip the rotation to keep your momentum going as things go to hell around you. Both of these help when you do make a mistake to get back up and running smoothly and quickly. The second thing that improves everything is knowing the fights. The more you know about whats coming, the better you can anticipate and prepare for it. Boss is about to toss a line attack in your direction... Is it weak enough that you can ignore it using manaward? Do you have a teammate you can manip to(and maybe return to lines back into your ideal position)? Did you know this was coming and refreshed your stacks one spell early so you could move without issue(possibly saving a swift/triple/proc to keep dealing damage while you do)? And then thirdly, at least for me, is having a stat build that works for you. There isnt a solitary agreed upon build for BLM, so you need to figure out which one is a fit for you. Personally, i need a specific amount of speed and try to put the rest into crit(followed by direct for priority - as little det as posssible). For me, if i fall below my minimum required speed stat everything feels off and i mess up too often. Other people skip speed entirely and stack as much crit as possible(with direct as their filler) to make our hardest hitting spells do that much more. Figuring out what feels right to you can help.

And as for that particular trial you did, Susano is easier if you know where to stand(all the advice that follows primarily applies to the "story mode" version of the fight, for strats on the ex version look for a guide). As a caster, your instinct is probly to stand back so you can see and dodge more easily. For this particular fight, its best if you stand with the melee DPS and healers right on his behind. He has 3 attacks that might force you to move. When he does the ring aoe under everyone(rasen kaikyo? im doing attack names from memory and they may be wrong), the closer everyone is to each other the more of the platform is safe to stand in. Collapse back in afterwords. When he does the line attacks(dark cloud?), i think these are based on enmity(i might be wrong). If everyone stands together then everyone has to dodge the first one. If you dodge away from the others, then if any of them are targeted youll have minimal moves for the 2nd and 3rd lines(if youre the target, obviously dodge 3 times). If this is enmity based, you can save yourself some headache with good use of diversion and lucid dreaming to not be the main target. His final attack that can force a move is the wave attack(stormsplitter? its the one he announces by saying "the seas part for we alone"). If everyone stacks in the same general space, you should be able to land in the safe line with only a step or two. If he targets you specifically with the knockback and shared damage part of the attack, you can just manip/return to lines straight back to the group-stack and keep attacking. Oh, and his 3 rock-jail monte attack - for story mode the one to attack is always last on the target list. Expect other people to mess up and mana shift your healers when you can, and the fight really isnt that bad typically(poor tanking or healing can turn any fight into a mess, and with how much this fight speeds up as it goes poor dps play can certainly make the ending lively).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Eh..to be blunt its a worthless job.

---

People who call it worthless are those who have no idea what they are doing with the job in the first place.
I "dislike" it pre-70 - but that is a personal opinion...and I don't push that on any one else nor do I make the job "bad" as a result.

But it is FAR from worthless at any level. Nor wold I eve label such a job...or any job "Worthless"

9 times out of 10 the problem with jobs is the people who do badly...not the job itself.

And for someone who is asking for help and tips....your response is highly inappropriate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NephthysVasudan

And for someone who is asking for help and tips....your response is highly inappropriate.

---

The job has been adjusted and now recreated continuously over three years, and it still has severe problems. Its problems extend into all aspects of the game, not just savage; BLM in PvP is insanely frustrating due to its cast design, and its movement abilities break in Eureka due to draw distance, if I remember right. If there is any fast-paced killing, just landing casts and maintaining enochian can be an issue. It requires skilled play mostly because its core mechanics are outdated or simply aren't friendly to a movement heavy meta. I'm surprised we haven't seen more complaints, to be blunt.

And yeah, worthless is strong but you sugarcoat it, and you get to 70 and just end up shelving the job anyways.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiyahArp

snip

---

BLM is perfectly fine as a job, it does the most dps in the game, i play it day in day out and have zero problems.

Yes, the class takes skill and mechanical knowledge to play, moreso than normal, but that doesnt make it bad, the only people who think its bad are the people who think the meta matters more than ability.

The class has some problems but mobility aint one of them, neither is dps.

Edit: changed the tone of my reply.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiyahArp

snip

---

This sounds woefully like someone who couldn't make it at the job after playing it for a very short time, so they proceed to put down the entire concept of it because of their heavy personal bias against it. Heavensward did not have a lot of relative slow movements for fights. Did you ever try playing BLM in Thordan EX? Sephirot EX? Neverreap? And the reason I mention Neverreap because it was the bane of all BLM players at the time of the dungeon's release until we all figured out where to stand and how to avoid the twisters.

It can produce the top single target DPS with SMN following closely behind as far as just casters is concerned. If you found out that watching a BLM timer in HW was a chore to play then how did you function with Dragoon as one could easily argue that keeping Blood of the Dragon was a chore to play as well.

SB didn't put a huge emphasis on moving no more than HW did and in fact, the changes that came with SB made it ten times easier to keep Enochain going, even in casual content like dungeons. And what's wrong with fights taking a bunch of movement? It provides a challenge for BLM players to overcome as we simply can't just stand there like the other DPS and keep spamming damage even as we move without Triplecast, Scathe, Swift, etc.. If that challenge annoys or irks you, then you're just a bad player with the job, not that it's the job's fault you're a bad player at the job.

Putting thought and effort into a job more so than others doesn't make it worthless and it means you shouldn't be playing the job then if you're bothered by such things.