BLMs weak/Underpowered ?

When I read the tooltips of most Jobs for PVP, BLMs feels pretty weak.
While other Melees has instant abliities that deal same or more damage and can use theirs in quick succession, while BLMs has to cast most things and to get max use of theirs, they need to spend time stacking debuffs.

Superflare 3K ticks for 12secs after spending 6-8secs casting Fires for 3 stacks just feels underwhelming.
Sleep is useless it feels as can never get the extra damage on hitting them with another spell before theyve broken free by others. Deep Freeze seems to never work either.
I once cast Blizzard 3 times and SuperFlared, they broke free. I Blizzard + Paradox and SF and they break free again asap.
HP pools are low, have no healings or damage increasing abilities, no buffs to party. Even Foul feels weak compared to others LBs

Is it just me who looks at BLMs in a wrong way in PVP or are they now underpowered in PVP as I rarely EVER see another BLM in Frontlines or on the CC enemy teams :(

No. 10 characters.

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Originally Posted by Kathleen_

No. 10 characters.

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Would love a detailed response. I genuinely want to know what I am missing about BLMs in PVP as I virtually never see a single BLM player in Frontlines nor CC at all and there has to be a reason why I always see MNK SAM NIN DRG in every match.

¨Last I remember reading was that BLM was the one Job with the lowest winrate and how many players were playing it. So if that was the findings of the devteam themselves, then it feels there is something poor/wrong with the BLM Balancing

Black Mage is anything but weak since the rework. Granted you generally are mostly an Ice Mage, with a dash of gap closing people with a lightning Burst move for an additional flat 16K with a guaranteed swiftcast, which can seal the fate of all but the most protected and healthiest players after you've effectively locked them down with bleeds and freezes. Sleep is also far from useless, though not for sleep itself, but rather the extra damage you can inflict if your opponent dares to ignore it, even if they clear that, that means they are now unprotected from everything else you can throw out, so it becomes a matter of timing your flares.

Overall, the real difficulty with Black Mage is understanding the direct correlation to the damage you're inflicting, and why it's being effective. Freezing enemies is obvious, forcing them to waste purify is obvious, and if enemies group up while you get your LB aided AoEs off is a practical death sentence, but often times a player might feel less like they're following a proper rotation and more just pressing buttons and eventually succeeding (if they aren't immediately monk/ninja'd of course, another thing to watch for).

Now, it's worth remembering the BLM in Frontlines is dealing with the Damage Resistance buff being applied to a large amount of classes, meaning outside of your CC abilities and Group AoE, your actual damage is more effective against classes that don't count as melee. Since you require a bit more setup to shine, and in the case of swiftcasting, micro (bless the ability to Aetherial Manipulation in place, good lord), you do inevitably need to put in a bit more thought than other ranged archetypes in this mode to achieve your true potential.

But inside Crystalline Conflict, you are an absolute powerhouse, and only if you are stunlocked and focus fired, you are truly otherewise unstoppable... something which can frustrate many melees because almost everything in your kit is designed to no-sell them getting easy wins as long as you have line of sight, know how to bait them into using their defensives/cleanses, and the favor of this game's server tick system. Your team shouldn't ever let you deal with the consequences of your artillery based design, you are there to cause as much suffering as you can so long as you have line of sight.

So in summary: Black Mage is extremely strong and a high priority to remove from the board. It isn't a one-man army however, and the game doesn't really make it obvious just how effective your setups are, just that *something* is always doing work. That in itself is important to remember, as even if one thing doesn't work out, you have plenty to fall back on. Compared to how it was before the rework, or even during the initial phase, Black Mage is in a really strong position, and if you come up against players who absolutely know how it works and how best to use it: pray.

Considering how I just picked up the job after not touching it since 6.0, and all my FL matches look something like:

https://i.imgur.com/gHlAEMH.png
... after like maybe 4 games prior practise.

I would say BLM is actually not only good at FL, but a high tier job, with excellent splash damage, mobility, and CC. I might be biased since I played it a lot in 6.0 PvP, and some of that skill set carries over to now, but I think BLM has always been good post 6.1 PvP, and it's just a little more technical. Low ranks and FL games while have a lot of really bad BLMs, and the lack of performance of the job will seem worse than it is. BLM players don't really seem to understand why they are there or what they are supposed to be contributing. In my case, I am dropping a lot of flares into tight packs to wear out enemy resources and get kills at best, force them out of the fight at worst. While fire is the way to go for FL 90% of the time, ice provides some good anti-BH tech, able to catch people with freeze after you have baited guard/purify with sleep. I really think the whole thing is simple, yet there is such a massive divide compared to BLMs who get it and those who don't and it's expressed more than a lot of other jobs.

BLM is solid even after all the nerfs. It's an unseen menace in FL and a priority one focus in CC. The sudden bust phases it goes through are devastating. With the escape tools in the form of manipulation and burst shields it's pretty hard to pin down if the team is playing together well. So no, definitively not weak.

I highly doubt it considering they single-handedly almost killed CC

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Originally Posted by Altera

...I once cast Blizzard 3 times and SuperFlared, they broke free. I Blizzard + Paradox and SF and they break free again asap. :(

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It seems like the problem you might be having is that you are trying to crowd control your targets while they have the purify resilience buff active. You might want to change up your UI a bit so that you can quickly glance and see what buffs a target has as you decide to use your abilities.

For example, if you hit your sleep on the group, a few of them may purify immediately. If you are still targeting those same enemies for an AoE freeze or paradox set up you need to watch for the resilience buff to expire before you deep freeze them.

Additionally, do not underestimate the power of 1 and 2 stack freezes. You can 2 stack freeze a target who has no mana for essentially the same effect as a 3 stack deep freeze. Your 1 stack freeze is also helpful in kiting and helping to peel melee off your team mates getting trained. You can instantly slow an entire melee train and allow your team to get around a corner out of thier line of sight to use a potion without getting gap closed on, or to spare them that .5 to 1 second to step on that potion on the ground just as they are about to die.

BLM in frontlines its a monster despite the nerfs.

Blackmage:
Pros: highest damage, and most cc output out of any class.
Cons: if 2+ people focus you, you die.

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Originally Posted by Rubytoe

Blackmage:
Pros: highest damage, and most cc output out of any class.
Cons: if 2+ people focus you, you die.

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Highest consistent damage more or less only if you cleave often enough, but the rest is spot on.

BLM is less squishy than it used to be, but you're pretty reliant on good use of AM to avoid getting sat on. If you're out of AM charges or you overextend and get sat on, you'll probably die. But that's true for any class. BLM damage is very strong if they're using fire, but most people undervalue dots so most BLMs run ice.