Black Mage megathread

Anything goes black mage discussion.

Start a new discussion, reply to an ongoing one, dump rework ideas, complain about patch changes (or lack thereof), complain about complaining, or whatever.

Aside from grievances with the 7.2 changes in general, why does the AoE rotation have to be so plain? Specifically, why didn't they fix High Fire/Blizzard II?

High Fire/Blizzard II only exist to phase swap and their damage is abysmal to the point that transpose is a significant gain over casting them (even when clipped). B3 is somewhat similar, but it has only 10 less potency than B4 (before applying off-element penalty), and F3 has utility from F3P (well, it used to have more when it was an additional AF refresher before 7.2; now it's a near-last-resort instant for mobility and almost always used for a damage gain when holding it to transpose into fire phase).

There's potential to add more to the AoE rotation without having to add any new skills. Aside from T4 and Fouls sprinkled in, the optimal rotation for AoE is just Flare and Freeze spam with the usual Flare Star finish. Flare → Flare → Flare Star → (swap) → Freeze → (swap). It's functional, but Flare gets the same MP cost reduction regardless of one Umbral Heart being consumed or all three, so why not play around that and make it optimal for the fire phase to be something like HF2 → HF2 → Flare (at 1 heart left) → Flare → Flare Star → (swap)? It used to be similar to that when Enhanced Flare existed.

I don't even fully grasp why they gutted the AoE spells at the start of 7.0. They dropped Enhanced Flare and reduced the potency from 140 to 100 (a loss of 72 potency per cast in AF3). The upgrade from Fire/Blizzard II to High Fire/Blizzard II is now a meager 20 potency (36 potency in AF3). I just don't see the reason for it.

On the same subject, why is the base potency of Freeze half that of Flare (120 vs 240)? This is the only case in the entire spell kit where matched fire/ice spells have different base potencies (before applying AF bonus). Freeze will never beat Flare in damage because of the AF bonus, so just let it be the same base potency and falloff.

My fear is they'll fix the "problem" by removing Flare granting AF3 to force High Fire II casts (like how the removal of Paradox element refresh is likely going to force High Blizzard II into the AoE rotation without making its damage any less garbage). It does make the High spells get use, but they're still garbage potency and make people frown seeing just how low a damage number can go.

I believe it was originally nerfed because people were cheesing flare stars using enhanced flare on single target, so they nerfed flare to be less potency. I agree though, they should bring back enhanced flareor instead of enhanced flare, they could make casting HF in AF3 grant an astral soul and make flare only grant 2 souls, making it HF>HF>Flare>Flare to get a flare star. But the potencies of HF, HB, and Freeze need to go up. They also need to reduce the cast times in line with the other spells, or better yet just revert the cast time changes.

Black Mage feels kinda lack luster, disjointed and weak in certain parts, i.e AoE damage. The reworks need to a serious roll back to its 7.1 iteration and the devs really need to rethink how they want to handle Black Mage if they want to make it more mobile. Because what they've currently done to it is they've basically broken that damn thing in so many ways, lol!

So now, at the levels between unlocking F4 and before getting Paradox, fire phase is 7 Fire IV casts, I guess? So, ideally, you never see F3P in that time period at all (Lv60-89). Why would someone ever cast F1 for only a chance to get F3P at the cost of losing so much potency? F3P only exists from Lv42-59 and Lv90+. I mean, it was only a 40% chance each F1 cast in that time before 7.2, but... gross.

Sure, black mage feels kind of okay-ish when content is challenging, but half the reason I picked up black mage was to make (subjectively) boring content a little more engaging. The only reason I mess up my rotation now is because I'm just not being engaged in it at all and forget how many Fire IV's I cast in a row. The timer made it at least a little bit thrilling to squeeze in an extra Fire IV or two before refreshing the timer. Now, casting 4-7 F4's back-to-back just leaves me feeling empty. The thrill is now flipped to tedium.

Yes, the shorter casts are faster and give more time to slide around, but I miss those long casts. I miss them a lot. There was really nothing wrong with having them, especially after deleting the AF/UI timer. It made Triplecast and Swiftcast part of the fun little game of optimization, planning on saving it for more damage during burst windows or using it for mobility so you don't die and lose even more damage by being dead. Red Mage does this with planning where they use Swiftcast/Acceleration so they can weave other abilities as soon as they're off cooldown, especially Embolden/Manafication for burst alignment while also not letting Acceleration overcap (I sometimes forget and have to use an Enchanted Reprise, tee hee). Oh, gods... devs, please don't look at this and try to find a way to take this away from red mage.

There are other ways to make black mage's fail state less severe than completely deleting the AF/UI timer entirely. For example, changing the 15s AF/UI timer to being a timer for the Enochian trait. Instead of AF/UI dropping when the timer ends, Enochian (extra damage bonus and granting of Polyglots every 30s; not AF/UI's Aspect Mastery trait effects) is disabled until the next element switch (or use of Manafont). It's less punishing but still rewards correct play without changing or dumbing-down the rotation heavily. It maintains some subtle spice from the timer existing and also makes Enochian more than just the forgettable 100% uptime buff it is in 7.2 (unless someone is some kind of Scathe mage that never casts a single fire or ice spell...).

The same gauge timer previously for tracking AF/UI duration would be used for Enochian, either keeping the red/blue color or changing it to something like pink or violet or gold. Enochian being active/inactive would still be shown by the Enochian (Polyglot) section in the bottom right of the gauge going dark like it already does before Enochian is learned and/or when AF/UI is off.

The additional/altered wording for spells/traits would probably be something like:
Enochian Trait
Grants Enochian when gaining Astral Fire or Umbral Ice from an unaspected state, or changing between their influences. Spells that grant Astral Fire or Umbral Ice refresh the duration of Enochian. Effect is cancelled if Astral Fire or Umbral Ice ends.
Duration: 15s
(Transpose innately grants Enochian because it swaps AF/UI)

Paradox Spell
Additional Effect: Refreshes the duration of Enochian
(It's only necessary to have this additional effect if Paradox doesn't grant AF/UI. Other fire/ice spells that give AF/UI have this effect innately by the text in the Enochian trait.)

Manafont Ability
Additional Effect: Grants Enochian
Duration: 15s
(This is the only skill that needs to directly grant Enochian aside from the methods listed in the trait.)

Umbral Soul Ability
Additional Effect: Halts the expiration of Enochian



I'm not advocating that this is the correct and only solution or implying that the timer needed to be removed at all. It's just a suggestion that compromises somewhere between complete loss of the timer and no change at all.

Completely unrelated to the changes in 7.2, why am I still waiting for them to implement the option (key word is "option") to have the element-exclusive spells consolidated into single hotbar slots?

They teased it all the way back in the 7.0 media tour. Tons of jobs got the ability to optionally consolidate select actions to the same button on their hotbar, black mage included. But why not for those "can only be cast while under the effect of Astral Fire/Umbral Ice" spells? Fire IV and Blizzard IV, Flare and Freeze, even Despair and Umbral Soul. If people don't want to merge them onto a single action, they don't have to (the beauty of options). I just want the option (again, key word) to do it if I (or anyone else) want to.

It was literally in media tour footage for black mage. I want it. Give!

There is a simple fix to the existing AoE rotation: make it so that Flare and Freeze can only be cast at AF3/UI3, rather than at any level of either buff. That way we'd have to use HF2/HB2 to transition between aspects even though they have mediocre potency. It's not the most satisfying fix, but the fewer spells are useless or optimally skipped, the better.

Likewise, something needs to be done about the uselessness of Blizzard 1 at level 58+ and the uselessness of Fire 1 between levels 60 and 89. I have two ideas:

* F1 and B1 just upgrade directly into F4 and B4. To cast Paradox at level 90+, you press the other button, ie while in AF3 your B4 button turns into Paradox, and while in UI3 your F4 button turns into Paradox.

* As soon as you learn B4 and F4, B1 and F1 become both instant and free to cast, thereby becoming emergency movement tools. This would replace Scathe and might also entail either zeroing astral Paradox's MP cost or, as above, making only the opposite spell button turn into Paradox when you're able to cast it.

So much worse than that, too. There's so many buttons on so many jobs that are either explicitly (Fire/Blizzard) or factually (Paladin stuff comes to mind) mututally exclusive...

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Originally Posted by Ferrinus

There is a simple fix to the existing AoE rotation: make it so that Flare and Freeze can only be cast at AF3/UI3, rather than at any level of either buff. That way we'd have to use HF2/HB2 to transition between aspects even though they have mediocre potency. It's not the most satisfying fix, but the fewer spells are useless or optimally skipped, the better.

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I have a far easier fix: Given the supposed lore behind Black Mages and some of the visuals, just make the entire kit auto-AoE. X potency and Y% done in a radius. Use Flare visual instead of Fire IV for that spell, etc etc. Always-fwoosh-mage!

I strongly disagree. Narratively, it would make BLM feel like a clumsier and cruder job - we'd have fewer spells to choose from, and lose access to distinct pinpoint vs. wide elemental effects; I like feeling like I have a lot of spells to choose from and need to use my expertise to pick the appropriate one, and like I have fine control over my magical powers rather than can't help but spill fire everywhere. Some spells, like Flare Star, are so powerful they can't help but go boom, but if EVERY spell were like that it'd feel like we were incompetent to wield our own power.

Mechanically, there are fights in which you DON'T want to deal splash damage to avoid breaking something's CC or accidentally pushing a bomb onto the wrong platform or whatever. Obviously this restricts us from using Flare Star in such cases, but it shouldn't restrict us from attacking at all.

Practically, it is much easier to change the execution requirements of two actions than to change the effects and animations of like six different ones while deleting several others.

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Originally Posted by Ferrinus

There is a simple fix to the existing AoE rotation: make it so that Flare and Freeze can only be cast at AF3/UI3, rather than at any level of either buff. That way we'd have to use HF2/HB2 to transition between aspects even though they have mediocre potency. It's not the most satisfying fix, but the fewer spells are useless or optimally skipped, the better.

Likewise, something needs to be done about the uselessness of Blizzard 1 at level 58+ and the uselessness of Fire 1 between levels 60 and 89. I have two ideas:

* F1 and B1 just upgrade directly into F4 and B4. To cast Paradox at level 90+, you press the other button, ie while in AF3 your B4 button turns into Paradox, and while in UI3 your F4 button turns into Paradox.

* As soon as you learn B4 and F4, B1 and F1 become both instant and free to cast, thereby becoming emergency movement tools. This would replace Scathe and might also entail either zeroing astral Paradox's MP cost or, as above, making only the opposite spell button turn into Paradox when you're able to cast it.

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Adding that additional requirement would force HF2/BF2 into mandated use, although I think HB2 is already necessary in AoE rotation because Freeze doesn't grant Umbral Ice like how Flare grants Astral Fire, and Paradox no longer grants either of those (I think the rotation was something like Transpose (to ice) → Paradox (to UI3) → Freeze; I just used HB2 during that time because I didn't feel like it doing it the optimal way and I still don't). If devs wanted to force their use, it's even simpler to just have Flare no longer apply Astral Fire than to add an additional, new kind of requirement to cast spells. With no other option to get AF3, players would be forced to use garbage 70-potency AoEs to switch phases (100 potency - 30% off-element penalty).

I'd rather the AoEs designed so players actually desire to use them than just removing all alternatives to force them into it, though. The potencies are just abysmal.

Blizzard only very technically and never practically had potential use before 7.2 as some kind of extreme emergency timer refresh in UI. Fire, before 7.2, was useful in those intermediate levels as the timer refresher for fire and was always in rotation prior to learning Paradox in EW (technically even after because it held the same slot and purpose, with Paradox just being an upgrade). The main purpose of Paradox is gone with 7.2 as well, though, since it has the same potency as F4 in fire phase and only serves as an instant that gives out an F3P (has good damage in ice, though, I guess). Hard-casting an F4 instead of a Paradox just means you don't get F3P. Only after 7.2 is F1 now a useless bloat between F4 and Paradox.

I'm not entirely keen on having alternating Paradox buttons. I'd much prefer the slot(s) for Paradox to remain consistent between elemental phases. It's not a terrible idea to have F1/B1 upgrade into F4/B4 now that timers are dead, but it should probably only upgrade when AF/UI are active so they can still be cast when no element is active (for whatever weird reason people might want to do that), or tie into that "only in AF3/UI3" requirement suggested for Flare/Freeze to determine when they swap in. Paradox could just be a separate slot entirely that only turns on with the Paradox buff.

So much purpose in black mage's kit died on the release of 7.2. If this is the status quo, I wouldn't bet against this "bandage" fix ending up being a push into a larger rework of the job in 8.0 (the supposed bandage creating more problems than it tries to solve).

You're right, just making Flare no longer max out your Astral Fire stacks would be a simpler solution still. I forgot to register that I also fully support Freeze and Flare having the same listed potency (even if this requires that Freeze start out at 120 but only upgrade to 240 at level 50 or whatever balancing low-level AoE takes) for purely artistic reasons.

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Originally Posted by Ferrinus

Mechanically, there are fights in which you DON'T want to deal splash damage to avoid breaking something's CC or accidentally pushing a bomb onto the wrong platform or whatever. Obviously this restricts us from using Flare Star in such cases, but it shouldn't restrict us from attacking at all.

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Don't forget every Deep Dungeon, especially when soloing. It's fine for some skills/spells to have dual use in a job (usually big finishers), but definitely not all.

I prefer my jobs to have distinctness between their AoE and single-target rotations while still using most of the available resources/abilities. Things like Red Mage Acceleration granting more damage to Impact so it doesn't just sit unused during AoE and Ninja now able to use the upgraded Trick Attack in AoE for AoE Trick burst windows as well as the Mug upgrade hitting multiple targets.

It's also a bummer that MCH is so cluttered in their AoE vs. single-target kit by comparison. Wildfire (one of their 2-minute burst buttons) doesn't splash on detonation, Air Anchor has no AoE equivalent, whatever the hell Flamethrower exists for, Automaton Queen is all single-target damage, and Auto Crossbow doesn't reduce the cooldown of either Double Check or Checkmate (or their downgrades) and both of those abilities are AoE now.

I complain about BLM AoE rotation, but mostly because it's a smidge bland and some spells designed for intended use are actively avoided because they're just not optimal (and suck), making the rotation blander with fewer spells to make the loop longer than just Freeze, Flare and Flare Star. Polyglot has an AoE spender, Flare Star is valid in both AoE and single-target, the job's overall feel is the same in AoE just with a different rotation, and the only resource that isn't utilized in AoE is Paradox. It's thankfully not anywhere near MCH levels of clunky-dunk.

Just gonna copy paste my feedback on the aoe changes I wanted to make.

Return enhanced flare back to high fire 2 and also grants 1 astral soul. Make enhanced flare consumable. Reduce astral soul provided by flare to 2. Rotation hopefully changes to HF2 -> flare -> HF2 ->flare -> flarestar.

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Originally Posted by Aysin

Just gonna copy paste my feedback on the aoe changes I wanted to make.

Return enhanced flare back to high fire 2 and also grants 1 astral soul. Make enhanced flare consumable. Reduce astral soul provided by flare to 2. Rotation hopefully changes to HF2 -> flare -> HF2 ->flare -> flarestar.

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Making Enhanced Flare stackable up to 2 would also work. The only difference is it would be HF2 → HF2 → Flare → Flare → Flare Star instead of alternating. I can't verify right now, but I'm not sure if there's enough MP after using the first Flare for more than one cast after it (since Flare/Despair require a minimum amount of MP to cast).

That works too, I was aiming on both the feel of charging your next flare for bigger impact and avoiding hitting the same button back to back in order to maintain a bit more variance, but I'm not stressed on that detail. As long as we step away from what we currently do now for AOE.

Honest opinion for AOE fixes - rather than bruteforcing it with stuff like "can only cast Flare/Freeze at AF3/UI3", I think they should just go with the more organic approach of returning the potency buffs from Endwalker they reverted with Dawntrail. That and Enhanced Flare synergy on Fire II / High Fire II.

With the right potencies and synergies, you will naturally cast HB2/HF2 again, because on one end you need the extra Umbral Ice stacks for more MP to cast the F2/HF2, on the other end F2/HF2 will be worth using again on a damage level.

This gives me the option to speed through an AOE cycle at a slight loss by using the cycle we do now (Flare Flare Flarestar Transpose Freeze XYZ Transpose) unless its literally all I can manage to cast in that short time, or I get to do the full string using Fire II and Blizzard II variants.

I liked the EW AoE rotation a lot, but I don't really like "enhanced Flare" as a trait because Flare (like Freeze, Burst, etc) is supposed to be a big-name Ancient Magic, right? It feels strange for regular Flare to actually be too weak to use such that you need a different, simpler spell to charge it up first.

I do think it's possible to just massage the cast times raw potencies on HB2, HF2, Freeze, and Flare such that an astral cycle that goes (HF2 to swap), HF, HF, Flare, Flare, Flare Star actually has more potency per second than one which just goes Flare, Flare, Flare Star, though. Especially if HF2 also builds Astral Soul stacks or something.

Personally I like the AoE rotation of High Blizzard 2, Freeze, High Fire 2, Flare, Flare, Flare Star. It uses enough of the kit. It still has room for the usual Foul and Thunder stuff.

The part that throws me is lower-level, especially when you first get Freeze, at 40. If the reduction in cast time from swapping elements doesn't also impact the recast timer, my understanding is that a cycle of casting Blizzard 2, Freeze, Fire 2, Fire 2, Fire 2, Fire 2 ends up being 664 potency (two 56 from "80 potency" at -30%, 3 144 for "80 potency" at +80%, and one 120 pot Freeze) while just casting Freeze six times is 720 potency. But it's worse, because with the timer changes Freeze six times takes 15 seconds while the "proper" cycle takes 16.5? Am I missing something there?

This is just another post complaining about blm. I don't think I have anything to add that people haven't said already, and I'm unconfident that devs will listen and revert any changes. Just frustrated as to the state of the game.

I have been playing since 2014, started on Thaumaturge, loved black mage up until the recent patch. I loved being able to hone my skills on this job, and the feeling of squeezing in a despair or flare just before that timer ran out was so satisfying to me. It made the job fun and different- it was a level of risk-and-reward that I felt other jobs didn't compare to. For someone who had been playing since nearly the beginning, it was fun getting better and better, improving with a job and game that got more and more difficult as time went on. I was looking forward to planning fights with a lot of movement, and being able to work hard for great damage.

Now after the 7.2 changes (specifically, removing the timer) it feels like it might have just been a waste. I love this game- love the story, love the other jobs, playstyle, hell, I have FFXIV tattoos- but my favorite was learning fights on black mage. If a fight was too hard at first, I could go in as bard or something with better movement, learn the fight, and figure it out later on blm. And it was fun doing so. It was fun being able to play a "difficult" job (which really, is not that difficult) that required some limited knowledge of the fights you did in order to increase your damage (which is intuitive, and I think is great game design and it just.. makes sense). When I heard YoshiP was changing his perspective and wanted to make the game even harder, I was optimistic! I was looking forward to a challenge that I could overcome, a fight that would really be a fight. And then they removed my timer man :(

There's no satisfaction in playing the job anymore. Now it's just kind of irritating waiting for your cast, with no risk of enochian falling off, and polygot casts are guaranteed rather than working a little for them. I didn't like getting rid of sharpcast, but ultimately I didn't feel as though the spirit of the job was ruined, so I learned to love the job again. I never thought this change would come since YoshiP mains the job and trusted the devs to understand what the uniqueness of the class entailed, so this was truly shocking. It feels stupid for a little change to effect my enjoyment so much, but I realized that regardless if I continue my sub or quit, I'll still miss the way it was before, and that I'd feel like I'm playing a very different game. Like I said, I have zero faith that the devs will revert the job, and I'm very sorry for the long post. I could say a lot more, and I could argue, but I think instead maybe it's time to try something else. Just had to at least try to put something out there I think. I'm glad some people still like blm. I'm just not one of them.

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Originally Posted by Karishi

The part that throws me is lower-level, especially when you first get Freeze, at 40. If the reduction in cast time from swapping elements doesn't also impact the recast timer, my understanding is that a cycle of casting Blizzard 2, Freeze, Fire 2, Fire 2, Fire 2, Fire 2 ends up being 664 potency (two 56 from "80 potency" at -30%, 3 144 for "80 potency" at +80%, and one 120 pot Freeze) while just casting Freeze six times is 720 potency. But it's worse, because with the timer changes Freeze six times takes 15 seconds while the "proper" cycle takes 16.5? Am I missing something there?

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Not missing anything there. The cast times on Blizz/Fire II are meant to imply you only use them for element-swapping. BLM AoE while leveling has been far stranger in the past (as many other jobs before ShB, specifically tanks). There is decidedly an awkward gap between learning Freeze and learning Flare where Freeze spam is DPS positive for a "normal" rotation, but it's kind of endearing to me.

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Observations after a week

• For better or worse, there has been a noticeable uptick of black mage in content in general.
• Synced black mage is not very appealing (as usual?), with most significant instant spells for weaving gained around EW/DT levels. Foul is a hard cast until Xenoglossy is unlocked at Lv80, Paradox is Lv90 (including F3P because nobody castin' regular ol' Fire after getting Fire IV), and Despair isn't instant until Lv100. Triplecast exists at Lv66+ but can only be weaved without clipping by using Thunder spells or when element-swapping.
• Black mage at cap just feels like it has way too many instants for movement (and hardly any spread out at lower levels). It feels strange letting Triplecast charges cap off since there's no net benefit to spending them on anything but movement or weaves (RDM Acceleration is both mobility and a DPS increase).
• AoE rotation feels meh, but it was kind of always this way since 7.0, it's just more obvious now that Flare casts are fast to show how small the rotation is overall (and the aforementioned High Fire/Blizzard nonsense).
• The removal of timers specifically for F3P and Thundercloud is a net positive, in my opinion. I didn't like the punishment of losing those procs due to a longer fire phase or something (like it's some kind of crime to spend Xenos to move). The problem was losing so much else along with them.
• I still don't really like Thunderhead in general. I get why they made it proc-only (because they wanted to remove the MP cost messing with the fire/ice spend/restore casts while not letting the spell be spammable), but it feels so weird to gate it. I miss thunder spells having big numbers.

Black mage will obviously have a uptick mind you, people flock to new things and as black mage was a hot topic for a while you will get people playing it. It's also not like black mage mains have anything else to go to because all other casters are super easy and boring as well. It was VERY Underpowered in 7.0-7.1 so there was no reason to pick it over picto now that has obviously changed.

people will play it if it's doing better then pictomancer in terms of damage which looks like it will, generally people will flock to the META caster, now that black mage is easy to use and easy to play theirs no real competition on choice you literally just pick it up because it's the best DPS and got high mobility, if picto was better people would play that more, if a rez caster like summoner was more needed you pick that, you don't really pick based on enjoyability if every job plays the same.

I don't think it will have any staying power like the summoner rework. People will get up with it and assume woah they must be thinking of a cool design to build upon in 8.0! but no nothing will change the job will remain boring and people will follow the new fad or whatever does the most damage.