Black Mage What Need to be Changed and Improved [Discussion & Feedback]

[GilbertLapine]

Ya, I'm pretty happy with flare and convert, tho flare could use a slight damage boost. Manawall and manaward are both awesome but could use slight extensions and suffer from the non-existant instacast problem. Apocatastasis is cool for hound lights in AK but that's kinda it. Oh, and freeze is the worst spell in the game. Either should be instant, less mp, more damage, longer bind, or something, but as it is just....no.

[AltaneenXIV]

I agree completely about freeze, what an awful spell. When I first got it I was excited, but only because when I read it, I thought it was going to be a ground aoe like the ones bard, and arcanist get.

[Warlyx]

and that is posted on general discussion why? D:

[Nanga]

your post wasn't written in a humorous or joking manner, thus it wasn't a wooosh. You can't fault someone for thinking you were seriously unaware of that feature, when you didn't in any way indicate your post was sarcasm (and sarcasm in reaction to what? Was anyone complaining about BLM's enmity generation?)

With all the detail that went in to describing it - almost to a "T" for what we already have ... oh forget it.

[Altanas]

1. Freeze might have more use as a crowd controller were it to:

a) be instant cast
b) have an instant draw-in effect dragging enemies into the centre of the reticule; rather than having to rely on enemies to walk into it
c) finish off with the ice shattering to deal damage and a -movement speed decrease



2. Overall, elemental spells should have lingering effects. Say setting an enemy on fire or leaving it frosted over or sparking with electricity. Were the enemy to die while under a lingering effect it would explode creating an AoE spreading to nearby mobs.


3. Apocatastasis should be reworked as an AoE or a damage buff rather than a defence buff, or have an absorb/HP heal or reflect buff added to it.

[Mecan]

1- Convert @ lvl 30:

"Sacrifices 20% of maximum HP to restore 30% of MP. Cannot be executed when current HP is lower than 20%."

Rule Number One. NEVER-EVER use Convert with Flare. Convert + Flare. That's a big, big no-no. Convert shares the same Cool-down as Raging Strikes. Put two-and-two together. You use Convert to extend your Mana bar to extend to usefulness of Raging Strikes. This is why you are not wasting such a powerful buff.

2- Freeze @ lvl 35:

"Covers a designated area in ice, dealing ice damage with a potency of 20 and binding enemies that enter."

Yeah I have no found any use for Freeze. Blizzard II has always been far superior. I never use Freeze and never will -- it's really a pretty worthless spell at the moment and cannot figure any use for it at all in this game.

3- Apocatastasis @ lvl 40:

"Increases a Disciple of War or Magic party member's resistance to Fire, Ice, and Lightning by 30%.
Cannot be reused on an individual for 60 seconds from when the effect wears off. Cannot be cast on self."

This is useful on Chimera and Ifrit, but right now that's about it. I imagine it's use will become a mainstay once Shiva and Ramuh make their appearance into the game. Patience. For now just use Eye for an Eye to shield your tank.

4- Manawall @ lvl 45:

"Creates a barrier that nullifies two physical attacks."

High Voltage is a very special property sort of ability. Basically, it's designed that if your party gets hit by it -- you will all die. If you are getting hit by High Voltage your team isn't playing properly. This barrier is designed to take hits from lesser content like powerful single-hit mobs in Coil or heck even Primals. This is one of my favorite abilities and I use it religiously. There is nothing wrong with this ability.

5- Flare @ lvl 50:

Flare is also pretty useless. This spell is mainly used for in Single-Player Farming and an absolutely must-have for RMT Botters everywhere. But is it useful and practical in the game itself? Not really! The fact it wastes all MP makes it's uses pretty limited and even worse it's cast time forces you to couple it with Swiftcast. Frankly it's a waste of Swiftcast & Convert, which are better used to extend your DPS rotations where you can easily be doing more damage with a 40% buffed Fire III than a single Flare -- not to mention you're pumping out more Fire IIIs than Flares if you Proc more than once during the buffed rotation.

In short, as a professional BLM I under use Flare in Endgame. It's a worthless, but overall pretty looking spell. I put it up there with Freeze as two of the worst design choices in the game.

[ArcheustheWise]

You know what "I" would like to see in regards to BLM? WE NEED ELEMENTAL DAMAGE! Seriously it severely stupid that they didnt go ffxi route and make spells do more damage to certian bosses. I mean seriously.. fire does more damage to ifrit that blizzard? Thats absurd.

Its like using fire on a fire elemental doing more than blizzard SHOULD.

Stop making our magic generic damage across the board, give us tactics not oh... lets fire fire fire firestarter, fire 3 the whole dang game.

/thread

[RakaNishu]

I agree completely about freeze, what an awful spell. When I first got it I was excited, but only because when I read it, I thought it was going to be a ground aoe like the ones bard, and arcanist get.

It would be nice if it was just an aoe that stayed on the ground and did dmg and slowed/bound anyone inside of it.

[Louro999]

All I can say is that Apocastasis should not be a BLM skill, maybe a THM skill but a BLM, no way... Silence would be better. Black mages have always had Silence in FF...

Flare should be a true nuke spell. With 5sec cast-time and NUKE damage worth using even on 1 boss target. Some kind of mini-LB with high cooldown (2-3min?).

Freeze should be a nuke power too, less effective but freezing targets for real, not binding them... Like a 4-5sec aoe stun or something like that... With high cooldown too.

But the way they are now they are useless. Poor damage, too situational.
Black Mage should be a nuker job, with some nuke spells. Even Bards have many CD skills to burst enemies, but the only BLM burst skill is a cross-skill from archer ? Great...

[sasakusaku]

Freeze is pretty worthless...well until PvP comes out, then I think it will have a use. But yea, it has little to no effect in PvE so that one is off my bar...

And I don't even have Apocastasis on my bar either since I ran out of reachable hotkeys is also kind of pointless; healers are meant to be watching people, not the mage...the BLM should be pew pew pewing! Right? If I could cast it on myself THEN it wouldn't be so crappy imo. I mean why isn't this a WHM spell, it would suit that job waaaay better.