The Ultimate Black Mage Resources with Damage Calculator

[Ceveth]

I value Puro's work, but when it comes to Spell Speed I'm not in line with the spreadsheet. I'm not a fan of Spell Speed, it's too hit or miss for me in real fights. It can either give you an extra attack(s) before you have to dodge/move/kill an enemy (assuming ithere's nothing more to attack currently), or it can do nothing for you; if you could only get, say, 8 GCDs before having to dodge, unless you squeezed in an extra one (possible but not as common as it would be with higher SS), DET/CHR gave you more damage. A spell speed build is reliable in certain fights, and I could see it realistically winning in a training dummy parse on average, but when you have to break tethers every 20s and dodge plumes and move in etc etc in every fight in FFXIV, I'd rather just go for the reliably higher damage DET/CHR in all scenarios if I'm building towards one gear set.

It's much less gearing for a theorized average sustained boost and more gearing for something I know will help in every fight, every instance. Technically a CHR build would be best on bursting down mechanics that won't let you get in another attack from SS, a DET build (well, I should say, gearing DET over SS as we get a lot of CHR as is with most builds) would be the safest average damage increase, a SS build could do the best if you stand still for minutes at a time or if you constantly get an extra attack off before having to move - it's all about just what you prefer for now.

I'd say BLM has the highest options for what's reasonable to gear for, which is nice. Melee and SMN want Determination first and foremost with a side of CHR and minimize SS, while BRD wants CHR and DET in heaps. BLM could go any way and do pretty well in line with each other, realistically.

I'm not really talking about Spell Speed vs Det. as the tangible benefits are like you said, variable from fight to fight.
But you can already get to the inflection point where Crit is better than Det, so going for a Determination focused build when we'll be getting even more Int & Weapon Damage is highly illogical.

[Sleigh]

I'm not really talking about Spell Speed vs Det. as the tangible benefits are like you said, variable from fight to fight.
But you can already get to the inflection point where Crit is better than Det, so going for a Determination focused build when we'll be getting even more Int & Weapon Damage is highly illogical.

I think a CHR build is wonderful, but I don't see options for that type of build without sacrificing DET in favor of SS. Do you have a CHR build in mind that keeps Determination a priority over SS a bit more than the original build you posted?

[Ceveth]

I think a CHR build is wonderful, but I don't see options for that type of build without sacrificing DET in favor of SS. Do you have a CHR build in mind that keeps Determination a priority over SS a bit more than the original build you posted?

I'm not sure if it's optimized, but it took me maybe 2-3 minutes to come up with this;
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/M356

Compared to your original post it nets 81 Crit & 46 Spell Speed at the cost of 82 Det.

That's hands down better, regardless of your views on Spell Speed.

[Sleigh]

Any one saying Black Mage is useless for Levi EX plays with bad BlackMages.If you cant dodge you cant do DPS. Thats all these fights are. My damage as not been low on this fight since the first few goes. Having Foes up to get flares in on the double sahagin adds is pretty useful, assuming you have the ethers or converts up to make sure it does not halt your dps. Also, applying DoTs to all 4 splumes is very useful, it increases your % to get thunder 3 procs, thus increasing over all damage. The first set of splumes are generally always dead with my group before the boat slam, leaving us with a nice windows of burn time.

BLM is ... okay for Leviathan EM, but SMN blows it out of the water in such a way you would never bring an equally geared BLM over a SMN. There's no point, SMN will do at least 30% more DPS if not more depending on how many multi-DoTs are applied to the tail, which is pretty safe once you know the fight well.

I'm not sure if it's optimized, but it took me maybe 2-3 minutes to come up with this;
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/M356

Compared to your original post it nets 81 Crit & 46 Spell Speed at the cost of 82 Det.

That's hands down better, regardless of your views on Spell Speed.

Pretty nice build! Not sure if the ACC will be enough but it's nothing the Allagan hat couldn't fix most likely if an issue.

[Ceveth]

BLM is ... okay for Leviathan EM, but SMN blows it out of the water in such a way you would never bring an equally geared BLM over a SMN. There's no point, SMN will do at least 30% more DPS if not more depending on how many multi-DoTs are applied to the tail, which is pretty safe once you know the fight well.



Pretty nice build! Not sure if the ACC will be enough but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Of course, like I said previously you can only design a theoretical BiS based on the data you have available to you.
As it currently stands our hit cap for Coil 2 is 451. If new data becomes available that proves it isn't then our lists will obviously have to be altered to comply with it.