Make Blizzard IV instant. Here's why:

[AkkoAihara]

also, with the current way blm is setup and the constant need to be cycling your spells in and out of your rotations to keep your buff up, try to raise your spell speed. i currently use 714 SS with food, which allows for 4 Fire IVs, then i use an instant proc of fire III to refresh my astral fire, convert and do 4 more fire IVs.

i'm curious...how high is your piety to squeeze 8 F4 into your rotation?

[Nestama]

• A boss disappears, canceling Blizzard IV
• The Black Mage is forced by a raid mechanic to move during a crucial Blizzard IV cast
• The Black Mage is incapacitated by a raid mechanic during or before a Blizzard IV cast
• A boss turns invulnerable just as Blizzard IV lands
• Due to one of the above factors, Astral Ice wears off During a Blizzard IV cast
• Due to one of the above factors, Enochian wears off during a Blizzard IV cast

And to add, the server lag of sorts. If I so much as dare to use Swiftcast for Blizzard IV, I'm going to wait around 3-4 seconds before I can cast it (probably shorter, but that's what it feels like). It's worse when you only have 5 seconds left, are in Umbral, have the MP, but can't cast Blizzard IV yet because reasons.

[Pyroclastic]

There is no reason for Black Mage to be this frustrating to play. Black Mage is not a class that has best in raid damage balanced by a tricky mechanic.

It is anadequate damage class, easily inferior to, say, the Dragoon, and easily superior to, say, Bards and Machinists, at present. I don't think I need or should do more damage than a dragoon. I'm content to trail a Dragoon of equal skill by 50 dps, or so.

.. Or I would be, if Enochian didn't cause me such constant, mouth-foaming nerd rage by virtue of the incredibly fickle Blizzard IV.

To those of you who don't know and don't care, here's a bullet list of things that will cut your Black Mage's damage down from "worse than your Dragoon" to "possibly worse than your Bard" for a whopping thirty seconds:

• A boss disappears, canceling Blizzard IV
• The Black Mage is forced by a raid mechanic to move during a crucial Blizzard IV cast
• The Black Mage is incapacitated by a raid mechanic during or before a Blizzard IV cast
• A boss turns invulnerable just as Blizzard IV lands
• Due to one of the above factors, Astral Ice wears off During a Blizzard IV cast
• Due to one of the above factors, Enochian wears off during a Blizzard IV cast

herubledur sounds like you're not very good at black mage my friend hahahaha
There is a limit to individual skill when faced by randomized mechanics. A good Black Mage compensates for this by playing conservatively, weaving whatever instant casts he can with movement, firing off that second Blizzard IV a step earlier in his rotation, and generally anticipating at what points an encounter can disrupt the re-application of Enochian.

But sometimes you just get hosed - you're singled out for AOE's consecutively. Maybe Manipulator decides he's going to quarantine you every single time that fight. Maybe the tornado spawns under your butt and juggles you, helplessly. We've all been there. What does that do most dps classes? Interrupts their rotation, forcing them to start from scratch.

What if you weren't allowed to start from scratch? What if you were forced to play exclusively with your 2.0 toolkit for a full thirty seconds? That's what happens to a Black Mage who is locked out of reapplying their Enochian buff by random mechanics. They're not allowed to start over.

...

Do I think that punishment mechanic should go away? No. What needs to go away is weaving valiantly between aoes, juggling mechanics, and then, on the line, banging off a Blizzard IV that should have successfully refreshed Enochian had the server not ticked off Astral Ice III a tenth of a second sooner than my client.

That's pure rage. And it happens constantly. The best laid plans, and all that. It needs to go away, and an instant Blizzard IV is the best way to do it. Give it a cooldown, reduce the damage - whatever. Just make it so that if I press that god damned button, I get my Enochian refreshed. Period.

This post is gold.

[HaroldSaxon]

i play BLM as a main, and have completed alexander turns all of them over 1100 dps and have completed the second one at 1427. the thing you are forgetting which you vaguely alluded too, was that you need to sometimes clip your own cooldowns. If you know a boss is about to go invincible PLAN FOR IT. refresh your enochain so you lose 5 seconds off of the total duration, however you do not lose it for the 30 second cooldown you are talking about. your refresh should be 30,25,20,15 the full 90 seconds. if you cannot for some reason deal with enochain potentially being down for 5-10 seconds and make up for the damage with a potion or a leylines while waiting for it to come back up, you should re look at how you do your mechanics. BLM is very finicky in the way it was meant to be played, and if played correctly does the same single target damage as any melee class, and more aoe damage than any other class (not burst aoe but long term aoe damage).

also, with the current way blm is setup and the constant need to be cycling your spells in and out of your rotations to keep your buff up, try to raise your spell speed. i currently use 714 SS with food, which allows for 4 Fire IVs, then i use an instant proc of fire III to refresh my astral fire, convert and do 4 more fire IVs.

[Core1019]

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone else find it weird to have the bulk of your damage tied to a single 60sec cooldown in the first place? I mean, pretty sure other classes don't have to risk 30 seconds locked out of their new rotation, do they?

[RiceisNice]

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone else find it weird to have the bulk of your damage tied to a single 60sec cooldown in the first place? I mean, pretty sure other classes don't have to risk 30 seconds locked out of their new rotation, do they?

Not particularly, it means that you need to emphasize more on finding moments to execute that one rotation. MCH's sustained dps is pretty mediocre outside of reload and proper wildfire utilization.

[Dami]

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone else find it weird to have the bulk of your damage tied to a single 60sec cooldown in the first place? I mean, pretty sure other classes don't have to risk 30 seconds locked out of their new rotation, do they?

Right at the top of my head? DRGs.

[OneWingedSora]

i play BLM as a main, and have completed alexander turns all of them over 1100 dps.

I would like to see the 1100+ A3 parse.

your refresh should be 30,25,20,15 the full 90 seconds

Your refresh should only be 30,25,20. By the end of that third refresh your Enochian will be off CD anyway.

and if played correctly does the same single target damage as any melee class, and more aoe damage than any other class (not burst aoe but long term aoe damage).

which allows for 4 Fire IVs, then i use an instant proc of fire III to refresh my astral fire, convert and do 4 more fire IVs.

[Malevicton]

And to add, the server lag of sorts. If I so much as dare to use Swiftcast for Blizzard IV, I'm going to wait around 3-4 seconds before I can cast it (probably shorter, but that's what it feels like). It's worse when you only have 5 seconds left, are in Umbral, have the MP, but can't cast Blizzard IV yet because reasons.

As much as it sucks when that happens, "it's too hard if I lag for 3 straight seconds at random times" is tough to balance around. That'll break pretty much every class's rotation.

[Yeldir]

Right at the top of my head? DRGs.

All of their abilities involved in keeping their dps mechanics active are instant. They do not suffer from the immense frustration I described in my original post, which is pressing the button in time and being denied the reapplication of Enochian.

Additionally, and I would appreciate it if an expert Dragoon could clarify this for me, but if a dragoon screws up their Fang and Claw or Wheeling Thrust application, can they not just simply start their combo chain over with the other one? Also, can't they simply fire off Fang and Claw or Wheeling Thrust every 2.5 seconds once they have sharper or enhanced wheeling up, or at the very least on demand?

Black Mages have to go through an intricate juggling process of several effects, all of which involve lengthy cast times, get no second chances, and absolutely cannot refresh Enochian during their "damage" rotation, only at a specific part of the mana regen phase of it. Unless I misunderstand several somethings about the combo chains and the buff effects they grand with Blood of the Dragon up, the two classes really aren't at all comparable in terms of difficult and punishment.