Latest and Greatest Information on Black Mage

[hallena]

Snip

These changes already happened. Their change to thunder was a potency buff which did absolutely fuck all

Well... maybe if Apoc was a 30y caster centered aoe... Help tanks w/ all the fancy magic tank busters...

We're not getting a rez.
We're not getting any kind of group or player dps buff... hell THM/BLM barely has its OWN dps buff, aside from Leylines...

Making Apoc useful for surviving heavy magic damage may be the best we can ask in terms of "utility".

I never understood why apo is not aoe. It is literally a shit version of fey convenant.
Apo : 3m cd / 12s duration /leave a debuff / single target
Fey : 2m cd / 20s duration / dont leave debuff / aoe

[Sleigh]

I'm actually curious why they nerfed Manawall as it was. I figured it'd be because they planned to make a lot more raid wide damage physical, starting with Alexander Savage this tier, but basically the only thing it'd help with is A1S's Prey mechanic (and its nerfed form is basically enough to let you cheese it). A2S, some slight tanking I guess? A3S, it wouldn't really let you do anything you couldn't do with the hand swipes, group or tank would die regardless. A4S, everything in there is magical or unaspected except for the adds.

Future proofing the skill I guess?

[Xenitan]

I'm actually curious why they nerfed Manawall as it was.

We got an explanation in Letters from the Producer XXIII:


Q6. There seems to be a lot of nerfs in 3.0. Could you explain the reasoning behind this?

A6. When making adjustments to the job capabilities between each role, our fundamental policy is to make adjustments so that each job is in line with each other. However, when there is a concern that certain job actions would destroy the balance of content, it’s difficult to make adjustments in this manner and there are times we need to fix them. In regards to Shade Shift and Manawall, these both made it so ninja and black mage were impervious to physical attacks, and since future content will have a lot of magic-based attacks, we decided it would be best to change their effects to what they are now to increase the fun of the content.

I don't possibly see how you're confused. They changed Manawall from blocking 2 physical attacks to absorbing a certain amount of physical damage because there's going to be a lot more magic-based attacks in the game. Duh. Gosh, how could you not understand?

[seorin]

2.x blm were like fire1 fire1 fire1 and hoped for firestarter or Thunder procs .. xD enochian made it all more interesting imo

That simplicity was part of what made BLM unique. Enochian turns BLM into a completely different class that feels more like MNK than it does 1-59 THM/BLM. The problem is we already have MNK, but now BLM, DRG, and even SMN get to play the 'keep my buff up' mini-game too. Many DPS classes feel more homogenized than ever, and it's a very unwelcome change if you were a fan of something that made your class unique.

I get bored easily and like to play a variety of classes, so having them all feel similar is ... well, boring. The game as a whole is less interesting. That makes me want the old BLM back for variety if nothing else (and I also really did enjoy watching for procs - procs are fun!).

[StouterTaru]

Their change to thunder was a potency buff which did absolutely fuck all

The change was a small potency buff, and double the proc rate for thundercloud, which was pretty big.

[Kiara]

BLM is fine until you have to move at the wrong time.
The moment a movement or target loss causes you to lose a buff refreshing cast, you go from "executing a high damage rotation" to "try to salvage this mess of buff timers we call a class".
Let me provide an example.

I am 181 on my BLM, Hive weapon, and did a run of Fractal today for my expert.

I did 1050 dps on Curator, where I was targeted for only 1 aoe and 1 tile, but I positioned myself so the tile was easily avoided. Pretty close to a dummy fight with me oneshotting the adds / F4.

I did about 940 dps on Minotaur because his charges broke 2 of my F4's. Aside from that minimal movement, I used FS and TC to reposition myself if I would be in range of the 360 cleave.

And on Phantom Ray... 477 dps.
Four Hundred Seventy Seven... That. Is. Pathetic.
So the question becomes why did I do literally half as much dps on Ray as I did on Minotaur?
Simple, every single time he did his aoe which divides the room in quarters, it was aimed such that I was at the center of a slice. Every. Single. Time... I counted...
I initially started close to him to minimize the amount of movement I would need for those cones... His regular melee aoe interrupted an F4. (wtf) I moved slightly out of aoe range, cone made me break F1 near the middle, had to Swift it, thats okay. Next cone, right smack dab at the start of the first B4 refresh, no Swift, no Enochian for 30s, FAIL.
Next cone finishing up the UI rotation to prepare for Enochian, used a TC proc to move through the cone. Next, F1 again, already used Swift to get off B4 due to a delayed mana tick during the transition. Had to hard cast F3 to get the last 2 F4's in. Next, AGAIN just before the B4 refresh, not enough time on UI to finish B4, not enough time on Enochian to refresh UI, had to switch into the old rotation after moving out of the cone AND the ground aoes.

And that my friends is the state of BLM.
On a dummy you are great. With knowledge of the fight and using procs to pre-position, you are mostly fine. If the game decides to plop an aoe on your head when you NEED to refresh UI, AF, or Enochian, and you do not have Swiftcast up... GG have fun recovering.
If you lose AF during Enochian, you typically have to use F3 to get back into AF3, otherwise you are out ~half your potency. If you lose UI when you need to (successfully) B4, you are screwed. If your target dies before the cast finished (not applicable to Phantom Ray but still), you are often screwed. The ONLY saving grace that a BLM has in those situations is Swiftcast, which you get to use once, ONCE per complete set. (~2.5 Enochian cycles allowing for a natural Enochian refresh).

PS. Someone may recall that I had personally done out the calculations to show that the new Enochian rotation is only about 15-17% more potency/sec than the 2.X rotation, so losing Enochian should not be THAT much of a dps loss.
Here is the problem with that. 2 of the buffs in the Enochian rotation are also required for the 2.X rotation.
When you "fail" the Enochian rotation, it is typically because you lost AF, UI, or Enochian itself. When you lose Enochian itself, your MP costs no longer match up and you can maybe squeeze out 2 F1's before having to switch to UI for mana, that is a dps loss. If you lose UI then I hope you are at full MP so you can at least go into the 2.X rotation of F3+4xF1, or 3xF1, dont recall. When you lose AF, then you can "kinda" salvage things by using F3, assuming you have enough time on Enochian to make it worthwhile. Otherwise you may be better off hard casting B3-B4-F3 to resume the rotation and cut your losses.

Basically what it comes down to is that this feels like unequal punishment.
I do not think any dps, besides maybe monk, is AS shafted as BLM when mechanics cause them to lose a rotation critical buff...

To: Dev Team,

I sincerely hope you get to read Kenji's fantastic post. I totally agree.

Ultimately, Black Mage in 3.0 just feels NOT FUN at all. You've taken a job that was solid in 2.0 and just made it WORSE and needlessly complex.

The worst part is there are only going to be MORE types of Boss Mechanics in 3.0 and beyond that will be all forms of AOE, Line Attacks, Move! / Avoid!, etc. The problem is you've given BLM a mechanic that is *inherently* at odds with what you're going to subject all players to (lots of Gimmicks in Boss Fights).

This problem with BLM is only going to get worse and worse as more ridiculous Gimmicks get introduced.

There have been many good suggestions in this thread and others (from Fire IV / Blizzard IV refreshing Astral Fire / Umbral Ice respectively; to maybe using Scathe or Thundercloud Procs to refresh AF/UI or extending Enochian, etc.).

Please consider some changes to improve how Black Mages can better adapt to forced Movement; to add more FUN back to the job.

Thanks.

[seraseth]

That simplicity was part of what made BLM unique. Enochian turns BLM into a completely different class that feels more like MNK than it does 1-59 THM/BLM. The problem is we already have MNK, but now BLM, DRG, and even SMN get to play the 'keep my buff up' mini-game too. Many DPS classes feel more homogenized than ever, and it's a very unwelcome change if you were a fan of something that made your class unique.

I get bored easily and like to play a variety of classes, so having them all feel similar is ... well, boring. The game as a whole is less interesting. That makes me want the old BLM back for variety if nothing else (and I also really did enjoy watching for procs - procs are fun!).

This. I get some people prefer more complexity in their class, that's fine, but what about some options? They couldn't leave one single job simpler for those who want something different?

[Garotte14]

I don't actually think SE specifically set out to make any job more difficult. I think they set out to make it more interesting. Whether it turned out that way or not is up for debate. Personally, I love BLM. It's it perfect? No, but I still enjoy it. I've loved BLM since the beginning, and I also can completely understand the frustration of those who feel the class is completely different now. I get it.

As far as problems with the class itself......oh boy. I mostly disagree. There are a few minor QoL changes I'd like to see. And I mean minor. Something like extending AF/UI timers 3 seconds. This could fix so many problems. Making scathe a bit more useful like maybe give a % proc to extend enochian a few seconds. There are many different suggestions I've seen that would be cool, but as far as fundamentally changing it, no way.

[Xenitan]

I don't actually think SE specifically set out to make any job more difficult. I think they set out to make it more interesting. Whether it turned out that way or not is up for debate. Personally, I love BLM. It's it perfect? No, but I still enjoy it. I've loved BLM since the beginning, and I also can completely understand the frustration of those who feel the class is completely different now. I get it.

As far as problems with the class itself......oh boy. I mostly disagree. There are a few minor QoL changes I'd like to see. And I mean minor. Something like extending AF/UI timers 3 seconds. This could fix so many problems. Making scathe a bit more useful like maybe give a % proc to extend enochian a few seconds. There are many different suggestions I've seen that would be cool, but as far as fundamentally changing it, no way.

My wishlist involves making Freeze give you two stacks of umbral ice.

Would make the AoE rotation much much much cleaner.

[OoglieBooglie]

I kinda like enochian now. It took a little while to get used to it, and to remember to pay attention to it, but now that I'm used to it, it's not that bad. If i could change something, I'd improve the methods of upkeeping enochian to allow movement, like making blizzard 4 an instant, or an ability that allows the user to cast all spells while moving for a brief time (the cast times would still be there, you'd just be able to move without interrupting them). Not sure if those would make it too easy though.