Black Mage Raise Ability

[Moogly]

BLMs reaction to OP's post

[Kabooa]

Totally agree with you about BLM, but I feel it could be better described as job identity than lore. BLM has a solid identity and a raise spell would go against that, RDM also has a solid identity, but certain aspects overstep the confines of the job system IMO (and can be easily fixed without touching the mechanics themselves I will reiterate)

But not against Thaumaturges. So you can give it to them before you make the job transition and everything is peachy okay for 'identity'. Do recall they do shady stuff with Necromancy.

On a serious note, though, after spending the last few weeks joining random pugs to help in savage clears, the pattern tends to be that Black Mage spots are only open if the person doesn't care about the comp. Speed runs almost never see them, 'serious clear parties' the only caster they want is Red Mage, etc etc.

And frankly, as we're moving forward, even with the clunk summoners are dealing with, they are bringing comparable damage -with the ability to raise and party buffs-. Getting something that is a boon to the party that the other casters don't bring isn't unreasonable at this point, and no, I'd rather not have another damage bump to clear the hurdle. That just puts Red Mages further behind.

[Ceallach]

If you look back at every summoner in the series, you find that only Rydia could initially use black magic. Eiko, Yuna and Garnet were all white mages on top of being summoners, so Physick and Resurrection make sense from a lore standpoint because summoning magic is typically paired with healing magic.

Lore should never be a justification for, or be thought of before mechanical imbalance, having said that though, I NEVER asked for verraise to be removed, or even changed mechanically, all I asked was for its mana cost to be looked at.

Totally agree with you about BLM, but I feel it could be better described as job identity than lore. BLM has a solid identity and a raise spell would go against that, RDM also has a solid identity, but certain aspects overstep the confines of the job system IMO (and can be easily fixed without touching the mechanics themselves I will reiterate)

The thing is job identity is defined partially by lore. You can never get away from it. It's written into every aspect of every job. It's true that you don't want mechanical imbalance, but the fact is jobs must fit their lore first and mechanics second. That's part of why we aren't getting a blue mage. Like I stated above, famous characters with certain jobs influence the series' lore as well. Red mages don't have famous characters to fall back on. The only one that even comes to mind is that Elvaan from FINAL FANTASY XI: Wings of the Goddess that you get an alter ego for, and if I can't even remember his name, he's obviously not worth using as an example. Therefore, beyond saying that the red mage can do a little of everything, it can be hard to pin down what red mages really do from a lore standpoint beyond fencing and (more heavily) the use of practically all basic forms of magic.

You can talk about game balance all you like, but the fact is the only problem with job balance right now is the fact summoner as a job is a broken heap of dung at the moment. Black mages and red mages are both fine as they are. Machinists I guess could use some potency buffs, but nothing huge like having to overhaul the entire summoner job. Even scholars are in a better place than summoner right now.

But not against Thaumaturges. So you can give it to them before you make the job transition and everything is peachy okay for 'identity'. Do recall they do shady stuff with Necromancy.

In all fairness, classes as a whole are a lot more loose than jobs. Jobs are meant to specialized for a specific role, which is why we're against giving black mages a revival spell. Yes, the necromancer job did appear before (FINAL FANTASY V for example), but if you give a revival spell to the thaumaturge, that means the black mage will also get it. Because of how classes worked before Stormblood, you could also give rogues, pugilists and even marauders the conjurer's Raise spell or the arcanist's Resurrection spell as well. You could level every Disciple of War and Disciple of Magic job to 60, then switch to your favorite weapon and set whatever you wanted. Now we have role actions instead, which makes more sense overall. As an example, look at FINAL FANTASY Tactics and the branching jobs in that series. Mog knights could get Ultima Charge, change to gunners and fire Ultima Charges from long distance, even though that action was never really meant to be a long range attack.

[Lambdafish]

But not against Thaumaturges. So you can give it to them before you make the job transition and everything is peachy okay for 'identity'. Do recall they do shady stuff with Necromancy.

BLM =/= THM (we have all our THM spells, the rest are BLM, the two, while linked are independent as much as ROG and NIN are).
Necromancy =/= Raising (unless you want us to come back with zombie and have the healer immediately kill them again)

BLM's identity is about void magic, destruction spells and bursty turret damage. A raise spell fits the identity of PLD (Cecil can learn raise in FFIV) far more than it does BLM, and I don't want it on PLD either.

You can talk about game balance all you like, but the fact is the only problem with job balance right now is the fact summoner as a job is a broken heap of dung at the moment. Black mages and red mages are both fine as they are. Machinists I guess could use some potency buffs, but nothing huge like having to overhaul the entire summoner job. Even scholars are in a better place than summoner right now.

No-one disputed that SMN needs buffs, tweaks, and changes, I know for a fact that this is true, the devs know that this is true, and those changes are confirmed for 4.1. This thread is not about SMN at all, nor MCH, nor any other job except BLM and RDM.

You say they are fine, but from my own experience, and other people in this thread, RDM is in a much much better place than other casters for progression (the most important part for the meta, after that nobody cares what you play - BLM can do bigger numbers, but if you can clear on a RDM, then the bigger numbers aren't necessary), and that is mostly down to its utility, mobility, and unimpaired damage, I'm not sure how that constitutes fine. RDM doesn't need big changes, only small tweaks, but saying it is fine is turning a blind eye to what the job is actually capable of (I've had both healers die at the same time in savage many times and we still get the weekly clear thanks to having a RDM, nothing a BLM can offer is equivalent to that).

[Kabooa]

BLM =/= THM (we have all our THM spells, the rest are BLM, the two, while linked are independent as much as ROG and NIN are).
Necromancy =/= Raising (unless you want us to come back with zombie and have the healer immediately kill them again)

BLM's identity is about void magic, destruction spells and bursty turret damage. A raise spell fits the identity of PLD (Cecil can learn raise in FFIV) far more than it does BLM, and I don't want it on PLD either.

I can easily give you lore appropriate raise spells the Black mage would be capable of, but frankly, that's not the core problem.

The core problem is being a selfish glass cannon is a terrible balance angle. You're either so far ahead that you're mandatory, or not far ahead enough that you're worth bringing over something else.

Black mages need some sort of non-damage based Party Utility. They bring nothing that another caster doesn't. At this point, they aren't even bringing unequivocally superior damage now that people are actually giving Summoner an honest go, and Red mages are still well enough in the ballpark that bringing a Black Mage isn't some significant inherent damage advantage, because when you count Embolden into all of that, Red Mages are pretty close.

That's the problem. All the claims that "Black mages are the samurai of casters" ignores both the blatant data stating otherwise and the fact that this mindset is terrible for job balance to start with.

[PrismaticDaybreak]

...

I love how preventing wipes is suddenly bad because BLM can't do it, it's fairly amusing. You didn't specify which savage, if it's 1 or 2 that's a no brainer, those instances are easy enough even without RDM to emergency raise your apparently mechanics inept healers. You realize doubling the mana cost effectively makes Verraise about as effective as SMN Resurrection? You just want RDM to be a direct damage version of SMN with that "tweak". Let nothing challenge BLM right? And yeah, nerfing Verraise because both healers might die and RDM could be helpful is a niche situation, whether or not the result would have been a wipe.

[Aleisterz]

Jesus christ, this is still going on? :X I don't even want to read anything before page 16 so.. like I said WAY long ago in this thread.. BLM never raised, they never will. They have not changed the core of the Black Mage ever since it was introduced in the first final fantasy or any job in the old final fantasy games that appear in the later games. THM is basically a coroner. >_< Stop whining and trying to change something that hasn't been changed since 1987.

[Kabooa]

Jesus christ, this is still going on? :X I don't even want to read anything before page 16 so.. like I said WAY long ago in this thread.. BLM never raised, they never will. They have not changed the core of the Black Mage ever since it was introduced in the first final fantasy or any job in the old final fantasy games that appear in the later games. THM is basically a coroner. >_< Stop whining and trying to change something that hasn't been changed since 1987.

"Stop discussing this thread."

*puts a reply to make people look back at the thread*

[Ceallach]

Things.

I thought this thread was about giving black mages a revival spell, which is extremely ill-advised. And honestly, red mages in FINAL FANTASY XI were also capable of Raising entire alliances thanks to Chainspell. Of course, Chainspell has a one-hour recast (used to be two hours) and weakness is harder to deal with in that game, but that's not the point. The point is you could get an entire alliance up easily, especially if your support job was scholar.

I say red mage is fine because it's much harder in this game for a red mage to justify judicious use of Verraise than a red mage in any other FINAL FANTASY title (including FINAL FANTASY XI) using it just as much, and they're arguably capable of casting Raise much more often.

[Lambdafish]

I love how preventing wipes is suddenly bad because BLM can't do it, it's fairly amusing.

For a BLM, it is, did you miss the part where people are asking for RDMs for progression over the other two?

You didn't specify which savage, if it's 1 or 2 that's a no brainer, those instances are easy enough even without RDM to emergency raise your apparently mechanics inept healers.

O1-3 at some point or another (I haven't cleared 4)

You realize doubling the mana cost effectively makes Verraise about as effective as SMN Resurrection?

Yes, Making DPS raises equivalent is a bad thing? (don't use lore and identity as a rebuttal, raise is part of SMNs identity too, with many SMNs in the franchise being linked to white magic)

You just want RDM to be a direct damage version of SMN with that "tweak".

RDM and SMN are nothing alike, but in any case I want SMN to be improved, though that is a separate thread entirely and right now I am comparing DPS raises. With verraise being made "fairer" RDM still has mobility, utility and damage, and will still be a very viable choice for progression, it just won't be the go-to choice (and BLMs will feel more comfortable with their identity).


My point is that verraise has almost trivialised something that was catastrophic before stormblood. Combining a PLD and a RDM in a party is insane because of the sheer amount of healing utility that they both bring, and IMO that has completely changed the landscape of progression.