Black Mage

[Remedi]

BRD/MCH need the same 5% piercing debuff DRG has (to eliminate that dependency rather than because they need damage buffs),

I mean it could come out of hot shot/straight shot OR they could rempove Heavy trust and making disembowel grant the HT buff

[Alexalibur]

>Blm never had a real bad time/spot - just relax Yoshi is comin'.

BLM has been relatively weak since 3.3.

More like ALL casters have been relatively weak since 3.3, or just the fact that BRD/MCH were far stronger than everyone else that rendered already average classes useless.

[Lelila38]

pls... this is absolutly the worst argument ever you can say facing a smn - it's always us who get fucked up with every expansion in the first place - looking over to you whos cls is always supirior because of reasons, same reasons will solve your "issues" near by. Blm never had a real bad time/spot - just relax Yoshi is comin'.

Could you please stop regarding everything I say as a personal insult to your Smn pride? I wasn't even referring to Smn, I explicitly stated that the new classes were intentionally overpowered.

snip

Thank you for saying what you did about Raging Strikes, Embolden and Enochian, you're summing up my feelings on if quite nicely. I wish I could like your post twice.

[Shiroe]

If they're going to do a magic vuln up for BLM it should most definitely be on Blizzard IV

@MidnightTundra: I'm confused by your response. If I'm full 340 on SMN but with susano book, then I'm full 340 on BLM too, but with Genji staff. That's the point of my statement; I was much more easily able to be much stronger on SMN even with sub-optimal stats than on BLM. This is a problem..

dont agree, Bliz IV is a dps lose and needs fixing from the ground up

besides that, imo T3 should give the magic vulnerability... (unless they fix BIV, so it makes sense to use it either way)

[Lastelli]

dont agree, Bliz IV is a dps lose and needs fixing from the ground up

What do you mean?

[Llugen]

What do you mean?

^

I'm confused, I say that magic vuln should be on Blizzard IV BECAUSE it needs reworking, so that would be part of the rework. Additionally, each Umbral Heart should give increased damage to whichever fire spell utilizes it by a percentage, like 5% or even 10% if you wish.

Putting it on Thunder III would only increase the necessity to rely on thundercloud procs, which are good of course but you don't always get them. This is partially why I think the thunder dot could be additive instead of refreshing to 24. To illustrate, this would mean I could use Sharpcast Thunder III and use the proc right off the bat to get 48 seconds of thunder up and ticking, and any subsequent thunderclouds would add to that timer, capping at 60 seconds (so using any additional thunderclouds above 46 seconds would be a small waste).


In case this reply wasn't already long enough, I'd like to point out that since 3.0 launched, BLM has lost a significant amount of mobility. In 2.x, you can rely on procs to move and swiftcast if you have to at pretty regular intervals, and you aren't locked in by any ley lines. Since 3.0, your damage comes from standing still and hardcasting Fire IV, which is fine, but that is where mobility issues arise single target (obviously). A tweak/update to firestarter where you could firestart Fire IV or Fire III would be nice, or combo into IV from a III. It could also be interesting if they applied a similar trait to Thunder like is currently in PVP where if you do enough damage/casts to a target with the dot, it gives you a thunder ready proc regardless of the 10% per tick chance.

I know you blokes want the job to be a "turret class" but a little more mobility would go a long way into improving the class's damage without even requiring any other adjustments (which it definitely still needs).

[Sfia]

Other than that, SMN needs numbers nerfs and QoL buffs. BRD/MCH need the same 5% piercing debuff DRG has (to eliminate that dependency rather than because they need damage buffs), as well as reduced emnity for self instead of halving emnity on Tactician/Refresh. BLM needs a slight dps boost to make up for their lack of utility. Melee wise NIN needs a TA nerf, DRG is fine, MNK needs Brotherhood to affect casters, and SAM is fine cause I don't know if it needs anything given the rest happens. NIN's aggro advantages add the least potency over a fight, so they are fine as is.

Personally, I feel like none of these actually address the issue. BRD/MCH provide too much damage. saying they need to provide their own piercing debuff changes nothing, and you would STILL bring a bard and a machinist.They are too strong in their current form in terms of both offense AND defense. The same goes for ninja, trick attack needs significant changes, threat tools need to not be an exclusive utility. DRG also provides a lot, it's not on the same level of absurdity of NIN/BRD/MCH but it is very powerful and would still be desired even if ranged physical was very weak. Summoner is now approaching this level of strength as well with the recent buffs. And monk is not very far behind in terms of damage contribution while also being very strong in prog with fists/riddle of earth and mantra.

So we have 4 very strong jobs, and monk which depending on your composition can also be on this higher tier of contribution.

That leaves SAM/RDM/BLM.
Nerfing 5 of the 8 dps classes to create balance for 3 could be done, however it seems to me like bringing the contributions of the 3 to be in line with the others is a much more simple approach.

Having played a lot of RDM, I actually feel it does not need much in the way of changes. It is very good at what it does, and has a strong identity as a safe and easy prog slot.If any change was to be made, I would recommend bringing it's personal dps up a very small amount, but this would not make or break the class, nor change its viability in endgame. Perfect balance is unlikely to ever be achieved between 8 jobs, so having niche jobs which excel so clearly in areas is a great way to make the job of total balance easier.

Samurai needs more damage. Whether this is through personal dps, or raid utility it doesn't matter, the result would be the same - providing more DPS to your team. Currently it is very easy to perform to a decent level on, which goes to show how well the dev team has designed this class with their new philosophy (of bringing the skill floor down) in mind. Red mage is good in this regard also. Samurai is decent in prog because of it's low skill floor, however monk still outshines it in this regard. I'm not a melee main so I wouldn't want to suggest how to best fix these problems as I am not the best person to do so.

And that leaves Black Mage.
Damage is too low. With no contributions to other peoples damage, all you provide is what you hit the boss with, and that needs to go up SIGNIFICANTLY. It is a bad situation to be in when a 10% total damage increase would still not solidify your position in a team looking to optimize.
It is important to point out that from a pure damage perspective, BLM is below SAM yet provides no utility advantage over it and is more immobile. It is the WORST dps class - not just the worst caster and it is important to realize that the utility jobs (SMN/DRG/MNK/NIN/BRD/MCH) outpace black mage damage contributions often in raw dps ALONE, and if not then their utility pushes them to vastly exceed what a BLM can provide. The other DPS carry (SAM) is more mobile AND does more DPS - so even if NIN/BRD get nerfed, it would require every other DPS class to be nerfed in order for BLM to be competitive. This is the unique problem of a class who provides nothing to the team but damage.


Defensive and resource utility is non existent.

We can directly compare black mage to other roles competing for its slot right now. This is NOT to say these jobs should lose their ability in these regards, it is simply to show that BLM does not have nearly as much to offer as almost every other class in the game.
We are the worst caster to use manashift. We have 1 time in our rotation where we can use it (and only under a randomly generated proc) without a mild-significant dps loss. Compare this to SMN/RDM being able to freely weave this at no loss now.
Compare Manashift to Refresh, 3000MP to one target or over 6000MP to all party members. A complete no brainer.

Addle and apocatastasis now have to be either weaved with procs or instant cast abilities (of which we have limited and cannot be relied upon) or you lose dps. Compared to SMN/RDM, they can do this freely at any time with no loss.
Pallisade is the ranged equivalent to apocatastasis, providing equal utility to apoc, which can be used at no loss to the ranged user.
Dismantle is a significantly stronger addle. Troubadour has the benefit of not requiring a target, and Natures Minne is just icing on the cake.

And lastly is the issue of raising. I personally have no opinion on whether black mage should be able to have a raise, however after taking away a lot of unique utility (namely apoc) through the homogenization of the caster role, I find it very odd that no recompense was given to their power budget.

Now, this is completely disregarding other issues that BLMs face (mobility, punishment for error, the burden of cast bars etc.) and it is clear as day that the job simply... lacks. There isn't enough to it, and I am starting to sympathize with people who are simply locking the class out of party finder options.

In my initial post I shied away from talking about changes I would like to see and believe would be healthy for the class and balance as a whole, however I'll get a little bit into that now.

There are a few easy fixes which, when combined, could solve the problem of using apoc and addle specifically, with benefits to manashift usage (although not completely solved) without affecting the damage of the class.
Firstly is to make foul instant cast, giving us an actual on demand mobility/weaving spell at no cost to our own damage.
The problem with an instant cast foul used for weaving is that you will run into MP issues when in umbral ice (MUST blizzard4 first and then you risk not enough MP after a thunder 3 when returning to astral fire to complete your rotation). So to remedy this, I would like thunder 3 to be reduced to the MP cost of blizzard 4 in umbral ice3, or better yet, completely remove mp costs from blizzard4 and thunder 3 while in umbral ice 3.

Convert is currently an awful CD, an outdated remnant of pairing it with raging strikes. A 3 minute CD with an absurdly low value (compare this to Battle Litany, Battle Voice which also share this window) and cannot be reliably used due to the HP cost.
By making this skill useful, we can also address a key issue with BLM damage - unreliability during burst windows.
By making convert into a reliable bursting tool, we can fix the anti-synergy with other classes lowering the discrepancy in damage which we have no control over.
My personal idea for this ability is to put it on a 120s CD, refill MP to full and grant astral fire 3. This means trick atack/chain stratagem/hypercharge buff windows can be reliably hit with powerful spells, regardless of where you are in rotation, and would still align with BLM's current on-the-fly thinking playstyle.

These changes would be a start for a more usable black mage. They certainly wouldn't address all the issues they have and I believe further tweaking would be needed but these are a couple of huge problems existing with easy solutions.

[Llugen]

Tons of words

So much this. I tried to make a post like this like two months ago and everyone laughed and said they LIKED their "turret DPS", which blew my mind.

If it were up to me at this point, I would get rid of Convert completely and rename it Indulge, gives the same amount of MP but does not affect your HP and just make it 60 seconds recast. That way it could be up every time your sharpcast is up for fire and every other ley lines (and by your 2 minute logic, it would be up for each of those too)

Making foul instant cast would be great for emergency movement, this is another thing I suggested a while back. I think Foul should be stronger in general for what it does, perhaps each usage of the skill increases the potency of it by 10% up to double potency if you didn't lose astral/umbral that whole time.

I'd also love to see a BLM "meditate" so you can hold your astral/umbral static sort of like SAM does with the Kenki gauge, which would help greatly with the ONE SINGLE SECOND window to juggle with Transpose.

Recast on Aetherial Manipulation should be reduced to 20s or even 15 (or even 10 if they REALLY want BLM to focus less on having to physically walk), and while they're at it, they should consider having Between the Lines move the Ley Lines TO the caster, instead of the caster to the Ley Lines.

All of these suggestions plus some of the other ones I made a few pages back would go a long way and would be a lot more rewarding than just "oh here's Fire/Blizzard IV back to 280 potency glhf", and even that probably still wouldn't be enough.

Last but not least, no matter how strong a "selfish" DPS is, party utility of some kind will almost ALWAYS be superior in a party. Utility IS damage, just not YOUR damage. With this in mind, the mindset of "raw damage as utility" is staggeringly flawed.


tl;dr? Here's a list of potential suggestions:

"Buffs" and Quality of Life
-Increase Astral/Umbral timer to 15s
-Implement a "meditation" skill allowing the BLM to hold the Astral/Umbral timer static while standing still (for downtime)
-Thunder refreshes current Astral/Umbral timer (including Thundercloud)
-Every time a Thundercloud proc occurs (not every use of the proc, just every proc), the Polyglot timer gains 5 seconds
-Foul refreshes current Astral/Umbral timer
-Scathe costs zero MP and refreshes current Astral/Umbral timer
-Durations of Thundercloud and Firestarter procs extended to 30 seconds
-Foul made instant cast
-Each time the Polyglot timer completes, the next Foul will increase by 10% damage up to 100% damage increase (after 5 minutes of continuous Astral/Umbral juggling)
-Zero MP cost for all spells under Umbral Ice
-Increase damage of all spells in Astral Fire regardless of whether they are fire spells (Thunderclouds, Foul)
-Thunder III timer increased to 27 seconds, or 30
-Thunder applications are additive up to 60 seconds (vs. currently they simply refresh)
-Firestarter trait to work with Fire IV
-Firestarter "combo" from free Fire III to free Fire IV
-The expenditure of an Umbral Heart results in +10% damage from the spell which used the heart (or 15% or even higher, if you wish)
-Fire I using an Umbral Heart is instant cast and guarantees a Firestarter proc
-Aetherial Manipulation recast reduced to 15s (or 10)
-Between the Lines brings Ley Lines to the BLM rather than vise-versa, or a new skill that does that
-While standing in Ley Lines, the caster is rendered immune to esuna-able status disorders, 20% incoming damage reduction, and cannot be interrupted (or some combination thereof)
-Convert changed to 90 seconds recast, or changed to Indulge: 60 seconds recast, no longer costs HP but gives 30% MP.
-Convert stays at 180s recast and gives you back full MP bar and refreshes Astral Fire III, and potentially even gives you a free Firestarter and Thundercloud proc
-Or.... do the boring thing and increase potency of Fire IV/Blizzard IV to 280, or buff Enochian to 20% magic damage etc etc

Potential Utility
-Consider free off-gcd 180s recast Raise skill
-Consider 180s recast buff that extrapolates Ley Lines to party-wide speed buff
-Blizzard IV gives +10% Magic Vulnerability Up for 45 seconds
-Consider Mana Channeling, 120s recast tether to player that transfers MP over 5-9 seconds (for downtime)
-Consider a Dragon Sight-style tether as a BLM buff 10% to damage, 5% to target's damage
-Consider making Enochian give +2% direct hit or crit or speed similar to BRD being under song

[BlackcatChen]

You forgot the most boring change of all they could do.

Enhanced Enochian is now +20% instead of +10%.

[Lastelli]

We only need one small fix to solve a lot of problems. They should remove disembowel debuff and balance DRG, BRD and MCH as necessary, considering both their personal dps and party support skills. Right now, ranged dps are a big issue since their personal dps is very high when a DRG's in the party, but they also contribute to rDPS with their support skills by quite a lot. As long as the DRG-ranged dps synergy will remain as it is, it will be impossible to achieve jobs balance.