Ideas to Improve The Black Mage (for 4.2 and beyond!)

[Llugen]

...an improvement in terms of "sustained" damage, yes, but the reason that NIN/SCH/SMN work so well together is their two minute burst window synergy. This has been completely lost on BLM, because it has no real "burst" damage window anymore, save for convert which is laughable.

When I'm on SMN, just about every time I'm going to tri-disaster and deathflare, or going to enkindle bahamut and fester, trick attack is up. This is super significant; so significant that I don't think it can really be understated to either the devs or the "midcore"/casual players. Sustained damage alone is not as good as everyone's burst windows stacking together for dramatically powerful effect(s). It's the same concept with why you give the empowered balance to the strongest DPS and not the weakest, the gain is larger.

BLM deserves a "burst window" buff. They could give it back its own Raging Strikes, or they could adjust convert to fit it in, even a % damage increase on umbral hearts would be welcomed.




Also, the "standardization" of getting procs through guaranteed means as I suggested a few times would be extremely valuable for both movement and damage. Again, currently the Astral Fire MP table is 3x Fire IV > Fire I > 3x Fire IV, but if my proposed "Firestorm" trait (successful usage of 3 Umbral Hearts grants a Firestarter proc) was implemented, it would be 4x Fire IV > Firestarter > 3x Fire IV, for a reasonably significant damage increase (and no more need to cast Fire I to refresh Astral which feels weak at level 70). Also, an increased DoT timer on Thunder III would imply +160 total potency to Thundercloud, and if they went as far as to give "Thundersting" (previous remaining Thunder DoT timer is applied to initial damage of the next Thundercloud), there would be zero wasted ticks, EVEN IF you got back-to-back Thunderclouds (significantly increasing the value of Sharpcast Thunder more than it already has).


Honestly I really hope the devs read this and consider more than just flat potency increases.

[Kabooa]

Sustained damage alone is not as good as everyone's burst windows stacking together for dramatically powerful effect(s).

Raging strikes was up for one in every 3 trick attacks. This means of the 10% boost to the 20%, it only applied 33% of the time to half the buff, turning the 2.2% average damage increase to 2.23ish%. No amount of stacking party buffs increases Raging Strike's efficiency by 100%. (To match improved Enochian's increase of 4.5ish%)

[Llugen]

But Battle Voice, Battle Litany, and Foe Requiem ALSO have three minute synergy. This is all part of the point of why burst+"filler" classes synergize better than sustained+"consistent" ones.

Granted I'd prefer them give a 2 minute cooldown damage buff over a three minute one. Or even a 90 second one, although that throws in the trick attack towel again.

[Kabooa]

But Battle Voice, Battle Litany, and Foe Requiem ALSO have three minute synergy. This is all part of the point of why burst+"filler" classes synergize better than sustained+"consistent" ones.

You still benefit from them without Raging strikes. This is why it's disingenuous to say we're somehow in a worse position without it. We are, on average, doing more damage than we were before from a strict potency / second view.

-This only causes the other raid buffs we are provided to be more effective no matter how timers line up-

I am not saying Black mage is in the best spot. But to claim we are doing less damage compared to a Heavensward Black Mage being imported into 70 is straight up false. We have improved.