Black Mage

[EllieShadeflare]

That's why I stand on my ground that raise needs to be removed from the caster role

Well, I don't think SMN and RDM should lose their Raises. I'd honestly be utterly upset if I lost Raise from Red Mage (for crying out loud, it's ALWAYS been the merging of Black and White Magic, with the Dualcast mechanic being added only as recently as Final Fantasy 5) and Summoner has it because Arcanist does. I don't think the team has the ability to set skills/spells/abilities as "job only" before level 30, so if they forced Resurrection to be a SCH only ability, that'd be at least 15 levels between Sastasha and Haukke Manor without Raise, versus every other healer who gets theirs at level 12 and just... has it.

Regarding the upcoming 4.2 changes, there are really 3 areas we need to think about.

First is offensive buffs, this can be as simple as potency increases, cast time reductions or spell interactions. Honestly, this needs to be in the changes but it's pretty basic stuff that shouldn't be too in depth, it just needs to meet the benchmark of "does this do enough damage" which we currently do not.

Fully agree. Black Mage seriously needs their damage beefed up, since we do not have enough damage to make up for a lack of utility nor our lack of mobility.

Secondly is QoL changes, maybe some workaround to make weaving our role actions easier or make them more user friendly (why does mana shift cost mp???), these can have very minor end dps effects but won't make or break the jobs balance, just it's flow and feel.

Manashift costs MP because you're literally shifting MP. But in either case, QoL changes are neccessary.

Most importantly though is it's defensive utility, and that will ultimately determine whether or not this job gets played in progression ever again (outside of blackcat) by most caster mains.

Honestly, defensive utility is a massively optional supplement... but let's hear it.

Currently is has none of this and that really solidifies the job as an underperformer.

Black Mage is difficult for progression because it's turrety and requires attention from both other raid members and the BLM to perform well. In areas that are dictated by movement and RNG, BLM really begins to suffer highly for their choice, much less during progression. As many have stated, BLMs seriously begin to rise in usability the better they know a fight and the better the raid accommodates to them. Preferably, a class that doesn't need accommodation to do well would make a better BLM, but I digress.

But if I were to point to something for BLM to be an underperformer, it's the fact that it doesn't do enough damage to make up for a lack of utility or its turrety nature.

I was thinking about how to create a defensive identity for this class that isn't just a raise and the power budget needing to be allocated to match this is insane.

Except BLM doesn't need a defensive utility beyond Manaward, which if it worked as intended, should be an occasional crutch to our turreting. Unless, of course, said utility is entirely selfish.

Throughout Omega prog would you rather have access to Tank LB3 or Raise?

Former. I'd rather not waste attention nor MP of either myself nor the healers, though BLM doesn't historically have a defensive buff that wasn't Apocatastasis.

Would you rather have refresh+tactitian or Raise?

Neither, BLM doesn't play nice with others regarding resources (historically at least, keeping the resources it builds up to itself (Osmose and Drains)) nor has it ever had a Raise under its own power.

Would you rather have Hallowed Ground or Raise?

Honestly, Hallowed Ground variants would work the best for BLM since we need to stand still to hit hard.

These are all (in my opinion) things I would give up for the ability to raise while learning a fight, which kinda demonstrates just how powerful a non-raise equivalent skill for BLM would have to be.

Raise is only a crutch that doesn't win the party its victory, and players need to learn the mechanics in order to not die... unless a mechanic does come that demands perishing. My static has found that Raising actually detriments the party almost as much as leaving the party member for dead, between the party member not lining up well with mechanics and their damage already having been lost from their death... so that already leaves problems.

I think a lot of people overvalue Raise, which also happens to really affect the potency of Red Mage as a byproduct, because they're all expected to use their convenient ability to Raise whenever things go sour, whether or not it helps.

[lulunami]

Raise is only a crutch that doesn't win the party its victory, and players need to learn the mechanics in order to not die... unless a mechanic does come that demands perishing.

My static has found that Raising actually detriments the party almost as much as leaving the party member for dead, between the party member not lining up well with mechanics and their damage already having been lost from their death... so that already leaves problems.

I think a lot of people overvalue Raise, which also happens to really affect the potency of Red Mage as a byproduct, because they're all expected to use their convenient ability to Raise whenever things go sour, whether or not it helps.

Raise is not that useful for optimization or good runs. The value of Raise is most apparent in blind progression when you do not understand how mechanics work. Being able to see another 30 seconds of the encounter, even if you eventually wipe anyway, is immensely important in my humble opinion. Once everyone understands the fight, Raise (from DPS) becomes a lot less important.

[EllieShadeflare]

Raise is not that useful for optimization or good runs. The value of Raise is most apparent in blind progression when you do not understand how mechanics work. Being able to see another 30 seconds of the encounter, even if you eventually wipe anyway, is immensely important in my humble opinion. Once everyone understands the fight, Raise (from DPS) becomes a lot less important.

Indeed, but even IN progression, survival is still pretty important on its own on top of learning the mechanics. But we're also left a bit of a dilemma.

As it stands, Raise is so overvalued that Black Mage is underutilized until after progression, on top of BLM's myriad issues. However, this leaves the job that has the easiest Raise, Red Mage being significantly undervalued for its lack of usefulness beyond rezzing.

Both need to be addressed, to be honest.

[Remedi]

I think that RDM beign the only job that requires an outside sustain in addition to having 1 less role action avaible to them is somewhat insulting, but nobody cares because of dualcast raise, which is sad because it makes the community less reliable on feedback since it shows that we overlook on things when they benefit us

[Llugen]

Regarding the upcoming 4.2 changes, there are really 3 areas we need to think about.

First is offensive buffs, this can be as simple as potency increases, cast time reductions or spell interactions. Honestly, this needs to be in the changes but it's pretty basic stuff that shouldn't be too in depth, it just needs to meet the benchmark of "does this do enough damage" which we currently do not.

Secondly is QoL changes, maybe some workaround to make weaving our role actions easier or make them more user friendly (why does mana shift cost mp???), these can have very minor end dps effects but won't make or break the jobs balance, just it's flow and feel.

Most importantly though is it's defensive utility, and that will ultimately determine whether or not this job gets played in progression ever again (outside of blackcat) by most caster mains. Currently is has none of this and that really solidifies the job as an underperformer. I was thinking about how to create a defensive identity for this class that isn't just a raise and the power budget needing to be allocated to match this is insane. Throughout Omega prog would you rather have access to Tank LB3 or Raise? Would you rather have refresh+tactitian or Raise? Would you rather have Hallowed Ground or Raise? These are all (in my opinion) things I would give up for the ability to raise while learning a fight, which kinda demonstrates just how powerful a non-raise equivalent skill for BLM would have to be.

Muh dude. I am so glad you are here. Like you don't even know.


1. Definitely potency increases, but I really hope they consider the usability of Thundercloud more carefully (increase its timer and by extension its total potency, possibly make additive to avoid wasted ticks or "sting" a la my other suggestion post). At this point I'd be amazed if Fire IV wasn't buffed to 280, and we can pray to the Twelve that they consider adjusting Flare/Foul falloff.

2. Maybe they'll finally adjust Umbral Ice not to be reliant on server ticks, and I'd be amazed again if they didn't increase the proc timers to 30 seconds. I'd also love to see a Convert adjustment and decrease recast on Aetherial Manipulation. Mana Shift costing no MP would be a good idea probably, particularly with regard to how much stronger Refresh is. Oh, and Freeze please, for crying out loud.

3. Bless you. Thank you. Bless you.


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I think Tsumi (or Harold? I forget) mentioned in discord the other day what this game REALLY NEEDS is class correspondents from endgame who are willing to consort directly (and FAIRLY) on what player opinion really is about balance and how it might be addressed accordingly.


The forums certainly make for..... Option Paralysis...... to put it delicately.
Note: By saying this, I'm not insinuating that I'm interested in "silencing opinions", only that opinions must be taken in context to be relevant for serious consideration (Shisui AFKers).

And yes @Remedi, before you even say anything, I know we already talked about how the playerbase is not necessarily "unbiased" and sometimes can advocate for the wrong thing or doesn't know what it wants, etc., yes. But still, I think it would be pretty valuable at this point, and consider that they even invited the world first Unending group for an interview. Could be just that simple, particularly if they're all Japanese players (bam).

[Kabooa]

On the subject of more potency, it's boring but effective

On the subject of more defensive options, given that they removed our ability to ignore physical busters (Old School Mana Wall) I don't see us getting a "Get out of Mechanic Free" card through a Manaward buff. Plus they tend to code things that ignore that these days so, you know.

For spell interactions, both Umbral Hearts and Convert could gain an additional effect: Extends your current Beneficial Effect timers. This would include AF/UI timers, Surecast, Sharpcast, Leylines, etc.

For soft numbers: Umbral Hearts extend these by 2 and Convert extends them by 15. This primarily is a Turreting increase, where you have the ability to plop down and go to town, and indirectly increases the value of Spellspeed (Because then the goal is to have Fire1-less AF phases during your turret time)

[Remedi]

@Llugen you forget that in the same interwiew they said they targeted ultimate to be cleared by any jobs unless you are in the wf race which means that to them competitive play being somewhat unbalanced is fine.
Frankly in all my years I've never seen competitive to be EVER balanced completely, it's simply impossible to achieve, there's no middle ground you either are on one spectrum or you are not. You could run ultimate without ACT for example but that would be shooting yourself in the foot, which can be said the same for composition, if you run for wf or if you run competitively to get the kill you'll want to have the most efficent comp your skill can get you.

As for them asking directly what to do to high end players so that they can paralyse some ideas. Well allow me to say you contradict yourself. You say that discussing ideas brings more ideas and fleshes out them more yet now you ask that only one guy should be the one to amass them to SE?
That's quite the power you are giving a single guy eh and speaking freely I don't think he really needs this level of fanboysm simply because he shares your ideas on raise.

[HaroldSaxon]

@Llugen you forget that in the same interwiew they said they targeted ultimate to be cleared by any jobs unless you are in the wf race which means that to them competitive play being somewhat unbalanced is fine.
Frankly in all my years I've never seen competitive to be EVER balanced completely, it's simply impossible to achieve, there's no middle ground you either are on one spectrum or you are not. You could run ultimate without ACT for example but that would be shooting yourself in the foot, which can be said the same for composition, if you run for wf or if you run competitively to get the kill you'll want to have the most efficent comp your skill can get you.

As for them asking directly what to do to high end players so that they can paralyse some ideas. Well allow me to say you contradict yourself. You say that discussing ideas brings more ideas and fleshes out them more yet now you ask that only one guy should be the one to amass them to SE?
That's quite the power you are giving a single guy eh and speaking freely I don't think he really needs this level of fanboysm simply because he shares your ideas on raise.

You are right that it is nigh on impossible for it to be balance competitively, however, when a class has been out of the meta since the start of 3.0 (Although it took a few patches for it to solidify, with the triple melee comp eventually losing out to the current double ranged comp that has dominated since Patch 3.3), its unacceptable. The only real change to the meta is Red Mage being used in progression because of its raise utility.

I don't think giving BLM a raise will fix the class at all. Its got inherent DPS issues which will mean its going to always be outside of the meta, and compared to RDM has a steeper learning curve - you can take a RDM into a fight blind and do a lot better than with a BLM.

Once the DPS issues are fixed on BLM though, they still need to address the chunkiness of the class. There's a lot of QoL needed.

I don't expect SE to do it perfectly, but I at least expect them to try and break up this awful meta comp that has stuck around for so long. SMN was a good try at that, but its still outshone by NIN/BRD/MCH/DRG. I think SE should certainly ask players who play the game their advice and take it into account - it would be a good idea.

[Remedi]

The funny thing is that I'm not advocating for doing nothing but w/e

[Sylvain]

Raise is only a crutch that doesn't win the party its victory, and players need to learn the mechanics in order to not die... unless a mechanic does come that demands perishing. My static has found that Raising actually detriments the party almost as much as leaving the party member for dead, between the party member not lining up well with mechanics and their damage already having been lost from their death... so that already leaves problems.

I think a lot of people overvalue Raise, which also happens to really affect the potency of Red Mage as a byproduct, because they're all expected to use their convenient ability to Raise whenever things go sour, whether or not it helps.

This is so true, I mean, if you need more raise than what your healer can dish, you've already lost the dps check. (unless you highly overgear the fight, then one can ask why you keep dying)


I'd actually wish they'd change raise to be instant with a 1min CD shared by every parrty member.
Beside making healer save mana, having a RDM/SMN over a BLM would have no impact so that'd be one thing.

They could also make rez cost 0 mana, Imo, the 10sec of animation lost +1min of -25%% dps stat is more than enough to punish any group.

As a side note, when people tell me RDM/SMN can rez healer if they're both dead. Oh boy the boss better be dead soon if both you're healer died

Regarding the meta, unless they add a proper magic weakness (which would just create a special caster meta with a NIN), there's no way they'll ever balance job as long as there is damage type debuff. It's just impossibel. I know Piercing has been nerfed from 10 to 5%, but still, 5% dps increased on 1 or 2 players (I do not consider the dragon since it's kind of part of its own toolkit you know, a bit like the monk), is just insane. It's like if these two player have a permanent balance on.
And the worst, if only these 2 jobs were "selfish" dps like SAM or BLM, but no, they're those amazing buffing range with a ton of utility.