Could Black Mages Be Improved...

[Kacho_Nacho]

... By simply removing the cast times from Fire I & Blizzard I?

Now, I'm no expert. My black mage is still a baby, at level 39.

However, I'm an avid reader of the forums and like to keep up to date on job issues. One of the biggest ones right now is the underperformance of the black mage.

A pure damage dealer, it brings no buffs to the table, and relies on its damage to justify its place in the raiding environment. In addition, it's a turret class and takes a great deal of knowledge of raid mechanics to play well. Having to move impacts a black mage's damage output significantly.

All of this is well known. Yet, little has been done by SE to improve the quality of life of the players of black mages. So, why not ask for our base spells to be instants so we may cast them when we need to move?

This will allow us to maintain our stacks and do a bit of damage on the fly. Please let me know what you think, because even though I main a white mage, I want to see black mages have their place in the game too.

[Griffey]

That's... Not a bad idea actually. It would help with mobility and make it easier to maintain umbral/astral and Enochian.

Although, in my opinion Fire and Blizzard 1 should just be replaced with their tier 4 counterparts when under Enochian, but retain their umbral/astral refresh and firestarter. If you are just going to be a selfish DPS then you need the damage output to match. It would also close the skill gap quite considerably if you only have to worry about casting one spell during your astral phase, a hell of a lot less stressful.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Scathe is our insta-cast. I'd like to see a comeback of Enhanced Scathe (I'm not sure if this is a latent buff that still happens but I heard it was a thing back in the day) where it does crit damage and adds Bleed like it does in some other final fantasies. An overall damage buff to it would be welcome as well. (In ff12, Scathe is a top-tier spell).

Also, some of our buffs like Apocatastasis and Manaward could be improved to add that 'utility' that everyone is crying about (make Manaward like the DRK lvl 70 skill). Mana Shift is a great utility skill that ALL BLM's should have on their bar (cause we don't run out of MP, in theory) but since it's available to all DPS casters, no one counts it as BLM utility even though it should have been.

Ice 2 should be a true insta-cast and Freeze should give the 'Frozen' debuff or leave an Ice puddle that gives it, like in Sophia. Thunder 4 could proc with Paralyze. That would be so OP.

Maybe add 'Aura' skill that would boost nearby caster potency, healer or dps. There was a skill that did that in one of the other games but I can't remember what it was called. Something like 'Concentration' or whatever. It would stack up to 3 times. It was a personal buff tho.

There's a lot they could tweak to make BLM if not more powerful then at least more valuable to the High-End crowd. I don't do Endgame Content because it can become toxic quickly but I'm tired of hearing that BLM is trash just because we have nothing to offer as far as buffs/debuffs. Make us the Arcane Kings again!

Edit: It's 'Focus'. From FF10 and it WAS a party skill. We need this.

[Llugen]

Woo, one of my same suggestions in the megathread~

[Yeol]

Some changes are coming in 4.2
Look forward to it

[Jollyy5]

Funny you would make a thread for this since it's already known that BLMs were called by name for buffs in 4.2, potency increases and decreased cast times for some spells, such as Fire, I assume you missed it.

As far as I know, GCD is still going to be ~2.5 seconds, but cast times themselves are apparently going to be around 1.5 - 2 seconds, giving you time to re-position yourself between casts, as well as make weaving OGCDs easier.

[HaroldSaxon]

It wouldn't make any meaningful difference to our DPS. Our raw DPS is still not good enough. The only advantage we would get is being able to weave in OGCD's without a DPS loss.

[HaroldSaxon]

Funny you would make a thread for this since it's already known that BLMs were called by name for buffs in 4.2, potency increases and decreased cast times for some spells, such as Fire, I assume you missed it.

As far as I know, GCD is still going to be ~2.5 seconds, but cast times themselves are apparently going to be around 1.5 - 2 seconds, giving you time to re-position yourself between casts, as well as make weaving OGCDs easier.

Citation needed

[Jollyy5]

...

Adjustments to BLM DPS were already confirmed in the latest live letter, and in the video with gameplay happening, you can see the BLM cast Fire spells right quick.

[Shiroe]

those fast casts might have only seemed fast due to the replay function.., but making fire 1 & ice 1 instant (+ a slight potency increase on f4&b4) might really help blm... even if 4.2 might bring other blm changes

just hate losing enochian when casting f1 under any ice astral (like after a transpose and mechanic, need to either hard cast f3 or wast a swiftcast on f3.., i stead of f1 + proc)