How to Fix Black Mage for Good

[Seraphor]

And as I said, even at low levels Scathe is useless. Or at the very least nigh useless. There are so few AoEs at that level that you will rarely ever use it. And you should have SC always since it's a cross role, and the odds you need major movement more than once in 60s at level 30 and below are low. Scathe is so bad that if it didn't proc it would probably be better just to not use it because the movement will take less time than the GCD and you can start casting a real spell sooner. If it procs it would be fine, but that's a big if given the low chance.

I was referring to "Sleep needs a rework or the boot."
There's no need to remove a skill that's useful at low levels, just because it not worth using at higher levels.
Nothing is gained from doing so, but you make the levelling process more dull and tiresome.

[GunksFoy]

Snip

I see, my bad. But Sleep is very niche. There's no reason to use it in dungeons unless your healer is abysmal, and it also necessitates that you have a Paladin tank as Warrior and DRK will wake them up instantly. I could see SOME value in solo content, but any time you spent wasting on a sleep spell would have been better spent on a fire 1. If you get in a bad situation and are overwhelmed, sure, useful, but you could also just sprint away 99% of the time and come back. If you have a legitimate use case I'd love to hear it, and I'm open to having my mind changed about booting it. But it needs a rework, and I don't think I can be persuaded otherwise about that. Without one, it will forever be exempt from my hotbars.

[Seraphor]

Most solo duties as THM or low level BLM can be a nightmare without sleep, and it's still useful in dungeons where you can't just sprint away, if the tank or healer is new or undergeared.
Does it matter that it doesnt have a place on your hotbar?
Is it just OCD that you have to actually use all of your skills?

[GunksFoy]

Those could be slightly adjusted to compensate the loss. They would only need tuned down mildly. And it's only even useful in a dungeon if your tank is either A) a Paladin, or B) smart/aware/informed enough to pull, let you sleep mobs, then pick 1 and drag it away, which is not likely. But like I said, what I really want is a rework. It's not that I feel the need to use every ability, I just don't like having a totally obsolete skill. No other job really has anything that's completely obsolete at virtually any level, but primarily max level. None that I can think of off hand, but I didn't think too hard.

[Shiroe]

scath = extra damage just before add dies or phase change (boss becomes untargetable)

otherwise I'm up for Blm changes (make B4 more desirable..)

[GunksFoy]

scath = extra damage just before add dies or phase change (boss becomes untargetable)

otherwise I'm up for Blm changes (make B4 more desirable..)

Not a bad point, but that's what, 5 DPS over the course of a fight? If that? Is that going to be the difference between a clear and a wipe? Severely unlikely. I'm not optimistic about that use case.

[Shiroe]

also when your about to move out of range of the boss, scath is extra damage

its overall not much, but for lower lv ok for movment I guess..., a potency increase on scath would be nice..

but there are bigger Blm issues around (B4)

[Anyce]

I would really like scathe to do something interesting. maybe something like, it could act as another, less potent way to use polygut, but you can move while you do it. hell maybe make it only take half your polygut timer so it's technically stronger for gauge build but it takes 2 gcd's to cast so you'd have to decide if you want the big boom or the quick hit.

[EllieShadeflare]

[On Umbral Hearts] I absolutely do not want to see Blizzard IV become more required than it is. I like that, situationally, I have more than one rotation. A skill's place in rotation is perfect, imo, when it is typically positively cost-effective, but with known timings or situations by which it ends up merely break-even or less. It can be always optimal in an always optimal rotation, but there should be meaningful ways to adapt to our circumstances.

Sadly, you seem to be in the minority, because a large chunk of people I've seen seem to hate the fact that the Umbral Hearts don't help our single-target rotation much. One of the most common suggestions you'll see on the forum include my suggestion to boost the potency to affected Fire spells, or for Umbral Hearts to give (stacking or nonstacking) magic vulnerability.

In my personal opinion, however, I don't think a good chunk of players would try to fully realize the Blizzard IV if the devs went for the rotation extending option. As it's already difficult enough for the average Black Mage to fit their 8 Fire IV openers, much less some Black Mage's 5 Fire IV rotation, I have a feeling players would choose between using the reliable rotation during more hectic times or the full rotation during less hectic times.

[On Sleep and Freeze] I feel like these fail currently for far more general reasons than either skill in itself, namely the lack of an anti-evasion or -defense bonus in CC, in contrast with a few other MMOs, and XIV's intentional inability to queue macros combined with their neglect of special targeting functions (such as being able to assign any ground AoE not to move its indicator beyond max range, to activate on button-release, to click through targets, to center itself upon mouseover or snap-to target, or even just to be assigned current-target placement via a context menu via the skill in the A&T pane or on the hotbars themselves.

The macro bit has a good point and it does seem weird that FFXIV would gimp macros.

That said, I think enemies did have evasion and possibly defensive boosts in earlier versions of FFXIV (part of the reason Accuracy was a thing). However, they likely grew to be clutter and caused more headaches than solution (outright preventing a large chunk of players from entering certain forms of content due to insufficient accuracy).

The Freeze suggestion seems fitting enough, though I'd prefer a simple pure potency buff as to provide a more immediate AoE damage option vs. Blizzard IV, should one lack the time to utilize the benefits of a Blizzard IV's Umbral Hearts (again, I prefer to be allowed to adapt to the situation, rather than have a single functional answer to any and all). Heck, if this game actually had defense, resistance, and (partial) evasion be real things for (at-level) mobs as well, that bind could be a hell of a bonus before a Foul.

Considering the other jobs tend to have something to supplement their mechanics whilst doing their AoE (Red Mages have Enhanced Scatter, Summoner can use Painflare and Bane, Sonic Thrust fuels Blood of the Dragon, etc) it seems very odd that Black Mage's AoE is mostly boosted by a single target attack. It feels very incongruous to our rotation, which is why I proposed the Umbral Hearts be applied to Freeze.

[On Scathe and Blizzard II] They're both badly undertuned, and while not necessarily mechanically underutilized or underdeveloped, they each certainly have far more they can accomplish and be more satisfying integrated into.

Honestly, Scathe could easily just have a slight potency boost and be affected by Astral Fire (but not hinder Umbral Ice if it's used there) and call it a day. Make Blizzard II have a range, and it'd be... something useful for longer.

[Ferrinus]

Blizzard 4 is better than it looks, because ending your umbral cycle with B4 (rather than T3) ensures you won't get a bad mp tick and therefore lose an F4. However, I still wish it had a more obviously beneficial effect, like if each time you spent umbral hearts your Foul charged faster or something.

Scathe should be merged with Foul. Make 'em both cost 0mp and have instant cast time, and Scathe turns into Foul when you have Polyglot.