How to Fix Black Mage for Good

[Shurrikhan]

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).

They've only ever had as much Evasion and Defense as they do now, even in 1.x. The only thing lost was elemental resistance. (And I'm completely fine with its disappearance as it only ever diminished an already 2 to 3 button rotation or locked out stance choices.)

When enemies have Defense or partial/granular evasion, the assumption is that the higher the enemy level, the less damage you'd deal, assuming the same nominal damage, because they're mitigating a larger amount of it. It's one of the ways many MMOs curtail the appearance of damage growth over increasing levels of strength, and sometimes even to decrease the damage spread against mobs of increasingly lower level than oneself, thus making it easier for higher levels to contribute in a more squished manner in lower level content.

However, it also has a second benefit, as when there's a way to remove Defense or (granular) Evasion that is normally present, you're essentially allowing for bonus damage. Any form of CC which prevents Evasion (e.g. bind or better) or Defense (e.g. stun or better, where sleep could be considered stronger than stun in that it can diminish resistances, Defense, etc.), then offers a potentially significant advantage to the spell which breaks the effect.

You'll tend to find, though, that when such is permitted, more than just the duration of CCs see diminishing returns--so does their potency and/or chance.
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My largest issue with Sleep, and CC in general, though, isn't that they don't provide potential tactical damage bonuses, and therefore become nonviable or bloated keys. It's that they have no place, tactically, in the majority of combat. There is no granular resisted potency to allow its use in places where its full potency would be too strong, thus limiting opportunity, nor any damage bonus to the then-vulnerable enemy or enemies, thus limiting value, but more importantly... there's no reason to use the CC in the first place, thus showing... a conflict of vision.

I feel like the game could and should make better use of an element of preemptive caution/awareness and strategic and geometric thinking. I don't want it to be constant, but just as I'd like for the game to allow for more variance in rate and difficulty in a given piece of content, I'd like to be able to see iterations among many where CC feels very much a integral tool, cohesive with the rest. And the current designs just don't allow for that, whether by the way CC is coded or the challenges it'd be used against.

[Ferth]

So here's a thought... Umbral Heart let's us cast three fire spells in Astral Fire with a COST as if we were in Umbral Ice... Why not just go all the way and let us cast three fire spells with the cost and CAST TIME REDUCTION of Umbral Ice? Three more base GCD recast fire spells with a bit of wiggle room if we need to move or use abilities between casts, IF you spend the time casting Blizzard 4. Not super overpowered, but certainly far more useful than just one more Fire IV at the cost of casting blizzard IV.

[Kleeya]

As someone who play mainly solo, sleep has saved my life numerous times when getting unwanted aggro, when my chocobo wasn't feeling like healing me properly, or when a mob did suddenly get lucky on his crit rate.

Scathe is useful too as an always available quick way to get aggro from a far away mob that i want to lure away from the spot he is on, typically because i know that other mobs i dont want to fight all at once are gonna respawn there soon. And is highly useful when farming some low level mobs for some materials, you get done way quicker with that if you can always be running while spamming a long range instant skill.

I kinda dont get all the hate about these two skills. So buff them if you want, but my BLM would feel bad to have them removed.

[Rathael]

How about making scathe OGCD? Turn it into an action that you weave between instant and faster casts.

Sleep is fine. It's a crowd control spell. A freaking AoE one at that. We just don't use crowd control in raid content. If they want sleep to be relevant, it's on them to create a situation where crowd control is important. It's still good in situations where crowd control is relevant, as is bind. If anything it could use a very clear visual effect to indicate when enemies are sleeping... to aid in preventing group members from breaking the sleep. You don't miss a polymorph in World of Warcraft because it's so visually apparent.

Blizard 2 being self-centric is really really strange for a primarily ranged caster that does not want to be standing at melee range most of the time... but then freeze is basically a better version. It would be nice to be able to weave freeze or blizzard 2 in to the AoE rotation somehow. Our AoE requires several seconds of setup to even start, whereas most classes seem to be able to begin their AoE rotation immediately as they please. BLM AoE is impossible on low-hp or fast-dying targets.

I have no other issues with the rest of the kit. I am enjoying my BLM far more than any other class and the DPS numbers are insanely strong... if a little too strong. I'd like to lose a bit of that personal DPS in exchange for some agressive BLM-themed utility such as a vulnerability debuff or something similar.

[Seraphor]

snip.

The problem with Sleep at higher levels is that even if the situation were to arise, AoE's are far more accessible and potent.
I think Sleep is fine as a low level skill you can throw away at higher levels.

Blizzard II is clearly intended as a defensive spell, if only Bind was a useful debuff, and not wasted on a skill with such a short range so enemies inflicted can still attack you.

[zuzu-bq]

A good way of fixing it is playing it well.

Now to fix the view that people has on the job being bad post 4.2, that's truly really hard to fix.

[Kabooa]

A good way of fixing it is playing it well.

Now to fix the view that people has on the job being bad post 4.2, that's truly really hard to fix.

Bad's subjective.

Technically none of the jobs are bad. They're just inferior to other choices.

[Zerathor]

"those skills"
Sleep is still a highly useful niche spell for PoTD and Eureka, and general messing around in the open world. I'm fine with jobs having some abilities that are quality of life spells that don't have use in end tier raiding

Scathe has its place. Scathe is your smack the 1% you failed to finish on an add spell/smack boss before he becomes untargetable/you somehow really messed up and have to run a very long distance without swift/triple cast.

Blizzard II is pretty much worthless other than its bind for solo content, and it will remain as such because if you really wanted to AOE in UI, freeze is better.

cont.

[Zerathor]

Freeze. I'm going to help you half of the way here. make a macro (/ac "Freeze" <t>) and it will now cast freeze directly on your target, tada. the fact that it can be ground placed actually allows you to potentially min max on add spawn locations/ boss respawn locations after becoming untargetable by getting some precasted damage in the moment it spawns if you have it finish directly as they spawn (this is only extreme min maxing, but it is a gain if you're in UI because free gcd) Freeze could use a potency increase, but i doubt it could compete with b3 b4 f3 flare flare ever for the gcd slot.

"umbral hearts"
the one extra f4 you're downplaying so much is 400-800 dps contribution over the fight. that's a lot, and whoever is telling you to not use b4 should be slapped. also b4 helps with by padding your rotation time for lining up foul, as well as help your UI cycle go smoother without downtime

cont

[Zerathor]

"damage over contribution"
the issue with high % blm vs low % blm is there is a huge gap compared to other jobs in skill. like 50th % smn likely knows what they're doing, but 50th % blm isn't using b4 for some reason and ogcd clipping every chance they can get. Use ogcd's after f3 or b3 when transitioning from AF or UI, use them after instant casts (along with potions) and ALWAYS.... use b4, (and of course never drop eno and use all your fouls) and you'll find your blm damage is greatly higher. blm damage is in a pretty good spot atm, especially depending on your party comp. when you play it properly, you'll be the best candidate for multiplier buffs to further increase the party's damage. Your role is to be the top damage and thus the best candidate to make utility jobs even more useful with their buffs, and they're filling that role pretty well.

job's potentials are balanced by what they're capable of, not what the average player is capable of.