My review of Black Mage

[Jinrya-Geki]

I can't tell if your trolling or what but BLM is an absolute powerhouse right now and getting convert makes you limited only by survivability. You have the potential to double, and maybe triple with exceptional gear the DPS of every other class in ifrit.

Flare: the strongest form of AOE CC on trash mobs combine with sleepga and you are a god in controlled large group burn down sessions.

Freeze: designed as a hate reduction move just like chameleon except you get to deal dmg in the same move, try telling a class like MNK that their chameleon is useless.

Burst: a situational spell and the weakest of the new additions on top tier bosses like ifrit, however a timed forced excruciate on any extremely dangerous boss would work really well. My fav so far: excruciate>thunder>thundara>convert>necrogenesis>burst (you get more dmg for less HP and convert+necro refills your HP back to near full. Follow with chameleon>2nd wind>freeze to reduce that hate back down and continue the rotations.

PS: OP's gear is absolute sh-- I'm not surprised your dps sucks.

Didn't know Blm AF was absolute crap.

Flare then sleepga? You'll never put the mobs to sleep because of the DoT on them. If the mobs are trash mobs and die in one hit, why bother wasting the time trying to cast flare and just hit them with Fire/Fira combo.

Freeze is considered an ancient magic spell, I said it's damage was crap not it's effect. It should be improved or called something else.

What are you wearing for your gear, you know that with the Blm body on excruciate usually goes off on the first spell definitely the second? I actually managed to pull off Excruciate with dark seal with less than 300 health on the ogre in the warrior af fight. it only did 1900 and my Thundara did 1500. That is a ridiculously low amount for the crap you have to do to make it powerful.

[Jinrya-Geki]

my freezes crit hits were dealing more damage than my thundaras. crit about 600 thundara max 500 against ixali

Ixali are weak to ice.

[Brannigan]

Did you once let seven people die just because they called you a wizard? You horrible dumb monster. Also black mage is real good and only burst needs some buffs.

[Shiggysonson]

Freeze against Ifrit with critical 299.

And Ifrit's strong against Ice...

I strongly dislike how you label things useless just because they don't do things you think they should do. Do you really think burst should do 4k crit damage on a boss single target? Are you nuts?! Do you realize how imbalanced that would be lol?

They did a great job with the job system. Everything's pretty balanced and each job is pretty unique in what they bring to the party. Black mages are pretty damn amazing too. A lot of the new content makes crowd control and AoE damage very useful. Black Mages are the best at both of these.

I thought you mentioned balance in your previous thread. Seems like all you want is black mage to be a god or something. I wouldn't really consider that balance.

[NoctisUmbra]

Freeze is considered an ancient magic spell, I said it's damage was crap not it's effect. It should be improved or called something else.

You have this obsession with big numbers. There are enough damage-oriented nukes on your bar. Freeze would be far less useful if it did much more damage and reduced less/same enmity.

Freeze is powerful, but not in the limited-sense that only you chose to see. It is a very potent enmity drop.

[Razen_Arghast]

You're looking at it the wrong way. Freeze is Ancient Magic. It's supposed to be the be-all-end-all of Ice aligned nuke-type moves, so it's damage should be comparable to the other Ancient Magic spells. What they should have done is actually make a different spell with a different name, give it moderate/low damage and this potent enmity reduction effect and save the Freeze name for a big and powerful nuke-type ice aligned spell.

Not that I have any issues with the current Freeze mind you. I just think little details like the name of the spell should matter more^^

[Mychael]

Flare and Freeze are very useful.. but not useful enough, apparently. In the past week, I've been asked so many times to come THM instead of BLM. Because having raise and being able to survive without a WHM watching me is generally more useful than the situationally-useful Freeze and Flare. I've been making a point to the party leaders by typing /em uses Convert whenever I'm low on MP and /em casts Freeze! whenever I need to slow down for hate, but both of these things are uncommon unless I'm really not paying attention. Still, I'm more than a little disappointed that people want THM more than BLM for dungeons and bosses. An organized group of all jobs might be slightly more efficient, but requires more coordination; and, the classes were already sufficient for speedruns of all available content. There is no reason to take away useful abilities (esp. those for recovering from accidents) and create a more complex strategy just to shave yet another minute or two off.

I'm not trying to say that BLM isn't better than THM in some situations... but as I understood it, jobs should be better for party play--not just a select few parties. If I need Sleepga, I'll switch before I know I'll need it, and switch back afterward. The jobs that people want are basically those which already have access to the most commonly-cross-classed skills.

Also, regarding Burst, let me ask--How many jobs have any cost whatsoever on their 15m ability? And how many 15m abilities have cast timers? While I'm at it, do you have to combo any other 15m for them to be useful? How many other jobs have to have their HP low to make their 15m useful (or have their MP almost empty and use another ability)? How many other jobs fit into all of these categories? (I'm legitimately asking, I only have WHM, BLM, and BRD finished, and I know Burst is the only one I don't care about.) From my use of Burst so far, I have found that it barely does more than Thundaga. It's not worth dropping your HP into red just to use it, but whenever you use Convert, if you have enough MP left before Convert to pull a Thunder->ra, may as well throw it out there just because... Since it has no additional effect (DoT, hate reset, chance of instant kill, strong paralysis, etc), it's really just like an extra Parsimony used on a Thundaga every 15m, without even giving additional MP afterwards.

[Razen_Arghast]

Well, so far I did a couple of Ifrit runs after patch, after finishing with my Blm Artifacts, and in all the groups I more or less flat out refused to go THM. Call me selfish or inefficient or whatever you want but I HAZ NEW TOYS I WANNA PLAY WITH DEM! No party kicks either^^

2 Wipes, 2 Speedrun kills. Firstmost attempt doesn't count as we had learning members in the fight and a Gladiator meleeing on account of not having any other 50 class.

Burst is only useful in Ifrit for the Spike phase so save it for then. Having both Thundaga and a second Thundaga (in the form of Burst) for the spikes is kinda boss. 1 Spike and a half at least solo depending on crits, maybe 2 if I don't get targeted with Eruption.

1500ish Hellfire through Sanguine Rite with 4 nails down IS A BITCH! Less than 4 nails down is almost certain wipe from what I've seen. If you are in less than full health at Hellfire you are basically dead. Basically running Blm on Ifrit just leaves you NO room for error, that's all. You can't recover from fuckups (real fuckups, like blowing Sanguine too early).

On the account of Job 15mins:

Considering them used to full potential

Drg: Dragonfire Dive: CD only, can be resisted (lolwut? DERP).
Mnk: Hundred Fists: CD only.
War: Mighty Strikes: CD only.
Pld: Hallowed Ground: CD only, CANNOT move or it fades (BITCH!), maybe mp cost? not sure.
Whm: Holy: CD, MP cost, fully depletes MP (BITCH!), Potentionally needs 2 Skills used in conjunction (to recover mp afterwards)
Brd: Battle Voice: CD only, maybe mp cost? not sure.
Blm: Burst: CD, MP cost, Casting time, needs to be part of Combo, needs caster to have VERY low HP. Potentionally needs 7min CD skill (Convert) used in conjunction.

Mages got shafted on 15mins pretty much, Blm more Whm less I'd say.

[Jinrya-Geki]

And Ifrit's strong against Ice...

I strongly dislike how you label things useless just because they don't do things you think they should do. Do you really think burst should do 4k crit damage on a boss single target? Are you nuts?! Do you realize how imbalanced that would be lol?

They did a great job with the job system. Everything's pretty balanced and each job is pretty unique in what they bring to the party. Black mages are pretty damn amazing too. A lot of the new content makes crowd control and AoE damage very useful. Black Mages are the best at both of these.

I thought you mentioned balance in your previous thread. Seems like all you want is black mage to be a god or something. I wouldn't really consider that balance.

For the low HP you need by converting, for the time you need to put up excruciate and parismony or necrogenesis, yes I think the damage on our 15 minute recast spell should be extremely high since it can really only be used once in the fight.

I am not ignoring Freezes usefulness. It drops hate I know this, I am not upset by that, it's the damage. It should do more than 600 against anything that is neutral or weak to ice. Of our ice attacks we only have 1, blizzard, which can be used frequently. Blizzara is only really good for binding.

The only upside Black Mage has over thaumaturge is sleepga, convert, and freeze. There should be more to that since we are sacrificing other abilities.

[NoctisUmbra]

For the low HP you need by converting, for the time you need to put up excruciate and parismony or necrogenesis, yes I think the damage on our 15 minute recast spell should be extremely high since it can really only be used once in the fight.

I am not ignoring Freezes usefulness. It drops hate I know this, I am not upset by that, it's the damage. It should do more than 600 against anything that is neutral or weak to ice. Of our ice attacks we only have 1, blizzard, which can be used frequently. Blizzara is only really good for binding.

The only upside Black Mage has over thaumaturge is sleepga, convert, and freeze. There should be more to that since we are sacrificing other abilities.

... and Flare.

I will agree though that Burst needs some sort of fix.