Why Black Mage is the best designed job and what can be learned from it

[Supersnow845]

I am merely making a reference to an instance where community feedback has pushed a change to a job that may even not be what they originally planned.



Weak in what area? DPS? Kindly elaborate.


Partially correct. The main idea for everything I have said was them taking feedback from the community and attempts to implement it.

They only corrected it due to “community feedback” because the job was quite literally unplayable without it, same as feedback corrections like energy drain in 5.0, lily’s in 6.0 and the like

Massive feedback requests on things that don’t actually break the function of classes never achieves anything, see recently the Kaiten debate which was universally panned by everyone or as an older example the lily system in stormblood which was so bad it’s why square now hides tooltips on skills till just before the patch drops, neither of those changes got fixed, lily’s took the entire expansion for them to be changed (entirely because even though they were trash they didn’t make WHM unplayable), and there is no evidence we will get Kaiten back

Square only makes sweeping changes to jobs responding to “community feedback” when said feedback is “without this the job is literally unplayable”

And yes I mean damage

[rawker]

And yes I mean damage

I am going to focus on this one. I am still in the middle of leveling my GNB so I need to know more of its intricacies and nuances but as far as my understanding, PLD's rotation does not involve a lot of double-weaving. The only time you do it is to fit all your oGCDs during Fight or Flight window, which even if you don't, it is more than enough GCDs to use them all.

GNBs, on the other hand, from what I have read is very busy. Also, between the 2, PLD, alongside WAR, is at the top in terms of self-sustenance. So in return, GNBs doing more DPS than a PLD is fair.

[Aravell]

GNBs doing more DPS than a PLD is fair.

PLD was actually in very dire straits on EW launch. They were doing about 10% less dps than DRK, who was on top at the time. That low dps wasn't even rewarded with utility either, Divine Veil back then still required a heal to proc, their personal healing was also only the regen from Holy Sheltron and Clemency which costs you a GCD. They were doing less dps than WAR, who had 2 free heals, a party heal+shield and the best invuln in the game.

They actually were getting locked out of PF a lot, that's why they got buffs, and when those buffs weren't enough to bring parity, they just turned PLD into GNB.

[RyanCousland]

not a black mage main but i do find it fun in all expansions but if someone already mentioned it then my apologies but is there a reason/argument as to why aetherflow shouldnt work like icarus? this is my only issue with Black mage

[Tamaerl]

not a black mage main but i do find it fun in all expansions but if someone already mentioned it then my apologies but is there a reason/argument as to why aetherflow shouldnt work like icarus? this is my only issue with Black mage

You mean Aetherial Manipulation? I wish Aetherial Manipilation and Icarus both worked like Shukuchi.

[RyanCousland]

You mean Aetherial Manipulation? I wish Aetherial Manipilation and Icarus both worked like Shukuchi.

oh yeh forgot thats the name but also a ground target teleport would be cool, give it a charge like in pvp

[Raikai]

Ï see people saying 'go SMN' for prog, but is actually really interesting to prog as a BLM. Yes, you will lose a lot of damage by figuring out when to move, or where to apply your movement tools, drop Enochian sometimes, but that's okay - actual dps isn't very important before you comfortably hit enrage anyway. Besides, if you do change from the 'easy' casters to BLM after you get your clear, you basically have to semi re-prog again, because you'll still need to figure out all the BLM spots.

I'm really into the caster role, but sadly neither SMN or RDM are mechanically fun enough for me, so I ended up insisting on learning BLM and found out it was really fun and not - that - hard if you take in consideration the above points. I have huge expectations for PIC tho', and hopefully it won't disappoint, as ever since ShB, the two dpsers we got (DNC and RPR) are really regarded as well designed.

With BLM, the only points of dissatisfaction for me, right now are:

a) Thundercloud mechanic - it essentially became near obsolete after the Sharpcast improvements. You get many procs through your rotation but if you use any of them, you may mess the next T3 refresh. If Sharpcast instead would put the next T3 under the effects of Thundercloud, then we suddenly get an use for the organic Thundercloud procs.

b) Despair should be a Flare upgrade (both are the fire finisher and applicable both in ST or AoE) - it's the conundrum of Shoha / Shoha II right there.

c) Absolutely no reason for the Enochian clock not to be on 'pause' out of combat. Spamming Umbral Soul while you're running in non raid content is really not an interesting challenge for a player.

d) Give Sharpcast+Scathe a reason to be. Not sure what, but maybe a new mechanic for Dawntrail?

e) Ley Lines turns into Between the Lines. Apparently they did this QoL pass in many jobs' actions but forgot another bunch... maybe they ran out of developer budget? lol.

[Tamaerl]

Ï see people saying 'go SMN' for prog, but is actually really interesting to prog as a BLM. Yes, you will lose a lot of damage by figuring out when to move, or where to apply your movement tools, drop Enochian sometimes, but that's okay - actual dps isn't very important before you comfortably hit enrage anyway. Besides, if you do change from the 'easy' casters to BLM after you get your clear, you basically have to semi re-prog again, because you'll still need to figure out all the BLM spots.

I'm really into the caster role, but sadly neither SMN or RDM are mechanically fun enough for me, so I ended up insisting on learning BLM and found out it was really fun and not - that - hard if you take in consideration the above points. I have huge expectations for PIC tho', and hopefully it won't disappoint, as ever since ShB, the two dpsers we got (DNC and RPR) are really regarded as well designed.

With BLM, the only points of dissatisfaction for me, right now are:

a) Thundercloud mechanic - it essentially became near obsolete after the Sharpcast improvements. You get many procs through your rotation but if you use any of them, you may mess the next T3 refresh. If Sharpcast instead would put the next T3 under the effects of Thundercloud, then we suddenly get an use for the organic Thundercloud procs.

b) Despair should be a Flare upgrade (both are the fire finisher and applicable both in ST or AoE) - it's the conundrum of Shoha / Shoha II right there.

c) Absolutely no reason for the Enochian clock not to be on 'pause' out of combat. Spamming Umbral Soul while you're running in non raid content is really not an interesting challenge for a player.

d) Give Sharpcast+Scathe a reason to be. Not sure what, but maybe a new mechanic for Dawntrail?

e) Ley Lines turns into Between the Lines. Apparently they did this QoL pass in many jobs' actions but forgot another bunch... maybe they ran out of developer budget? lol.

I can understand progging with a different caster job if you're not comfortable with BLM rotation, but for those who are used to the way BLM plays I don't think there's really a reason not to prog with BLM. If people out there are insisting that BLMs prog as SMN instead, it makes me wonder if they've simply had bad experiences with BLMs?

I can agree with the suggestion points, except D; I don't think scathe should have any association with sharpcast. I think it'd be better to just give scathe some kind of additional effect besides damage; maybe if scathe allowed the next spell to be instant cast, to make prolonged movement phases a little bit easier for BLM to handle especially at lower levels?

[RyuuZero]

idk.. BLM has a lot of Button Bloat imo.. Sharpcast should be a trait and Ley-Lines.. ugh either should also be a Trait or it should share the effect with Party Members, having an Ground AoE Buff only for one is just wasteful.
Umbral Soul should be reworked or turned into a trait aswell, so that you don't lose those Umbral Hearts stacks when your Astral Fire/Umbral Ice Timer runs out, I mean you keep Polyglot and Paradox outside of that Timer, why not those aswell?
Also Enochian was turned into a Trait and that went rather well ^^

[Raikai]

If people out there are insisting that BLMs prog as SMN instead, it makes me wonder if they've simply had bad experiences with BLMs?

There was a time when I was asked by a PF group if I could swap to SMN to learn the fight faster while progging, alongside with other experiences makes me think if this is just a hivemind misconception that progging as BLM is bad, and that coming from players that don't even play the job to begin with.

it should share the effect with Party Members, having an Ground AoE Buff only for one is just wasteful.

While the idea sounds interesting on paper if BLM happened to not be a selfish dpser, having that ground effect buffing everyone seems like a recipe for disaster with the way the fights are in XIV.