Please reconsider an upcoming Black Mage change.

[Mecia]

I feel nothing about the upcoming changes because Flare Star is still there. Sucks that its the only caster still.

[Taranok]

The Flare cast time buff is...weird. The drop in eno damage implies the devs think the despair buff is big enough to constitute a nerf, which is also weird. Nice to see BLM finally getting the Monk treatment, can't wait for the devs to give it an actual rework as they slowly butcher its core gameplay systems destroying an entire playstyle from the game; a trend started mid-ShB, accelerated by EW, and now finally being realized in DT.

Makes me wonder how bad Fru is for casters if they feel the need to make Flare a 3s cast, despair instant, and allow anti-drift on ley lines. Must be extremely bad for casters.

[Turtledeluxe]

I was thinking the same about the Flare/Enochian adjustment. It makes sense but it's strange. These aren't really notes I was hoping to see for BLM.

As far as the 8.0 rework, yeah I'm terrified. The whole job basically got hijacked by Flare Star and the desire to kill off non-standard all at once. The only way forward seems down...

[luca20]

I'm ok with despair being instant. it differentiates it more from flare star and it also finally allows x3 f4, para, x3 f4 despair to come back.

that said, this is a bandaid fix to a problem they created themselves. BLM was perfect in EW and since the start of DT they have been trying to make it less awful after they themselves destroyed it. I would give everything to just have EW BLM as it was, but sadly it seems the devs think non-standard is the devil and BLM must burn for its sins.

[GartredZW]

I'm ok with despair being instant. it differentiates it more from flare star and it also finally allows x3 f4, para, x3 f4 despair to come back.

that said, this is a bandaid fix to a problem they created themselves. BLM was perfect in EW and since the start of DT they have been trying to make it less awful after they themselves destroyed it. I would give everything to just have EW BLM as it was, but sadly it seems the devs think non-standard is the devil and BLM must burn for its sins.

Well, you were already able to do x3 F4, Para, x3 F4.
Only now you're able to do x4 F4, Para, x2 F4, Despair or x2 F4, Para, x4 F4 Despair again.

but yeah, it kind of feels like they found cancer in one of your lungs, so they just ripped the whole thing out. Yeah, I guess I don't have cancer any more, but there were probably some better options to take first here.

[Reginald_Cain]

How is black mage supposed to exist as a static dps anymore now that picto and reworked summoner exist? I think it feel amazing right now and still has plenty of slow fire 4's to cast outside triple casts. It is sad the people who enjoy this gameplay are getting left behind i can sympathize with that. I would prefer they did a Bozja approach and let you choose between a mobile build and a slow hard hitting build but i know they wont sadly.

[GartredZW]

How is black mage supposed to exist as a static dps anymore now that picto and reworked summoner exist? I think it feel amazing right now and still has plenty of slow fire 4's to cast outside triple casts. It is sad the people who enjoy this gameplay are getting left behind i can sympathize with that. I would prefer they did a Bozja approach and let you choose between a mobile build and a slow hard hitting build but i know they wont sadly.

funny thing is that they already have this choice.
If you want zero cast times, play Phys Ranged. If you want three casts per minute, play new summoner. if you want more than half your casts to be instant, play Red Mage. And if you want almost all of your spells to have cast times, you play Black Mage.
There was actually a pretty big gap between red mage and black mage before Dawntrail because of how many instants you get on red mage. It didn't feel like there was a regular caster in the roster. you either played the one that doesn't cast, the one that only casts half the time until it decides it's a melee for a while, or you play the one with a reputation for being impenetrably hard for most players. Pictomancer fills that middle ground incredibly well, and I'm really enjoying the class.
Not enough to choose it over Black mage or Red mage in most content, but still. At least it's better than new summoner.

I would have thought Picto would exist to fill that niche of people who want to cast, but don't want to dive right into the deep end. Then they started making Black mage way easier to appeal to those very players. it just doesn't make sense to me.

[Basteala]

Honestly I understand why they did it, especially with Despair and Flare Star together being two long casts for a finisher that could be murder on mechanics.

Although I do think that they should have made Flare Star be the one that's instant. That spell is still underwhelming for a reward mechanic.

Edit: Also yeah, the situation with BLM and PCT is infuriating in DT. I had hoped that they would make PCT the intermediate difficulty caster, with greater flexibility, and BLM the more challenging, more rewarding, pure aDPS type.

But no, Picto is just easier and better while BLM is getting made a bit easier to compensate. Like, honestly...the whole draw of BLM I had, even in EW, was the difficulty of managing the castbar. I know some oldies might disagree (and I have no reference to discuss it) but I thought they had a nice balance going between mobility tricks and having to deal with the castbar. It always felt kind of slick to use slidecast out of mechanics, and the damage output felt kind of rewarding, especially with the boner the game had and still has for melee DPS. DT's done everything I didn't want it to do, dumbing it down but also making its damage irrelevant compared to PCT. The treatment of BLM and caster is just one of the multitude of disappointments in DT. It always sucks when your game is on the decline but that's where we stand.

Like honest to god, Black Mage right now feels like the MSQ. Less good and not as satisfying and completely unable to carry the gameplay experience anymore.

[Carighan]

funny thing is that they already have this choice.
If you want zero cast times, play Phys Ranged. If you want three casts per minute, play new summoner. if you want more than half your casts to be instant, play Red Mage. And if you want almost all of your spells to have cast times, you have no option.

FTFY. Black Mage is insanely mobile with tons of instant casts nowadays.

[Keichi]

I like the blm change.
2 charges of leylines give us some freedom.
And the despair change is nice from gameplay perspective.

Its true, that it hurt the image of a caster, who need a long chant to cast the big spell. But in the practice did whe probably used Quick cast very often in combination with despair, because the fire timer is very often very close to close up, when whe reached the 6 fire marks (except, he had fire3 ready).
Having despair now instant cast, should help the rotation. And allows us to use Quick cast for firestar or to hold it back for something else.