Black mages. . . .

[Alaltus]

I'd rather it not be secretive.

Yeah me too.

[Xeia]

Let's say I want to enfeeble the enemy's stats or poison it or weaken it a bit before I start throwing spells at it. I don't have that strategy available. I can't work with elements or exploit an enemy's weakness or do anything cunning or strategic. I can just keep pressing "lightning" over and over and over and over.

I dont even think conj should get water magic, but meh, i guess it fits their 'from gridania' image. Even so, I think BLM should have access to ALL elements of elemental destriction, not just fire ice and lightning, else they cant give BLM Flood, Quake, or Tornado sensibally, since those elements 'belong' to conjorers.

They should just get banish/ga and holy/ga. Unless the mob is holy based,when would they be resisted?

Every time this topic is raised I see the closest thing we ever get to a consensus in these forums. Sure, people are against it, but there's actually no name calling in this thread. And people seem to want black mages to be the elementalists, and white mages to stick to healing, buffing, and holy damage.

Because 1 out 14 Final Fantasy games should be the one to decide Conjurer/Whitemage shouldn't?

Final Fantasy XI is the only game where Blackmage has equal prowess in Earth Wind and Water compared to Fire, Ice and Thunder. Blackmage in any other game has only ever possessed one or two of the other elements at any one time and usually is just a single spell e.g Quake, Tornado, Water and Aero.

While it's true that they're not the ever-present staples of the Black Mage class, that's not really an argument for leaving them in the White Mages' corner. They do appear as Black Magic more often than they appear as White Magic. Aero is an old White Magic spell, true, but has been Black Magic significantly more often. Neither Water nor Stone have ever existed as White Magic to my knowledge, and Water has all the appropriate tiers (Water, Watera, Waterga) available as Black Magic in X.

Just because traditional FF Black Mages aren't masters of every element simultaneously doesn't mean Water and Stone aren't traditionally Black Magic. And Aero's on the fence, I admit, but I'd still prefer to have my White Mages using light or holy magic rather than elemental.

[valetarkus]

stone has been a white magic spell in previous ff. FF3 to name at least one. Didn't bother to verify with any others.

In FF2 the black mage seemed to have all the elemental spells like some want. And in ff3 white mage did have aero, stone, and tornado. So it does go both ways.

I personally like that white mage has some attaking elemenatl abilities. It makes it more fun to play. Healing over and over and over can get boring especially when your party is doing well.

[Xeia]

stone has been a white magic spell in previous ff. FF3 to name at least one. Didn't bother to verify with any others.

Stone was not a White Magic spell in FFIII. The only earth-elemental spell that existed in III was Quake, which was Black Magic.

You are perhaps confusing it with the White Magic spell "Stona", which did exist in FFIII as well. That dispels the 'petrified' ailment; it is not, as its name implies, an elemental spell.

In FF2 the black mage seemed to have all the elemental spells like some want. And in ff3 white mage did have aero, stone, and tornado. So it does go both ways.

As previously mentioned, White Mages did not have Stone in FFIII. And I've already conceded that Aero (and Tornado, by extension), appears as a White Magic spell. But it's the only one.

I personally like that white mage has some attaking elemenatl abilities. It makes it more fun to play. Healing over and over and over can get boring especially when your party is doing well.

Though I'm tempted to point out that if you find repetitive healing boring White Maging may not be the role for you... I'm actually inclined to agree. However, there are other ways to diversify a White Mage's job other than giving it elemental nukes. The light-aligned spells (Holy, Banish)that have previously been listed come to mind. We're lacking our usual arsenal of ailment-specific cures (such as the aforementioned Stona, or Poisona, or Blindna...), which takes a lot less mana than just spamming Esuna, which is the only option we have at the moment. Not to mention cooldown issues with that method. Plus, there are a handful of enfeebles which have always been White Magic which ought to be returned (like Paralyze and Silence).

White Mages would be boring without the Elemental Magic they currently possess not because they really ought to have those spells, but because they are missing a massive chunk of the spells that make them fun. And while we may see them returned in ARR, it doesn't look good for seeing these "stolen" spells returned to Black Mage.

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Edit: I decided to better research what school of magic each spell belongs to, so I jotted some stuff down. Then I made it a pretty graph and now I'm sharing it with you.



I counted any elemental damaging skill for this chart, and only used it when the game makes at least a decent divide between black and white magic. For example, Rydia learns Quake (an earth-type damaging spell) in FFIV. While she is not a Black Mage, it is distinctly classified as a Black Magic spell.

I did not include VI, VII, VIII, or XIII since they do not make those clear distinctions.

[valetarkus]

Oh yeah i think I did get stone confused with Stonera. My bad! :/ Either way I still love white mage being able to deal some damage!

But trust me I'm a damn good white mage. It's my second favorite class.

[KoujiGeki]

Well your still doing damage with Holy and Banish though. so its not like your loosing the Dmg aspect of Whm. if you just replace them with Aero and Stone. Whm can keep water since water is an element of healing.

[Kinseykinz]

Every time this topic is raised I see the closest thing we ever get to a consensus in these forums. Sure, people are against it, but there's actually no name calling in this thread. And people seem to want black mages to be the elementalists, and white mages to stick to healing, buffing, and holy damage.


While it's true that they're not the ever-present staples of the Black Mage class, that's not really an argument for leaving them in the White Mages' corner. They do appear as Black Magic more often than they appear as White Magic. Aero is an old White Magic spell, true, but has been Black Magic significantly more often. Neither Water nor Stone have ever existed as White Magic to my knowledge, and Water has all the appropriate tiers (Water, Watera, Waterga) available as Black Magic in X.

Just because traditional FF Black Mages aren't masters of every element simultaneously doesn't mean Water and Stone aren't traditionally Black Magic. And Aero's on the fence, I admit, but I'd still prefer to have my White Mages using light or holy magic rather than elemental.

No, there is no agreement on this, but rather you keep seeing the same 'blm sucks I need other classes skills then it won't suck' opinion from the same handful of people whenever this topic comes up. And frankly, until the people pushing for this realize that having more spells, ANY type of spells, doesn't inherently make Blm more fun, this topic will never get anywhere. Ask for changes in HOW the spells and skills you do have work...stop asking for skills and spells the game developers have already decided don't belong to you.

A Black Mage asking to to gain the ability to cast Stone taking away the ability from CNJ/WHM is no different than a PLD demanding they get to use Steel Cyclone instead of Warrior....this game doesn't work that way...how other games work is irrelevant.

[Alaltus]

Every time this topic is raised I see the closest thing we ever get to a consensus in these forums. Sure, people are against it, but there's actually no name calling in this thread. And people seem to want black mages to be the elementalists, and white mages to stick to healing, buffing, and holy damage.


While it's true that they're not the ever-present staples of the Black Mage class, that's not really an argument for leaving them in the White Mages' corner. They do appear as Black Magic more often than they appear as White Magic. Aero is an old White Magic spell, true, but has been Black Magic significantly more often. Neither Water nor Stone have ever existed as White Magic to my knowledge, and Water has all the appropriate tiers (Water, Watera, Waterga) available as Black Magic in X.

Just because traditional FF Black Mages aren't masters of every element simultaneously doesn't mean Water and Stone aren't traditionally Black Magic. And Aero's on the fence, I admit, but I'd still prefer to have my White Mages using light or holy magic rather than elemental.

It's not really an argument to take them away from White Mage's corner either which was my point. Lets be honest here the only arguement for Black Mage to have all the elements is because some people want to have them all as a Black Mage.

Personally i don't see the need for Black Mage to have them all. Most of the complaints are about the mechanics of the current spells which can be changed without bringing the other elements into the picture.

[valetarkus]

Holy in 1.0 sucked balls. Let's face it. We'll see if it is upped in 1.0

[Forgo]

In 2.0/ARR, will Black magic suck less?

Why is Thunder single target only? Why is fire AOE only? Why is Blizard so.... useless, and without 3 stages/combo? (Ice magic is my favorite ). Where did the water magic go? And why are ancient magics (Flare, Freeze, and especially burst) so stupid?

Please fix this SE. I hate what you did to THM/BLM.

I agree with this..thm/blm in 1.0 didn't feel anything like blms from other FF games...it lack...power and range of spells, just elem dam spells? really? wheres my debuffs and poisons and drains? >.> so yes I agree with the op