Black Mage's Abilities: are you satisfied?

[lordparanoia]

I'm writing this topic 'cause my main job is Black Mage and I honestly don't love some abilities that BLM has.
Most BLMs use the classic single-target rotation to max the damage, too much simple and boring after months of play.
My question is about some abilities that are the reason why maybe the rotation is so "poor":

- Freeze: do you really use it in endgame contents? I find it useless. We can bind enemies by using BlizzardII that has higher damage.
I honestly would have preferred something like ACN's Shadow Flare.
- Apocatastasis: as I wrote in another topic, I find it too much situational with too much restrictions :/
- Aetherial Manipulation: I honestly find this ability really nice to see but honestly... I never saw a BLM using it and can't find a reason people should.
- Ruin: why should I equip Ruin in a BLM?

I'm not saying that I don't appreciate it at all, but I aspected much more from this job so I'm a bit disappointed.
What do you think about it?

[Celaeris]

Freeze has 100 potency. Blizzard II has 50 potency. Freeze's Bind duration is 15s, Blizzard II's is 6s. Freeze is ground targeted. Blizzzard II only affects enemies near you.

Aetherial Manipulation is a THM skill. But I use it quite a bit to move around in high movement phases for extra DPS. Teleporting out of Anicient Flare, for example, or using it to pass Rot in Turn 2.

Just because you have access to a cross class skill doesn't mean you slot it. There's a good 5 skills to slot, and Hawk's Eye can be (rarely) situationally useful.

[lordparanoia]

Thank you for replying.
Of course I'm wrong about "BlizzardII VS Freeze". Anyway, the problem from my pov is that I don't really find in endgame contents a fight where I say "OMG I MUST USE FREEZE!"
Am I doing wrong or is just play-style?
Aetherial Manipulation is THM but without a mouseover macro (I play from ps3) I can't find a way to use it. I tried to put <tt> macro to go, for example to the tank.
It's true that "just because you have access to a cross class skill doesn't mean you slot it" but what I wanted to say is that there is no reason to slot Ruin instead of others.
I use the following cross-class skills: Quelling Strikes, Raging Strikes, Hawk's Eye, Virus and Eye For An Eye. And I'm ok with them but I was curious to know if someone found any utility in using Ruin.