Is BLM truly simple?

[Zencurse]

A Summoner's complexity comes from mastery of your mechanics. Your rotation, what buttons you press and when, and micromanaging your egi. A Summoner like almost every other dps class in this game rely on mechanical mastery in order to be "the best" at it.

A Black Mage is the exception. A beginner Black Mage will look upon the rotation, find it appealing how easy it seems, and then proceed to complain on Titan Ex about how they could barely cast anything because of the amount of movement. An experienced Black Mage will use the tools of his trade to minimize movement on the same fight, using manawall to preemptively counter landslide, shutter step to move out of the rest, and aetherial manipulation or manaward to dodge and render irrelevant a majority of weight of the lands and come out of the fight topping dps without a care in the world.

To put more simply, a Black Mage's complexity comes from their dynamics and reactive nature. In a strange sort of way a Black Mage plays almost more like a White Mage healer than another DPSer. Instead of methodically throwing out our abilities, we focus on planning and reacting because not only do we have the time for such forethought (as again our "rotation" at it's core is fairly simplistic) but also because without that forethought we are at the mercy of basically every mechanic in the game.

As a current example (as I would hardly consider Titan EX relevant in the game anymore after clearing it for story purposes) just in T6 alone while progressing back when 2.2 launched my dps according to others went from a paltry 250 to a reasonable for ilvl 90 gear, 300+ just while progressing and without any gear upgrades. This is because as I learned the fight I learned how to manage things like when I have the honey, breaking chains, etc without having to stay on the move much. To conclude, the Black Mage is likely the best example FFXIV has of a job that is easy to learn, but hard to master. If it seems easy now, don't worry it's where you're supposed to be when you first start toying with the playstyle. Eventually, as you start doing some of the harder fights, you'll start noticing the little things, and that's when you start making the connections I've stated above, and really get into the meat of the class