Black Mage Revamp

[Vejjiegirl]

No one is talking about the Black Mage Revamp. I'm pretty excited I can't wait to be a Specialize in Thunder magic!
(At least that's what I assume the below changes mean)

Edit:
I had trouble finding where the translation came from orginally as mine was from another person,
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2q16p3/imgur_black_mage_changes_slides/

Note: Apparently this was just a suggestion from a dev to Yoshi-P according to the source, sorry for getting everyone's hopes up (I was pretty excited myself when saw the flowcharts)

The first slide talks about the current system, and how they want to expand on it to give people more options.

Slides 2 and 3 discuss new potential (non finalized) methods they're thinking about to allow Black Mages more flexibility in their options. 枯渇 means "to dry up", and 回復 is "to recover". It refers to 氷属性 (ice attribute) and 雷属性 (thunder attribute) as abilities or stances that you can set to use different sorts of rotations.

ａ）武器や防具、敵の防御力、黒魔に属性攻撃・防御±直を設定（必然的にダメージ計算直に反映） We are creating a system wherein things like weapons and armor, enemy defense strength, etc will be affected by black mages using the Attribute System.
ｂ）武器のチェンジで攻撃属性が決定される（黒魔限定じゃなかったｗ） With this change, Black Mages have more choice in the types of attacks they can do
ｃ）黒魔のＭＰ回復は前述のような組み合わせて今までどおりに実行可能（エアロやストーン、ウォーターも使えるとイイね！） For black mages, regenerating MP should become smoother when combined with above mentioned formulas.
ｄ）属性マテリアの使い道が増えそうな予感 We have the feeling that the use of elemental attribute materia is going to increase!

[Xoriam]

Wow if there is elemental specialization I'll be dusting off my BLM!

[HakuroDK]

Making elemental attributes relevant?

I can dig it!

[Jennika]

I wonder if this will just help BLMs with making rotations more comfortable for them or will it actually affect damage? For example, will using Ice on Ifrit do more damage?

[Jennika]

Hmm is this the Aetherial Wheel? Most excellent

[HakuroDK]

Hmm is this the Aetherial Wheel? Most excellent

No, the Aetherial Wheel is part of FC Crafting. This is something in the theoretical stages right now.

But still, I am excited for this!

[Clarkamite]

As someone who mains a BLM this could get interesting. I love playing BLM but my number one gripe with it sometimes is how boring it is. A lot of the times I feel like I have no real effect on the outcome of the battle. There are times where my Apoc has helped a healer in my static survive a Flames with weakness on but outside of that and being a huge DPS cannon, I feel like my only contribution is damage. As much as I love BLM it gets kind of boring after awhile. Especially when the rotation is so clear and cut. Adding in some more things could make it more fun, as long as it's not something TOO complex.

I'm all for difficulty but I think long term they need to keep things in all jobs relatively simple if they want the general player base to continue playing. As long as these changes make it more interesting I'm all for it. Should be fun.

[Sadana]

Ack!
/10notsureaboutthis

Well... from squinting at the slides some more, the rotations themselves look just like what we use now, but we would have the option to use blizzard or thunder instead of fire as our big damage move. And what refills mp as well as the dot is changed accordingly.

And if we go into each 'elemental stance' for certain fights like primals, then the damage would be higher...

[Duelle]

Ack!
/10notsureaboutthis

Well... from squinting at the slides some more, the rotations themselves look just like what we use now, but we would have the option to use blizzard or thunder instead of fire as our big damage move. And what refills mp as well as the dot is changed accordingly.

That's what it looks like. Existing spells trading places to make your main nuke different, your DoT different and so on. A little wasteful if you ask me.

I think some existing BLMs will resist the changes, but anyone who's played a 'REAL' Black Mage from previous games knows what they're missing out on.

You mean "spam thunder because that's the strongest nuke in the game on everything but token mobs that absorb thunder"? Or the FFXI "real" BLMs that were basically 5/5 Thunder or Ice potency and gave the middle finger to every other element?

[Krr]

You mean "spam thunder because that's the strongest nuke in the game on everything but token mobs that absorb thunder"? Or the FFXI "real" BLMs that were basically 5/5 Thunder or Ice potency and gave the middle finger to every other element?

I'm excited to play a real black mage, auto-attacking for the majority of encounters because I need to rest at an inn to refresh my spell slots and I want to make sure I still have Haste and Saber ready for the endboss of the dungeon.