Black Mage Revamp

[Renik]

elemental wheels don't work in mmos dude, get over it.

You have no idea, and your post proves it, if you're not going to add something valuable to the discussion just don't post.

[lynyan]

why would you want an elemental wheel in an mmo ever

it doesn't add any extra layers of anything but frustration

[Renik]

why would you want an elemental wheel in an mmo ever

it doesn't add any extra layers of anything but frustration

And again this get us back to one of my previous posts, why do you need a rotation, different skills or red circles in the floor, for fun, every MMO i have played had an elemental wheel, the abolition of it is something new and as far as i know, unique to this one, and i'll repeat it, the only reason they abolished it is because they didn't have the time to do real balance work, if you look at the game, this MMO is the one with the better quality of life in the market, but most of these QoL updates came after the launch, one of the systems we have from the start is the battle system, and with battle system i mean every aspect of battle, from combat to boss mechanics, and this system is very very very oversimplified compared to most MMOs.

Edit:

Forgot something, i don't want an elemental wheel right now, i know a bit about games design, it would break the balance so badly, what i say is that the elemental wheel can't work here because of the wrong direction they took, if this game were designed correctly to support a balanced elemental wheel, no one here would be asking the dev team to remove it.

[Razard]

what i say is that the elemental wheel can't work here because of the wrong direction they took, if this game were designed correctly to support a balanced elemental wheel, no one here would be asking the dev team to remove it.

Wrong Direction? Or one YOU and a vocal minority didn't like?

[Mirron]

I'd like to know what games have an elemental wheel to the extent that Final Fantasy tends to have it offline. The most I tend to see is different elements cause different status effects, and maybe minor aspects of damage modification, but certainly not to the extent that offline FF's do, where enemies being unable to be damaged or even healed by certain elements happen.

And it still doesn't address the simple concern that it'd result in boring gameplay. If you transported a Black Mage from an offline FF and just placed him in this, it'd easily be one of the most boring classes to play. Offline FF's are fun and difficult because you aren't in control of just one character, you're in control of a team and correctly managing the team as a whole is part of what makes it engaging. Even in other series, where the spellcasting is more dynamic, playing the offensive mage typically just winds up resorting in using the most powerful spell you have for the element that is most effective at the time. Compared to the current system with Black Mage that sounds a lot less interesting.

I will say that I'd be fine with White Mage getting Dia/Banish/other light-themed spells, so that they could do a Geomancer with Wind/Water/Earth spells, but it wouldn't really make sense from a lore perspective sadly.

[QiLymePye]

But you just summed up what the BLm is really in this game. Its just use most powerful magic spell available, out of 3 types, and really you only use ice to restore mp, soon as its full, go back to fire. Its boring. Im sorry, but I think SE needs to spice up BLM and PLD. Same stupid rotation for BLM: spam fire 1 or 3 depending on lvl...mp low, do that transpose, while mp recharge, throw a thunder spell/Scathe, mp full, transpose, spam fire...same song. Its dumb. I expected more from a BLM. And yes i know that its damn near impossible to ask them to fix and add elemenal wheel or whatever. So make spells do physical type damage, like Fire-blunt/Thunder-piercing/Ice-slash or something. just feels weak.

[Mirron]

Except that in an elemental wheel scenario you wouldn't ever use Thunder or Blizzard in a fight against Shiva, for instance. You would literally just sit there and cast Firaga. As things are now you aren't sitting there casting only one spell ever.

[QiLymePye]

but you are only casting spells really one spell, fire. Its a gimmick to make you feel like you are using more than one spell. If you didnt have to cast ice for mp, would you? hell ive gone through fights not even using ice. Now here is where SE can get creative. Lets take your Shiva ex. Yes, Shiva should be weak to fire, but why can't she be strong to fire also? Or the opposite, because said blm is casting fire, maybe during that time his ice resistance is very low, meaning if he gets hit, he could sustain good amount of damage? See i refuse to believe that we have to have it the way it is. These people are geniuses. Its about money. If all of a sudden they found out that a good percentage of their player base was leaving the game because of this mechanic issue, i bet they would find a way to fix it. They have over simplified BLM, making it boring.

[QiLymePye]

I just believe that a fantasy game where you have different elemental beings, elemental magic, and elemental weapons/armor and the element it represents is pointless to gameplay is not right. They could do things, like maybe when you use fire on an enemy it damages and does dot damage potency based off of the element of the said emeny. Same with weapons, do some sort of dot damage based on spell type/mob type. I just hate seeing a sword that has a cool name like Flaming sword of justice that only offers +1 fire resistence. WTF do i need fire resistance for if there is no "element wheel" in the game?

[Deviant1]

The irony is that once upon a time, FFXIV did have an elemental wheel, the trick is that it was used by Conjurers. (http://ffxiv.gamepedia.com/Conjurer) In 1.0, they were what was thought of as the standard Red mage type. Yep, thats right they had the elemental debuffs (choke, rasp, drown types) and cure spells.

Back then Thaum was more of a dark priest of life and death, think closer to Egyptian style then Christian. The original thaumaturge: (http://ffxiv.gamepedia.com/Thaumaturge) was more about spilling your blood to cure and nuke. They had the debuffs like slow, heavy and stun.

Another fun fact, back then most spells could be toggled for AOE or single target.


Since then though, everything SE did to CON & THM since then was to remove all of that, first they removed it in 1.15 or so when they added jobs, and then completely reworked it for 2.0.

As such for them to do anything meaningful would be reverting, and more importantly really expensive to code back in. If none of the current mobs have elemental weakness, then adding that would be prohibitively expensive. If for sake of argument, the mobs have the same elemental resistances we do, think of the testing that would be needed.

Then to really hose everything up, they would need to take earth, wind and water away from CON (which remember at one time had the entire wheel) and then give it to BLM. Sorry but two jobs with half the wheel, especially since one of them is listed as a 'healer' would be stupid.

As sad as it is, i think the spell list of BLM will always be: Attack damage / Dot Damage / MP regen.