Black Mage - The next level of casting

[LathusWHM]

I am writing this because on my commute to work I was thinking about how much fun blm was in FFXI. Having access to such a wide arsenal of spells, being the burst kings/queens of all dark magic.

Something I feel BLM is missing are those classic -JA. And -AGA. Spells.

Fire/thunder/blizzard-ja

Fire/thunder/blizzard-aga

While I think it's nice they allowed us to have access to aoe spells. Fire 2 and blizzard 2 just don't feel like they fit that role properly. And to be honest, other then pvp use. Who casts blizzard 2 anymore.


Here is my idea; or a couple ideas. Create temporary *stances* that either are player bound AOE, or target bound AOE. Transforming some of our iconic spells into not so overpowered AOE spells.

[LathusWHM]

Add the following job abilities:

Trance-ja(buff)
For 30 seconds all of your single target spells transform into their respectable -JA forms. When casting them on a single target they become a radius AOE spell based around the target you are casting on.(damage is split among enemies evenly[up to 4 targets split])

Thunder 1-3: allows it to be a multi target spell. Same effects, no damage change.

Trance-aga(buff)
For 30 seconds all of your level IV single target spells become player bound aoe -aga spells with special effects.

FIRE-GA IV(580 potency): fire erupts surrounding the caster splitting damage evenly between targets and applying burn(lasts 15 seconds). Burn is a damage over time effect with 80 potency.

Blizzard-GAIV(280 potency): ice shards explode from the caster splitting damage between all enemies and increasing magical damage done to all targets by 5%. Lasts 10 seconds.

[LathusWHM]

Enochain: additional effect. Transforms your ancient magic spells into single target versions and applies a unique de buff on the target.

Flare: same potency. Applies burn. REMOVES AOE EFFECT. 80 'potency 10 second duration

Freeze: applies frost. Decreases damage dealt by target by 5%.

This would bring BLM back into the aoe king realm and offering raid wide utility.

I know many people will go "OH GREAT MORE MANAGMENT OF DOTS BLAH BLAH" But the point of the dots would be for increased mobility dps in movement fights(aka most of savage fights). And honestly some fun lore to the class without being overpowered. Giving us mobility through minor dots and making use of spells that have become recycled.

[Waliel]

-Ra, -ga and -ja spells are already in the game in the form of tier II, III and IV, though. The localisation team just decided to use numbering system instead of letter suffixes.

[Egnasya]

-Ra, -ga and -ja spells are already in the game in the form of tier II, III and IV, though. The localisation team just decided to use numbering system instead of letter suffixes.

English localization decided to ditch stylized spell names in favor of numbers because "they are easier to read". Strange how enemy skills like "Ancient Quakega" still use these names in FFXIV. They could at least give us a choice instead of deciding such things for us.

Funny also, other localizations don't have this argument and use -ra & -ga for tier 2 & 3 spells, tho in German tier 4 spells, which are -ja in Japan, have become -ka for some reason. They also call Esuna Medica since FF8, which is highly problematic now that FFXIV itself has a Medica spell. In short, there are some inconsistencies and strange decisions with localizations, to the point that now nothing could be changed without someone getting mad about it. And so everything stays as it is, probably.

[LathusWHM]

-Ra, -ga and -ja spells are already in the game in the form of tier II, III and IV, though. The localisation team just decided to use numbering system instead of letter suffixes.

That is exactly the problem. It's a lore error. Fire II in lore is not an AOE. Blizzard II in lore is NOT an AOE.


The game is sacrificing classic FF gameplay. Not just in the fact spells are named poorly, but the way they are used is poor design. It's too cookie cutter.


FF is about flavor, excitement and unique play systems.

[Verne]

That is exactly the problem. It's a lore error. Fire II in lore is not an AOE. Blizzard II in lore is NOT an AOE.


The game is sacrificing classic FF gameplay. Not just in the fact spells are named poorly, but the way they are used is poor design. It's too cookie cutter.


FF is about flavor, excitement and unique play systems.

It's...actually not strictly a FF lore thing. I mean, looking back at older games and the same convention wasn't always followed. If I remember correctly, FF6, 7, possibly older translation of 4(?), used a numbering scheme. Didn't FF2 have some weird system where spell numbers went into double digits? Thunder has been called Bolt at times. It's almost like all of these games, over their several decade time span, have been translated by several different people! And most of the time they are just names anyway. "More powerful spells have a higher number or an -ara added at he end." For the record, Fire II -could- be AoE in some games (most spells could be single or multi-target in some games).

And so what if they do follow this system, or they don't follow it? As long as there is some consistency to it, and as far as XIV is concerned, the system just seems to be "The next spell you learn along the way." Among nearly all the Final Fantasy games, XI is actually the outlier, with regards to spell names.

XI had a -real- system and naming convention to keep it all in place (please keep in mind I only played until shortly before Adoulin was released, so anything really new I have no knowledge of). Normally named spells were your single target spells. -aga (which also had a numbering system!!!) were AoE, -aja were AoE -and- had some kind of debuff on the enemy.

Also, while the All Holy FFXI is on topic; man, was BLM ever boring in that game. Did you really ever use more than 4 spells? You had 5 (!!) Thunder spells (and only used Thunder, because Stone did less damage (not equal , but of a different element, actually less!), but only cast one outside of leveling. All spells were like this, so the amount of useless and never cast spells was extremely high (I know there was some revamp to the magic system recently, but how long before that happened? 10-ish years?).

Right now, in XIV, we use a fairly large majority of our skill set. Freeze, Blizzard 2, Thunder 2? Yeah, mostly not needed. But that's only 3 spells.

Anyway, among the off topic hyperbole, the point that I am really trying to get across is that the localization team has stuck to a system, it works just as well as the other naming convention, so who really cares? If it ever does become a problem, I'm sure they can change it. Just look at Tri-disaster.

It's also hard to have a "unique play system" that is the exact same as "classic FF gameplay." Most of the games have tried to branch out and do slightly different things with the battle system. This one is just a bit more fast paced and action-oriented than the other games. What really makes FF games are the story, themes, and characters within them. Not the names of the spells.