Feast Class Feedback: Black Mage

[Koltik]

Same disclaimer as my Astro post: Before I say anything, I want to mention that according to the SE JP PvP Stream, Adrenaline Rush TV, the first round of balance changes are coming on Tuesday and we won't have S5 until around 4.1. That means there are still a couple of months of pre-season, at least, so they are taking their time balancing. They are also using forums as a main source for balance adjustments.

Personally I've played Black Mage more than anything else this season. I've gone from unranked - Platinum with BLM being played most of the way through, and played roughly 300 games this pre-season as a BLM between multiple characters.

BLM is by no means weak, however extremely easy to counter. When they are countered, they turn into a wasted slot for ranged. No other ranged suffers from this, and as such it will be very difficult for a BLM to be competitive in higher level play.

BLM is currently in a very solid position when fighting in lower ranks and against uneducated players. Unfortunately they suffer from the same Line of Sight issues as before, reliance on Thunder procs for their burst, and ease of getting interrupted in higher level play.

Black Mage suffers from these major weaknesses:

1. In higher level play, a 2 second cc turns into a 3-4 second CC if it hits right at the end of a cast, just before it finishes. Good tanks who abuse this can keep a BLM from casting for up to 6 seconds, and this doesn't even consider Line of Sight issues that BLM's also suffer from, the need to kite when being focused, or DRK's Unmend.
2. BLM's immobility makes them extremely easy to counter. Players who are aware of this abuse walls and trees to simply hide from a BLM damage since their cast times are so long. The BLM cannot chase the target as they can continue to just run around walls or trees and completely avoid BLM damage. No other class, ranged or otherwise, has this problem.
3. BLM is the only ranged class that relies on hard casts to do damage in PvP. SMN has 1 cast, which is a DoT, and only has to be done once every 15 seconds. This is the primary reason that BLM's are so easy to counter.

With that said, they also have the following strengths:

1. Good burst when they are not being controlled by the issues stated above. A BLM can do roughly 8k damage that hits within the spam of three seconds, however it requires 10+ seconds of uninterrupted casting to pull off.
2. Ability to secure kills with sleep on healer.
3. Good survivability for a ranged with well placed Aetherial Manipulation usage.

Unfortunately the problem is that one of their main strengths, and of course their primary purpose, damage, can be almost completely negated by the issues in the weaknesses. In games where BLM is ignored, they are very strong and can definitely be competitive. However that's the problem - once you hit higher level matches, a BLM can be nearly completely negated and is essentially a wasted slot.

To give an example with numbers, in games where I am ignored as BLM and people do not Line of sight I hit 250k+ in damage, with the highest being 300k over 8 minutes.

In contrast, in games where I am being CC'd by PLD/DRK, and players are Line of Sighting / tree hugging / wall hugging I typically average 160k damage with the lowest being 140k over 8 minutes.

Summoners on the other hand, when played well, can hit 250k-280k+ every game regardless of whether or not they are being focused.

To give another simple example, BLM relies on their Thunder 3 proc to do their burst rotation, as it's their only instant cast outside of Swiftcast every 30s. In order to proc Thunder 3, you need to do 6k damage to your target over the course of the DoT. This is only two Fire 4's, however you would be surprised at how often you cannot even get two Fire 4's off against the same target when the enemy team is going out of their way to avoid you, are focusing you completely, and/or cc you at the end of every DR.

Casting Thunder is a glaring tell to the target that the BLM will now be nuking them, and the target will often duck in/out behind walls to avoid the nuke follow ups. Add a tank to the mix that is stunning and silencing on demand and the BLM will have a difficult time getting that 6k damage in on their intended target. This happens on a regular basis in higher level games.

Unfortunately I am not sure what to do about a fix, just that this is a problem and will put BLM and their team at a major disadvantage in higher level games. Personally I would love to see cast times be brought down to 1s, or allow BLM to cast while moving, but I am not sure how this would play game play wise.

[Synestra]

Now while i haven't tried Feast on BLM and last time i used it before SB was ARR i can agree with point 2 and 3 at least, seems like Feast have more LoS problems while same FL has "out of range" issues both are kinda same. Now if you get good team specially tanks that stun/yanks enemies and hold them still BLM can melt faces, i was thinking that maybe SE could increase their spell range but that doesn't really do anything for them in Feast due LoS issues but in FL it would be welcomed buff or maybe faster casts like you mentioned.

I would like to play BLM more but its just too much hassle compared to faceroll BRD/MCH that just run&gun's and can peak and snipe behind covers.

[Cabalabob]

You know that alternating fire and blizzard makes them instant cast right? Their combined potency is 1k per GCD and you can run around and cast like that. You also say BLM is the only caster that has to hardcast their spells, which as I just said is not true, but also you forget about RDM who can only hard cast their spells and unlike BLM doesn't get swiftcast. If they have to chase they have to rely on corps and flunge to heavy their opponent then hard cast on them before they get away, putting them in melee range as a caster.

[Koltik]

You know that alternating fire and blizzard makes them instant cast right? Their combined potency is 1k per GCD and you can run around and cast like that. You also say BLM is the only caster that has to hardcast their spells, which as I just said is not true, but also you forget about RDM who can only hard cast their spells and unlike BLM doesn't get swiftcast. If they have to chase they have to rely on corps and flunge to heavy their opponent then hard cast on them before they get away, putting them in melee range as a caster.

Yes, I am aware of course. Are you aware that 1k potency every 2.2 seconds is a joke? You are doing no real damage by alternating between the two. Even a bot can outheal that.

RDM is a whole different issue, and are also in a bad spot for PvP. Unfortunately I haven't played it enough to make a thread, but hopefully someone else who has played it will do so. It is very weak in competitive games.

[Cabalabob]

Yes, I am aware of course. Are you aware that 1k potency every 2.2 seconds is a joke? You are doing no real damage by alternating between the two.

RDM is a whole different issue, and are also in a bad spot for PvP. Unfortunately I haven't played it enough to make a thread, but hopefully someone else who has played it will do so. It is very weak in competitive games.

I'm not arguing that it's not weak especially compared to brd and mch who get higher numbers while still being mobile, I'm pointing out that saying BLM can only hardcast and is the only caster with these issues are both downright false.

Their instant cast is too weak is a valid point.

[Koltik]

I'm not arguing that it's not weak especially compared to brd and mch who get higher numbers while still being mobile, I'm pointing out that saying BLM can only hardcast and is the only caster with these issues are both downright false. Their instant cast is too weak is a valid point.

To clarify then, for a BLM to do any real damage and output any actual pressure to the enemy team then they are required to hard cast. This is very obvious and easy to counter, meanwhile BRD/MCH/SMN do not have this problem.

[Cammel]

Also i:d like to add placing thunder correctly on 4 targets timed right you can run a little bit easier.

[Sunako]

I level my own blm 60 - 63 in feast and it feel really strong there and i was usually top of the damage. If one person loss, hit another target. If somebody focus on you, try bait him from opponent healer and kill him(sometimes works). Use focus target macro on the sleep and sleep healer once you can do the pressure. If your healer need support try use sleep as defensive against dps. Flare is nice too for heavy and your opponent is not gonna move away fast. Remember you have swiftcast every 30 sec you can use fire 4 + swiftcast fire 4/flare/foul make like 5k + damage in the same moment. If focusing is the problem, you can try use "Concentrate" that make you immune against cc 10 seconds with 45 sec cd. I would say this skill is better than purify in general. Blm have in general better ways escape from damage if you need to be defensive. You have aetherial manipulation and even convert restore hp if you have to. Sleep not share dr anymore with any other class so it fit very well with any party composition and it is really strong ability if used properly. About summoner if you did not know, ruin 4 have cast times(and it do double as much potency than ruin3 + stance bonus) and you have to spam it as long you are in dreadwyrm stance.

[Koltik]

snip

I suspected this would happen, but trust me I do all that you mention. It's just not enough. Maybe this is just one of those things that you can't really understand until you experience it, but it will be sad to see BLM remain as is.

The flaw in baiting is that it relies on the enemy team being bad, which again does not happen when you play higher ranked games. Games where people do that are the games where I'm hitting 250k+ numbers.

The problem is with time on target, and how little a BLM has against a team of knowledgeable players. Imagine a game where you Thunder 1 person, they hide behind a wall. Okay, fine, target someone else and Thunder them. Now they hid behind a wall, or are chasing someone on your team behind a wall, or maybe now you lost your window and the tank is CCing you. Now you lost 2 Thunders and have lost a huge window of damage. What now? By now, someone on your team is probably dead because your team lost so much damage from you just trying to get a basic proc. This happens all the time.

In addition to that, if you notice certain players will always hide out of your LoS whenever you Thunder them then now they are no longer a viable target for you. In most games this will happen with a healer, so an aware healer is often not even a valid target for a BLM. This leaves Ranged/Melee/Tank - ranged can do the same thing as healer, pop in/out behind walls. Maybe not all the time for all classes, but BRD/MCH yes, SMN mostly. This leaves your only real valid targets as Melee and Tank. When your only real targets become two out of the four enemy players, how does this balance out?

A Swiftcast every 30s isn't enough. There are literally 5-10 second intervals where that's almost all I can get off when people are playing evasively, and this will happen multiple times in a game. If SE intended us to only cast with Swiftcast, then it would have a much longer cooldown. Not only that, but being forced to use SC just to get a cast off is horrible and a waste - it needs to be able to be used strategically, to secure a kill, not forcefully because you can't get a cast off.

For Concentrate, it's also not enough. It's only every 45 seconds - 36 with trait - and only lasts for 1 cc. It only works if you already have burst set up and are ready to hit it, to ensure it doesn't get interrupted. It doesn't have enough up time to be used for anything other than that, honestly, and still doesn't solve the issue of people running around trees.

To expand on trees, there have been multiple times where I'd be trying to get a cast off but my DPS are chasing a healer who is just running around a tree. The enemy DPS and tank are all also chasing around that tree. The best you can do is Swiftcast a Flare and hope the heavy is enough to get another cast off, but then they're right back at it. There I am trying to cast on any one of them, but cannot get a single real cast off because, well, they're constantly LoSing me with the tree. All four members are unhittable for 30 seconds, 20 seconds, even 10 seconds is too much. Apply this same logic to walls, while less severe, and you'll see the problem.

[Sunako]

I played years wow with caster class before ARR even released and had same problems than what you had currently. I think important part is positioning where you place yourself in the arena. You have to remember healer can not move so much either, they can not keep ppl alive if they are constantly moving and opponent lose their own pressure if they are constantly lossing your casts. If you stand next to opponent healer, opponent will loss heals same time than your damage and your team members can kill your target. Another thing is if you are too predictable. Try to do surprise attack so opponent have less time to react what they need to heal.

I can show you one example how to do high burst in small period time and it is not easy counter against.
This video show you, you can make thunder triggered even with instant casts. I start with flare that make opponent heavy 3 seconds so you can freely continue cast another cast because target barely move during 50% heavy, after that use your thunder proc and swiftcast fire so you can make very high burst damage in small period time. Flare is doing 3425 damage, 2951 from fire 4, 2226 thunder, 2703 fire 4 and 354 thunder tick. That is 11659 damage. Flare land during 14 - 15 seconds and my last hit at 19 - 20 second of the video. That mean all that 11.6k damage came inside 5 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szyw9SCcVYs