Challenge: Recreate your job in equal or greater complexity using 12 or fewer actions

[Shurrikhan]

BLACK MAGE

BACKGROUND CHANGES:

Crowd control has been completely reworked.

Crowd control now works via several granularly manipulable spectrums, such as Snare (affecting movement speed and potential for Knockback, Launch, or Topple), Mass (affecting movement speed and attack rate, but without change to throughput), Maim (Stun, downgrading to Pacify/Silence), and Temporal Speed (affecting all things related to rate). Certain types of application of Snare or Mass may be destroyed by later damage dealt to the affected target. Many of these spectrums overlap somewhat in their effects and some in their manipulables. All debuffs simply supply potency in either direction to any of these spectrums. A Full Thrust may launch a target into the air, and that potential will scale with enemy Weight. Weight may be decreased in combination with Snare and Mass, or may be affected directly with spells like Freedom or Gravity.

Periodic damage has been revised.

Periodic damage now ticks very frequently if no further condition is appended -- such as ticking upon target's action or attempt to act, seemingly as if at a continuous rate. All current mechanics triggered from periodic damage ticks or critical strike ticks have been in some way reworked.

Casting has been wholly revised.

Casts now occur by channeling or charging a particular type of mana and through the targeting system associated, where further spell identity can be determined by release time or modifiers prior to the cast or specials after the cast. In most cases these distinctions are subtle, simply changing over a spectrum between two priorities, such as speed and burst or maintenance of some effect and capitalization thereupon. Most spells can charge without a target. Mana is drained continuously over the charge, though not necessarily at a linear rate. Most, but not all, spent mana is refunded if the cast is cancelled or interrupted. Casts can linger beyond their maximum cast time, preparing for a target to appear, but will continue to consume mana over the charging process. This excess amount may or may not be mitigated in its cost over continuous drain and may refund a smaller portion of the mana spent. Unless a cast is held, rather than queued, it will release at the next determining stage. It need not be precisely timed except within the half-second at finest by which spell stages are determined. (Again, in most cases, these "stages" will still follow an identical spell curve, but simply suit different priorities better at certain % progress rates than others; the break points for these stages are simply the breakpoints in lurch -- where rate of rate of change is highest.)

Elements have been completely reworked around three larger factors: Mass, Heat, Saturation, and Charge.

Each element now has inherently distinct effects and embedded mechanics, while their casters are able to further interact with them through Affinity mechanics. Fire, for instance, has the Ignite mechanic, which affects spell targets, while the Black Mage itself interacts with the element via Ignition, generated for the Black Mage upon cast regardless of target. The combination of the two includes, roughly, the effects of the Firestarter trait. The only factor in Fire is Heat, though Heat may cause varying effects over varying enemies, from melting armor to terrifying, to simply continuous damage. Heat disperses more quickly as the difference between the target's Heat and that of his surroundings increases (essentially, as target Heat increases). In this way, quick supportive casts become more and more necessary as the burn rate peaks into its soft cap. When in burn phase, Black Mages may therefore care more about Attack Speed than raw damage, as Fire's potential is already devastating, but usually underutilized due to its dispersion. Ice magic adds Mass and decreases Heat while active, heavying and slowing the target while making it more vulnerable to physical attacks, up to an amount based on added mass at a percentile based on negative Heat. When added to a target of greater equal or greater heat as its negative impact, it instead generates steam, obscuring target vision and adding Saturating to the target and enemies nearby. Lightning deals increased damage based on Saturation, and polarizes targets by applying Charge. Charge is capable of jolting the target, interrupting or suppressing certain actions over its very brief occurrences, and allows for effects which would attract or repel other enemies affected with Charge. The Black Mage Affinity mechanic for Lightning is simply know as Charged.

Astral Fire and Umbral Ice have become granular mechanics known as Astral Flow and Umbral Flow, and are still generated from their previous respective elements and still have respective effect caps, though their stacking system has been replaced. Instead, Flow is maintained between forms, decaying over time at exponentially increasing rates. When in Enochian, your casts beyond the base stage then draw from your Astral or Umbral Flow generated in order to add potency to the cast; as such only your quicker casts provide Astral or Umbral Flow, as per the current cast system.
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CLASS CHANGES:

Black Mage now has only 4 spells: Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Void. Void here refers to first to spells void of elemental aspect such as Scathe and its new specials, but later to within-element alternate magics such as Flare, Freeze, and Clash, all of which are now locked behind an earlier granted and heavily modified Enochian.

In addition, it has 6 abilities: Transpose, Sharp, Mantle, Manipulation, Enochian, and Ley Lines. These now consume resource and have "rushable" cooldowns (see above). Resource to be determined. Transpose works mostly as before, but is more costly and more powerful, and is primarily a tool meant for craftier rotations rather than a safety measure. Sharp works alike to a combination of Swiftcast and Sharpcast, and carries multiple charges. Mantle covers the effect of Manaward and also carries certain additional uses. Manipulation likewise covers Aetherial Manipulation and a couple more uses. Enochian has been highly revised and is now your culminating offensive CD, toggleable, and combinable via Transpose (allowing it to swap between enhanced elements) and Mantle (allowing it to reach secondary states, Niffin, Revenant, and Belker for Fire, Ice, and Lightning respectively). Ley Lines is your other primary offensive CD, and simply doubles as Between the Lines while active.

Finally, the Black Mage has access to 2 modifiers: Chain (allowing for Phoenix Fire, Neffer Bolt, Prismatic Shock, and similar new skills), and Dispersion (creating Fire II, Blizzard II, and Thunder II, along with new Shatter effects).

NOTABLE CHANGES:

Little has changed as to the basics of the Black Mage's rotations. As Astral and Umbral still effectively exist, though retuned, one still primarily moves between Fire and Ice burn and restoration phases while supporting via Lightning. Or at least, that's one such option. However, one can now also center their rotations instead around Ice or Lightning, using the Shatter and/or Thundercloud mechanics for their culminating damage. And perhaps more noticeably still, Black Mage is now rife with utility, capable of displacing, slowing, sapping, repelling, attracting, and generally disorganizing and shattering enemies. Enochian has also been noticeably reworked, and by level 70 allows the Black Mage to effectively turn even into a life-stealing Ice Revenant, an ever-burning Niffin, or a phase-swapping Belkar, creating whole new gameplay styles for macrorotations centered about Ice, Fire, and Lightning, respectively, though each technically a hybrid of all three. Optimal play for the Black Mage generally falls Fire-heavy, as before, but now frees up the Black Mage through the Ignition, Shatter, and Charged mechanics to use all elements, even those previously primary, supportively and with immense synergy. Swiftcasting now comes at cost, but is more flexible, and the increased viability of clipped burn/restoration phases atop the revised Thundercloud mechanic has left Black Mage significantly more mobile that previously, and far, far more capable of creative play.