Black Mage

[jalasoul]

Not going to go into too much detail but just some party utilities would be nice. Just a few ideas would be to just take some ideas from classic final fantasies and give us some vivi skills.

Temper
Saber
Haste
Aura
Conserve

Those are just a few traditional blm skills that could be used to give the class utility and make it desired.

For increased damage without just upping potency wouldn't mind seeing a poison dot. Allow foul to put a venom dot on enemies.

Like everyone else in here let's hope come February blm isn't shunned in party finder groups. Really sad when you can't even help in clear parties.

[NovaUltimatum]

Not going to go into too much detail but just some party utilities would be nice. Just a few ideas would be to just take some ideas from classic final fantasies and give us some vivi skills.

Temper
Saber
Haste
Aura
Conserve

Those are just a few traditional blm skills that could be used to give the class utility and make it desired.

For increased damage without just upping potency wouldn't mind seeing a poison dot. Allow foul to put a venom dot on enemies.

Like everyone else in here let's hope come February blm isn't shunned in party finder groups. Really sad when you can't even help in clear parties.

Haste on BLM would be awesomely cool. Anything that helps deal with the slow casting times you have to deal with after a Transpose is good.

[Ceallach]

Temper
Saber
Haste
Aura
Conserve

In fairness, Temper and Saber are the same thing from the same game, just renamed for future releases. Saber also appeared in FINAL FANTASY XII and FINAL FANTASY Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift, but it was unavailable to players and not exclusive to black mages in those games.

Aura isn't exactly the best example, as it was only black magic in FINAL FANTASY II. It was used by summoning Bahamut in FINAL FANTASY III, so you could just as easily give Aura to summoners. It's also been white magic or not used by black mages ever since then.

Haste is also not the best example. While it was black magic in FINAL FANTASY and FINAL FANTASY II, it has been white magic or time magic ever since. I'd sooner expect white mages to get this spell.

"Conserve" here probably refers to the Conserve MP job trait from FINAL FANTASY XI, which was not exclusive to black mages (for example, master geomancers would abuse the heck out of this trait). Also, we already conserve MP through Umbral Hearts.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see black mages powered up. I've seen a lot of really stupid ideas (like giving them a Raise variant) and some decent ideas (like your Poison idea). My idea was fairly similar, though Kabooa hated it.

Burn
MP Cost: Equal to Fire
Range: 25 yalms, single-target
Potency: 20 fire, 20 fire over time for 21 seconds
Astral Fire +1, weakens victim's resistance to caster's Fire spells by 50%

Frost
MP Cost: Equal to Blizzard III
Range: 25 yalms, single-target
Potency: 70 ice, 40 ice over time for 24 seconds
Umbral Ice +1

And done. With two spells, both cast instantly without aid, black mages are now more damaging and more mobile without supporting the party or vastly changing the rotation. The rotation would then be Blizzard III, Enochian if it's not up, Frost, Ley Lines, Blizzard IV/Thunder III, Fire III, Burn, Triplecast, Fire IV thrice, Sharpcast if you have it, Fire, Fire IV some more, Fire III if you have Firestarter, Convert and more Fire IV if you have it up, Blizzard III, Foul, repeat. Burn is slightly weaker than Fire so that Fire is still used as it is now, and Frost is another Thunder III but without Thundercloud. Considering it takes nearly 33 seconds to complete one rotation at 1339 spell speed without abilities or traits (I checked), higher tiers should be able to pull off even more spells easily and while moving. And this is just a concept that would work with black mage's lore, the FINAL FANTASY series' lore, and the gameplay functions that need to be addressed.

Adding up the potencies and potency multipliers, black mages do 5854.4 potency in 32.9 seconds now at 1339 spell speed, assuming Thunder III is allowed to wear off and you don't use any abilities besides Enochian, nor do you make use of traits beyond Firestarter the one time via Sharpcast. With Burn and Frost as I wrote them added in, that becomes 7953.2 potency in 37.9 seconds. Compare that to what a summoner or red mage can do. Granted, this assumes Astral Fire III is an 80% potency buff on Fire spells and 30% potency debuff on Blizzard spells, with Umbral Ice III doing the same debuff to Fire spells. This also assumes everything is multiplicative (as in Fire IV's 260 potency multiplied by 1.1 for Enochian multiplied by 1.8 for Astral Fire III multiplied by 1.5 for Burn where applicable). Because that's part of why the War of the Magi happened, and we don't want a Magi War II. Let's not do these things.

[Shiroe]

make fire 4 instant solves the blm problem.., might be a bit too mobile, but would solve the problem fast (as compromise, make foul cast a tick longer)

[Llugen]

Instant cast Fire IV would probably be a little over the top lol I'd rather just see a trait that lets the job move while casting at some small penalty (like +10% cast time while moving).

If anything should be instant cast at this point it should be Fire/Blizzard, which I'd suggest under Enhanced Enochian. Would make sense that at level 70 we are finally powerful enough to use our BASE SPELLS at maximum efficiency, and then if you had to move for an extended period without Triplecast you could keep up your rotation at the same MP cost, and the job would play similar to 2.0 BLM (Fire I and Firestarter), but it would still be STRONGER to stand still/save movement cooldowns for Fire IV. This would close the punishment gap pretty meaningfully, I feel.



Haste would be pretty awesome, that would go hand in hand with the "converts Ley Lines into party wide speed buff" we've been tossing around. I'm still a pretty big fan of the idea of just a passive trait on Enochian that allows every party member in range get some benefit like BRD's songs (but maybe with speed or det or DH), it'd be so easy and it kinda makes sense from a lore standpoint that the BLM would "radiate" aether or whatever.

The job does deserve a "push this button for more damage" cooldown though, particularly since its "burst" is no longer a burst but a sustain.

[Ceallach]

If anything should be instant cast at this point it should be Fire/Blizzard, which I'd suggest under Enhanced Enochian. Would make sense that at level 70 we are finally powerful enough to use our BASE SPELLS at maximum efficiency, and then if you had to move for an extended period without Triplecast you could keep up your rotation at the same MP cost, and the job would play similar to 2.0 BLM (Fire I and Firestarter), but it would still be STRONGER to stand still/save movement cooldowns for Fire IV. This would close the punishment gap pretty meaningfully, I feel.

See, this I'd be perfectly fine with.

[Remedi]

That's why I said that giving a CD that doubles the int for the next spell only would be a good gift to BLM arsenal, I mean many jobs have it why not us?

[Llugen]

So effectively the same thing as doubling Foul potency single target, I guess. I mean sure I'll take it.

[Kabooa]

So effectively the same thing as doubling Foul potency single target, I guess. I mean sure I'll take it.

Historically speaking, abilities that only exist to buff one specific ability don't make the Expansion culling.

[Remedi]

So effectively the same thing as doubling Foul potency single target, I guess. I mean sure I'll take it.

Or using it for TC proc too

@kabooa: Kaiten, life surge, barrage etc. they are all still here