Black Mage

[IllyriaKnotfred]

Lmao. What a joke. That's all the data thats needed, this is all old content, people know the fights. If summoners numbers are that high things already need to change.

[OgruMogru]

I kinda feel like losing Raging strikes is at the heart of some of the problems we're having. Every other class has something in their kit to block that gap except for BLm and on top of that we're actively discluded from one of those [embolden] which still feels like the biggest intentional fuck you. Transpose desperately needs a shorter cooldown. A 1 second window every 13 seconds is horrible to deal with on top of the additional punishment of reduced stacks and longer cast times it yields. We're forced to hobble ourselves to deal with mechanics everyone else can manage with little disruption. Would umbral hearts be more effective if instead of granting free casts it granted 3 instant fire 1's? How about that troublesome Enochian button which, in an ideal world, we would only need to use once per fight? How about we get some kind of small target's magic resist down stack with each successful enochian [as in that button, not the refreshing of astral and umbral] reapplication? Actually make that button useful again every 30 seconds instead of it just sitting there.

[BlackcatChen]

>Blm never had a real bad time/spot - just relax Yoshi is comin'.

BLM has been relatively weak since 3.3.

[Alexalibur]

>Blm never had a real bad time/spot - just relax Yoshi is comin'.

BLM has been relatively weak since 3.3.

More like ALL casters have been relatively weak since 3.3, or just the fact that BRD/MCH were far stronger than everyone else that rendered already average classes useless.

[Galvuu]

Not gonna read through it all, but I saw some talk about the Raise debate (again).
I'm not going to explain why this contradicts the job identity or the lore (and it does).

This would be a silly bandaid fix that fixes nothing.
Think where the raise has the most value- that's right, progression. It can salvage a bad pull and allow you to practice/see/figure out new mechanics. Sure, it has sporadic value if a healer dies to whatever mechanic, but usually you don't rely on dps rezing during progression (you generally won't be mana starved and it's best to have a healer do it to push phases and the like).
This is intrinsically at odds with how Black Mage functions on a fundamental level- to be executed perfectly, Black Mage requires deep knowledge of the fight and its timings and perfect cd alignment with key mechanics.
Black Mage, by design, is a bad job for progression. So if you try to fix the lack of utility with a tool for progression in a job that's naturally bad at that, you fix nothing. Why exactly aren't you taking RDM in progression?
Or better yet, the hyper mobile, infinite-mp, higher dps SMN?
You won't. You won't take them. If progression performance is a concern and you need the dps rez, you take either RDM or SMN over BLM for progression.

This job has to shine in the scenario it's designed to shine on- when you've mastered the fight.
If this is achieved by giving it synergistic offensive utility or pumping up the raw damage numbers, I don't know, but the rez is not going to cut it.

Further, I think the "selfish" dps design of SAM and BLM is quite interesting, but SE always chickens out on giving these job the actual large numbers they need (especially BLM).
Further, most buffs are now raid wide. There's a scarcity of strong, single target buffs (Dragon's Eye and... that's it now, actually). Having a few of these on top of the aoe ones would benefit this type of high single target dps job.
These jobs are pieces of artillery (especially BLM)- it's a clunky job that you point at something, so the return must be that the target explodes.
And no, single target Balance does not count, that is never ever going to outdps the raid contribution of an aoe Balance on a good party when used on a single target, neither enhanced nor extended.

pls... this is absolutly the worst argument ever you can say facing a smn - it's always us who get fucked up with every expansion in the first place - looking over to you whos cls is always supirior because of reasons, same reasons will solve your "issues" near by. Blm never had a real bad time/spot - just relax Yoshi is comin'.

I'm pretty sure SMN is really strong right now.
You (and most SMNs) might dislike how it plays, but that doesn't change the fact it's strong. You either embrace the change or... dunno.
When BLM changed in HW, there was a lot of backlash (cliunky, restrictive, too hard, not simple, tight timers). Some of those complaints were valid, but I did grow to absolutely love it. It just took time.
Or try something else, dunno. But it marginally irks me that you got a lot of attention and come here to rail on us x)

[Llugen]

This is intrinsically at odds with how Black Mage functions on a fundamental level- to be executed perfectly, Black Mage requires deep knowledge of the fight and its timings and perfect cd alignment with key mechanics.
Black Mage, by design, is a bad job for progression. So if you try to fix the lack of utility with a tool for progression in a job that's naturally bad at that, you fix nothing. Why exactly aren't you taking RDM in progression?
Or better yet, the hyper mobile, infinite-mp, higher dps SMN?

Another dollar towards my sub, we found another person who just can't seem to muster the imagination to realize that a balanced game requires more than "it's not in the lore".

I don't propose raise on BLM because it needs to be a rez dispenser (which you would know if you'd read my proposal for how I'd implement it), or even because I think that will somehow magically fix all of its problems, but simply because it could then bring that option to the table just like every single other disciple of magic does. Furthermore, if you want to start a lore argument, why DOESN'T Paladin have raise? It is absolutely in its lore, that and lay on hands. Give please.

And to answer your question, because I don't want to have to play a job that I don't want to have to play "for progression's sake". That also flies directly against "any class comp can do any content" that SE preaches so hard. Some classes may be better for progression than others, this is natural, but one class being SO OBVIOUSLY PAINFULLY BAD for progression is unacceptable. All these factors add together into why BLM is an awful choice to bring into raid, the most glaring of which currently is the class's failure to live up to its supposed role (raw damage as utility).

[Galvuu]

snip

You're missing the point. Let me make it clearer.
Due to its inherent design, Black Mage will always be one of the worst (if not the worst) job in this game for progression.
Even if we had a rez with no cooldown, this wouldn't change (and what, you're gonna sacrifice one of your mobility tools to rez? What if you can't wait until UI, gonna got your AF phase and tank your dps?). SMN and RDM would still be better at rezzing, would still be more mobile and likely much better in progression.

As things are now, you can progress with BLM. You're on the back foot and need to put in extra work, but it can be done, and has been done.
To make this job a good candidate for progression, you need a lot of changes, some of which are fundamental changes to how BLM plays. If we go down this path, it'll take far too long, and it's not even that likely that it'll turn out well (SMN had a lot of deep changes that initially backfired so...).

Your alternative is accept that the job is suboptimal for progression and turn towards other things it can bring- damage, making it a good candidate for efficient farming/speedkilling once content is past progression.
This is much easier to achieve. You pump its numbers, or you give it synergistic offensive utility- or both.
It's easy to return the potency lost on the IV spells, it's easy to buff other spells, it's easy to extend T3 duration, it's easy to make Enochian 20% damage like Ofillomen said and it's also an interesting idea to tack a magic vuln onto B4 (which will also push caster-centric comps into the spotlight, which hasn't happened since what, 1.X when people stacked BLM?).
A raw single target dps that can compete with the other dpsers is also a less explored design space. SAM was looking ok in 4.0 before they decided to start buffing BRD/MCH/DRG out of control as usual.

This is why, imho, you just can't make this job work competitively for bleeding edge progression. The fact you need to predict mechanics in advance to stay put as often as possible or align your cds perfectly with troublesome mechanics (this on top of a layer or rng that makes your AF/UI cycles oscillate with up to 8s of variance in their duration) and the fact that you often rely on your team (be it for Aetherial or to stay god knows where so you can stay put, potentially forcing healers to adjust their positions) means that BLM is always iffy for progression- possible to pull it off, but harder and more time consuming. Rez or no rez, this won't change. So just go down the easier route of increasing its damage potential. That's what I was getting at.

dont agree, Bliz IV is a dps lose and needs fixing from the ground up

besides that, imo T3 should give the magic vulnerability... (unless they fix BIV, so it makes sense to use it either way)

This is only conditionally true, and we're talking a ~1.6pps difference which results in less than 1% dps. The 5xF4 AF cycle that bypasses B4 can only be used if you have 5seconds on your Foul clock with a Foul charge and get a TC proc or an instant tick going into UI. If these conditions are met, you can bypass B4 and go into a 5xF4 AF which nets you the discussed 1% dps gain. This is extreme min/maxing, and you're still going to use B4 like 90% of the time to play optimally.
Understand that a 1.6pps gain is very minimal, and if you time something wrong and go into UI with 0 mana and no Foul/TC proc, it takes literally less than half a second waiting for the mana tick to make this strategy a dps loss. In doubt, it's always better to be conservative and use B4. Some mechanics (Forced March in O3 and hysteria in O4) will gradually accrue Foul clock time and allow you to do this three or four times, but it's actually not significant as things stand.

[Llugen]

Did... did you even read my post? Why are you obsessing so hard over raise? I mentioned it once in a veritable mountain of suggestions, and in case you didn’t pay attention yet again, my proposal is for it to be off GCD and cost nothing. This would NOT affect its output at all outside of clipping if you aren’t smart about it.

BLM perhaps should be tough for progression but right now it’s just TOO far behind, and that needs addressing.

[Galvuu]

Did... did you even read my post? Why are you obsessing so hard over raise? I mentioned it once in a veritable mountain of suggestions, and in case you didn’t pay attention yet again, my proposal is for it to be off GCD and cost nothing. This would NOT affect its output at all outside of clipping if you aren’t smart about it.

BLM could be tough for progession but right now it’s just TOO far behind and it needs addressed.

I'm responding to a post a few pages back, not the last one. And the idea is about progression in general.
It's not like you can't progress with BLM, which is what you're making it sound like. I did it. It was hard, but feasible.
What I'm stating is that you need to change the job deeply to make it much better at progression.
If Ultimate is as hard as Gordias was on 3.0, the value of raw dps is also heightened due to tighter checks, so it's just better to look towards raising it's damage potential (single or synergistic) to make it better at killing things fast.

But I did read your most recent post, and your very suggestions highlight all of this. Many of them are pretty extreme, and most don't even heighten the damage potential of BLM. Many of them make no difference. For instance, Convert isn't a considerably dps gain at all now. Its power was the synergy with Raging Srikes, that we lost. Spells being free in UI also does nothing, because you're always going to cast the same spells in UI (B4/T3/Foul) and you don't have mana issues with these now. You don't need a stasis to keep AF/UI in downtime because you can already transpose to get Foul ticking. Dragging the Ley Lines towards you is much worse than what current Between the Lines does, as having it on a certain location helps you completely evade some mechanics with one magic button. Anything that extends timers just makes the job easier to play, and not actually stronger when executed perfectly. Free F4 doesn't extend the overall AF timer. There's other stuff, but most of these are so "out there"- why not something simple like adjusting the numbers and getting the magic vulnerability only? (Which admittedly you do have there, amidst a sea of... "questionable" suggestions).

[Grimoire-M]

If BLMs ever get a raise, SE had better make it a self-only raise that automatically puts you at full HP/MP in AF3 & Enochian on a 15m cooldown, with the stipulation that if you drop Enochian again, you die. That's some selfish utility, but selfish utility is still utility, and makes them better in prog, where one of their few advantages is that they have the least punishment for death. Leylines is the only significant CD that they can lose, after all. If you lose triple-cast it needed to be popped earlier, and whatever needed it has already killed you.


Other than that, SMN needs numbers nerfs and QoL buffs. BRD/MCH need the same 5% piercing debuff DRG has (to eliminate that dependency rather than because they need damage buffs), as well as reduced emnity for self instead of halving emnity on Tactician/Refresh. BLM needs a slight dps boost to make up for their lack of utility. Melee wise NIN needs a TA nerf, DRG is fine, MNK needs Brotherhood to affect casters, and SAM is fine cause I don't know if it needs anything given the rest happens. NIN's aggro advantages add the least potency over a fight, so they are fine as is.