Black Mage

[LittleLamb32]

What if BLM had a skill that "froze" their gauge:

Specifically...

Freeze:
Is now an ability that "freezes" their Gauge.
Recast Time: 45 seconds.
Umbral Ice:
Indefinitely freezes Umbral Ice's timer until a spell that removes Umbral Ice is cast.
Astral Fire:
Temporarily freezes Astral Fire's timer for 7 seconds. Automatically melts if a spell that gives Astral Fire is cast.

Note: It is implied that this allows Polyglot to keep ticking.

Whether or not it should refresh Astral Fire's timer, or keep Polyglot ticking is debatable.

Another angle I took this was when Polyglot's timer is done ticking or perhaps when you cast Foul, immediately reduce Triplecast's recast time by 30 seconds.

Edit: Yes, I realize that this doesn't give them team utility, but instead allows them more reposition time.

Edit 2: Or perhaps give BLM "Twincast"
Twincast:
Borrow the cast time of another ally's spell to cast half of the next spell cast, reducing your cast time by 50%, and the target's cast time the amount reduced. Lasts 15s.
Cooldown: 30s

This would immediately trigger when the target of Twincast begins to cast the spell. This doesn't work on weapon skills, abilities, or anything that has no cast time.

[TsuKoj]

That does nothing for blm. Repositioning is about the loss of casts, for example of a melee/ranged dps moves they can move during the gcd of an ability to lose nothing and at worst it delays a gcd by a second. For blms unless you preplan your triple/swift cast(and assuming it's not on cool down) you lose the time (up to 2ish seconds) by canceling a cast and the time it takes to find finish moving to start a new cast(blm doesn't have a gcd shorter than cast time). Astral/umbral is easy to upkeep with transpose juggling during phase changes.

[NovaUltimatum]

Black Mage has been the job I have stuck with since beta, all through ARR, HW and now SB. I have played it in solo play, casual raid teams, world prog raid teams and even tried bringing it to speed kill teams.
Since ARR, BLM has kept very true to its identity. It stands still and it does damage. It has been given various defensive utilities over it's lifespan but these are minor additions which over time have become completely insignificant.
To get a full understanding of the current state of Black Mage as a functioning job in Stormblood, we need to understand how the game has changed since ARR when I would last say Black Mage was truly in a viable and desired spot.


1. Raid buffs.
This is probably the single most detrimental contributor to my enjoyment of Black Mage, as well as it's viability in end game content. Raid buffs such as trick attack, hypercharge, and foe requiem add strong burst windows to your teams damage. When used correctly, these allow for huge damage spikes which can be capitalized on through smart use of cooldowns and manipulating timers. It creates a layer of complexity and enjoyment when running the same content in the months we have between each raid cycle.

However. Black Mage has ZERO offensive utility. As a job it does not provide to any other team member in a positive way, in fact for many teams who are not at a higher level of play, bringing a Black Mage will cause the team to overcompensate when allowing for the turret class and this can be a hindrance to the teams overall damage.

On top of their lack of offensive utility, they are not able to consistently capitalize on these burst windows provided by other raid members. Due to the RNG nature of the BLM rotation, you cannot reliably plan which GCDs will line up with your teams burst, creating a huge disparity between getting your powerful spells within buffs and getting your weaker phase inside the same window.


2. The powercreep of ranged physical DPS.

Back in ARR, bard was very powerful. It had very high personal DPS while it provided raid dps buffs through foe requiem on top of limitless mobility. However resource management was an issue during this content, and said bard would have to sacrifice it's own damage for the good of the team to allow TP spenders to keep spending and MP spenders to keep spending. This created a solid balance where it's power was gated and not allowed to be overbearing.

HW rolls around and as the expansion progressed, bard and machinist both saw more and more aggressive buffs. Jobs which already provided higher raid dps total contributions than casters (when combining personal damage with hypercharge/foe) as well as having access to resource regeneration tools made them provide more overall damage than both BLM and SMN, which are purely DPS classes. During Heavensward balancing patches, classes started to be almost completely TP independent. Meaning the use of Army's Paeon as a DPS balancing tool became less and less important.

So now we are in Stormblood, and I feel like we are still in Heavensward. Black Mage was released with rotation breaking issues with MP, timers too strict for the gear we had available all in all making the class feel very un-fun to play. While these issues were bandaid fixed (simply by giving more spell speed in the form of reduced cast times on f4/b4) it still didn't hold up because at the same time, ranged physical classes were being buffed as well. Machinist gets personal DPS buffs, while also providing raid utility, and even the already absurdly powerful bard gets buffs in 4.06. And now with 4.1 coming up, machinist is AGAIN being buffed while black mage gets nothing. Another important change that came with Stormblood is the free to cast MP and TP restoring abilities. Now the previously balancing factor is completely gone even further pushing ranged physical DPS ahead in viability.

In previous fights, casters were incentivised through the use of physical damage resistant mob types. The last instance of this being used was in Floor 7 of Alexander Savage, which was a very weak check capable of being dealt with by a healer (and optimally so) as the fastest kill for this turn was with both bard and machinist, in place of a caster.

So if we were to compare bringing a Black Mage and ANY ranged class right now we are trading Manashift, Apocatastasis, and Addle for significantly higher raid DPS contribution, a stronger form of MP sustain through Refresh (6kmp vs 3kmp and it is FREE), personalized forms of mitigation on par with or stronger than Addle (Troubadour and Dismantle), and the ability to do all of these while moving freely for mechanics.


3. Homogenization of the caster role.

Black Mage got the short end of the stick with the role changes in Stormblood. No way to argue it. Apocatastasis being made cross-role removed identity and value from the job. This was previously a small niche which the Black Mage could fill in coordinated teams to provide defensive utility to magic damage tank busters, or spot-apoc a low HP target party member during megaflares. Now that is shared between the other casters, which also provide more valuable contributions themselves. On top of this, the new combined manaward button took away defensive flexibility in the job itself.

Both Summoner and Red Mage have their niche in the raid scene, and out of it. Red Mage is a blind progression godsend with its simple rotation and ability to verraise at will, on top of that it is the forerunner in the oh-so-competitive world of POTD solo runs. Summoner provides very high total raid dps (which is being hugely buffed in patch 4.1) as well as a raise which is valuable for progression. Black mage provides nothing outside of its lackluster damage contribution and slow learning curve for fights due to its turret playstyle.

So after gutting the job of it's personal strengths and buffing other classes that already provided more to the team, Black Mage is left in a spot which is honestly disappointing.
We still struggle with horrible execution of rotation due to forced GCD clipping, in a world where you have such small windows to maintain buffs while executing optimal rotation.

At the end of the day you have to ask yourself why should I bring a Black Mage over any other class to any content. Casual Progression? Hardcore Progression? Speed kills?

"I hate that every time I play the job that I want, I have it in the back of my mind that I'd be contributing more by picking almost anything else" - Blackcat Ofillomen

Wow, OP has actually managed to articulate the underlying feelings I've had as a BLM main. I'm actually quite surprised that YoshiP hasn't recognised these issues given he plays BLM more than the other roles too.

I will add though, that BLM is still the best among all jobs for AoE damage. So it does come in #1 for dungeon spamming in my opinion. However, BLM mains would probably rather it offered more to the table in raid encounters. I was actually curious to see whether Omega would add enough AoE requirements to help BLM (and the other casters to a lesser extent) secure raid balance, but alas they kept to the usual focus of single target dps.

Personally I'd rather the job got personal utility to help balance it rather than numbers tweaks (which vary greatly between players anyway). I know YoshiP mentioned in a live letter he didn't want BLM to have a raise because it wouldn't be lore-friendly. But I don't see why that couldn't be explained with necromancer lore.

[Capn_Goggles]

I've always loved BLM, and I certainly enjoy SB BLM, but I'm inclined to agree that it's another victim to some nasty powercreep. In a vacuum it seems incredibly powerful, like SAM, because it gets big numbers, but its numbers aren't big enough to justify bringing it along in place of the "core" comp, and you have to work a decent amount to get those numbers in the first place. I don't want the job to get easier, but the rewards for mastery should be much greater.

[nugglets]

I'm just glad someone else said it. I love this class and have zero interest in playing anything else, but I constantly think about how I might be holding back the group despite doing well personally.

But when you complain about BLM you always get people pointing to your personal DPS and saying there's no problem, as seen in this thread. And I can't help but feel like SE thinks the same way, as balance changes seem to mostly target personal performance without considering overall group performance factors.

Increasing personal DPS to the point where it would make up for the rDPS would be extreme and lead to much more complaints from the general player base. So I agree that the answer is to provide some raid contribution to the BLM kit. I personally think that could come in the way of shields instead of buffs. We used to have two personal defensive abilities, a single target party shield, E4E and virus so it would be lore / legacy consistent. Giving us back manawall and making it a reduced potency (10%?) AOE manaward on a decently long CD might be a start.

The problem with this approach is that it could be really helpful for progression, but once it comes to farming / speedrunning we would still be in the same position most likely...

[Ferrinus]

Blizzard 4 needs to become more rewarding to use, so if SE wants to either boost BLM personal dps or BLM added-to-party dps they should start there.

[Kyrian12]

BLM is pretty much my favourite class in terms of theme and aesthetics. I have always been partial to caster DPS with big numbers and FFXIV was no exception. It was the class I started the game with and the first one I brought to lvl 70. I really wanted to make it my permanent main, but the playstyle was so clunky I ended up switching to other classes. It just doesn't feel satisfying to play. I just don't see the benefit of playing a class that is has a tight rotation due to resource management, has low mobility, no utility and only a "little" more DPS than the competition.

The thing is, I have played all-damage, no-utility DPS classes before in other MMOs. The thing I enjoy about all damage no utility classes is the satisfaction of gearing them up to be badass and watching them WRECK things. Regardless if the class is actually overpowered, you at least feel powerful, like your damage output makes a difference. People want you in their parties because you wreck things. People notice the damage you and your class put out. They want you because they know that with you in the party, boss fights are easier because they are significantly shorter. I don't feel that in FFXIV with BLM. BLM is king/queen at AOEing dungeon trash but I don't notice a huge difference when it comes to boss fights compared to other DPS such as Bard, Machinist, Dragoon, Monk, Red Mage, etc.

I agree with the OP, especially in terms of powercreep. When other classes deal almost as much damage as BLMs and offer more utility... what's so special about BLM? The thing I find really sad about the state of BLM is that they're only a godsend in dungeons or content with a lot of trash. I'm extremely happy to see them in dungeons because they will reliably and happily AOE things if you line up at least 3-4 targets for them. It's really fun watching them melt mobs with huge explosions. On the other hand, I've seen BLMs slow down boss fights because of all the movement required and if they screw up their rotation. Good BLMs do exist, but watching the less competent ones is especially painful.

[BubblyBoar]

I don't want BLM to get more raid buffs. I just want a caster meta. Casters are pretty dead forever because of the dmg specific buffs. RDm and embolden makes RDM the only caster that has any kind of place. That said, teh meta comp isn't THAT far ahead of other comps. While the NIN/DRG/BRD is pretty much set in stone, the 4th slot is variable. MCH BLM, SAm, and MNK can all fit into that slot and still have roughly the same numbers. The problem is that even though raid DPS is just about the same, personal DPS is lower unless a MCH is in the party. And we all know how much more important people think their personal DPS is, even if raid DPS is the same. They need that purple fflogs. With SMN being buffed, I'm pretty sure it's going to pull ahead of all 4 of those DPS. The only thing that'll need to happen for that meta is for enough good SMNs to show that SMN can do it.

Basically, no, don't give BLM a raid buff. I don't want a raid buff. I want to be big girl DPS like SAM (which we basically are right now).

[GospelVhae]

One of my static's reaction to the live letter
"Oh, we're back to 3.2?" At this point, Im just hoping they add another melee mid patch that gives magic resist debuff. That or they completely remove the piercing debuff. They can distract us with that until they really sit and really think things through.

[BubblyBoar]

What I really want is for them to play buff chicken with BLM and SMN liek they did BRD and MCH back in Heavensward:^ )