Black Mage

[Llugen]

I wrote a thread a while back of proposed changes that would be more intricate than flat potency increases, here are some of the highlights:

convert changed to "indulge", 60 second recast, no HP reduction
thundercloud is additive to the current dot up to 60 seconds rather than refreshes timer
thundercloud/firestarter procs have 30 second duration to match SMN/RDM's proc duration
Thunder III timer increased to 27 or even 30 seconds and Thunder increased to 24
Umbral hearts give +5% damage on the spell that uses the heart
Fire used with an umbral heart is instant cast guaranteed, or guarantees a firestarter proc
reduce aetherial manipulation recast to 15s

Some other interesting suggestions to consider:
give BLM no MP 180s recast raise off-gcd (shut up about the lore, it's the only DoM class that doesn't have a raise, and that's shitty)
give BLM 180s recast skill that expands ley lines and lets it be used by the whole party (again, raw damage will never ever be stronger than party utility)
allow option to firestart Fire IV or Fire III, alternatively, any time a firestarter III is used, the next fire IV costs zero MP and is instant cast
Thundercloud proc adds 5 seconds to the Polyglot timer

[zuzu-bq]

Yeah, it's not fun to be a raw damage job while other jobs can just do more than you.

Scathe could yes get a rework but the main issue it doesn't get used is its MP cost which makes you lose a whole Fire IV when cast in Astral Fire. So that kind of rework won't do, you're gaining 50% at the cost of a whole fire spell.

Giving raise doesn't solve BLM's issues. It already does more than RDM in terms of raid DPS but if you're replacing your RDM for raid damage you'll just pick SMN or MCH because they're too much better. Just raising Black Mage's damage to those two and making it even bigger would do it. I don't want the job to be overpowered, I just want it to be good enough so people stop not wanting to play with someone because they are a BLM. And that issue is not for BLM alone.

As for Umbral Hearts, yes it needs a massive reworkd. The resource just straight sucks and the biggest reasons we use that is because MP ticks are not reliable and Foul takes too long to charge for a no UH rotation. All UH offers is a tighter timing to refresh Astral Fire and a bandaid to our new mechanic. And yeah, I've been talking to some BLM friends on Discord and we prettu much realized either a raw damage buff per heart spent (something like ammo) or making a Fire in it proc Firestarter would probably be the best non gamebreaking solutions. Another issue is also how arbitrary Convert is on the amount of MP you give. Your spells cost 1200 so multiples of that number should be the amount that Convert give us just like DRK skills do and not a weird random 4644 just because that is 20% of our MP pool.

Umbral Hearts is a weird mechanic that rewards you so little and honestly, before you get Foul it doesn't even reward you with two full Fire IVs because MP ticks can screw you over. It just feels Hearts are here to patch up the rotation to fit our only real new Spell because MP ticks wouldn't let it happen. Making all Spells cost 0 on Umbral Ice would be one of the solutions while making Scathe viable since you actually have MP to Scathe at least once on AF if you went inside it with near full MP. Forcing MP ticks to happen is also not a bad solution. Being tied to MP ticks always been caused BLM issues and if they removed the ricking down from DRK why can't they give up a form to avoid the ticking up.

[Llugen]

I suggested that umbral ice just immediately give you back MP in full over relying on server ticks wayyyy back in 2.0. Not only would this make the class much less annoying to play for having to deal with server ticks, it would make spell speed that much more valuable because you don't have to have a potential loss on a late tick.