How to Fix Black Mage for Good

[Seraphor]

Most solo duties as THM or low level BLM can be a nightmare without sleep, and it's still useful in dungeons where you can't just sprint away, if the tank or healer is new or undergeared.
Does it matter that it doesnt have a place on your hotbar?
Is it just OCD that you have to actually use all of your skills?

[GunksFoy]

Those could be slightly adjusted to compensate the loss. They would only need tuned down mildly. And it's only even useful in a dungeon if your tank is either A) a Paladin, or B) smart/aware/informed enough to pull, let you sleep mobs, then pick 1 and drag it away, which is not likely. But like I said, what I really want is a rework. It's not that I feel the need to use every ability, I just don't like having a totally obsolete skill. No other job really has anything that's completely obsolete at virtually any level, but primarily max level. None that I can think of off hand, but I didn't think too hard.

[Shiroe]

scath = extra damage just before add dies or phase change (boss becomes untargetable)

otherwise I'm up for Blm changes (make B4 more desirable..)

[GunksFoy]

scath = extra damage just before add dies or phase change (boss becomes untargetable)

otherwise I'm up for Blm changes (make B4 more desirable..)

Not a bad point, but that's what, 5 DPS over the course of a fight? If that? Is that going to be the difference between a clear and a wipe? Severely unlikely. I'm not optimistic about that use case.

[Shiroe]

also when your about to move out of range of the boss, scath is extra damage

its overall not much, but for lower lv ok for movment I guess..., a potency increase on scath would be nice..

but there are bigger Blm issues around (B4)

[Anyce]

I would really like scathe to do something interesting. maybe something like, it could act as another, less potent way to use polygut, but you can move while you do it. hell maybe make it only take half your polygut timer so it's technically stronger for gauge build but it takes 2 gcd's to cast so you'd have to decide if you want the big boom or the quick hit.

[Ferrinus]

Blizzard 4 is better than it looks, because ending your umbral cycle with B4 (rather than T3) ensures you won't get a bad mp tick and therefore lose an F4. However, I still wish it had a more obviously beneficial effect, like if each time you spent umbral hearts your Foul charged faster or something.

Scathe should be merged with Foul. Make 'em both cost 0mp and have instant cast time, and Scathe turns into Foul when you have Polyglot.

[Ferth]

So here's a thought... Umbral Heart let's us cast three fire spells in Astral Fire with a COST as if we were in Umbral Ice... Why not just go all the way and let us cast three fire spells with the cost and CAST TIME REDUCTION of Umbral Ice? Three more base GCD recast fire spells with a bit of wiggle room if we need to move or use abilities between casts, IF you spend the time casting Blizzard 4. Not super overpowered, but certainly far more useful than just one more Fire IV at the cost of casting blizzard IV.

[Kleeya]

As someone who play mainly solo, sleep has saved my life numerous times when getting unwanted aggro, when my chocobo wasn't feeling like healing me properly, or when a mob did suddenly get lucky on his crit rate.

Scathe is useful too as an always available quick way to get aggro from a far away mob that i want to lure away from the spot he is on, typically because i know that other mobs i dont want to fight all at once are gonna respawn there soon. And is highly useful when farming some low level mobs for some materials, you get done way quicker with that if you can always be running while spamming a long range instant skill.

I kinda dont get all the hate about these two skills. So buff them if you want, but my BLM would feel bad to have them removed.

[Rathael]

How about making scathe OGCD? Turn it into an action that you weave between instant and faster casts.

Sleep is fine. It's a crowd control spell. A freaking AoE one at that. We just don't use crowd control in raid content. If they want sleep to be relevant, it's on them to create a situation where crowd control is important. It's still good in situations where crowd control is relevant, as is bind. If anything it could use a very clear visual effect to indicate when enemies are sleeping... to aid in preventing group members from breaking the sleep. You don't miss a polymorph in World of Warcraft because it's so visually apparent.

Blizard 2 being self-centric is really really strange for a primarily ranged caster that does not want to be standing at melee range most of the time... but then freeze is basically a better version. It would be nice to be able to weave freeze or blizzard 2 in to the AoE rotation somehow. Our AoE requires several seconds of setup to even start, whereas most classes seem to be able to begin their AoE rotation immediately as they please. BLM AoE is impossible on low-hp or fast-dying targets.

I have no other issues with the rest of the kit. I am enjoying my BLM far more than any other class and the DPS numbers are insanely strong... if a little too strong. I'd like to lose a bit of that personal DPS in exchange for some agressive BLM-themed utility such as a vulnerability debuff or something similar.