Black magic...kinda sucks

[Dualgunner]

for Aether, tabing thru the partylist is imo way to slow with a pad, needs to be instant..

use the partylist for things like rez (when playing smn), but Aethermanipulation usally needs to be executed instantly to dogde aoe or stack up fast

Really kind of goes with the whole "Need to know what's coming and when" for Black Mage. Know when these aoes and stacks are going to happen and plan ahead, including softlocking the party member you want to hop to during the casting animation beforehand.

[Shiroe]

Really kind of goes with the whole "Need to know what's coming and when" for Black Mage. Know when these aoes and stacks are going to happen and plan ahead, including softlocking the party member you want to hop to during the casting animation beforehand.

even when you know when its about to come, blm are often in the mid of casting, and need to move asap..

softlocking sucks on ps4, end up losing your enemy target at times, even when focus targeting rhe boss..

its just way too slow and clunky if you don't use a macro with pre target player in the macro

as smn lose enough time when rezing and using the party list tab...

it would be easy to reduce the amount of buttons needed for blm, so there is more room for macros or other moves on the keysets for ps4 players (like LL and BtL could use the same action); without blm losing its fun / gameplay

... ether way, im looking forward to the blm changes, hope it will allow less casttime loses when using AM or BtL

[GunksFoy]

snip

I don't really understand when controller players complain about action space. As a former controller player, the only jobs I ever felt limited on were Scholar and Summoner, and I solved that by macroing pet spells to the summon spells and placing summon spells on a shared hotbar. Black Mage probably has the least number of necessary actions to put on a hotbar. On PC, all of my essential skills fit on 2 hotbars, 24 slots, which is 1 XHBR and the expanded sets. I played for years using 2 job hotbars and a single shared hotbar and never felt hindered or cramped. Is keyboard a tad easier? sure, but controller is totally viable and does not need special concessions made for it.

[Zerathor]

for Aether, tabing thru the partylist is imo way to slow with a pad, needs to be instant..

use the partylist for things like rez (when playing smn), but Aethermanipulation usally needs to be executed instantly to dogde aoe or stack up fast

it really is faster than you think. you can often quick tap a d-pad 2-5 times a little faster than mouse targeting your desired target, while completely eliminating the entire macro queuing issue of this game. often for fights where AM is a useful tool, you can see ahead on where you'll need to use it and plan for it. getting your target hovered while in the middle of casting your f4 is pretty easy. getting down using it without clipping, like during instant casts will take a little practice though. remember, 99% of the time, you'll either be going to a ranged party member, or one of the tanks, so most of the time you only need to tap up twice, or down twice. I don't think this is really too difficult, but maybe i'm just used to equipment quick swapping in dark souls as practice.

[Waliel]

Well off the bat, the people who don't lead off with "you just don't understand the nuances of the job"...because yes I get that it's a turret job. That was NEVER in question.

The concept of the BLM isn't actually to BE a turret, that is how most people PLAY it. The concept, the CORE concept, is momentum. Keeping up the cycle to put out as much damage as possible while on the cycle between fire and ice.

Wait...

11 hours.

[Kabooa]

Scathe is worthless, and the only part of that text wall I'll comment on is in the current state, never suggest using Scathe.

It's always better to try and greed another F4 or F1 than to settle for scathe.

[Popotato]

Scathe is worthless, and the only part of that text wall I'll comment on is in the current state, never suggest using Scathe.

It's always better to try and greed another F4 or F1 than to settle for scathe.

That's why I said "even Scathe". I know it's pretty bad, but it's an option if you're really dire. It's better than nothing.

[Nhadaly]

Scathe is worthless, and the only part of that text wall I'll comment on is in the current state, never suggest using Scathe.

It's always better to try and greed another F4 or F1 than to settle for scathe.

Correction that Scathe is useful in situations where you can get no other cast in before a transition(Kefaust is the prime example of this).

But other than that its pretty underwhelming yeah.

[SkyEdge1]

That was the only poll I could find, but you can find quite a few threads just going back a few pages on this forum alone. What they feel the issue varies, but a lot of it either comes down to how the BLM plays, the mobility, or how simplistic the playstyle is. Which the more I think on it I feel I agree that the BLM should be a little deeper. Hence the thought of making ice and lightning be the AoE side of things and ice and fire for single target as it is now.

Just my 2c there were 5 post going back 7 pages only 1 of them was about BLM job suggestions rather than just a "wouldn\\'t it be cool if" post it also died after a few pages not sure how relevant that is. Also every element on BLM has Aoe because BLM cycles through fire ice and lightning on its standard rotation giving you the option to AoE at different points in the fight for varying degrees of effectiveness. TBH all your beef seems to be "I dont like this job and neither should you"

[Malkria]

I thought chopping up posts was just attention seeking?

Mostly when you chop up a single paragraph into line by line. That is beyond silly at that point.

Just my 2c there were 5 post going back 7 pages only 1 of them was about BLM job suggestions rather than just a "wouldn\\'t it be cool if" post it also died after a few pages not sure how relevant that is. Also every element on BLM has Aoe because BLM cycles through fire ice and lightning on its standard rotation giving you the option to AoE at different points in the fight for varying degrees of effectiveness. TBH all your beef seems to be "I dont like this job and neither should you"

First off freeze, blizzard 2, and fire 2 are all redundant. The point wasn't that the BLM doesn't have access to AoE the point is that these are vastly under powered and largely ignored once you hit end game. You can use them, but they certainly wouldn't hurt from either having their function merged into a new AoE ability that would make room for other spells and/or abilities.

Second, yes I hate the BLM so much I have continued to play it. I mean I must hate healing so much as that I continue to play an AST even though i'm not fond of the speed run mentality that is so prevalent in tank community. Or being in melee that I am also trying to level a tank. This idea that you can't like things about a job without being able to criticize it is beyond silly. The good things I like about the BLM is that it is the only DPS I really feel like I matter since I can visibly see chunks of health, even on raid bosses, falling off and it is blatantly obvious when I am contributing to the DPS or not. I also in mmos in general just prefer the magic archetypes, so outside of not seeing any particularly cool staffs that match my outfit the aesthetics are cool too.

So no I don't think people should stop playing the BLM, and I have never EVER said that. Period. But just because a job is functional does NOT mean there are not significant ways it can be improved, and when you have several abilities going all but ignored and taking up space on a hotbar is a clear cut indication that the job could use improvement. Furthermore when you have a job being called a turret when only ONE ability on a decent CD promotes that; when the guides all focus on spell speed to try to increase said mobility, then maybe the job could use more base mobility.

The job simply feels clunky after level 50 once you start trying to squeeze in the ice/fire 4 spells. The job also feels clunky when you use the AM spell in how you either have to macro it or just trust that whoever you have pre-selected doesn't screw up. Third in that if your 'movement procs' and/or swift/triple cast are on CD your going to take good DPS hits as well as risk running out our timer which can lead to more issues. It isn't that all of these break the job outright, it's that they all add up to a job that feels like it could use some tuning. Which even the 'career BLMs" have admitted to.