Black magic...kinda sucks

[Popotato]

No I said "Black magic...kinda sucks". As for endgame, the ball has to start somewhere and I am willing to bet that with the job being 'dumbed down' in Stormblood there was a lot of bemoaning it despite the fact the job became easier to play for more people, correct? Furthermore the more I look across the web the more people have pointed out that BLM in fact really DOES need some serious reworks. For example all the AoE spells that are either redundant and/or under powered by the endgame such as the fire 2 and blizzard 2 and freeze. In fact you could simply make those 'neutral' spells such as giving lightning more of a presence as an AoE element to not only make the BLM feel more diverse as a caster but make AoE more effective. Maybe even add a haste ability proc to the lighting to allow the BLM to cast more frequently.

That is definitely a good guess since a lot of jobs did get backlash, but oddly enough, BLM was actually pretty well received going into SB despite being dumbed down. There were definitely a few naysayers about the job, but BLM got so many great abilities going into Stormblood that people were initially excited. Then it became evident that BLM was really undertuned and that's when the complaints came in, and now it's been buffed to a good spot.

Once again, you just say there's a lot of people without actually showing these people. You don't take our word for things we can't prove, you can't expect us to just take your word for it either. Since your opinion is in the minority, the burden of proof is on you to show us these people. Until you show recent threads of high level BLM players taking issue with the current state of BLM, I can only reserve my judgement.

BLM, just like every other job, definitely has useless spells. Granted, having spells that are rarely, if not never used definitely isn't ideal, but the good thing about those spells is that there's a very clear solution to them. Don't use them. It would definitely be nice to find a way to re-purpose those spells into something more useful and exciting, but if they're not useful, it doesn't impact the job's playstyle at all. So in saying that, re-purposing those spells doesn't fall under a "serious rework" because that would imply a change to BLM's core rotation. If they're not in the rotation outside of low level to begin with, then a core part of BLM isn't being changed at all.

But even then, it doesn't change the fact that as has been pointed out that ANY misstep on the BLM's part is a massive DPS loss, which in turn highlights the counter argument that has been running in a lot of people's posts. If the BLM is strongest when you know the fight, then it is the counter point to RDM in that it is weakest in progression. Because until you know a fight to plan for it, then a BLM would naturally have greater difficulties keeping it's 'highest DPS' card in play. If the RDM's problem is that it isn't as useful once you learn the fights and it's utility becomes less useful, the opposite argument can be made for BLM.

It's been emphasised already by previous comments, such as my own that you chose to ignore, that this isn't true at all.

To me the major issue is that the job is in the end all about momentum and keeping up the stream of DPS, and while I am all for the turret playstyle and even rewarding it the way the job is set up currently has more then a few noticeable flaws. The redundant spells that are next to ignored by end game, the movement that relies on keeping track of a party member and that they don't screw up or move out of range, the fact that the job loses so much DPS at the slightest hiccup, and a timer that keeps you watching it a lot more then the fight. All that combined leaves a lot of room for improvement and while it doesn't inherently need a complete rework as I play with it more, it DOES need a fair bit of retooling.

I've already talked about redundant spells above.

Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines, the movement options you are referring to, are just part of BLM's options for mobility. You aren't taking into consideration Triplecast, Swiftcast, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter procs, even Scathe, all of which are mobility options which allow for completely free movement. Furthermore, AM hypothetically can be really limiting, but that's only hypothetically. In practice, AM is rarely unusable. Of the 7 other party members, you would be really hard pressed to not find at least one person standing at the place you want to be. Also, I can't think of a single fight that forces you to be so spread out from other members that there's no one you can jump to with AM. If there does end up being a fight like that, AM might have limited uses, but even then, you have a plethora of other movement options.

Once again, the job isn't very punishing for mistakes.

I know you're tired of hearing this but in this case it's so evident, constantly looking at the timer is just a product of inexperience. With any job you play, the more experience you have with the job, the less you'll be looking at timers, gauges and hotbars. This is very much true with BLM, because the rotation is so static you can play the job without even looking at the timers.

[Malkria]

BLM, just like every other job, definitely has useless spells. Granted, having spells that are rarely, if not never used definitely isn't ideal, but the good thing about those spells is that there's a very clear solution to them. Don't use them. It would definitely be nice to find a way to re-purpose those spells into something more useful and exciting, but if they're not useful, it doesn't impact the job's playstyle at all. So in saying that, re-purposing those spells doesn't fall under a "serious rework" because that would imply a change to BLM's core rotation. If they're not in the rotation outside of low level to begin with, then a core part of BLM isn't being changed at all.

That is a fallacy, because the abilities that are not being used are not in the 'ideal rotation' does not mean that the BLM doesn't need a rework. with three useless abilities and two that are highly situational that puts it far ahead of other jobs who might have at worst one or two highly situational abilities. Especially when said abilities could be reworked to make the job both more interesting to play, and ease some off the need to 'memorize a fight' by having either more movement spells or utility in the BLM kit.

Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines, the movement options you are referring to, are just part of BLM's options for mobility. You aren't taking into consideration Triplecast, Swiftcast, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter procs, even Scathe, all of which are mobility options which allow for completely free movement.

Except they are NOT free movement. Again, thundercloud is a RNG proc and while you can push firestarter with a sharpcast you either need to have anticipated the need to have it beforehand or use both it and switft/triple cast to push it so you can move. BEFORE you can actually move. Free movement is just that, FREE. You are talking about moving during GCD and/or using instant casts to move, which in turn wouldn't be as much of an issue except that you both have to either rely on random chance and/or a combo of abilities to move without worrying about your DPS coming to a screeching halt.

Of the 7 other party members, you would be really hard pressed to not find at least one person standing at the place you want to be. Also, I can't think of a single fight that forces you to be so spread out from other members that there's no one you can jump to with AM. If there does end up being a fight like that, AM might have limited uses, but even then, you have a plethora of other movement options.

Except again you have to find, select, and THEN use AM. Which again could mean TWO people get damaged in a mechanic if you happen to pick the wrong person vs just yourself if you screw up something like the shadowstep. Again, it's a needlessly made complication to an otherwise simple blink spell.

Once again, the job isn't very punishing for mistakes.

Except you and others keep telling me that the job works best when you know the fight. It's simple logic at that point, because if it works best when you know the fight it works at it's worst when you don't Which means in progressive situations the BLM then becomes more of a hindrance with no utility and no way to support the team outside of DPS; which again will take a hit since you won't know the optimal way to setup and use your abilities. You can't have it both ways if you continue to insist that the BLM is all about knowing the fight.

I know you're tired of hearing this but in this case it's so evident, constantly looking at the timer is just a product of inexperience. With any job you play, the more experience you have with the job, the less you'll be looking at timers, gauges and hotbars. This is very much true with BLM, because the rotation is so static you can play the job without even looking at the timers.

You can claim that, but frankly I don't know any healer who doesn't still have to watch out for the refresh timers on hots or if shields are still up; let alone if the tank needs healing or support vs getting another damage spell in. Furthermore in every guide i've seen so far has cited keeping an eye on the timer. So if you have internalized the timer so much fine but apparently watching the timer is still very much a thing.




As a side note, if you need me to dig up every single recent or relevant post on the BLM to understand that a good number of people find issue with the job in various ways...well I would point out to you that a lot of my 'reference material' in this regard is front page of google searches. Plenty of people other then me have said the same things, and some of what I am saying now is coming from them. Yes the job is playable, yes it it top DPS, but no that doesn't mean that it doesn't need a fair bit of work when it has the most useless abilities and one of the simplistic rotations of any the jobs; when you have a dev saying that all the jobs need to have depth and interesting gameplay.

[GunksFoy]

Snip

I thought chopping up posts was just attention seeking?

Ad hominem aside -


Could those skills use a rework, sure. Most black mages would like to see them made useful, myself included, but they do not NEED reworked. BLM is just fine where it is. And they definitely don't need to be movement based or part of the main rotation, we already have a good rotation and good movement for a job that's meant to stand still.

Once again, part of knowing the fight. However, swiftcast and triplecast are very easy to use. When progging, you need to hold them a bit and use them as necessary, and as you progress further you will know when and how to use them best for DPS and movement. Just like Dragoon with Geirskogul, popping life of the dragon right as an AoE comes out means potentailly losing a Nastrond, or Monk with Tornado Kick, potentially not having GL3 for a DPS check. EVERY job needs to know the fight to do peak DPS, and good black mages make it work.

Macros. I have AM macro'd to allow me to get out of danger in nearly every situation with little to no issue. You can also just use <mo> and select a healer, because a healer will always be in safe spot (typically). And if you're in static, you can choose a specific person, bard perhaps, to teleport to as they are very mobile. Many options, not that hard.

It works BEST when you know the fight, but a good black mage will make do with whatever they need. And she said black mage isn't punishing for mistakes because the rotation is VERY easy to get back to. Unless you fuck up twice and lose Enochian twice within ~17s, you will never really be out of your rotation except maybe losing an almost-finished foul. Dragoon, should you happen to lose BotD at a bad time, could lose potentially 60s of rotation build up. Summoner could lose nearly 2 minutes of work. There are less punishing jobs like Red Mage, but certainly more punishing ones as well. You need to know the JOB to be good, knowing the fight just allows to be great.

And she's mostly right here. You still need to keep an eye on the timer in the event of downtime or an incoming boss jump, but for the most part you will not be looking at the timer. I only ever look at my own gauge when an AoE or something is going out. And most jobs can ignore the gauge for the most part as it's just part of the rotation, unless they're moving or during downtime.

EDIT: you edited another point in right after I posted this. To that point, as we have all said, there are issues. Like the useless spells. But BLM is in a great spot for DPS (thought i could agree to a ~2% further increase to push us out ahead of Summoner and their rDPS) and for it's rotation. The rotation flows almost perfectly. Foul almost always lands during your UI rotation, 6 F4s is easy to attain, plenty of time to do 3x F4 and 1x F1. Black Mage doesn't NEED anything, but it could use a few QoL changes. Like the ones coming next week. The problem everyone has with you, is that you want the entire job scrapped and rebuilt, and nobody else wants that.

[Popotato]

Gonna keep this kinda short heopfully because I'm low on time. EDIT: It wasn't short at all lol

That is a fallacy, because the abilities that are not being used are not in the 'ideal rotation' does not mean that the BLM doesn't need a rework. with three useless abilities and two that are highly situational that puts it far ahead of other jobs who might have at worst one or two highly situational abilities. Especially when said abilities could be reworked to make the job both more interesting to play, and ease some off the need to 'memorize a fight' by having either more movement spells or utility in the BLM kit.

In the same vein, just because it has useless skills doesn't mean it needs a rework either.The second half is purely hypothetical. It could be better, but what more does BLM need right now? It would especially be hard to add those onto low level AoE skills. If you can propose something intuitive and interesting I'd be all for it.

Except they are NOT free movement. Again, thundercloud is a RNG proc and while you can push firestarter with a sharpcast you either need to have anticipated the need to have it beforehand or use both it and switft/triple cast to push it so you can move. BEFORE you can actually move. Free movement is just that, FREE. You are talking about moving during GCD and/or using instant casts to move, which in turn wouldn't be as much of an issue except that you both have to either rely on random chance and/or a combo of abilities to move without worrying about your DPS coming to a screeching halt.

It might be better to refer to Firestarter and Thundercloud collectively as "Sharpcast" then. Every 60s you get a guaranteed proc GCD of free movement, that can be held for 18s.

Except again you have to find, select, and THEN use AM. Which again could mean TWO people get damaged in a mechanic if you happen to pick the wrong person vs just yourself if you screw up something like the shadowstep. Again, it's a needlessly made complication to an otherwise simple blink spell.

Once again, this is pretty hypothetical. Looking at the spell, it COULD happen, but it rarely does. Good usage is effective. Bad usage is costly. This is just like any other blink. The alternative type of blink that still considers BLM's range would be a system like Shukuchi, which is very finicky especially on controller, or like Elusive Jump, which is once again finicky. There's of course dashing to the targeted enemy, but that compromises the range that BLM has, and it doesn't make much sense either considering the jobs with that kind of blink are typically melee DPS trying to keep uptime.

Except you and others keep telling me that the job works best when you know the fight. It's simple logic at that point, because if it works best when you know the fight it works at it's worst when you don't Which means in progressive situations the BLM then becomes more of a hindrance with no utility and no way to support the team outside of DPS; which again will take a hit since you won't know the optimal way to setup and use your abilities. You can't have it both ways if you continue to insist that the BLM is all about knowing the fight.

This is to get the most out of the job. If a BLM drops his timer, he can just recast Enochian and just pick up where he left of having taken a small hit to DPS. The challenge with BLM is not letting this happen to maximise damage.

You can claim that, but frankly I don't know any healer who doesn't still have to watch out for the refresh timers on hots or if shields are still up; let alone if the tank needs healing or support vs getting another damage spell in. Furthermore in every guide i've seen so far has cited keeping an eye on the timer. So if you have internalized the timer so much fine but apparently watching the timer is still very much a thing.

Those are necessary things to keep track of, but no healer has their eyes glued to a tank's health bar looking at their Regen slowly tick down. It's just a glance to check the duration. Same thing with BLM and any job really (besides WHM). The better you get at a job, the less you need to look at the timer. It's not like BLM requires an absurd amount of time looking at the gauge in relation to other jobs. I won't deny that the gauge itself is more integral to BLM than some other jobs like PLD and WHM though.

As a side note, if you need me to dig up every single recent or relevant post on the BLM to understand that a good number of people find issue with the job in various ways...well I would point out to you that a lot of my 'reference material' in this regard is front page of google searches. Plenty of people other then me have said the same things, and some of what I am saying now is coming from them. Yes the job is playable, yes it it top DPS, but no that doesn't mean that it doesn't need a fair bit of work when it has the most useless abilities and one of the simplistic rotations of any the jobs; when you have a dev saying that all the jobs need to have depth and interesting gameplay.

I'm just saying that those people should be decently experienced BLM player, that made threads recently. Not popularity polls conducted during ARR.

[zuzu-bq]

To me the major issue is that the job is in the end all about momentum and keeping up the stream of DPS, and while I am all for the turret playstyle and even rewarding it the way the job is set up currently has more then a few noticeable flaws. The redundant spells that are next to ignored by end game, the movement that relies on keeping track of a party member and that they don't screw up or move out of range, the fact that the job loses so much DPS at the slightest hiccup, and a timer that keeps you watching it a lot more then the fight. All that combined leaves a lot of room for improvement and while it doesn't inherently need a complete rework as I play with it more, it DOES need a fair bit of retooling.

So, to you the issue is that you don't like how it plays? Gotcha.

[Shiroe]

@ movement on ps4

one aether macro on one player target is possible; choose one player in the party,.. want more, than lose a rolle class move or another move on the keysets.. trying to tab target on ps4, then aether is BS,.. need a macro for every player target

movement can be a pain on ps4

[Zerathor]

@ movement on ps4

one aether macro on one player target is possible; choose one player in the party,.. want more, than lose a rolle class move or another move on the keysets.. trying to tab target on ps4, then aether is BS,.. need a macro for every player target

movement can be a pain on ps4

I'm on PC but I still use controller. Don't use macros, as they're really bad at queuing up as an action and can be unreliable. (And AM primarily being used for YOUR own well being, it's good to have your safety as reliable as possible)

I find it easier to select target through the party list using up and down on your D pad. You can pick your target in the middle of your cast bar to minimize the gcd clip, or typically get fast enough to do it after an instant cast to not clip. Most of the time, the other range will be your destination, so up up, AM. if you need to be closer to boss, one of the tanks will be target usually, so down down, or down down down depending on which tank you want to be at (don't pick MT most of the time, go for tank not holding boss)

Other situations can of course be different, but you'll get faster at selecting your destination from party list hovering with practice. Each party member is 2-5 quick taps away, which you can do in under half a second after getting adjusted to that.

[Maero]

Our FC has one of the top dps blm out there, look at his numbers and enough said.
Illidra Ethorn

[Remyogic]

The funniest part of this thread so far is OP has REPEATEDLY used incorrect examples, completely un-connected analogies, out-right mistated facts, and brought gender victimization into the conversation...............THEN she turns around and throws out that others are being intellectually dishonest??

I don't even play Black Mage, I came to this thread because I am looking into leveling a Black Mage and want to be informed about the class. BUT, it's pretty common sense who's right when someone who has a few weeks of playtime with a class at low-to-mid level ability says there are issues and MULTIPLE people who have YEARS of experience with the class at the highest levels say you need to practice more (paraphrasing basically EVERYONE) and your issues will be resolved.............

Disregarding an experts opinion for a layman's IS intellectual dishonesty. Practice what you preach.

[Shiroe]

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