Black magic...kinda sucks

[Menriq]

First off when I make posts like this it isn't just my own viewpoint I am coming from

Just a suggestion, but perhaps only speak for yourself and not others? Other people are free to express their own viewpoint if they are so inclined.

and when I make suggestions to changes I try to think how best to do it in a way that preserves the mastery of a job/class. I do this for any game I have suggestions for, and frankly I find it so laughable that everyone seems to know how badly I hate the turret playstyle but me.

From reading this thread, it seems like you don't quite have a master of this job / class. That's ok. I'm getting ready to main BLM, so I'm quite ignorant of the nuances as well. As others have said and I'll support, perhaps the class isn't for you. I'm an Omnitank, and I probably will not play DRK or WAR outside of getting the achievements if I don't have to. I've always preferred PLD and it's playstyle. One of the big draws of FFXIV IMO is that the classes are quite varied, so there are options. I personally hope the classes keep their uniqueness instead of trying to make them similar.

Second, like I said, the core of the BLM is momentem, not being a turret. The core of the BLM is:

-Heavy direct DPS with long cast times
-The depletion and refilling of the MP bar (the fire and ice cycle)

Can you point me to the official stance of what the core of BLM is? Otherwise, this seems to be more your interpretation.

[Zerathor]

I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, but coming from a blm that actually does content on a blm, I can assure you that it's fine. It has a steeper learning curve, but you have all the tools you need to keep 100% uptime on any savage fight and still be mobile. If I wanted to play a job where I can just yolo fights and not have to plan ahead for anything, I'd just play bard.

Blm has other issues that have nothing to do with its playstyle.

Even while learning fights, there's methods you can set yourself up for safety, then adapt for optimal play as it progresses.

[Malkria]

Just a suggestion, but perhaps only speak for yourself and not others? Other people are free to express their own viewpoint if they are so inclined.

Well according to a lot of people in this thread everything about the BLM is fine...except if you go back in the forums history you will see a LOT of people who apparently find various aspects of the job needing to be fixed. So...apparently I have a leg to stand on here, and you and your patrization can go somewhere else yourself.

From reading this thread, it seems like you don't quite have a master of this job / class.

Ah yes, the "you just don't like it because you don't understand the nuances...so let me get this straight. The job is supposed to be a 'turret' with a very simple rotation, so what nuance am I missing? Just because I don't like the movement of the system does not mean I don't get the 'deep and nuanced aspects of the job'...it means I feel the job can be a turret while not having to rely on GCD gaps for movement.

You can either claim it's a simple turret job with a simple rotation, or you can claim there is a deep nuanced system I'm not getting. But trying to argue both is frankly insulting to both of us, you for not making a better argument and me for your thinking i'm stupid enough to buy said argument.

Can you point me to the official stance of what the core of BLM is? Otherwise, this seems to be more your interpretation.

Can you point to the official line that describes the BLM as a 'turret job'?

Honestly, it sounds to me like OP looked up FFLogs or some other DPS ranking thread and said "Oh BLM has the best deeps, that's what I want". Now, they are struggling with the job and it's functions and, of course, that's the job's fault; not theirs. Cause, you know, GOD FORBID, they just aren't good at something!

Seriously if I had a dollar for every time someone on the internet told me what I apparently thought or felt, I'd be a very rich woman. Because apparently everyone who plays any job ever has to be worried about parsers and youtube ratings. 9.9

Sounds to me that the detractors in this thread can't be bothered to argue why the job is fine as it is when better options exist. But hey, I'm on the internet so I guess it's my fault for thinking people actually try to use logic to convince each other...I keep forgetting the preferred method is shout the other person down as a group, make them a strawman, and put intent and words in front of what they actually are saying. Silly me, guess I better get going before someone tells me to get back in the kitchen or some other stupid shit next.

[Menriq]

Well according to a lot of people in this thread everything about the BLM is fine...except if you go back in the forums history you will see a LOT of people who apparently find various aspects of the job needing to be fixed. So...apparently I have a leg to stand on here, and you and your patrization can go somewhere else yourself.

Sounds like you are taking this personal. It's hard to have a civil discussion when one party decides they are personally attacked.

Ah yes, the "you just don't like it because you don't understand the nuances...so let me get this straight. The job is supposed to be a 'turret' with a very simple rotation, so what nuance am I missing? Just because I don't like the movement of the system does not mean I don't get the 'deep and nuanced aspects of the job'...it means I feel the job can be a turret while not having to rely on GCD gaps for movement.

You can either claim it's a simple turret job with a simple rotation, or you can claim there is a deep nuanced system I'm not getting. But trying to argue both is frankly insulting to both of us, you for not making a better argument and me for your thinking i'm stupid enough to buy said argument.

Please re-read what I said. I said it appears you are don't have a master of the class / job. Perhaps if you have had extensive experience across different content, your opinion might carry more weight. I'm not an expert on BLM, so I defer to those with more experience. I can certainly provide my opinion, but chances are if I don't understand something to the depth others do, I should take the opportunity to learn more.

Can you point to the official line that describes the BLM as a 'turret job'?

I wasn't making the assertion of what the core BLM is. Therefore, since you are making the claim, the onus is on you to back up your statement. A perfect example was your claim that BLM is not top DPS, yet objective evidence (FFLogs) apparently debunks your statement.

Sounds to me that the detractors in this thread can't be bothered to argue why the job is fine as it is when better options exist. But hey, I'm on the internet so I guess it's my fault for thinking people actually try to use logic to convince each other...I keep forgetting the preferred method is shout the other person down as a group, make them a strawman, and put intent and words in front of what they actually are saying. Silly me, guess I better get going before someone tells me to get back in the kitchen or some other stupid shit next.

I won't speak to the end of your comment, but what you feel is better options is subjective. Let's take a step back, and work with what limited data we can objectively review, which is this thread. This thread alone has offered several logical explanations of why things are fine. It might be subjective, but the thing is, there are several different people who agree your suggestions are not good. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but if you take it being shot down personally, that seems a your problem.

[Malkria]

Sounds like you are taking this personal. It's hard to have a civil discussion when one party decides they are personally attacked.

No my issue is that every single person has led off with "well you just don't like it because you don't know what you are doing". Or that I looked at FFlogs and just wanted to do maximem DPS, but the class is 'hard' and I don't like that. Or that I simply haven't gotten the next ability that solves all my issues. No it couldn't possibly be that I have played games for years, have played similar archetypes to the BLM in many games across genres, and couldn't possibly understand the deep and nuanced nature of BLM as a 'turret DPS'. I must just be a random silly girl who dared question the community and not like their beloved job and so uppity as to call out the fact that it really could have been done better. Or since everyone was assuming I was a guy, just some random bloke who just couldn't wrap his head around a three button combo.

So sorry I am 'offended' by a bunch of dudes who apparently like to tell me what I was thinking or feeling when I made the post or how stupid I am for 'just not getting' the BLM job. After a few days of having a group of people talk down to you, I imagine getting a little terse would be natural for anyone. If you don't like that, oh well. I would say maybe treat the next person better, but that won't happen because you all are "right" and I am "wrong" because reasons. 9.9

Please re-read what I said. I said it appears you are don't have a master of the class / job.

Because by all that is holy I am tired of listening to the broken record, and that no matter how many times I explain "i get it". Apparently you think i'm just a dumb girl who doesn't. You don't need to 'master a job' to get how a job works. That is like saying you have to be a master gamer to review games. 9.9

[Zerathor]

So sorry I am 'offended' by a bunch of dudes who apparently like to tell me what I was thinking or feeling when I made the post or how stupid I am for 'just not getting' the BLM job. After a few days of having a group of people talk down to you, I imagine getting a little terse would be natural for anyone. If you don't like that, oh well. I would say maybe treat the next person better, but that won't happen because you all are "right" and I am "wrong" because reasons. 9.9

It's still 100% sounds like you don't understand what you're doing. Your biological gender has nothing to do with your lack of understanding in this matter, and bringing it up constantly as your victim card doesn't make your case look any stronger. It just looks worse tbh.

Give it actual time to grasp how everything works fully, and you'll find blm is actually pretty cozy to play as in savage.

[Malkria]

It's still 100% sounds like you don't understand what you're doing.

Wow...no you know what, I don't care anymore. That is all any of you have said, despite not being able to respond with more "well you just move during GCD", which is exactly what using swift and triple cast is about. What exactly am I not understanding? So since that seems to be all anyone can say, continuing to respond and explain myself, only to be told what I am thinking or feeling, is just continued masochism on my part. But now, after being tired of being told I am a 'he' I guess I'm playing the victim card by pointing out that I am a woman.

Like I said, shout down long enough until the dissenter goes away. So good game "guys", guess that means you win. 9.9

[Mahrze]

Wow...no you know what, I don't care anymore. That is all any of you have said, despite not being able to respond with more "well you just move during GCD", which is exactly what using swift and triple cast is about. What exactly am I not understanding? So since that seems to be all anyone can say, continuing to respond and explain myself, only to be told what I am thinking or feeling, is just continued masochism on my part. But now, after being tired of being told I am a 'he' I guess I'm playing the victim card by pointing out that I am a woman.

Like I said, shout down long enough until the dissenter goes away. So good game "guys", guess that means you win. 9.9

I understand where you come from and its one of the quirks of BLM, and your train of thought on it is not different to what I have seen or thought some times. But BLM is in the unique spot of having to play with the slide-cast gimmick the players have encouraged and SE not showing any change to that, even though people would expect differently since its the (supposed) main job the producer plays.

I don't want do discourage discussion, but I can tell you that whatever you see in this game, you're better of saying: "it is what it is" even though, like you've pointed out, you'd like to see some of these things fixed and you don't consider you're the only one in that spot.

[Zerathor]

It's the planning aspect you don't quite get.
Blm does suffer from downtime fights, but it can be mitigated by proper use of your resources. Knowing when to cut your cycle short because you won't get to use a full mp bar anyway, forcing a f3p with sharp to get straight back to astral fire 3 after transposing and waiting, using triple cast/swift to start back up after downtime. There's various ways to set yourself up so that downtime in fights won't effect you as harshly, and almost become unnoticeable. The buff to proc duration in 4.2 greatly assisted that option, by allowing you to better hold procs for mobility rather than hastily spend them like other jobs, and also the transpose cd reduction. Blm has options on their proc usage for comfort rather than raw gain.

Adjust to the playstyle more and it becomes easier and more rewarding to properly utilize all the tools at your disposal. All jobs have unique quirks to assist them in different boss fights, but blm is one of the few jobs that NEEDS to learn them. It has one of the highest gaps from the skill floor to the ceiling, and that's not a bad thing, it just needs to be respected.

And there's a difference between correcting somebody by saying you're a woman once, and harping on it after every post to imply we're bullying you for it. It's not relevant to anybody's point and it just looks bad on your part to make appeal to emotion a core part of your argument. Nobody really gives a damn about that.

[Kabooa]

I guess I'm playing the victim card by pointing out that I am a woman.

Like I said, shout down long enough until the dissenter goes away. So good game "guys", guess that means you win. 9.9

A) Irrelevant.

B) Fine, I'll go through your original post point by point. I like to consider myself a pretty dang good Black Mage, not quite on Sfia's level, but enough to address this.

Edit: FORMATTING

Ok I started out loving the black mage, but apparently was playing 'over geared' or something since now that I've hit mid-sixty range the job...just kind of sucks. The cast times I could live with, the need to switch between fire and ice is fine, but the timer...just kills it. With base gear you MAYBE can get three fire fours out before you need to toss a quick fire one or switch stances. But with the sheer amount of moving involved not only does the black mage have to work the hardest of all the classes to do damage but whether or not you do the mechanics you get screwed out of a lot of fights.

Gear scales in this game. You will never hit the point of natural spellspeed where Fire 1 isn't required, as that requires a near 1.8 cast time on Fire 4 at all times, which is about 35% spell speed. Currently your highest natural gear you can get is 14%.

Every job suffers from mechanics, some just suffer a little more. Black Mage and Monk have the shortest, but Black Mage doesn't require a target or any other conditional to keep theirs. If a Monk has to run out of melee at a bad time, they're forced to either eat a hit (not ideal) or risk killing someone with said mechanic. Black Mage hits transpose. It's not a punishment to prevent the worst case scenario.

Take the ruby sea dungeon. The first boss isn't to bad, you just need to avoid the water drops from the add and placement can make it easy to take it out. But the second boss has two mechanics. One with he eruption that makes you have to run and thus probably lose your timer, and the second with seduce which again will probably make you lose your timer. The final boss is similar, with long phases where you can't attack anything, and thus lose your timer.

Swift cast, sharp cast, good use of Thunder procs. Transpose on the last boss if you have to.

Frankly I don't even think you need major changes to make the job not feel so bad to play. First off the ley-lines could be a buff for going through a full ice-fire switch with full charges and every time you switch after that it resets. Second, having you lose complete charges feels to heavy handed. But having you lose a charge when the timer runs out every three seconds would give enough breathing room to the timer while better allowing the job to do mechanics without losing all momentum.

Leylines is currently one of the only abilities in the game that actively changes your behavior. We need more of these, not less, as currently many abilities you simply spam on cooldown (Attack oriented ones) or mash during burst windows (Buff oriented ones). Leylines requires spatial forethought as well as minimizing the impact random aoes can have on it (Such as standing on the edge so the aoe doesn't cover the whole thing. Move to the other end. Easy street)

AF's timers and the conflict it has with the mechanics thrown at you is like, the main attraction when dealing with Black Mage. Loosening up this particular part of the Job makes it intrinsically less interesting. Easier, but less interesting. AF/UI timers aren't hard to keep so long as you keep your Spellspeed in mind and what it allows you to abuse. There is nothing more satisfying than skirting the timer.

I like the job itself and the power it brings, but it isn't the top DPS and it's mechanics seem to but heads with the dungeon/raid design of the entire game. With those combined the question should be how to make the black mage better fit into the game, because right now the RDM is more fun to play even if it doesn't hit as hard simply because it feels better suited tot he game at large then the supposed heavy hitter black mage is.

Red Mage is also considered one of the least valuable jobs because you have fewer opportunities to excel. The Black Mage may not feel, at first handle, as good as a Red Mage in most content, but a Black Mage is one of the most satisfying jobs to optimize precisely because it's harder to handle. Split second proc management, knowing when you can be greedy, knowing when you can dump your leylines, knowing when you don't have to run out, abusing every timer you have.

That's the job. That's what makes it great. The simple rotation and mechanics are deceptive in this mastery because it's 'easy' to be okay at Black Mage, but very hard to be very good at it. If it's not for you, there's no shame in that.