Am I missing something? The game doesn't feel ... fun

[ItMe]

I just started levelling BLM myself, and my fiance running WHM was doing triple my damage.
I wasn't geared up for my level.
She had end game raiding gear.
Don't worry OP, the early game is just jank like that.

[Avenger]

One nice thing about ffxiv is that there are tons of jobs to play. I like BLM a lot but if you want to feel invincible at lower level try a melee dps or tank. Or cnj/whm.

[Iscah]

Are you switching between fire/ice states with Transpose? If not then you're bringing your damage to a halt each time you need to switch.

But yeah, gear scaling is weird and the gap between you and max-level players will get smaller over time.

[Stepjam]

BLM feels really slow early on and has the wonkiest progression of any class (most classes continually build on their rotation as you level up, while BLM's rotation outright changes multiple times until you hit 60).

Once you hit 60, it starts to settle into it's proper rotation and feels better and only gets better from there. BLM also has one of the longer start up periods since it's the only class that hardcasts nearly all of it's skills.

[Mhaeric]

Things will get better very soon for you as BLM. At level 18 you will get Fire II which is AoE damage and you'll be killing things faster than the tank. The only reason the tank is doing more than you when you're level 15 is that tanks get their AoE at level 10 in order to be able to tank groups of mobs at all levels and AoE almost always trumps single target on groups of mobs. Once you get yours you'll feel more powerful.

Edit: And yes, Blizzard II is technically AoE, but unless the tank is pulling multiple packs at a time with like 6+ mobs, spamming it won't do more damage than your single target Fire spell since the potency is so low.

[Swimfan91]

Thanks for all your replies.

I was actually thinking trying Red Mage later on.

I think I'll also give the class another chance - at least until lv 40 after I have played the real Blackmage class for a bit. I have also noticed that I haven't gotten any passives yet. Maybe that stacking fire attunment will make the difference?!
I hate giving up :-P I was just really frustrated.

[Mhaeric]

Thanks for all your replies.

I was actually thinking trying Red Mage later on.

I think I'll also give the class another chance - at least until lv 40 after I have played the real Blackmage class for a bit. I have also noticed that I haven't gotten any passives yet. Maybe that stacking fire attunment will make the difference?!
I hate giving up :-P I was just really frustrated.

When you get to the point where you have 3 Astral Fire stacks from the two Magick and Mend traits you will notice a big difference. Having 3 of these stacks up on you gives an 80% boost to your fire damage spells. And that's on top of the base damage increase that the trait Magick and Mend also provides just from itself. It's why looking at the numbers on the tooltips doesn't really give a good idea at how much damage a BLM can output.

[HeulGDarian]

tbf blm actually starts at level 60 >_>

[Hysterior]

Low levels are not very fun in quite a few jobs... just hang on

[Frizze]

Thanks for all your replies.

I was actually thinking trying Red Mage later on.

I think I'll also give the class another chance - at least until lv 40 after I have played the real Blackmage class for a bit. I have also noticed that I haven't gotten any passives yet. Maybe that stacking fire attunment will make the difference?!
I hate giving up :-P I was just really frustrated.

The stacks really do add up. At level 40 with full(3) stacks your Fire 1 spell(its the spell you spam until 60 for single target) is actually a potency 421 hit. Then the level 42 trait makes it sometimes(40%) proc a free insta-cast of Fire 3 at potency 561(this isnt your spamming spell though because it costs 2.5 times as much mana and casts slower). At max level, your spamming spell(Fire 4) is coming in with a potency over 800. You said you didnt feel the impact of your spells. As a Black Mage levels they feel this impact more and more strongly. I can be fighting a 24 man raid boss with millions of hp, but when i land a solid crit the health bar drops a noticable amount. Regular dungeon bosses? Even my light hits move the bar.

Oh, and dont sleep on your thunder spells. Even at your level, a Thunder 1 that lasts its full duration is the equivalent of a potency 270 hit. Thats stronger then a Fire 1, just spread over 18 seconds(it also keeps going, even if the target goes off screen or you have to stop attacking for some reason). A really strong use would be to cast Thunder while in your ice stance recovering mana, then transpose back to fire(when you have the mana) and let it do its thing. The level 28 trait makes this even more important, because every server tick you have a thunder dot running you have a chance to proc an even stronger thunder.

In the end you may find another class is right for you. But this class has yet to show you its true potential.