Black Mage

[Hasrat]

Side note... why does Flare/Despair give astral fire for 15 seconds? Who doesn't Transpose RIGHT afterwards to Thunder III for proc'd Thundercloud or Foul/Xenoglossy (Transpose/Blizzard IV for 3 Umbral Heart for next Fire IV spam is another option).

Kinda invalidated a lot of those opinions with that part... At 80 (long before, really), Transpose is just there if you get stuck in AF during a phase change or something.

Also

Maybe they can add something to teleport around without breaking casting cause that is the biggest issue with some bosses.

Yes, planted turret is the tradeoff for big numbers. Sounds like SMN is what you want.

[Rilifane]

It's quite clear you haven't understood the class yet, so asking for changes based on your knowledge and observations doesn't make sense.
Take your time to level it to max level and play it, low level potencies and dps mean nothing because the leveling phase is a very short one in the grand scheme of things.

You made a lot of statements that are simply false or are ignoring something important.
Nobody transposes after Flare/ Despair because it would clip and you have Aspect Mastery to change to Umbral Ice 3 with Blizzard 3. Transpose is either a tool for downtimes/ between pulls (especially once you get Umbral Soul) or for highly optimized gameplay.

BLM has by far the lowest APM of all dps jobs because their dps comes solely from GCDs, they have no oGCD damage; they have oGCDs that enhance/ affect GCDs (like enforcing a proc) but no oGCD damage itself. Their primary cast is longer than the GCD by default. Which means their GCD spells have to have higher potency than e.g. the average NIN combo skill because the NIN also has TCJ, Ninjutsu, Raijus, Bunjin, Meisui etc. - all fairly weak individual hits but they come in addition to their GCD combo hits.

BLM also has absolutely no dps support, meaning only their own numbers count while every dps except MCH and SAM also has party buffs that are factored into their overall dps. The fact that BRD and DNC (and MCH, rip) are behind not just BLM but pretty much every dps has nothing to do with the number on their highest nuke and everything with the outdated concept of range tax.

Balance is fine for the upper half of the dps because they're extemely close to one another. The only thing that is not fine is that we have a noticable gap between the upper half (MNK, BLM, RPR, SAM, NIN, DRG) and lower half (RDM, SMN, all phys ranged). Within the hard hitting bracket BLM is balanced; not because of movement required to dodge mechanics - a good BLM can do that without ever dropping dps - but because their consistent damage evens out against more burst-y jobs like NIN and jobs that bring party buffs.

Yes, low level balance is scuffed. A DNC and RDM absolutely steamrolls dungeons, SGE and SCH regularily out-dps proper dps in big dungeon pulls etc.; potencies are adjusted for lv 90, not low level content because they factor in having access to the whole toolkit. Every few levels a different dps is completely op while another is falling behind because one got access to their cool shiny skill that signifcantly increases dps while the other got something "meh" that won't really work until higher levels.
Adjusting low level potencies in a way that affects max level balance is something that should never ever be done because it completely screws max level, the level where you'll spend the majority of your time on, and all max level content.

[Xander_Diabolos]

It's quite clear you haven't understood the class yet, so asking for changes based on your knowledge and observations doesn't make sense.
Take your time to level it to max level and play it, low level potencies and dps mean nothing because the leveling phase is a very short one in the grand scheme of things.

You made a lot of statements that are simply false or are ignoring something important.
Nobody transposes after Flare/ Despair because it would clip and you have Aspect Mastery to change to Umbral Ice 3 with Blizzard 3. Transpose is either a tool for downtimes/ between pulls (especially once you get Umbral Soul) or for highly optimized gameplay.

Why Blizzard III, Blizzard IV, Thunder III vs Transpose, Xenoglossy, Blizzard IV, Thunder III?
Are you suggesting instead to cast Xenoglossy during Astral Fire where it isn't boosted?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ying-BLM-wrong

[Gaethan_Tessula]

Why Blizzard III, Blizzard IV, Thunder III vs Transpose, Xenoglossy, Blizzard IV, Thunder III?
Are you suggesting instead to cast Xenoglossy during Astral Fire where it isn't boosted?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ying-BLM-wrong

The optimal time to use Xenoglossy is either within a raid-buff window (every 1-2 minutes) or whenever you need some extra movement or an oGCD weave. The former maximizes damage via sending out a high potency spell when fully buffed by the raid, while the latter prevents losing casts to clipping or movement. Astral Fire or Umbral Ice phase really doesn't factor into it.

If you actually use Blizzard III to go into Ice, you'll get your MP back in 1-2 casts depending on ticks, since 3 stacks of UI fill up your mana much faster than Transpose's 1 or even Transpose -> Ice-Paradox's 2. Thus, Blizzard IV and Ice-Paradox are enough to fill up on mana and return to fire phase. If you go into Astral Fire mode with max MP, you have exactly enough MP to do x6 Fire IV, 1x Fire-Paradox, 1x Thunder III, and 1x Despair. So there's MP enough to refresh Thunder III if you have to during fire phase (more preferably, you'll have a Thundercloud proc to moot the matter further).

Essentially, the thunder and unaspected spells can be used in either phase, and their use is more conditional on upkeeping one's DoT, movement, and maximizing burst under raid buffs than being locked to fire or ice phase. So there's no need to force yourself to remain in ice phase longer using Transpose to fit in Xeno', Foul, or Thunder.

Transpose is only used to either flip to ice between pulls to not lose Enochian, or in some very advanced optimization that requires one to precisely track their MP ticks (so they can weave Transpose after getting a firestarter proc, do Ice-Paradox, and then use the Firestarter to return to fire phase with mana refunded for more Fire IV's). Without precise awareness of ticks, it becomes a DPS loss because of the lost potency from using firestarter Fire 3 in ice phase. After the 6.08 patch changes to discourage the Paradox rotation, the gain for doing it correctly is marginal (< 3%, I think?). Hence most BLM's don't bother with it.

Also, transposing into Ice without a firestarter proc is really bad, since to ready Fire-Paradox you need to leave ice phase with three stacks of umbral ice and three umbral hearts. Transpose plus Ice-Paradox only gets you two stacks of Umbral Ice, either forcing an extraneous Blizzard I cast or not being able to use Fire-Paradox. Both of which are a surefire DPS loss. By contrast, going into ice phase with Blizzard III or High Blizzard II (for AoE) immediately grants the 3 Umbral Ice stacks.

[Hasrat]

Why Blizzard III, Blizzard IV, Thunder III vs Transpose, Xenoglossy, Blizzard IV, Thunder III?

Because you're taking more time to do less damage.

[Seera1024]

Why Blizzard III, Blizzard IV, Thunder III vs Transpose, Xenoglossy, Blizzard IV, Thunder III?
Are you suggesting instead to cast Xenoglossy during Astral Fire where it isn't boosted?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ying-BLM-wrong

Xenoglossy isn't boosted during Umbral Ice. There's no difference in casting it in Astral Fire or Umbral Ice.

One good place to cast Xenoglossy in Astral Fire is during the second set of Fire IV's if you've got Manafont off cooldown and a Triplecast charge (or Swiftcast). You cast Xenoglossy after your last Fire IV as it's instant, then cast either Triplecast or Swiftcast. Then cast Despair. Cast Manafont immediately after so that the tick for the mana happens during your GCD refresh. Then you get to cast 1 more Fire IV and then a Despair for some extra DPS before switching to Umbral Ice.

Xenoglossy during Astral Fire is also good to use in order to get a Triplecast off without clipping so that you can move and DPS at the same time.

[Picker]

The suffix system of classifying spells is not “literally in every other game”. Maybe if your under 20 years old you can claim this, but it’s false, they weren’t localized that way till the 2000’s. I played fan translated roms of 2,3 and 5 in the 90’s and 5 was the first time I noticed this.

If your on primal I can invite you to the novice network and teach you some blm, I’ve mained it since beta.

Flare and despair refresh timer so you can manafont or to give you time to blizz 2 or 3. Take transpose off your main bars, that’s only for phase change or if you’ve made a mistake and need a do over.

You should be weaving aetherial manipulation after an instant cast, if your clipping it, you made a mistake. This is one of the last unaltered jobs with consequences for bad decisions, you need to practice more.

[Roflcopter]

First off... Just got 82 black mage (not rushing it to 90 SUPER fast).

Already I feel they need to tone it down a bit.
Enhanced Enochian III = 20% bonus damage
Main and Mend II = 30% bonus damage (and healing? why)
3 Stacks Astral Fire = 80% bonus damage

Side note... why does Flare/Despair give astral fire for 15 seconds? Who doesn't Transpose RIGHT afterwards to Thunder III for proc'd Thundercloud or Foul/Xenoglossy (Transpose/Blizzard IV for 3 Umbral Heart for next Fire IV spam is another option).

Also...
Literally Every other Final Fantasy game...
AoE Fire = Firaga
Single Target Fire = Fire
Stronger Single Target = Fire II

Can we get Firaga / Firaga II instead of Fire II and "High Fire II"?
Also... can we get Fire through Fire IV for boost in damage over time across levels and drop "Maim and Mend" which didn't make sense in the first place?
Or maybe instead drop "Maim and Mend" and allow 5 stacks of astral fire and make damage on Astral Fire go from 40%>60%>80% do like a 20%>40%>60%>80%>100%. Also make Astral Fire stacks harder to get. A single Fire III seems too easy to get the +80% boost.
Maybe they can add something to teleport around without breaking casting cause that is the biggest issue with some bosses.

Example (and similar thing to Blizzard/Thunder):
Level 1 - Fire (Single Target)
Level 18 - Firaga (AoE)
Level 35 - Fire II (Single Target) (replaces Fire)
Level 60 - Fire III (Single Target) (replaces Fire II)
Level 65 - Firaga II (AoE) (replaces Firaga)
Level 70 - Fire IV (Single Target) (replaces Fire III)
Level 82 - Firaga II (AoE 140 potency) (replaces Firaga II)
Level 90 - Fire V (Single Target) (replaces Fire IV)

That isn’t accurate. In FF1, Fire 1 was single and Fire 2 was aoe. Same with the lightning and blizzard variants. However, I do think everything after the level 1 spell was aoe in that game. This is only for the NES US cartridge though. I think they changed it in later releases to the nomenclature of later games.

[Ferrinus]

Hey, if your instant casts line up you can transpose before Firestarter for a small pps gain! You also want Transpose if you end a dungeon pull or boss phase in fire mode and want to swap to ice to start using Umbral Soul.

[Ferrinus]

A second point: I actually do think that BLM spell names could be changed up in order to make them more consistent with each other, i.e. II and IV are AoEs while I and III are for hitting single targets. But you'd have to rename Fire IV and Blizzard IV to denote them as special, Enochian-enabled attacks; "Void Fire" and "Void Blizzard", for instance.

Then Fire II and Blizzard II could upgrade to Fire IV and Blizzard IV at level 82, with no need for the "High-" nomenclature. Unfortunately, as someone pointed out on the last page, this would come with the drawback of making a lot of old guides confusing and misleading unless their creators went back to update them.