6.11a patch notes

[Eraden]

I've never tried PvP in this game, yet, so please forgive me for asking the following question. Why are people concerned about Black Mages?

[AnotherPerson]

I've never tried PvP in this game, yet, so please forgive me for asking the following question. Why are people concerned about Black Mages?

A good Black Mage in PvP can decimate the enemy and create tons of openings for their party as long as they take full advantage of their toolkit. I've had enemy Black Mages literally just carry their team because they played very well in Diamond/Crystal tier and learned to kite while doing damage. Black mages are just that threatening that it's the main reason why they are heavily focused and prioritized from the beginning. Their low HP actually balances things out, but it's not as if Black Mages can't play around their weakness either. Black Mages have 2 charges of Aetherial manipulation on a low cooldown + gives swiftcast upon using it, making them highly mobile when used properly.

The change to reduce their cast time from 1.92 to 1.44 pretty much removes any weaving issue that Black mages could have - which is a nice change. The increased shield value is somewhat overkill since it very heavily bumps their survival and DPS up by a lot by making anyone who wants to hit them in close range take a 16k potency to the face.

But... Black Mages also gained an extra Paradox stack (increasing their instant burst potential & CC target for superflare), in addition to more CC (Nightwing also lowers enemies' movement speed before putting them to sleep, effectively becoming a 6 second CC) and lethality - 24k potency increase + a 20% mitigation on their LB, as well as the job with one of the fastest LB to generate... yeah they basically lost their "weakness" and became vastly overtuned.

These changes show a pretty huge bias to Black Mage. In the hands of a good Black mage, your team is most likely going to win even if everyone else has a similar skill level.

[Eraden]

A good Black Mage in PvP can decimate the enemy and create tons of openings for their party as long as they take full advantage of their toolkit. I've had enemy Black Mages literally just carry their team because they played very well in Diamond/Crystal tier and learned to kite while doing damage. Black mages are just that threatening that it's the main reason why they are heavily focused and prioritized from the beginning. Their low HP actually balances things out, but it's not as if Black Mages can't play around their weakness either. Black Mages have 2 charges of Aetherial manipulation on a low cooldown + gives swiftcast upon using it, making them highly mobile when used properly.

The change to reduce their cast time from 1.92 to 1.44 pretty much removes any weaving issue that Black mages could have - which is a nice change. The increased shield value is somewhat overkill since it very heavily bumps their survival and DPS up by a lot by making anyone who wants to hit them in close range take a 16k potency to the face.

But... Black Mages also gained an extra Paradox stack (increasing their instant burst potential & CC target for superflare), in addition to more CC (Nightwing also lowers enemies' movement speed before putting them to sleep, effectively becoming a 6 second CC) and lethality - 24k potency increase + a 20% mitigation on their LB, as well as the job with one of the fastest LB to generate... yeah they basically lost their "weakness" and became vastly overtuned.

These changes show a pretty huge bias to Black Mage. In the hands of a good Black mage, your team is most likely going to win even if everyone else has a similar skill level.

Whoa...that sounds like Black Mages play nothing like what they do in PvE. Thanks for that information. I have ever only known PvE and in that play, I'm sort of a mostly immobile turret. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have all my big booms AND be mobile at the same time.