Why Black Mage is the best designed job and what can be learned from it

[Reylah]

I’m here to talk about the job’s design not its gameplay (Casting for days isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s not what this is about) so quit your shivering. Also this isn’t to say other jobs don’t do some of these things well but BLM is where I’ve seen it all come together
TLDR: read the conclusions at the bottom


4 aspects that make up the job’s design are:

• Rotational buttons
• Resources
• Stat Priority/usage
• Major cooldowns
• Leveling experience

I’ll start with the one that attracted me to play the job Stat Priority. The reason it lured me in was because there was actually a choice. Spell speed/determination or Crit/Determination. Thats right there are two options, not just “speed to taste '' then dump everything into crit.
Why is this? How is such maddening amounts of free will allowed?

• Cast times that are long enough to justify the speed increases to squeeze more spells a Fire window or decrease the time spent in Ice (though at high enough levels this becomes making more use out of the excess ice time without clipping too deep into potential fire time while still following your ABC’s)
• No damage based oGCDs that make high speed feel punishing because it shrinks the window you can weave them in.
• A few extremely high potency spells that do benefit from going off as a crit during the 2-min buff window.
• How many of those high potency spells can be cast in a buff window are limited by resources instead of being able to fill that window so you still gain the benefits of spell speed and being able to squeeze more of your rotation into those windows (i.e. most of the damage you do in a buff window is still your core rotation instead of big potency cooldowns or woven oGCDs)

Speaking of the oh-so-dreaded 2-min window, Major cooldowns:

• None of BLMs major cooldowns are straight “%damage” increases. They are all “Cast more spells, do more things”. Ley lines is cast things faster, triplecast is blm mage go brrrr.
• The cooldowns aren’t spell-specified so you can change up what you use them on. If triple cast only affected fire 4 it would be a lot worse of a button. I’m not saying triple casting 3 blizzard 1s is the best option but just that there are options so that makes it a more interesting spell design wise
• Ideally good players don’t screw up or flub their rotation’s but you can use things like swiftcast and/or sharpcast to get yourself back on rotation if you fall off. Transpose is the same way if you miss timed a fire phase to a boss invulnerability phase. Lucid dream and manafont can either give you more spells in fire phase or help you recover if you hit low mana before swapping to ice and can’t even get a blizzard 1 off. People may say that BLM is hard but it also has a bunch of tools you can use to either do more dps or recover from a screw up. Not just one or the other that makes it far more accessible than is often advertised by the community.

Segway by reference to recovering rotations
Rotational buttons:

• Every button in the rotation is different beyond just “damage again but more”. This is mostly a slight at melee 1-2-3 rotations and ties into the Resource section later.
• In single target Fire 1,3,4 all serve a different purpose in the rotation. Fire 1 maintains the Astral Fire buff, Fire 3 gives you max Astal Fire but is slow and expensive, Fire 4 does the most damage cost the same as Fire 1 but doesn’t maintain or give Astral Fire, the thing that allows you to cast it. Each button has a purpose in the rotation.
• There is a build up and reward in every loop of the rotation. Managing fire well means more damage before going into ice and managing ice means more time in fire. And every successful loop is rewarded with polyglot
• The aoe rotation is more than just 2 buttons but this time with cleave. Still maintains the fire and ice phase rotations.

Resources:

• Mana, Astral Fire and Ice, Umbral hearts, Polyglots
• Mana is the resource you have to manage because it determines how long you can or have to be in fire or ice phases of your rotation so after any button press your next move is determined by mana remaining whether that's to swap phases or continue in your current one. This is the resource that keeps the player engaged because they have to know where it’s at and what it's doing during the whole fight. It’s the heart of what makes black mage design so good. The dev actually looked at the 2 core resources of the basic RPG Health and Mana and said “let's make the player pay attention to one of these” and in a way that wasn’t just “make sure this doesn’t hit zero”.
• I list Astral fire and Ice in resources because they are the thing you use to manage mana and the other resources though honestly they are really more like maintenance buffs because you don’t want to drop them.
• Umbral hearts give you a reason to cast more than 1 spell in Ice and reward you with more time in fire. It really makes up for the decreased time required to be in the ice phase from the high mana regen of astral ice 3. But it does that in a way that’s more than just “you spend less time here so have a higher potency in ice” and instead lets you spend more time in fire, requiring you to then maintain the fire buff because it would otherwise time out. It's a resource that smooths out what would otherwise be a counter intuitive drop in QoL as you progress to higher levels.
• polyglots are a reward for maintaining your rotation. Lets you cast your big boom spell during the 2-min buff window but is earnable at a rate and in a way that you can flub the rotation and still recover intime to still have it ready for the buff window. You can also use transpose to cheese some polygots between trash pulls or still earn it in boss down time. So knowing those tricks are rewarded.

Leveling experience:

• You get the basic rotation and resources right at the start. Fire, Ice, mana.
• Leveling up adds things into the rotation instead of tacking them onto the end of the rotation to extend it. Fire 4 replaces some fire 1 cast but umbral ice still gives you a reason to cast fire 1 (see above). And they all feed into the same cycle of fire to ice back to fire rinse repeat.
• No, I didn't mention the Thunders mostly because I don’t really see a reason for them, they just feel tacked on the side, but I am absolutely against the removal of a DoT just because. I’m slightly confused as to why thundercloud doesn’t proc firestarter instead but whatever its not broken don’t touch it.

In conclusion ways to improve jobs:

• A reason to like stats other than crit/det/direct hit starting with decoupling crit chance from crit damage. Those don’t need to be the same stat that's just asking for a positive feedback loop making that a be all end all stat. Obviously this is more of a problem if every job likes the same stats because it's usually an indicator that they prioritize the same damage profiles. Its not that no job should like crit or jobs should only like speed but that what stat a job likes should reflect how it can be played. Jobs that focus on big hits should care about crits(even if to avoid crit variance problems you grant autocrits on the biggest hits but have the damage scale off crit rating) jobs that pump out attacks without weaving should probably like speed, and maybe the weavers should prefer det for higher consistent damage.
• Make rotations that reward you in that rotation, not just generating resources at a slow enough rate that the big pay off ability is only available every 2 mins (looking at you DNC Feathers and RDM Manas). Honestly double the white and black mana generation for RDM and see what happens. I’m sure it would be such a shame if RDMs could use their sword phase more often than every 2-mins but still be able to get the resources again by the next 2-min mark like their own 1-min mini buff phase.
• Have major cooldowns that are tied to the mechanics of how they deal damage, not just a % increase. For BLM that's more spells in less time, but for jobs that weave a lot in a window you could do things like start a timer and for every hit you land before it ends increase the damage of a big hit at the end to reward weaving more attacks in. possibilities are endless just be more creative.
• Give jobs their resources and rotation structure sooner in the leveling experience. Now granted, this is mostly a problem for melee since TP was removed so now all of them operate almost entirely on cooldowns before they get their job gauge. As an example even if it's a simplified lower fantasy version of what they do later, having dragoon build a bar and do big spear things before level 50 and having the eyes be an upgrade to that would improve the experience below 50.

[Lyth]

The main reason why the BLM levelling experience feels a bit more sensible is because it hasn't ever been reworked. So you can still see how each expansion built off of the previous iterations.

One downside to having different stat priorities on different jobs within the same subrole is that it means that you may have to remeld your gearsets differently to play optimally. Spell Speed on BLM is a bit of a niche case because BLM exclusively uses magic damage and has the lowest APM count in the game at baseline. Gish jobs in this game are always at a bit of a disadvantage because they still haven't bothered to merge Skill and Spell Speed into a single Haste stat, which really needs to happen. Now if we had a Haste stat that not only influenced your Weaponskill GCD/Cast time but also increased your movement speed, that could create some interesting choices.

I wouldn't use BLM as the standard for anything, though. It's the least played caster job despite having a significant dps advantage over jobs within the same subrole. It's also the preferred job of the director and producer of the game. I think if you had any other job with divergent design it would quickly become underpowered and ignored.

[Rongway]

Leveling experience:

• You get the basic rotation and resources right at the start. Fire, Ice, mana.
• Leveling up adds things into the rotation instead of tacking them onto the end of the rotation to extend it. Fire 4 replaces some fire 1 cast but umbral ice still gives you a reason to cast fire 1 (see above). And they all feed into the same cycle of fire to ice back to fire rinse repeat.
• No, I didn't mention the Thunders mostly because I don’t really see a reason for them, they just feel tacked on the side, but I am absolutely against the removal of a DoT just because. I’m slightly confused as to why thundercloud doesn’t proc firestarter instead but whatever its not broken don’t touch it.

This is the absolute worst part of BLM. One spends so much time changing their rotation that they can't develop consistent habits. It's not until one reaches Lv90 and stops doing syncked content that one can develop good BLM habits for Lv90. It's not even just differences between each cap level: there are sometimes spans where things change every two levels even. Playing syncked content means playing a completely different BLM every time one goes into a duty. One simply can't carry habits from lower levels to higher levels on BLM. That is not a good leveling experience.

[LilimoLimomo]

BLM definitely has a great cohesive design; it's a class about managing resources (mana, time, charges, procs) while under numerous types of time pressure (elemental countdown, polyglot countup, Thunder countdown, and of course encounter mechanics). Thus, it doesn't really have a "rotation" in the same way that most other classes do, but rather has a priority system, where ever-changing context thoroughly dictates the spell or ability that you should cast next. And that "should" is very ambiguous, because some casts are more risky than others; so without absolute knowledge "should" can err either towards safer play or more risky play. This is because BLM's cast times under time pressure mean that more than any other class, BLM's "rotation" is capable of being disrupted by mechanics.

There are many classes where for the most part or entirely, what's happening in the fight doesn't meaningfully impact what you're spending your GCD on. One of your hands is devoted to making sure you're in the good locations and not the bad locations, and the other hand is doing your rotation, and rarely do the two ever meet. Not BLM! The appearance of an orange tint underneath you doesn't simply mean you should move, it means you need to reevaluate your plan. Maybe that means you need to interrupt a cast, maybe it changes the next few spells you were planning on casting, or maybe it means you strategically decide to soak the damage. It all depends on the precise context, including your timers, and the faster you can make an accurate decision the more optimal your play will be. And that's what I personally love about BLM: that I am constantly calculating new plans based on more factors than I can comfortably fit into my head. Every moment feels fresh, each a chance to either make a mistake or somehow keep all my plates spinning and optimize better than I ever have before!

That said, I don't necessarily think that other classes should become more like BLM. While overall I do think there is too much of a disconnect between mechanics and player casts for most classes, I don't think they should all change in that way. I think the game is far better when each class offers a different experience, and some of those experiences should cater to more casual players who are looking to play the exact same fight as me but with a more relaxed toolset.

Even aside from the issue of mental/physical bandwidth, I hope that when we analyze why BLM's experience is so great for the players who love it, that we are also wise enough to try to understand that variety is the spice of life. Other jobs should focus more on identifying the distinct experience they are trying to provide players with and then ensuring that their mechanics support rather than disrupt that vision. When actions are added just because that's what other jobs have and not because it would actually further the experience the job is intended to provide, that's when things go wrong.

[LilimoLimomo]

This is the absolute worst part of BLM. One spends so much time changing their rotation that they can't develop consistent habits. It's not until one reaches Lv90 and stops doing syncked content that one can develop good BLM habits for Lv90. It's not even just differences between each cap level: there are sometimes spans where things change every two levels even. Playing syncked content means playing a completely different BLM every time one goes into a duty. One simply can't carry habits from lower levels to higher levels on BLM. That is not a good leveling experience.

I can't objectively say whether this is good or bad, because the truth is that different players will have different reactions to it. But personally, I loved this while leveling, and I still love it while doing synced content. I think it's amazing how just adding or removing a single spell from BLM's kit can significantly change the optimal rotation.

To be clear, your reaction is valid, too! I can definitely understand this not being for everyone. Which is why it would probably be a good idea to not do this same thing with every other class.

[Reylah]

One downside to having different stat priorities on different jobs within the same subrole is that it means that you may have to remeld your gearsets differently to play optimally. Spell Speed on BLM is a bit of a niche case because BLM exclusively uses magic damage and has the lowest APM count in the game at baseline. Gish jobs in this game are always at a bit of a disadvantage because they still haven't bothered to merge Skill and Spell Speed into a single Haste stat, which really needs to happen.

I wouldn't use BLM as the standard for anything, though. It's the least played caster job despite having a significant dps advantage over jobs within the same subrole. It's also the preferred job of the director and producer of the game. I think if you had any other job with divergent design it would quickly become underpowered and ignored.

Yeah there is a reason I just referred to a Speed stat instead of the split speed nonsense.
I understand that having multiple stat prios for each job is kinda crazy. I meant more to highlight what allows for a difference to exist in this one job and how to expand that difference between jobs.
I also think this is could be solved with improvements to the melding system like I've heard someone suggest a "melding plates" type system similar to glamour plates to more easily swap between Materia. I don't like the idea that we should enjoy all of our jobs being optimal with the same stats (snuffing one of the highlights of RPGs, gear differentiation) just some that its easier to swap jobs.

I don't like using play rate as a measure of good design because I have other theories for why BLM is the least played caster such as SMN sharing with SCH, and RDM having a higher starting level so if you want to swap into Magic ranged its less you have to level. Also I see a lot of people touting BLM as pentacle of complexity in this game so that might scare new players away from it. Regardless I do agree that BLM being the directors pet job is probably the only reason it hasn't been sanded into oblivion to raise its play rates al a healers and what will likely happen to AST for similar reasons.

This is the absolute worst part of BLM. One spends so much time changing their rotation that they can't develop consistent habits. It's not until one reaches Lv90 and stops doing synced content that one can develop good BLM habits for Lv90.

I see that as more of a problem with the Sync system because when I sync down on other jobs it still feels like I have an incomplete rotation. I would prefer if outside or ultimates or synced savage raids that player's don't loose abilities during the level up experience because it feels like 1 step forward 2 steps back when ever you get sent to a lower dungeon especially one that crosses an expac capstone. That a whole 'nother can of worms though.

[Supersnow845]

Having the level of complexity of the 90 rotations synced down at like level 40 really doesn’t work for 2 main reasons, it’ll either be overpowered or it’ll be underpowered and both lead to problems

1) if it’s overpowered due to stat arrangement and traits then people will prefer to get synced down vets rather than new people in dungeons even though the roulettes are specifically designed for the sprouts to clear their queues, this is especially relevant to healers who get a massive GCD potency boost in the mid 80’s, applying 5 levels of maim and mend and the healing magic potency increase you’d be shielding a tank for their full HP bar on adlo without even critting and eos’s embraces would be benedictions

2) if it’s underpowered then you run into the problem of people at 90 who aren’t doing their rotation at least 95% correct become active sandbaggers, like for example it is much much more annoying to get a hakaze spamming SAM in dead ends than it is to get one in stone vigil because hakaze is just such a lower percentage of your damage at level 90, imagine if they actually did scale the stats down so you were basically crit direct hitting your xenoglossy for 50 potency in sastasha; imagine how little damage someone doing a griefing rotation would be doing

BLM’s leveling experience is fine now that they have fixed weird level jank like 39-54 it being optimal to spam freeze in AOE, or using cold flares to skip fire 2 because it’s so weak, the entire levelling experience teaches you about BLM’s cyclical phases and adds more resources as you go, about the only thing id actually change is buffing fire 1’s potency (especially in content when it’s your main astral fire filler spell) and add the freeze on the umbral ice timer using umbral soul

[Reylah]

Yeah, like I said, a can of worms.
The trick would be to scale the damage relative to the health bar of an enemy I'd normally face the actual potency number isn't relevant. This leans into your reason 2 because its better to avoid reason 1 where the content is worse for the people its created for. If xenoglossy should do 20% of a trash mob's health in a level 90 dungeon it should do 20% of a trash mob's health in a level 40 dungeon. Why? because as a player I should know how to do a level 90 rotation if I've reached that level and if its well designed I should enjoy doing that rotation at level 90 so why shouldn't I be allowed to enjoy it in non-90 dungeons. If someone is still playing Ice mage at level 90 they either haven't been taught by the game (which is a solvable problem for the dev's) or they are actively making that decision and crippling the rest of your design space because some folks might play in an unintended way doesn't make sense to me. Its saying I can't have 50% of my buttons because someone else who spent the same amount of time in the msq only wants to use 3 of theirs. sure the dungeon might be slower with a worse player, but it the job I am playing is engaging enough that shouldn't be an issue. I can at least enjoy what I'm doing instead of losing half my buttons and having a slower clear with an ice mage.

To be clear I was not criticizing BLM's leveling experience. I think its one of the best and I am trying to explain why I thing that is and what traits in it can be carried over to other jobs leveling experience to improve them. i.e. the dragoon that I am currently leveling (cause I want to know want its like before the DT Rework).

[Hasrat]

I can't objectively say whether this is good or bad, because the truth is that different players will have different reactions to it. But personally, I loved this while leveling, and I still love it while doing synced content. I think it's amazing how just adding or removing a single spell from BLM's kit can significantly change the optimal rotation.

One thing I myself loved about this aspect of BLM is actually the social element. Some of my favorite BLM moments happened in synced Stone Vigil, which used to be the exact point when BLM gets some exciting new tools. Running that dungeon with a fresh BLM and seeing them still Transposing, or otherwise just sorta fumbling along, I had the opportunity to guide several players towards the new tools and the opportunities they provide, and it was an absolute delight seeing how the rotation starts to click and they can really feel the flow.

But, that's just me and what I loved most, getting new tools and needing to understand how they fit together more than simply "press the shiny button." The rotation can be a bit of a puzzle while leveling, and more than simply adding to it, a new piece can completely reshape the whole picture.

It's a choice, certainly, and one that may absolutely be gatekeeping many players from picking the job up. But I do think the job and the game would be poorer for simplifying the leveling growth.

[rawker]

I may be punished for saying this but it is Yoshi-P's main job. Devs will take extra care designing it as they have the producer to please with each iteration of it. Whereas the likes of SMN/SCH, pet jobs are not his cup of tea.. But still the fight for pet jobs still viable continues.