SE, the 7.0 BLM changes will not increase engagement. They are completely-pointless.

[Eorzean_username]

Standard Opening Disclaimer: Remembering the humans behind the designs

To SE / "CBU3" / Mr. Yoshida / the Job Design Team / the Community Moderators / the Unpaid Interns / or, whoever is actually reading this...

...Let me clarify that I do understand that, ultimately, you and your designers want to create a good game that makes your audience happy. And I do understand that you devote immense amounts of time and energy into trying to do exactly-that.

Please understand, in return, that any hostility or harsh criticism that I seem to present is not intended as malice towards the actual individuals and humans working on FFXIV.

Rather, what I write stems from my own continued passion about FFXIV, and my own desire to try to make it the best experience possible for myself and my fellow players, based on my own experience and judgments.

So, please be clear — I do appreciate the reality, regardless of how much I may disagree with some of your design choices, that those choices are ultimately born from the same sort of passion and desire.

And in turn, I hope that the players and the developers can continue to maintain a productive and mutual dialogue about the future of Job decisions in FFXIV.

First of all, I want to make clear:

• I do not "main" Black Mage
• I am not personally-experienced with playing Black Mage in difficult or high-end content such as Savage
• My experience with Black Mage is generally at a casual / "alt" level

...However, I think that these points are exactly why my perspective on this subject is actually relevant here.

Because, I am very well-acquainted with the actual reasons why "most players" do not "seriously" engage with Black Mage as a Job-choice — both from my own personal experiences, and from speaking about FFXIV Jobs with a lot of other people, many of whom approach the game more "casually".

...and now, I really think I need to just put this in gigantic font, because the situation really-is this simple:

The reason that most players avoid playing Black Mage in Endwalker (or earlier) is not because players find the Endwalker (or earlier) Black Mage rotation confusing, or difficult-to-understand.

...In fact, most players that I have personally-encountered — whether in-game, or on various forums, social media, Discords, other mediums of interaction, etc. — consider the Endwalker (and earlier) Black Mage rotation to be intuitive, fun to execute, and a satisfying/rewarding challenge.

The sole actual reason that most players avoid playing Black Mage in Endwalker (or earlier) is because you cannot move-around freely or spontaneously without completely-ruining your rotation and performance.

Now, in reality, that claim is somewhat of an exaggeration.

However, the "factual accuracy" of that claim at an analytical level isn't what's actually important here, because it is an accurate depiction of the way that "more casual" / "less dedicated" players seem to, in general, perceive and feel about Black Mage.

Or, simply put — the constant, suffocating pressure of the Astral Fire Timer, and the manner in which Black Mage's reliance on long-casts causes its playstyle to severely-punish unexpected movement, or movement over long distances, or movement for prolonged periods of time...

...causes Black Mage to simply not be fun for a large-number of players that try-out the Job, because "absolute failure" feels too frequent, too likely, too easy to happen, too hard to avoid, etc.

I really want to emphasise that the issue is not that players dislike the idea of Black Mage's Endwalker (or earlier) rotation, nor the hypothetical "challenge" of executing the Endwalker (or earlier) Black Mage rotation.

In my personal experience and discussions, even "casual" players tend to respect and enjoy the "satisfaction" of successfully-executing Black Mage's movement-constraining rotation, in content where they feel like they can "handle" doing-so.

However, it also seems to be "beyond the limits" — or maybe "patience", or "interest" — of most "casual" / "less dedicated" players to employ the time, energy, attention, encounter-timeline research, or just have the requisite "mental finesse" that is required to consistently-execute a Black Mage rotation when players are attempting to complete more-difficult — or just more mechanically-complicated — encounters.

So, in my personal experience, most players have, essentially, no trouble with comprehending the intended Endwalker (or earlier) Black Mage rotation.

Rather, players just cannot "keep a grip" on the Black Mage rotation once unexpected or high-movement mechanics begin to repeatedly hammer-down on a would-be Black Mage player.

And then, once Black Mage drops Astral Fire prematurely, a player quickly begins to feel like the entire Job has simply "shut off", and Black Mage quickly develops a perception of being an unfun disaster to try to recover-from.

When you combine this with Black Mage's total lack of Support or Raise tools, entering a Black Mage "failure state" makes "more casual" players feel like they are suddenly completely-failing to contribute effectively to their Party (which is, basically, true).

In turn, this overall feeling of "panic" / "uselessness" once Black Mage's "standard" / "obvious" cycle begins to fall-apart, contributes to more-casual players quickly beginning to experience:

• An intense negative-feedback impression of the Black Mage Job
• An intense fear / paranoia / self-consciousness about entering content as Black Mage.
  • Especially, new or unfamiliar content...
  • ...or just, any content that the player knows will be complex or movement-demanding.

None of the previewed 7.0 Media Tour Black Mage changes address the actual issues that "most" / "casual" players have, when trying to play Black Mage.

...Therefore, these changes make no sense to me— it seems as if the 7.0 Black Mage adjustments are benefiting, "basically nobody".

On one side...

...you are setting-up 7.0 to anger and frustrate the experienced and passionate "Black Mage mains" who have the mental-finesse and/or dedication necessary to wrap their heads around the planning, positional-management, and quick-thinking rotational-creativity that is currently (and historically) required to play Black Mage at a high and effective level in difficult or complex content.

But then, at the same time, on the opposite-side...

...you are also not making any sorts of changes that will actually make the Black Mage Job any more appealing or accessible to "casual" / "less dedicated" players.

So... you are removing or crippling the gameplay that preexisting Black Mage players enjoy, while also not addressing any of the issues that prevent "most" other players from wanting to voluntarily and regularly-use Black Mage in various content.

Therefore, I am struggling to comprehend what the motivations or goals behind the 7.0 Black Mage design-changes actually are.

[Eorzean_username]

In the case of the now-infamous "Summoner Rework" (which, to be clear, I am NOT advocating anything similar for Black Mage), at least you did accomplish "changing" many of the issues that had turned-off more "casual" players from Summoner, and also succeeded in making Summoner significantly more appealing and "accessible".

Now, in my own personal opinion, Summoner's "accessibility increase" was accomplished in a frankly-horrific manner, which led to basically-obliterating all of my previous enjoyment of the Summoner Job.

But setting my own personal biases aside, I can at least objectively-observe that the 6.0 Summoner changes actually did accomplish something — turning Summoner into one of the most popular Jobs in FFXIV, and making its aesthetic "fantasy" significantly more satisfying to "most" players.

However, in stark contrast — and speaking, of course, based only on my own personal perspective and experiences — the previewed 7.0 Black Mage changes will neither increase Black Mage accessibility, nor Black Mage popularity... while also, simultaneously, serving to frustrate, irritate, and demoralise previously-dedicated and passionate Black Mage "mains".

Again, I can only speak from my personal experiences. However, already, just in speaking to other people in my own circle of friends — many of whom are decidedly less-passionate about rotations and Job design/gameplay than I am, and all of whom do not "main" Black Mage, specifically due to their perceived inability to perform the Black Mage rotation consistently in complex or high-movement content...

...the general reaction that I am seeing to the revealed 7.0 Black Mage changes has been some mixture of:

• Confusion
• Complete disinterest
• Disappointment
• A hesitation about whether any of these changes sound fun at all
• A general reaffirmation that Black Mage sounds too difficult and punishing for them to enjoy playing it
• Feeling even more certain that they probably won't use Black Mage as their Dawntrail Job

...So, even if the design-goal of the 7.0 Black Mage changes is to try to make Black Mage "simpler and easier to understand", these changes currently don't seem to be actually accomplishing anything meaningful, in the process.

I think that the only way to actually make Black Mage more "appealing" to a broader segment of players, while simultaneously not "ruining" Black Mage for players who already enjoy the challenge and "puzzle-like" nature of optimising Black Mage gameplay, is to simply provide players with a choice between two different "Black Mage experiences".

...Here is a simple and hasty example of what I mean:

• Imagine that Black Mage has two "stances".
• One "stance" makes Black Mage extremely "mobile" / "reactive", and possibly grants Black Mage support-tools of some-sort.
• The other "stance" makes Black Mage extremely "immobile" / "punishing", locks-out any support-tools, but also increases Black Mage's rotational damage significantly.

Or, in other words, allow Black Mage players to self-select between:

• A "low-risk, low-reward" playstyle that's primarily "for fun / accessibility" — ie, "6.0 Summoner Mode"
• A "high-risk, high-reward" playstyle that's primarily "for challenge / accomplishment" — ie, "Traditional Black Mage Mode".

"Tooltip Examples" to demonstrate how the basic framework in the previous section could empirically be applied:

Legacy of Cessair

• Ability
• Instant
• 1.00s Recast
• Cannot be activated in Combat
• On activation, replaces Legacy of Shatotto.
• Model your Spells after the teachings and legacies of the Mhachi High Voidmage Cessair, who attempted to exercise discipline and restraint in her magicks, and use her powers for the good of her people and civilisation.
• Reduces the Casting Time (but not the Recast Time) of all Black Mage Spells by 50%.
• Causes some of your Black Mage actions to grant additional beneficial effects to Self and Party Members.
• Enables usage of Soul Seizure.

Soul Seizure

• 8.00s Cast
• 2.50s Recast
• Unaspected
• Invoke the power of the Void to seize a fallen Soul, and prevent it from being drawn towards the Aetherial Sea.
• Resurrects target to a weakened state.

Legacy of Shatotto

• Ability
• Instant
• 1.00s Recast
• Cannot be activated in Combat
• On activation, replaces Legacy of Cessair.
• Model your Spells after the teachings and legacies of the Mhachi Archmage Shatotto, founder of Black Magic, who disregarded caution and restraint in the pursuit of absolute destructive power above all else... even her own wellbeing.
• Increases the Damage of all Black Mage Spells by 30%.
• Does not add any additional effects to Black Mage actions.
• Enables usage of Soul Surrender.

Soul Surrender

• Instant Cast
• 2.50s Recast
• Unaspected
• Violently-detonate the aethers of your own Soul to forcibly-shove a jolt of life-energy into the unconscious body of a fallen ally.
• Instantly reduces own HP to 0, causing self KO.
• Resurrects target to a weakened state.

...or, etc.

Numbers would need to be adjusted in actual implementation, in order to actually-balance "Cessair Black Mage" to be on-par with Summoner/Red Mage, and "Shatotto Black Mage" to sit at the very-top of the DPS hierarchy.

[Eorzean_username]

Regardless, the exact shapes of my quickly-sketched ideas above, are not sacred or "important", in contrast to the more-general points that I'm trying to demonstrate, and my more-general attempts to convey the seeming-incomprehensibility of "who" the 7.0 Black Mage changes are supposed to be "for".

ie — I am just attempting to show that there are path-ways forward which could make Black Mage feel "playable" in "all" content for more-casual players, or anyone-else (such as myself) that just struggles to "handle" a Job with severely "non-spontaneous" movement / reactivity...

...while also still allowing more-dedicated Black Mage players to enjoy a complex and challenging playstyle that rewards them, accordingly, with significant damage-output.

I frame this in-contrast to the current plans for 7.0 Black Mage, which — again — seem to be improving the situation for basically "no one", and thus, makes the near-whole of the 7.0 Black Mage changes seem perplexing and pointless to me...

...because I can say, with great confidence, that the currently-previewed 7.0 Black Mage changes will not motivate myself, nor anyone else that has avoided using Black Mage in difficult content, to want to play Black Mage "seriously"... because 7.0 Black Mage still looks too difficult to use effectively in any sort of mechanically-complex content.

Ultimately, my point with this over-all post is: if you are just going to end up with the same small "core" of die-hard Black Mage "mains" playing the Job in 7.0...

...then, nothing will change from the situation that we already have in 6.58 / Endwalker.

...Except for the fact, that the previewed 7.0 changes will also make the Black Mage Job less-fun for those preexisting, dedicated Black Mage players.

So, I really don't understand — why bother making these changes at all—??

It seems like nothing is being "gained" — certainly not Black Mage engagement-numbers, I can pretty-much guarantee that — while a lot is being "lost", for the dedicated players that were previously already-enjoying Black Mage.

[CasterSvarog]

I think what makes the changes to BLM even worse is that PCT exists and is literally built to be a caster in the same vein as BLM but without the scary skill ceiling of the job.
Which makes the massive changes to BLM even more pointless

[Taranok]

I think what makes the changes to BLM even worse is that PCT exists and is literally built to be a caster in the same vein as BLM but without the scary skill ceiling of the job.
Which makes the massive changes to BLM even more pointless

Less the scary skill ceiling, and more to fit within the game the devs are making. The problem with BLM is that it's an extremely old class, and PCT is going to reveal all of its glaring flaws.

The skill ceiling will still be there, because the majority of the classes difficulty is optimizing it for fights and movement. That's not going anywhere. But the thing that made BLM scary was its skill floor. Juggling timers, handling procs, and the very real punishment of well in excess of 2000 potency in lost DPS if you messed up. That is something PCT isn't likely to have. And the devs will get a very real wakeup call when BLM gets abandoned even harder than in EW as most players find out that PCT is BLM but without the stupid design elements that are literal holdovers from ARR.

Hell, to show how really stupid this is, PCT just has a ley lines that is a 15 yalm diameter. I wouldn't be surprised if BLM's ley line eventually is also 15 yalms because the fights are, once again, designed without BLM in mind, and 2 dedicated buttons to deal with trying to either move or get back to ley lines is a lot of resources to waste on a class that's already massively button bloated. Note, I don't want this, but the devs are designing a game that is going to force this.

I mostly like the changes BLM is getting, and I don't care how unpopular that is. If BLM doesn't get modernized, the class is going to have the same play rate as MCHs in stormblood. But the work is only half finished by my observation.

[Sylvain]

Erg pretty sure that instant paradox and garanteed fireIII will help most of those who struggle with movement and xeno/triple cast management.

Sure there's the whole issue of keeping fireIII for transpose for optimal dps and how doing so makes the fire phase actually quite tight especially on low SpS.
But I feel that most BLM will actually find it much easier to have 2 garanteed instant in every firephase.
And not loosing a gcd (or eno-chan) >>> than transpose fireIII.

I personally feel that BLM will become more popular.

[ZoeEudestand]

"i don't play blackmage but im going to give anecdotal evidence and be a forum queen"
yawn, looking forward to DT BLM

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Positive over the blm changes but they could do improvements like lowering the level we get umbral soul. They also need to remember blm exists when they make the fights cause it rly felt they gave no thought for the job on some fights. Give std rotation tools to deal with all these frequent, long periods of movement. Flare star looks fun and the rotation I think is easier for someone new to blm to understand. You have a clear goal in the rotation to get enough f4 off to do your flare star and so on.

Picto looks like a modern blm with all the tools to deal with what they throw at you. BLM looks fun to me still but it might benefit from some extras if DT is also movement heavy .

I understand ppl being sad to lose non standard but I'm glad there is no more awkward tick timer to worry about.

[Voidmage]

Positive over the blm changes but they could do improvements like lowering the level we get umbral soul. They also need to remember blm exists when they make the fights cause it rly felt they gave no thought for the job on some fights. Give std rotation tools to deal with all these frequent, long periods of movement. Flare star looks fun and the rotation I think is easier for someone new to blm to understand. You have a clear goal in the rotation to get enough f4 off to do your flare star and so on.

Picto looks like a modern blm with all the tools to deal with what they throw at you. BLM looks fun to me still but it might benefit from some extras if DT is also movement heavy .

I understand ppl being sad to lose non standard but I'm glad there is no more awkward tick timer to worry about.

To be fair. The manatick was nothing to worry about in EW if you did standard.
Blizzard 4 and Paradox gave enough time and if you always used thunderprog in ice because that was kinda easier even if the dot dropped off you had even more time.

I personally feel that BLM will become more popular.

While I think it will be more fun for those who just played the job on a normal level (standard, maybe an extreme here and there) and those who like the jobdesigning since shadowbringers, I don't think it will get many new players.
The fight design is still very BLM unfriendly (more so now that we know that they want to "increase the stress level for players") and now there is also Pictomancer.
I guess some will leave the job for pic and others will pickup pic instead of trying blm.

[Valence]

I'd wager a lot that what keeps most players away from the job (once past the leveling phase) is the punishing timers that you can drop. I'm not saying it's hard or easy to juggle with here, I'm just saying my feeling is that this is the primary repellent to the job right now. They act as an immediate punishment for not keeping up casting (or refreshing with cumbersome transpose/umbral soul for max dps loss), while moving is already a punishment on its own when people aren't able to use instacasts.

The latter makes sense because by definition it's what defines casters (being able to manage your cast times and instant casts in regard to mobility). The former just acts as another layer of being slapped on the fingers for messing up or being surprised by mobility for a lot of players, which feels a little like doubling down on something that's already punishing. But perhaps this is also part of BLM's core identity as well, which could be argued, but my point here is that I do feel this identity, if this is really identity, is working against the job's accessibility. When compared to PCT for example, the job has a lot of insta casts and long casts to juggle with like any caster, but it doesn't drop timers on top of it. Maybe the idea is to have a caster that's a rphys in a trenchcoat (SMN), two casters with cast times to manage but nothing more, and a caster with cast times AND timers to keep up to fill up the caster dps roster I guess, but there is a reason more than half of the raiding scene just plays SMN in this day and age, and I think it gives a decent idea of what pushes people away from BLM.

Imagine if they had axed the timers instead of MP regen, sharpcast, etc, and I do believe we'd still have non standard being viable. The timers bring nothing to the actual rotation, what they do bring is an additional hurdle to juggle with and demolishing your rotation if you fail to keep it up.

( To be clear, I am NOT advocating for the removal of those timers or whatever, it's just the explanation that makes the most sense to me )