Ty SE for BLM changes!

[Daralii]

You have said you don't play black mage. You're also ignoring the removal of the astral fire/umbral timers. Longer cast times while maintaining astral fire is the core foundation of the job. With no timers, and very fast cast time, it's no different than a white mage spamming glare.

Some people want jobs with a bit of complexity. Not every job needs to be super easy.

There's also no room for on-the-fly adjustments to keep things rolling or payoff for knowing the fight and job well enough to bank and use tools to maintain uptime, which was one of the last bastions of noticeable skill expression for any job.

[MitsukiKimura]

I want to empathize with the Black Mage playing community but I just feel like the Devs made the right call.

When people were complaining about Pictomancer. I still remember the discussions because my reaction at the time was.

Just Buff all the other Jobs, or Reduce Pictomancers potency and increase everyone elses

I was told at the time. It wasn't just about the potency but the fact Pictomancer could do so much more damage while on the move and the buff.

Player participation in Ultimates the 'ultimate' form of skill expression had the lowest participation of Black Mage ever.

I saw threads where people were saying they were not being invited to groups as a caster if they were NOT picto - A First of its kind

Up till now the consensus for the game was it's so balanced you could bring whatever you wanted. But Picto was so objectively better, not just because of damage but because of it's free movement... Why would you bring anything else and the numbers reflected that.
People TALKED about that.
People were upset they weren't invited.
People talked about more than a potency change was necessary.

So isn't this the proper change? Isn't this a huge buff for Black Mages so they can play the game?

I know nothing about Black Mages and I admit it. BUT the past threads about pictomancer don't lie. The past threads about Black Mage participation being low doesn't lie.
So they nerfed Pictomancer a bit and greatly buffed Black Mage.

Like I even empathize with 'job fantasy' but your job fantasy was ostracizing you from playing your favorite job in the highest end content. If the design for fights gets even harder as they no doubt will...
Iunno I feel like the Devs did the right thing. I was trying to relate to Black Mages honestly but it feels like this was the correct decision.

Picto was brought because it offers raid wide buff and has way more damage than black mage. There was just no justification for having a black mage when Pictomancer did everything just better. Every FRU party locked the caster slot to picto. It was just how it is.

[Altera]

Player participation in Ultimates the 'ultimate' form of skill expression had the lowest participation of Black Mage ever.

I saw threads where people were saying they were not being invited to groups as a caster if they were NOT picto - A First of its kind
.

I remember in Stormblood BLM and SAM was not welcomed in PFs or groups as the META of buff jobs was just too good to outweigh BLM/SAMs raw damage. It actually almost made me quit the game as BLM was so unwelcomed until they changed their damage. But this is something they cannot fix. They could make BLM several times more OP in damage to PCT but when a Job is hollow and unrewarding to play, then theres no point in playing it at all

[DekaiTsuna88]

I want to empathize with the Black Mage playing community but I just feel like the Devs made the right call.

When people were complaining about Pictomancer. I still remember the discussions because my reaction at the time was.

Just Buff all the other Jobs, or Reduce Pictomancers potency and increase everyone elses

I was told at the time. It wasn't just about the potency but the fact Pictomancer could do so much more damage while on the move and the buff.

Player participation in Ultimates the 'ultimate' form of skill expression had the lowest participation of Black Mage ever.

I saw threads where people were saying they were not being invited to groups as a caster if they were NOT picto - A First of its kind

Up till now the consensus for the game was it's so balanced you could bring whatever you wanted. But Picto was so objectively better, not just because of damage but because of it's free movement... Why would you bring anything else and the numbers reflected that.
People TALKED about that.
People were upset they weren't invited.
People talked about more than a potency change was necessary.

So isn't this the proper change? Isn't this a huge buff for Black Mages so they can play the game?

I know nothing about Black Mages and I admit it. BUT the past threads about pictomancer don't lie. The past threads about Black Mage participation being low doesn't lie.
So they nerfed Pictomancer a bit and greatly buffed Black Mage.

Like I even empathize with 'job fantasy' but your job fantasy was ostracizing you from playing your favorite job in the highest end content. If the design for fights gets even harder as they no doubt will...
Iunno I feel like the Devs did the right thing. I was trying to relate to Black Mages honestly but it feels like this was the correct decision.

Completely butchering a job is never a right call.

At the time, the reason why PCT was almost always picked over BLM was because PCT was objectively better in every aspects compared to BLM. It plays better too; it has the flexibility that pre-DT BLM has.
If they wanted to help current BLM players, what they could do is simply nerf PCT appropriately. Makes it so that BLM still have reasons to be played in high end contents. But they refused to do that, probably because they didn't have enough data to justify pissing the PCT player base.

So what happened in 7.2? They finally admits that PCT was simply too overpowered and they nerfed it a lot. But in the process, they also changed BLM significantly that it's essentially a different job altogether. It's marginally buffed at best, and there's nothing in the new BLM that resembles the old BLM aside from visuals. The challenge of the job is now gone. I don't think any of the old BLM players will enjoy this. Not sure who they're 'helping' with this changes to be honest.

[Carin-Eri]

Completely butchering a job is never a right call.

At the time, the reason why PCT was almost always picked over BLM was because PCT was objectively better in every aspects compared to BLM. It plays better too; it has the flexibility that pre-DT BLM has.
If they wanted to help current BLM players, what they could do is simply nerf PCT appropriately. Makes it so that BLM still have reasons to be played in high end contents. But they refused to do that, probably because they didn't have enough data to justify pissing the PCT player base.

So what happened in 7.2? They finally admits that PCT was simply too overpowered and they nerfed it a lot. But in the process, they also changed BLM significantly that it's essentially a different job altogether. It's marginally buffed at best, and there's nothing in the new BLM that resembles the old BLM aside from visuals. The challenge of the job is now gone. I don't think any of the old BLM players will enjoy this. Not sure who they're 'helping' with this changes to be honest.

Well, for all the griping about BLM - I feel more sorry for the MCH mains out there, since this patch contains nothing but nerfs for it.

[Nadda]

Completely butchering a job is never a right call.

At the time, the reason why PCT was almost always picked over BLM was because PCT was objectively better in every aspects compared to BLM. It plays better too; it has the flexibility that pre-DT BLM has.
If they wanted to help current BLM players, what they could do is simply nerf PCT appropriately. Makes it so that BLM still have reasons to be played in high end contents. But they refused to do that, probably because they didn't have enough data to justify pissing the PCT player base.

So what happened in 7.2? They finally admits that PCT was simply too overpowered and they nerfed it a lot. But in the process, they also changed BLM significantly that it's essentially a different job altogether. It's marginally buffed at best, and there's nothing in the new BLM that resembles the old BLM aside from visuals. The challenge of the job is now gone. I don't think any of the old BLM players will enjoy this. Not sure who they're 'helping' with this changes to be honest.

Butcher... is ... Rough. Butchering is as I said like what happened to Summoner.

This is more like at worst a bad haircut? To me the changes make a lot of sense.

Again my ignorance on Black Mage is what has me confused as an outsider looking in.

I think they were trying to do the changes people were asking for because it seems to be liberating limitations that otherwise held the Job back. I think 2 seconds is still a long cast time. . .
But maybe it have been better just to reduce all cast times by .2 seconds instead... Does that sound better?

Anyways as I know I don't know much about Black Mages this will be all I'll say about it.
I'll Leave you guys to it I'm out of my depth and I just don't understand since I didn't live the black mage life.

[OliverQ]

Butcher... is ... Rough. Butchering is as I said like what happened to Summoner.

This is more like at worst a bad haircut? To me the changes make a lot of sense.

Again my ignorance on Black Mage is what has me confused as an outsider looking in.

I think they were trying to do the changes people were asking for because it seems to be liberating limitations that otherwise held the Job back. I think 2 seconds is still a long cast time. . .
But maybe it have been better just to reduce all cast times by .2 seconds instead... Does that sound better?

Anyways as I know I don't know much about Black Mages this will be all I'll say about it.
I'll Leave you guys to it I'm out of my depth and I just don't understand since I didn't live the black mage life.

The job is quite literally butchered. Its entire core foundation of play is now gone. It's going to play like a healer with 2 second or faster cast speeds and no fail state.

[Misutoraru]

I play BLM since SB and I love the job. But being chased by the timer became more and more exhausting. I know it's mostly psychological, but now playing BLM will be much more relaxed without the timer.
Also doing Deep Dungeons, grinding crafting mats in the overworld, running content unsynched, doing Fates... everything other than an instanced boss fight feels like a chore on BLM.

BLM was my “to go” cast since ARR until RDM came out (purely because I love rapier)

Always have a mix feeling about Enochian. I like it when I know about the fight and push to the last second, and I dislike it sudden lag spike or just other players less then ideal positioning end up punishing myself. Since the release of Picto I will never going to main BLM for my “choice of Caster” anyway. However, with the change I am likely to try it on different content more.

some veteran blm main will be unhappy and move onto different job or quit, and some players will try playing blm as of the change. Either way it is what it is now.

[Asari5]

so... there are three relatively easy casters. one very easy, one one the support side and one heavily on the dmg side.... but there cant be that one difficult caster?

i dont get it xD

[Xapapetsu]

Hello fellow wizards! I just wanted to chime in as a new Black Mage player (as of 7.2), I am very happy with the changes. I tried black mage a few times this expansion and I just COULD NOT keep up my enochian timer or manage these procs. I'm so glad that SE has finally listened to the players and made the job more accessible and EVEN MAKING IT STRONGER (Take that artist mains). I know they nerfed leylines to 20s, but honestly it doesn't seem too bad because you never really got the full duration of it anyway (damn aoe mechanics)

I always used to default to spamming the Ice combos because I kept running out of mana using the fire combos for some reason, so I still have a ways to go before I master all the elements, but I'm super excited to see one of my favorite jobs getting the love it deserves. How do you all feel about these changes?

I won't hate your opinions on this, but I do feel they took feedback from the people who play blm on occasion not actual blm players. The core audience of blm is not happy with these changes. I personally won't be playing it until 8.0 to see how they address the major changes, but maybe a new audience will come in and main blm to keep it alive.