Black Mage 7.2 feedback

[nuuhku]

1/5

I want to share my thoughts after trying out black mage in the 7.2 patch. It is my (almost exclusive) main job, and I was anxious that the changes to the play style would be detrimental to the feel of the job, which would then negatively affect my experience of the entire game, and now that seems to be so.

Cast times
The job fantasy from Lodestone: "Movement is restricted by casting times, but they excel at inflicting high burst damage." This used to be the core of black mage specifically. The new shorter casts make the "big damage" spells, especially Fire IV, Flare and Flare star feel weaker and less impactful than before now that there's no commitment and anticipation in casting them. There isn't a rhythm between short and long casts anymore, they all just feel the same.

For movement there already was a wide variety of options, even more with updates after 7.0. Using Xenoglossy, Paradox, Despair etc. could amount to a lot of movement already, and when the mechanics required long movements e.g. running across the arena, you could use Triplecast or Swiftcast. You could also make small optimizations to save time on long casts by making them instant even when movement wasn't needed, and it was a choice of "will I need this later?" That planning of using instants for movement was a key point of mastering fights with black mage, and now it's completely gone, since you can slidecast or Paradox out of any AoE. The new normal raids and extreme could be completed without using Triplecast and I could skip uses of it even in the current Ultimate, where I previously had to carefully plan them out to execute mechanics. It feels weird to not really care about your rotation in the hardest difficulty tier in the game.

So far the new battle design has turned out to be just mechanics resolving slightly faster, and likely could've been played with the old kit. Maybe there's something more in the upcoming savage tier, but it's not warranted to rework the job just for that.

Enochian timer
I can understand the thought behind removing of the Enochian timer somewhat, since it does feel bad to drop it if there's forced downtime that you can't anticipate, even though for short stuns it's possible to keep it up by knowing how the fight will play out. But refreshing the timer was otherwise part of the core experience in full uptime fights, since it gave incentive to use different actions – such as refreshing with Paradox instead of casting one more Fire IV. There was good tension in there, like greeding one more fire spell before refreshing, or deicing on the order of using refreshes and movement tools. The timer was a simple system but satisfying to execute the correct action to keep it up and keep the cast bar rolling.

[nuuhku]

2/5

Without the upkeep, many things about the rotation changed to be very stale. There's no reason to think about when to use Paradox or Despair, you can just use them at the end of the fire cycle if nothing of note is happening mechanic wise. There's no reason to rush just one more Fire IV. Because of the timer's removal, it's now possible to fit two Flare stars in the opener if you skip Despair and Paradox, now even that is simple spam. The old opener was much more interesting, since you had to make sure not to drop Enochian during it, and use Triplecast as necessary. Instead of thinking where you need instant casts in the opener and crafting different openers for specific fights' movements, you can just cast Fire IV spells with the occasional Flare star and slidecast out of anything that happens on your way.

While I do appreciate that Umbral soul stops the timer during downtime, I think it would've been enough to add a few more seconds to the Astral timer's length instead of removing it, if the purpose was to make it easier to keep up during mechanics.

Thunder & Firestarter
The change that these procs are infinite is fine in my opinion. Especially for fights with long downtime like Ultimates, it was frustrating to have to transpose multiple times during downtime if you wanted to start the next phase with a fresh thunder, and there was no use case for Firestarter, since it would just drop off. I still think Thunderhead as a buff seems weird, since it's basically the same as a healer DoT, but with an arbitrary restriction on using it, which also makes it overly complicated to use High Thunder on multiple targets, if they were too far from each other to use the AoE spell (for example, the add phase in the new extreme fight).

On the other hand, Firestarter seems to be without purpose now. Before you could use it for emergency movement or Enochian refresh or save it and transpose after ice phase for a small gain. I suppose this is the only use case now and is also the intended way to enter fire phase, but it feels meaningless to use the extra Firestarter you get by using Manafont, since there's nothing to refresh anymore.

[nuuhku]

3/5

Ley lines
The new 20 second length of Ley lines feels really short. I think the additional charge was a good quality of life addition, so you could move the uses around and not miss any, and while it was stated in the job guide that "movement restriction lasting longer than intended, so we have reduced its duration", the restriction is the point of the ability and is what makes it fun. Previously, you had to think about where to place them and try your best to stay within them for the whole duration, and while 30 seconds was a surprisingly long time, it was enjoyable to dodge mechanics inside them. Even if you made a mistake of placing them in an inconvenient time, it felt rewarding to learn from it and figure out a better spot the next time. The new shorter time goes by really fast, and you can just place them when nothing in particular is happening (for example, in the new extreme opener the ley lines expire before anything happens at all). Retrace also feels less useful for planning and more like a recovery tool for avoidable mistakes.

Playing content / difficulty
The simplification made playing black mage in synced, easier or older content feel dull. In levels before Paradox or Despair, it's literally just spamming Fire IV with the occasional blizzard or thunder spell. Personally, I used to find going to older content fun, since you could still try to challenge yourself to play the job well, but now there's not much point. The changes seem to be specifically because of new content and level 100 fights, which leaves out most of the game.

Also, because there's no point in planning your movement or even ley lines that much anymore, I fear it'll also be less fun to play the same fights over and over (as an example, grinding out extremes), since there's no challenge in optimizing how to do mechanics while keeping uptime.

If these changes were made with new players in mind, I think it would've been more fruitful to think more of the gameplay experience when starting this job. The game doesn't really do a good job at teaching how to play it effectively. You had to read the tooltips and try to figure it out from there, which can be frustrating if you're new to MMOs in general, but it was still fun learning and eventually get better at.

[nuuhku]

4/5

On the other hand, if the changes were made for more experienced players or for harder content, I think it's counterproductive to simplify too much. Without the timer and way too much movement options, it'll become boring to play through even hard content. I think the skill ceiling is way too low at the moment for those who have played it for years. There's not a feeling of mastery anymore and you could easily deal with all new mechanics while doing them the first time, with zero failure states. I think excitement in playing jobs is as important as the duties themselves, and right now that other half feels hollow for black mage. While I appreciate trying to make the job more approachable, many still played it because of the challenge. That is now completely gone. The changes could've met somewhere in the middle, at least.

Caster role
I think it's a good thing that the casters differ from each other, since that should be the point of having different classes. E.g. summoner has summons in a simple rotation and has basically no cast times, red mage has dualcast with balancing mana and pictomancer has high burst, paintings and short casts. Black mage used to be glass turret with long cast times and planning so that there wouldn't be any interruptions or dropping enochian. The experience of playing different casters felt different, and you had a choice to try out some of the others, if you didn't like long cast times. But now that black mage has been extremely simplified to the point of basically no failure, shorter casts and is very easy to play with a filler-like rotation and way too much movement, the job fantasy is completely gone and it has lost all its uniqueness. You can't choose to play a caster with a slower pace and long casts anymore. I also think it's important to have at least a little bit of challenge in playing your class correctly, and it's also fine that you can't pick up a new job and know how to play it well after five minutes of trying.

Additionally, I find it disappointing that a game with multiple caster classes (healers included) wants to take a direction in battle content that is actively hostile to casting, even tho the new fights so far haven't felt to be impossible to complete even with the old, longer cast times. I had hoped the purpose of job reworks was not to make casters more similar, and with as little actual casting time as possible.

[nuuhku]

5/5

Timing and communication
Black mage already got major changes in 7.0, but while the mana changes and other systems got a rework, the standard gameplay stayed almost exactly the same as before. There was still the feeling of weighty casts and using movement skills. It's disappointing that we couldn't even have a full savage tier with this iteration of black mage to see if the changes were good or wait on any feedback from players.

Instead, we got an even bigger rework in the middle of the expansion without any notice, and the only communication about the upcoming changes was seeing snippets of gameplay in the Live letter (that only came out 10 days before the patch), where there was no other commentary about it (in English, at least). Only later it was mentioned in the Live letter LXXXVI digest: "Magical ranged DPS have also received minor tweaks in view of situations where they will struggle with long cast times." I think that's still quite the understatement, and without context you couldn't tell it only concerned black mage.

I feel sad losing the old black mage so suddenly. It feels very bad, especially since this was my first savage tier and ultimate, and now that's all of the endgame I got with the old black mage that I loved for many years. Not to mention I had to adjust to this new iteration in the middle of progging FRU. It used to be one of jobs that took a lot of effort to master and was exciting to play in any content. Now it doesn't require much thought, planning or effort, and as a result feels significantly less fun. I was willing to give it a chance, but I don't know anymore. Maybe I'll add to this after playing the savage tier, but I think my points will still stand regarding casual and mid levels of content and even though it's unlikely, I truly hope these changes will be reconsidered still.

[Eastwall]

I am not into pve,but l don't get the change. If They want an easier castor role,just buff sommoner. Why alienate people who like hard stuff. I like how gw2 has something like dual pistol deadeye Where you just have to autoattack(l confess that's my favorite dps), and also weaver Which Is like Mozart playing piano. Why se remove these choices?

[Rithy255]

I am not into pve,but l don't get the change. If They want an easier castor role,just buff sommoner. Why alienate people who like hard stuff. I like how gw2 has something like dual pistol deadeye Where you just have to autoattack(l confess that's my favorite dps), and also weaver Which Is like Mozart playing piano. Why se remove these choices?

That's all they've been doing with jobs in PVE

Oh Astro has too many weaves with card windows? better simplify it
Oh Paladin had some differing rotations and had more then a basic 1, 2, 3? Better simplify it
Oh Dragoon had too many weaves and people cried about dragon sight? Better Simplify it

It's their reaction when a job has any sort of complexity or difference to other jobs, People who don't like the job complain and cry its too hard until it can fit in with every other bland job so they're happy who cares about a loyal existing playerbase about a job when you can attract people who were already playing something basic that they enjoyed.

SE doesn't care about people who want difficult jobs every change they've made should make that more clear, It took until black mage for some people to wake up because it was the last refuge of "difficult rewarding jobs".

[mallleable]

Some really early, knee-jerk thoughts from a non Black Mage player after throwing myself into some easy duties. I don't hate it-?! It's still an uncanny, blank slate version of itself, but I don't hate it. Thought I was gonna not like the cast time changes, but they allow the job to feel a lot more responsive. These change will never dethrone RDM as my favorite caster however.

I think some changes going forward are to merge Amplifier, and Manafont, and lower its cooldown to like 55 seconds, and have it upgrade Fire IV to a stronger spell when used. Paradox feels kinda janky as a movement tool as well as the Firestarter proc. And honestly cut the BS, and make High Thunder/II their own stand alone spells that don't require the Thunderhead proc.

Black Mage being a blank slate is a double edge sword. On one hand, there is now space for new ideas. It reminds me of 5.4 MNK. On the other hand, it's pretty barren, and it's gonna be what we have to play now, and on the immediate future until this new design space is utilized.

[Azurarok]

Black Mage being a blank slate is a double edge sword. On one hand, there is now space for new ideas. It reminds me of 5.4 MNK. On the other hand, it's pretty barren, and it's gonna be what we have to play now, and on the immediate future until this new design space is utilized.

Are we taking bets for ending up with another Foundation to Build Upon that never gets Built Upon

[Rithy255]

Are we taking bets for ending up with another Foundation to Build Upon that never gets Built Upon

Isn't this pretty much everyjob at this point?

It's crazy how often this has happened and people just accept that oh well they surely will build on it right??!?!