This is going to be ranty.

All of this information from my experience existed before Abyssea, which I also believe ruined Final Fantasy XI.

Dear Square Enix;

I enjoy playing Final Fantasy XIV. I understand the game was rushed into release, and I understand that the game has content that is what it is. I can understand that a new version of the game is being released, and I can understand that new mechanics are being introduced in V2.0, and many old ones are being scrapped in the current version. I also understand that the class / job systems are being revamped and whatever, whatever. I understand that Final Fantasy XIV is -not- Final Fantasy XI, and that it is its own creation. That being said.

I hate playing Black Mage. I am confused playing Thaumaturge. I am not happy with the job and class system, because I feel that a 'class' is an unnecessary creation of redundancy without the flexibility of Final Fantasy XI's support job.

I will be making references to Final Fantasy XI, and contrasting the comparison to Final Fantasy XIV. But, this is how I am opinionated, and while I feel I speak for many, maybe I only speak for myself. Whichever the case...

Black Mage:
Black Mage should be a fantastic job, as should all jobs in Final Fantasy XIV. Referring back to Final Fantasy XI, it was a job that could handle a multitude of situations and perform a vast array of feats: Crowd Control, Solo play, Duo play, Party play, Burn Parties, Monster Debuff, BCNM, ENM, HNM, NM Hunting, Claiming, Farming, Magic Burst, Story Missions, Besieged, et cetera, et cetera. The point being, Black Mage was able to do so many things! Everywhere you looked in Vana'diel, Black Mage was a powerful ally, a monstrous enemy, and an excellent job for new players and professionals all at the same time. By that, I mean new plays can pick the job up and blow stuff up--while professional players learned mechanics, tweaked skills and gear, practiced tiered nuke scales and recast timers. With the application of support jobs, Black Mage was able to be a pseudo healer, a debuff master, a solo king, or the most amazing of Notorious Monster hunters! We've seen Black Mages take on some very daunting tasks that probably weren't even engineered for that specific iteration, but with the careful ability to plan ahead as Black Mage, we were able to solo Scorpion BCNM's, solo Minotaur ENM's, and even take out some noteworthy sky monsters and NM's alone!

Black Mage was a fantastic job in Final Fantasy XI, because it was created right; with care, devotion, and some damn flexibility.

Black Mage has been a horrible job in Final Fantasy XIV, because it was not created right. We have been given a 'support class' situation that stems from a hand-to-hand, physical (for the most part) root, leaving us with a poor selection of support abilities.
  • Magic;
    What in the world were you thinking when this job was created? I was given about 3 useful spells. Thunder, Firaga, and Sleep. Off the hop, Black Mage is missing a plethora of absolutely reasonable spells. Drain, Aspir, Stun, Bio, Poison, Shock, Rasp, etc. Without any differentiation from a ranged attack job, we may's well just be archers slinging attacks from behind the melee, and even then, that's just aesthetic. Allow me the give some insight on why I feel like this.
    1. Aspir - Well, I know in Final Fantasy XI, we were allowed to solo, relying on Experience Chains, and really good Black Mages could solo for up to Chain 10+! Without Aspir, we'd make a Chain 3 and restart it. Bringing EXP/Hour -crashing- into the earth. But in Final Fantasy XIV, we're given a retarded amount of MP (only to have spells with a retarded MP consumption) that just gets eaten up by the spells we use. We have no ways to continue gaining MP as we play, unless we're actively taking hits from the monster to use skills like Featherfoot for our MP pool to replenish. -Parsimony is NOT Aspir.-
    2. Drain - Since we're letting the monster swing at our face so we can prof Featherfoot for our MP to get replenished, it's not like we need HP or anything. So, let's scrap the Drain spell. ... This used to be a way to damage an enemy (With the right set of gear, and skills high enough, you could deal some heavy damage) and heal yourself at the same time. No, Necrogenesis is NOT Drain. Stop telling me that you've made reasonable compensations. You have not.
    3. Stun - Coupling a debuff with a damaging spell is not cool, whatsoever. We used to be able sleep a monster, debuff it without damaging it (reliant that the debuffs were not harmful) and wake it up. Now we're left with Stundara. What the hell, guys!? What was so wrong with the initial prospect of enabling a job to debuff a monster? And in this case, Stun being one of the most important spells a Black Mage could use (And even in Final Fantasy XIV, Stun can stop an Elbow Smash from an Ogre, at least buying a little bit more time) is only used by screwing up our only real combo: Thunder, Thundara, Thundaga. So, if we ever were needed to stun, we'd just need to forfeit any Damage dealing potential. Yippee.
    4. Bio - Bio was a fantastic tool. Again, the right gear set and skill level yielded a high damage Bio! Great for finishing off that last few HP of a monster, or bombarding a high-damage attack with a low MP cost like when used to fight the Kaiser Behemoth while farming for coins. So.. Anyways, it was also a great Debuff in a party situation, allowing us to drop an enemies attack to the tank. Or in a party of NM situation, it was used to stack miles high worth of Damage over Time. But, who needs that, anyways? Not Black Mage..
    5. Poison - Damage over Time. Great for party play, NM battle, etc. Just another spell that Black Mage needs to come stock with, and naturally does not. Thanks again!
    6. Sleep - Yes, because you straight screwed us on all of our other spells, you gave Black Mage an Instant Sleep spell with a 0 recast timer in Final Fantasy XIV. Thank Christ it has a decay value for repeat usage.. Something like sleep needs to be factored in, being able to make sure the distance between you and the monster is large enough -- that you had enough time and planning to know when to cast it. That your "Oh Shit" moment should be Stun, not instant sleep... Instant cast is BS, for monsters and mages alike.
    7. Elemental Debuffs - More DoT. At least each of these actually changed a monsters resistance to several different factors, mainly being the elemental affinity. But we also seen other effects like, "Magic Defense Down." Where does that sound like it'd be useful? Any boss fights sound good for that? I doubt anybody would use something that stupid on any NM in Final Fantasy XIV. Besides. Why in the hell would we introduce mechanics and plans with strategy into anything, when we can just run into it hard enough until it just falls over anyways?
    8. Tiered Magic Spells - How many Black Mages solo'd Puddings on Mt. Zhayolm? Probably every one of them who didn't play hardcore hours, needed something casual, and wanted to earn Exp and Merits. Even lots of the hardcore players leveled there! Any Black Mage, who was a Black Mage, knew that if your pudding had less than X hit points left on their bar, there was NO NEED TO CAST THUNDER IV TO KILL IT. What did we do with tiered spells in Final Fantasy XIV? Got rid of them. That same reference point obviously wasn't important. It also was obviously not the difference between solo chain 4~5 on puddings, as opposed to solo chain 1~2. God Forbid that Black Mage would start an NM battle with tiered magic for hate control, instead of constantly, or only being able to, smash an opponent with their most powerful of spells. Hate control? MP Management? Thought Process? What are these things, and what do they have in common? Beats me...
      By the way, if you weren't counting, without the use of a support job, Black Mage had Bio, Poison, Rasp, Shock, Choke, Burn, Drown, Frost. Three elemental debuffs could be stacked at once (depending on which you cast.) Depending on your Enfeebling, Elemental, and Dark magic skills, you could achieve different tiers of DoT. All coupled together, it was extremely powerful, and great for use with NM's, and boss battles. But, again, semantics..
    • Gear;

      Thank you. My arse really does feel sore, but I'm sure you've got it all designed for the better. ...Right? ...Right!?

      Anyways, the gear for Black Mage are horrible, in my opinion. I mean, we got this really neat weapon introduced into the game! It looked really neat, and I was actually stoked to use my stored up 7 Million gil to buy it! It's called an [item]Astrolabe[/item], and I thought it had some pretty impressive stats on it! Materia for 2 Handed Weapons isn't too bad, either~ Checked it out, looked at it, and someone mentioned that only Thaumaturge can wear it, and not Black Mage. I was extremely angered. What is the purpose!? Nothing that I can understand. But, what do I know? Apparently nothing about what is inside of a decent video game.

      I got over the stupid [item]Astrolabe[/item], even though it looks bad ass, in my opinion, again. So, I had just started playing Final Fantasy XIV again when these new items came out, and I had heard some LS mates talking about how elite they were, arguing that you weren't anybody if you didn't have a double-melded [item]Vanya Robe[/item], or something. I heard Vanya Robe, and I figured I'd go give it a look over. Looked at it, and the Vanya robe looks really cool! Nice stats, MP, INT, MND, Magic Accuracy, Magic Potency! And you can slot Materia in it~!!! Oh, whoops. It's for Thaumaturge only. So, forget it, Black Mages!

      Aside from neat stuff we can't wear, there's not a whole lot more wrong with our gear selections. Hamlet offers some nice tights, and materia can go into most of our stuff in decent placements, excluding our body pieces and weapons are iffy.

      Oh! I forgot. Unless you are a Nazi to materia, think that it's unnatural to augment a weapon with a fortification of power, or just under a rock, our weapons are only really decent if we have a Relic, or have it double-slotted with materia. Otherwise, our BCNM battles against the primals are completely useless. I hear [item]Garuda's Van[/item] is actually not so bad, and looking at Moogle Box, I wouldn't mind to tinker around with one, myself. But, without such a thing as some game mechanics, we can't currently compare what INT Vs. Magic Attack Potency is worth, or other valuable stats. In that case, I'll stick with a proven Magic Attack Potency + with a double meld INT.. Oh, there we go, [item]Garuda's Van[/item] isn't important anymore. Orz.

      Because I enjoy giving credit where credit is due, they did introduce a set of gear called "Mage's ___" This was all really cool, and I enjoy using much of it on my Black Mage. Earring, Ring, et cetera~ Much was very nice for me, especially after the whole [item]Astrolabe[/item] and [item]Vanya Robe[/item] incident..
      • Support Jobs;
        Final Fantasy XIV doesn't have support jobs, I know. But, I really believe they should. I think the whole 'class system' is garbage, because it's just a bunch of bland and ordinary jobs who are then 'specialized' into a field that is now useful. But, we could've just started playing something useful from the get-go. Anyways. In Final Fantasy XIV, we have a class system that makes zero sense, for Black Mage, anyways. In order to unlock the Black Mage, we need to level up our Thaumaturge (Offensive Magic Class) and that makes sense! We also need to have Pugilist leveled, and that makes absolutely no sense! One of the two jobs required is a melee class that has a primary stat modifier of INT, big whoop. The two useful job abilities that Black Mage borrows from Pugilist is Featherfoot, and Second Wind. The logic behind this is f***ed. Black Mage is a Mage, not a nimble-footed dancer of thief, and our -second wind- ability is the only thing helping us stay alive from trying to solo and Featherfoot some MP back into our pool, while we are straight tanking an enemy. Back to the point. This makes no damn sense, why our support system.... never mind, I'm just reiterating at this point.
        Final Fantasy XI offered us a real system that allowed us to diversify our experience, expand our gameplay, and express our characters in a non-linear manner. Black Mage was played, effectively, with a multitude of jobs and their support abilities, including -- but not limited to; White Mage, Scholar, Red Mage, and even Ninja! Every support job has had its ups and downs. None of them were perfect, and that's what made them awesome! Classes are a way of creating an all-in-one job that's quasi-flexible. Really, they're just all the same job with different weapons. In my opinion. Using support jobs were a method of making you pick which pros and cons weighed the best in your favour, for your specific situation.
        1. White Mage - This was a pretty stock idea for new Black Mages. We also used this as an HNM alternative so that we could HEAL, something Final Fantasy XIV has forbidden Black Mages. Well, we didn't really Heal, but we did buff ourselves, sub heal random tanks and melee, and were standby for Raise. Either way, this helped a lot of us out, because we were given some kind of self maintenance. Playing White Mage, though, limited us in our ability to solo. We were not given Gravity!
        2. Red Mage - This was pretty much staple for end-game Black Mages. We were allowed to solo like rock stars, we were helpful for Notorious Monsters and bosses, alike! We were given an ability to buff ourselves reliably, debuff the enemy, cure a little, stack DoT's, et cetera. But, we were definitely not given the ability to raise, leaving us in a poor spot for some HNM events.
        3. Scholar - I never had a lot of experience in this field, but this combination was both very powerful and very risque at the same time. We lost ability to really buff ourselves, but we gained superior MP management. We had to rely on our other debuff spells, outside of Gravity, and work exceptionally hard at our timings, gear sets, etc. This being said, this job combination was unorthodox, but a perfect example of real flexibility requiring sacrifice and reward at once.
To summarize. Black Mage is not fun to play in Final Fantasy XIV. Soloing has a strange feeling to it. The games shallow depth towards Jobs, and over exaggeration on classes is upsetting. I think gear choices could be much nicer, especially in the form of Primal rewards. Some actual mechanics where people can understand why having 4000000 INT isn't as great as dividing 400 Magic Potency and Magic Accuracy.
I understand that people who play Final Fantasy XIV may not feel the same way, and I expect to see it shown in replies. But, that doesn't change how I personally feel. I also understand that some of it regarding Final Fantasy XIV may be able to be debunked from misinformation of malpractice on my own part, or just plain ignorance. I still play Final Fantasy XIV, and I'm looking forward to Version 2.0. I hope it treats me, and all of us who've felt slighted, much nicer. Good luck, and God speed.
If any of you made it through that, you're either like minded, or amazing to read all of that. This was just my venting in a public forum.