Black Mage Requirements

[Gurloz]

So, I've leveled Thaumaturge to level 30, and did some searching to find out what the subclass is for unlocking Black Mage; found several sites, threads and posts about mixed subjects. Thaumaturge & Pugilist, Thaumaturge and Arcanist, Thaumaturge and Archer, and so on. ... I leveled Arcanist to 15, and still cannot unlock the quest to become a Black Mage. ... Come to find out it's Archer I need, so all that time on Arcanist didn't do all that good to achieve my end-goal of becoming a Black Mage.

... Requiring Archer is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard in my history of playing video games. ... This definitely needs to be changed, because Arcanist makes a hell of a lot more sense as the subclass than Archer..

[Ryuseki]

So, I've leveled Thaumaturge to level 30, and did some searching to find out what the subclass is for unlocking Black Mage; found several sites, threads and posts about mixed subjects. Thaumaturge & Pugilist, Thaumaturge and Arcanist, Thaumaturge and Archer, and so on. ... I leveled Arcanist to 15, and still cannot unlock the quest to become a Black Mage. ... Come to find out it's Archer I need, so all that time on Arcanist didn't do all that good to achieve my end-goal of becoming a Black Mage.

... Requiring Archer is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard in my history of playing video games. ... This definitely needs to be changed, because Arcanist makes a hell of a lot more sense as the subclass than Archer..

Stop complaining and just do it, You won't be whining once you have raging strikes Cooldown

[Marveth]

I agree that Archer is silly. Sure it's a ranged DPS class but if you look at the players who like to play DPS mages it's usually not the type of people who like archers. Any mage class would have been a better choice.

[Viridiana]

While I do find it odd thematically that they chose ARC instead of ACN to be the sub-class, any BLM worth his salt was going to level ARC anyway.

[Eggochiggo]

Agreed I thought it was dumb but raging strikes is really nice for boss fights, only need it at 15 though.

[Viridiana]

Agreed I thought it was dumb but raging strikes is really nice for boss fights, only need it at 15 though.

I haven't played BLM yet, but it seems that Quelling Strikes (34 ARC) would also be amazing, what with the 50% enmity generation for 15 seconds. . .

[Allyrion]

I find it refreshing and interesting. The reason is that unlike the other casters, the black mage is closer akin to the archer in that it's focused on projectiles. Learning the Archer would thematically make them learn how to focus and hit the target's weak spot with each blast.
Levelling an arcanist would not have any such meaning.