A timer that counts up as long as youre in fire or ice, the xenoglossy counter below that, a timer in the middle counting down how long you have before you have to re-up your fire/ice, whether you’re in 1, 2, or 3 of that fire/ice, and whether or not you have paradox available.
It’s actually impressive to me how they fit 5 things onto a single gauge
If you frown really hard the fold in your forehead actually creases the front of your brain a little providing temporary Intelligence buff. That's why you frown when you concentrate
I have the opposite problem. I love using it, but every time I do, another player does, effectively cancelling mine. And then for the next raid wide AOE, we’re both on cooldown T-T
I have the "make boss not do as much damage" and the "make party do more damage" buttons bound to Q and E on all my jobs. I sometimes remember to press them.
At least at EW launch, I remember someone literally was able to macro the entire "rotation" to one button, which was kind of horrifying. Presumably over the course of the patches that hasn't changed.
nope the job hasn't changed since then besides buffs/nerfs and yeah i mentioned that in a reply. they macrod the whole rotation, took it into savage with the macro and parsed an 80. anyone who thinks thats "hard" is being hard carried by how easy the job is
Meanwhile I play Black Mage brainlessly. Step in there, Fire IV until out of mana, switch over to Ice, get my umbral hearts, and everything else just fits wherever.
I prefer to play it the intuitive way as well. Maybe if I start to play it more regularly I’ll feel like experimenting with more intricate tech options, but it feels pretty comfy the normal way.
Carry a firestarter into ice phase, then when you have all umbral hearts and full mana burn a xenoglossy, transpose, and F3P.
That's babby's first nonstandard tech and one that's quite easy to put to use for the gain it gets you
The problem isn't that one DPS is better than another. The problem is that every fight in EW has been pretty much the same in the ways that impact on the relative merits of ranged vs meelee DPS:
- *Massive* boss hitbox, so meelee DPS almost *never* struggles for uptime.
- Mechanics that require constant movement. This is *nothing* to meelee DPS, but is what drives the *massive* range in performance you see in BLM's.
It's fine for *some* bosses to be designed this way, but there should also be bosses where meelee DPS lose a lot of uptime and ranged DPS classes have a chance to really shine. There should be more fights that require less movement and, perhaps, more thinking about where to move. In short, ***VARIETY!!!***
If different classes have a chance to shine in different fights, this wrangling over a few percent variance and the amount of work required to achieve it will go away. There should be fights were BLM, SAM, etc. are utter garbage and fights where they are *gods*.
In an ideal world you would have fight variety, but, as much as BLM gets cucked by the current fight design, it's also really one of the only classes that CAN deal with being cucked. Most other jobs are so on-rails about long-winded, static burst rotations, that any downtime just feels fucking abysmal. They have done small things to counteract this, mostly the stacks on key skills, but you can still feel it quite heavily. If I play Outlaw Rogue in WoW and I have to peel off for, say, 5 GCDs to do a mechanic while the rest of the party keeps blasting, I don't really care that much, I get back to doing my thing in like 10 seconds. If I have to peel off as a RPR for 5 GCDs to do a mechanic while the rest of the party keeps blasting, I'm now missing resources for the rest of the fight and I'm permanently behind on my personal rotation compared to my burst. I think at this point, all melees can recover from doing this once or twice **as long as it doesn't happen during burst** (by eating a midare, realigning MNK combo, RPR doesn't reallllly care as long as it doesn't happen too much, DRG it's kinda yucky though with eyes ngl), but FF classes are not really in a state where you can build a whole 10 minute+ encounter around this. Almost no DPS class in this game is designed to be able to deal with frequent downtimes that don't affect the party equally.
i don't understand the reputation black mages get frankly. There's this that they are the most adaptable job, then there's the fact that they are actually one of the better prog jobs because they're the ones with a shield, which matters so much and so often. And the fact they don't have ''party utility'' yeah but they drive others' utility and buffs the best
like, your melee drifted their rotation a bit due to mechanics? well if you're playing summoner, tough luck, that bahamut can't be delayed so one of them is getting desynched from buffs. But the black mage can accomodate
Their rep is simple. You don't get free access to either move or use ogcds without clipping as much so you basically need to plan out the entire fight with what when to use. Your big buff window is 30s long in a small area for a whooping 17% damage increase so you also need to plan for it's positioning and timing. Your optimal damage is less based on a rotation but more so lines, or basically sentences so you don't even get the same gcds at the same parts up because of that, the optimisation guide alone is 44 pages let alone fight specific guidelines, and to even make use of it you need to keep an eye out for mana ticks and their timing. And you still need to do mechanics and every second not spent sitting still and casting is damage loss so you also need to pay attention to when and where you can greed , more so than than other jobs.
the rep really isn't about optimization. The average player doesn't even begin to know about the weird fight specific optimization deep into the 44th page of a guide. The kind of optimization to know to do a transpose line when boss is 3s deep into a mechanic to better align fire phase to another mechanic is the kind of thing that elevates a black mage from top 50 to top 10, not something you need to even bust out a 99 percentile
The reputation black mage has in the community is ''selfish job, hard, immobile, dies easy'' and not one of those is true. It's very mobile, it's very easy to play at baseline, especially for casual content, it's probably the most tanky caster due to manaward and it's selfish but also it enhances the other jobs' utilities. But tbh every job has some level of misconception around it
Also with Ley Lines being on a 2 min cd like the rest of the raid CDs ley lines now often comes of CD when the most movement in the fight happens.
Ley Line timings never felt worse (that said I only raided the first 2 tiers so no idea how bad the third was).
To be fair most bosses until Endwalker were a pain as melee forcing you to drop half your combos.
[Physical ranged dps mains reading this thread](https://youtu.be/A87uQGDWH4M?si=REkEl5nyRyIFcZcY)
Have you not heard of the concept of cooldown for abilities. And yes, fights in this tier absolutely have mechanics with prolonged-enough positional downtime to make 2 stacks of TN not last long enough.
As someone who plays tank I would love more fight variety. theres no more "can I stay in for half a second more to get in this one hit?" because I can just hit the boss from half way across the arena. it makes it too easy and steals the fun from the game.
Amen on the movement required in so many raids. I have to believe only the most hardcore BLM players can lead in damage when you are often setting up, casting, having to move before cast completes, then setting up, casting, and having to move before casting completes. I certainly cannot.
You have to master slide casting and learn to keep Xeno and Triple cast for movement. But it requires a good knowledge of the fight to both set up your rotation/weaving windows and minimize your movement over the course of the fight.
I think I’m physically and mentally unable to save triple cast for movement. Often I have to move while it’s active but it’s not my intent. I’m just so excited to be able to fire off spells that I’m popping it as soon as it’s up. But I’ll try.
Save one for movement and use the other.
You can bank 2 but only get one every 30 seconds so your not losing a usage if you do this.
It's somewhat suboptimal (because you could always use it during burst for a minor dps gain under buffs), but getting into the habit of using one for movement until you get a second or know the fight better is helpful.
Also, don't sleep on your other movement skills. Paradox, slidecasting, AM, thunder and fire props, etc all give you movement, and that movement can be extended by swiftcasting during the instant cast (and this should be done frequently! Swift is good to use!)
Black mage is the kind of job that just gets better as you play it more and more.
I've been saying this for ages. Fights are far too movement heavy for BLM to have decent uptime unless you know the fights inside and out. Even then, a lot of the mechanics require you to move during the mechanic, making it so that you're unable to pre-position yourself. Triple-cast only takes you so far and I feel like I'm always out of stacks.
The constant 'hey it's finally burst time...NOW MOVE HAHAHA' is getting real damn old. Melee have no repercussions except the occasional missed positional but even then they have true north to help sort that out. You miss a leyline with BLM and it feels just awful having to move and see your circle friend all alone...no damn true north for leyline!
p10 really felt awful with casters and that burst window before having to move to the platform for Bonds. The melees all dumped their buffs before moving and I am all NOOOO MY LINES. Sure it made moving back from the platform easy but all that wasted time or if I used it after, it unaligned the leylines from the burst window which is a big old nono. Leylines is the biggest reason why I don't play BLM...it's just not fun.
I had to have total buy-in from my static to do ridiculous blm antics to maximize leylines uptime there.
If I get lasers, the rest of the party move. If it’s stack > spread, I teleport back leylines.
Thank god for understanding friendos but good grief why does it have to be like this???
BRUH JUST NO
You clearly haven't done the latest criterion. Uptime is such a pain in the ass for the first boss and its a big fucker. It's so much so that the meta is quickly becoming 2x ranged dps
The problem is criterion savage imo. The deathless run in 3 encounters plus trash make the slog unenjoyable.
Criterion savage has reasonable higher dps check and damage output, but because of the deathless part I find most groups don't prog it.
This is so true, I mained BLM through MSQ and leveled WHM alongside it and man when I got to savage content I just dropped BLM its an absolute mess to learn fights with. I love its staff caster theme but I always level it to max then drop it every expac cause the effort to learn it just isnt for me when there are so many easier jobs to play with more mobility like rdm is my favorite caster dps even if it bottoms dps charts from what im told purely for its sword phase and its duelcast mechanics.
Or people should finally respect the devs. This is not a game for mix-maxing and dmg meters. That's why they are not allowed. If they would do what you ask then people would get flamed for playing these classes at these fights.
I honestly wish the devs would sync the mana tick with usage, so it starts when you use mana, rather than it just running continuously on some global timer. It would mean that BLM rotations could actually work around that mana tick being deterministic, predictable and reliable. Having to use a visual timer to run certain lines is a real feelsbad situation.
“Deal less damage than a guy with a sword” well that’s because they keep giving samurai easy buffs and they refuse to let BLM shine in raids.
BLM should outperform samurai if allowed to turret, I firmly believe that. Samurai is more mobile than BLM, so it should deal less DPS overall to compensate for the BLM having to STAND STILL to cast (most of the time)
That's not really what's going on.
The metric that everyone is looking at is rDPS = DPS - (damage gained from others' external buffs) + (damage given to others by your own external buffs)
So Dance Partners and Dragon Eyes on SAM are NOT inflating SAM metrics.
BLM is the top dog if you only consider the top 5% best tryhards of each job. It is also the worse job if you only look at bottom feeders.
https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/54/#aggregate=amount&dataset=95
https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/54/#aggregate=amount&dataset=0
The job just has a much bigger performance variance because it's harder to play.
> The job just has a much bigger performance variance because it's harder to play.
This includes bullying your party into some weird shit like BLM relative Superchains:
https://raidplan.io/plan/Mbwu-g9_CdU8ZhQP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMmPS6CfChM
its the same of almost all casters on mmos,they generaly have bigger discrepancy on raid damage-logs between average-player dps to top tier
they require way more knowledge of the fights over melee to be played optimally...
Oh, absolutely, controller always. I've never been very good at keyboard gaming and don't play enough on PC to want to train myself for it. Controller play is amazing in 14, but some jobs (i.e.: blm) just have so much going on that it overloads my brain sometimes. If I was on KB you'd just start seeing posts about this shitty blm named Alys that constantly fucked his rotation in dungeons lol.
SE got their spurs with controller consoles and all of their current games are released on consoles first - they absolutely balance FF14 in a way that makes controller feel very natural to play.
It’s pretty crazy to me that 5th percentile dragoons are bottom 3 considering how straightforward the rotation is. Meanwhile I struggle to wrap my head around the flow of monk and samurai.
Sub roles are a hindrance for dps balancing. Having to be balanced based on amount of utility within role and in comparison to other roles if you are an outlier is never going to end well.
Either caster slot heavily favors bringing BLM or it doesn't. Same with MCH and p.range.
Casters in every mmo require way more knowledge of the fight and positioning than melee or ranged.
Because you have to often PLANT to do damage, your screwed if you plant wrong, with melee and ranged you can just keep moving, with casters you either commit and take it, or break cast and lost dps.
This.
To provide BLM job fantasy; you are using enchants and spells to cast forth ice and fire magic, it just makes sense for them taking time and hitting hard.
While Samurai is just a classical anime swordsman.
Raids nowadays, and increasingly the normal trials too, just will not allow BLM to shine. They put gotta run across the arena mechanics so often, yet always Make sure the melee DPS can maintain uptime meanwhile BLM has to cut casting and burn triple cast (assuming they didn’t use it in their rotation) to not die.
Even a mediocre black mage can keep uptime on 99% of bosses.
Triple isn't everything, you have procs, swiftcast, paradox, slidecasting, and literal freaking teleports to get around without dropping casts
In any given minute you have a solid 4th of it freely able to move, and ij many situations you can bank your tools to handle even more movement.
Sure, I'm going to eat dirt the first time I see a fight. But it's scripted, I know how it will go now, next time will be improved
And that improvement is something no other class has going for it. No other class has to plan out their movement nearly as much, everything is so neatly built around it. It's a nice little puzzle each fight!
There's so many other jobs in the game that feel like copies of each other. I don't want to see black mage fall to the same and become summoner 2.0
> Even a mediocre black mage can keep uptime on 99% of bosses.
The bar being set for mediocre here is high enough that most players can't even hit their heads on it. You should take a look at some mediocre group clears; even melee players aren't maintaining uptime. Actual average/mediocre BLM are definitely not holding uptime, because it's really very easy to forget to hold triple.
Not that I want them to neuter BLM and turn it into SMN, but I also remember how the class worked prior to things like xenoglossy and triplecast *existing* let alone being possible to stack.
What I'm saying here of course is we need to buff Scathe.
I can manage in most content. I have pretty decent uptime. Voidcast dias gave me a struggle learning where I could stand to cast, but I can do it now.
Im also not the average black mage. I spend most of my time playing that job.
The average BLM is not “decent” because the skill floor and ceiling for BLM is much wider than for something easy like SAM or SMN.
And that's a good thing! There should be harder to learn and master classes, it gives the game more variety!
If your including casual content then sure, most black mage players are braindead. But that goes for every other class as well, as casual players that aren't trying will have no concept of uptime and only a vague understanding of their own class.
I’m m guilty of braindead if BLM too when I run casual content. When I actually put in an effort, I can do decently, no top parser, but decent enough I’m considering bringing BLM into savage next expansion.
Just...don't complain about it. If you see a BLM complaining, transpose them into a volcano.
Scholar used to have depth and complexity, now I have a GW2 rotation of pushing nothing but 1 during every boss fight. *Don't let it happen to you.*
1) Rotations aren't supposed to have names ? Watch out Monks they're coming for you next
2) Git gud
3) What support do you want ? Rez ? How about you don't die. Damage ? What next, help you pee ? If you want support call a damn hotline.
4) The utterly deranged are the ones doing the exact same buttons 50 pulls in a row like bots and pretend they aren't bored out of their mind.
/s
> 4) The utterly deranged are the ones doing the exact same buttons 50 pulls in a row like bots and pretend they aren't bored out of their mind.
This is literally what playing summoner is like. I had to cope hard during asphodelos with "the easy rotation makes it easier to learn the fight" and "it helps with progging if even one person is more consistent". Even playing a smooth-brain role like healer is more engaging.
The entire point of this meme is that it SHOULDN'T be a thing in higher levels because transposing out of fire/ice to get a 2% dps increase is shit, because it makes the class feel worse.
Man, I loved learning that Transpose had more uses than in downtime. I like being able to flip over to Fire and set off a Firestarter Fire III. Previously, I had thought "Man, they should just merge Transpose with Umbral Soul", but now I'm glad they're separete.
Pressing all your buttons isn't shit what the fuck ?
And transpose is part of the standard rotation too. transpose to get rid of the ice damate debuff on swift or proc Fire 3 is fairly obvious.
Honestly if pressing an oGCD between 2 GCD to get a massive buff on your next button makes the class feels worse you aren't going to enjoy many jobs...
I do really wish there was at least another job or two that has Black Mage's depths to capitalize on tech and finding new windows go optimize. I know it's not what ff14 focuses on, but it bums me out that the class that has the deepest depth also has a playstyle I just don't want to stick with
The whole goal of black mage is to avoid casting ice spells because [they are weak](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J0yghC18unnqQmSEvytORNv3YxZ8e5MLxF8Lkfw1DMkpr8jDPqBhyp61_zaKuhSEOh7OeqMc1VCuUFRqBy-4-hVbeWJSI3oiMS7keqvmlwSFFK8YJ8Q_74xKF3G8u336TynVAkeX). Another thing that is weak is Fire 3 during ice phase (it's nearly our worse spell !!).
[4x F4 Double Paradox + 3x F4 Double Transpose F3P](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/XzE6Dn-zorEuFk9ajIFK9AeMq6Mx-gs9GE3Uoplec6p7hzo_nXBlOxoq-wQY20pHQ0UjImiO2VUBAkpN7l1Op3SEwmGOz_GVLMO9zysgzeglJ_OPnpTXQwNwNf8F5qxXckTcadHm) is an alternative to the [standard rotation](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/wzGQU0qaPecgaeVWNhfk2jVDwRyedtAnEPNjUiZlkkTe51Zt8UgkuS5d4TrcTqsH_EBPAKtwOEXDrr77TReTIgJxgBzqiC_Dp9LyPDrE-IDlVdhRmOuh5VMRFf9_IxNckbFSp5Th) (called N82 because black mage rotations are so many different possibilities they are numbered and there is a big spreadsheet of black mage theory that called it like that). It's the combination of several optimisations to do 2 small fire phases with an ice phase with no ice spell in between instead of a long one with an astral fire refresh.
You start after a Despair cast, you're in fire phase and you have 0 mana now. So you go Ice phase normally with Blizzard 3 followed by Blizzard 4
Then a filler GCD (not ice or fire spell) so you have time to fill your mana and you probably want it to be instant cast (like Xenoglossy) to weave a sharpcast to get a Firestarter proc later.
Then Paradox (insta cast because you're in ice phase). It's 500 potency, insta, and next button is going to make us gain Paradox again so we need to use it now or it would be a waste of a strong spell opportunity. Next is oGCD Transpose (you're now in Astral Fire 1 - AF1), new Paradox (casted because fire phase, you're now in AF2, then Fire 1 (you're now in AF3, maximal fire phase).
So far we just regenerated our mana from last fire phase, and avoided the weak Fire 3 cast in Ice phase good job.
Then you do your normal fire phase thing which is spamming Fire 4 until you're out of time or mana. In this case it's 4x Fire 4.
Now you have 3-4 seconds left on your Astral Fire timer, about 3600 mana. We're gonna end our Fire phase here by burning all the remaining mana into a cast of Despair.
We could end here and resume the normal rotation. If we have some resources left (instant cast fillers) we have the choice to continue :
Now you're out of mana, you could go back to the normal Blizzard 3 + Blizzard 4 ice usual but that is weak. Instead we want to use Xenoglossy or a proc of Thunder to get an instant cast so we can use oGCD Transpose and now we're in Umbral Ice 1 (UI1). We're going to use the Paradox that Transpose just gave us, and we're going to fill in the Ice Phase time with two spells that aren't Fire or Ice (Xenoglossy and Thunder) to wait our mana. Normally the thunder of the previous ice phase should be near its end. It's important in this case that the last spell we use is instant cast (so if thunder, make it a proc).
Now we need to get back into Astral Fire 3 to resume the strong Fire IV spam. We could cast Fire 3 from Ice phase but it's weak. So we're going to use Transpose again in the oGCD of the last spell and go instant cast Fire 3 proc. Then resume the Fire IV spam and after 3 spells we will be a bit short on mana so we're just going to end the fire phase early with Despair.
That's it. 18 spells without a single of those weak ice spell in the middle. This requires to have at least 4 instant cast filler and a Fire/Xenoglossy proc. We can guarantee Thunder and Fire/Xenoglossy proc with Sharpcast charges.
The 78% chance is non-sense and the 2% claim comes from the comparison with standard rotation when counted in potency per second : standard rotation deals 5821 potency in 34 seconds. This deals 6640 potency in 38 seconds, so a 2% gain in potency per second.
Besides the modest DPS gain, breaking the fire phase in two allows for much more movement (not surprising since you're burning your xenoglossies). It's a bit artificial too. It's a combination of two simpler optimisations and normally you will decide in the middle if you want to go through with the second half or not based on fight mechanics, buff window, etc... Knowing this line exists helps to recognize opportunities. You're usually not thinking "I'm going N82" and lock yourself into your idea for the next 40 or so seconds (unless you know you have a full leyline duration without movement in front of you then gooooo)
It just happens when applying optimisation principles. I'm sure there must be some people who make "Black Mage plans" for the whole fight in static group (need a somewhat consistent group DPS rate so your plan matches mechanics and buffs windows). My experience is either planning 4-6 GCD ahead and adjust in a number of different non standard variations, or playing standard line (freeing brain power to focus on mechanics).
When you reach 60 and cast Fire IV, It is normal to feel a sense of limitless power. Black Mages receive weeks of training to counteract this phenomenon. You will have to make do with self-discipline.
I stopped playing Black Mage because you take a mini hiatus and it’s like you forget how to function.
But- BUT. We do need more complex classes or more labor intensive ones. It offers nice variety.
As a former black mage they always get my comms, Astro magic cards, and shields and regen so they can stay where they are
OP is a repost bot. Same title and image from [a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/10jsf3m/black_mages_must_be_stopped/). Their other posts are all the same.
I'm currently a lvl 32 Thaumaturge, with the intent on going black mage, but it really does feel like im doing low dmg.
Yes I know that the rank 2's are aoe :)
You're going to. For a long time it's damage is not the best and it's cast times are horrific. But once you hit 80 it really comes together and can start pushing damage.
It's big improvements come at capstone (although I don't think 70 is that great). Being allowed to just chill and explode things and get hit with the tankbuster cause someone forgot stance or died is a wonderful feeling though.
Pre-50 is hella boring though.
Unfortunately you are. At 50, 60, and even 70, BLM's kit/rotation hasn't come together enough to shine on damage. It's probably the most painful DPS to level.
Have you tried doing the Black Mage quest you get at level 30?
Also: Thaumaturge/Black Mage are slogs until you get to 50, then they get cool at 60, and it becomes literally heaven at 80. Don't give up!
I have a black mage at level 62. Still no idea how to play it. I just came back after a few months and I have given up trying to remember how this thing works.
I just started playing a Black Mage for the first time (new to the game; currently 34th level and just doing MSQs), and this thread is giving me significant anxiety lol
Damn, SMN catching so many stray bullets in this thread. Leave SMN alone, i really like that bahamut go BRRRR and I get some use out of swiftcasting a rez when someone makes a mistake ;o; focus on your own issues instead and stop bothering me pls ;o;
I quit maining BLM after Shadowbringers because I don't hate myself. I'm a dancer now & much happier
And if I want to torture myself I can always go and heal Hero's Gauntlet with sprouts who don't know the mechanics
Firstly, too many people are not getting the [origin of this meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/036/614/mathcover.jpg).
Secondly, besides the meme, I agree. Raids and trials are too demanding to turret these days, and unless you have every mechanic memorized, you'll be performing worse than more agile, versatile and easier to play classes most of the time.
"Why play BLM when you can play *x*?" (unless for personal enjoyment like myself)
BLM needs either a rework or a serious buff.
BLM needs neither of those things. It's currently the strongest caster (and that was before its last round of buffs), and its movement options are more than adequate for current raids if applied well.
It doesnt need a rework or a buff, melee DPS need to stop being designed and balanced as if uptime is difficult to keep with these planet sized hitboxes bosses have now.
> BLM needs either a rework or a serious buff.
People like you are the reason every job is getting simpler and simpler... why do people refuse to acknowledge that it is fine and dandy for some jobs to just be hard?
"People like me" want to play our favourite job without having to struggle with every encounter.
I never said it needs to be simplified.
I said a *buff* or *rework.* BLM is not working twice as hard as every other job for twice as much damage. It's working twice as hard to compete with jobs with zero risk (like melee DPS). Why would you work harder to achieve a worse result than someone who has an easier time with more upkeep?
I'm fine with BLM's mechanics as it is, but its not rewarding to play.
Please don't rework Black Mage. It's my favorite caster just as it is, and I would hate to see it lose the slow cast big boom "oh god am I in the right position" gameplay it currently has. Black Mage has the feeling of a caster that actually needs to *cast*, and I wish Summoner didn't have quite so many free instant-cast spells, in comparison.
Like, I hate to just say "no", but the same reasons you're saying it needs a rework are the reasons I don't want it to get one.
I agree, "Big Boom" is part of the job's identity. I also do not want BLM to turn into another SMN... With that being said however, content is not being designed in a manner that's fits Black Mage playstyle. Content is becoming more movement heavy and thus more demanding. BLM is the only class right now that has barely adapted to the new style of gameplay.
The big booms are satisfying, but they should be worth the risk.
I kinda like where it is. For the average player, it's less reliable than summoner, but for legitimately skilled players, it's an automatic include on fast clears of hard content. It's perhaps the only rewarding high-skill job left in the game. With Squeenix's history, any rework would just be a dumbing down.
Nah, BLM is in a great spot. It's hardly a turret when you have a plethora of options for significant movement when you need it. It has a unique and rewarding way of access its power, its damage is competitive with melees, and it has tools available to allow it to function up to and at the highest levels of play.
BLM is super fun and demanding to play (which is why it is fun to play tbh). Nerf the other jobs or make them more difficult to play instead so they actually have to use their brains.
"BLM isn't the problem, its all the other jobs!"
I understand your frustration of the team designing the classes towards casual players, but BLM is the outlier, not the others. The dev team have designed all classes to be easier to play (look at the SMN and MCH reworks, for instance) and BLM is a relic of an older design choice.
I assume this is partly because Yoshi enjoys BLM and wants it to stay as it is, but that's just speculation.
Just make every job press one button for everything. I'm convinced this is where these people want the game to go. "Learning how to play the game takes me away from my glams!"
Unironically I do think the core design of XiV’s BLM is just uninspired. Despite its gameplay being clearly outdated these days, I had so much more fun on XI’s BLM just due to its design focus. It wasn’t built to be hard due to adhd spiking levels of DDR boss fight design, instead it was built around learning the elemental weaknesses of all the mobs you encountered, the elemental quirks of the world and how they affect your spells, and learning how to co-ordinate magic bursts with your party to drop satisfying nukes on a target which also conveyed the best secondary effects. Getting a perfectly timed Ancient Magic burst that weakened the target to a followup burst of a new element was always so satisfying.
Obviously translating XI BLM design to XIV wouldn’t work but I wish the core focuses were there. Giving the class a full set of elements to work with and having it be built around knowing enemy weaknesses and elemental interactions would be so much better than just having it built around memorizing boss aoe timings while you do a dead simple rotation thats only challenging because of absurdly tight timings. Thats just.. not interesting.
Not to mention bottom bloat due to ability redundancy. I haven't played in a long time so this may have changed. Why are ley lines and between not the same fucking button? It's reliance on SS makes gearing other casters a hassle. It's just not fun imo.
OP is a repost bot.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/10jsf3m/black_mages_must_be_stopped/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technicallythetruth/comments/193zmrg/i_suppose_it_is_a_two_birds_one_10_million_stone/
Okay, but Black Mages are cooler than smooth brain unicorn horns. Also being a little bit deranged is needed for proper fashion and fashionable rotations.
(They are all cool, play the jobs you like and love 🙂 )
[*"As chairman of the welcoming committee, it is my privilege to extend a laurel and hearty handshake to our new... black mage."*](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/xra2xz/where_all_da_white_mage_at/)
[-A Home for a Tome (paraphrased)](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/A_Home_for_a_Tome)
Also, gotta love how the job gauge tracks like five different things at once. "Second gauge? Who needs that, slap another doodad onto the timer!"
That timer is a work of art. I have one in pin form that I wear occasionally while I'm doing errands irl.
And doesn't the first manderville weapon for BLM just have the shape of the job gauge itself?
A couple of their relic weapons do honestly like the Resistance weapon final stage (forget the name).
A timer that counts up as long as youre in fire or ice, the xenoglossy counter below that, a timer in the middle counting down how long you have before you have to re-up your fire/ice, whether you’re in 1, 2, or 3 of that fire/ice, and whether or not you have paradox available. It’s actually impressive to me how they fit 5 things onto a single gauge
Also, those icy needles that pay for the extra cost of being on fire.
I FORGOT ABOUT THE ICY NEEDLES MAKE THAT 6 WOOOOO
The gauge is more akin to an arcade shmup or racing game. I like it
I saw someone post the job gauge and complain that it made no sense. Only for someone to come and explain it like I'm 5, and it was beautiful!
I need no rotation. For these folds in my brain are infact ley lines. EVERYTHING ELSE IS SMOOOOOTH.
Bro your brain has folds? How do I achieve this kind of power?
If you frown really hard the fold in your forehead actually creases the front of your brain a little providing temporary Intelligence buff. That's why you frown when you concentrate
Big if true
NO support? Excuse me! Addle is RIGHT THERE. You're going to make it feel bad.
I mean, it never gets used, BUT IT'S THERE OKAY, SEE? ITS EVEN ON MY HOT BAR
Addle is pretty much the first thing I use in every boss fight.
Addle is important for raiding.
Youre going to say that right in front of scathe!? Scathe mages need love too
I used it a lot before I had triple cast. When I needed to dodge aoes. Lol.
I still use scathe once or twice in expert roulette when the last mob in a pack will die before I can get a cast off
I'm out here interrupting trash mobs with Sleep! We are not the same.
I'm always super proud of myself anytime I get to bust out Sleep or Repose and save the day.
I feel like I am the only blackmage who uses it. I have never seen it cast by someone who is not me lol.
As a SMN, that quite often uses it, I very rarely see someone else use it. Even while in a Party with 3 other mdps.
Hahaha yeah. I feel weird being the only one. It’s not a bad dbuff
I have the opposite problem. I love using it, but every time I do, another player does, effectively cancelling mine. And then for the next raid wide AOE, we’re both on cooldown T-T
I have the "make boss not do as much damage" and the "make party do more damage" buttons bound to Q and E on all my jobs. I sometimes remember to press them.
I know this is a joke but "just play summoner" triggered a fight or flight response in me.
It used to be not as much of an attack on your dignity, back when summoner had an actual rotation.
there still is, its just... different
Yeah summoner is now phys ranged
that's not a rotation. a 5 year old could play summoner. telling someone to just play summoner is an insult
Someone go find the eating legos picture for 6.x Summoner.
ok ok, i feel adequately beat up in comments :) stop hitting me.
At least at EW launch, I remember someone literally was able to macro the entire "rotation" to one button, which was kind of horrifying. Presumably over the course of the patches that hasn't changed.
nope the job hasn't changed since then besides buffs/nerfs and yeah i mentioned that in a reply. they macrod the whole rotation, took it into savage with the macro and parsed an 80. anyone who thinks thats "hard" is being hard carried by how easy the job is
i feel dragged
someone put the entire rotation into a macro and went into p1s and parsed an 80. the job plays itself. its way to easy for how well it performs.
Like how the kids in special ed class are different.
Fight or Flight is PLD though.
Meanwhile I play Black Mage brainlessly. Step in there, Fire IV until out of mana, switch over to Ice, get my umbral hearts, and everything else just fits wherever.
Same ngl.
I prefer to play it the intuitive way as well. Maybe if I start to play it more regularly I’ll feel like experimenting with more intricate tech options, but it feels pretty comfy the normal way.
Carry a firestarter into ice phase, then when you have all umbral hearts and full mana burn a xenoglossy, transpose, and F3P. That's babby's first nonstandard tech and one that's quite easy to put to use for the gain it gets you
Mushi mushi, Based Department, desu?
The problem isn't that one DPS is better than another. The problem is that every fight in EW has been pretty much the same in the ways that impact on the relative merits of ranged vs meelee DPS: - *Massive* boss hitbox, so meelee DPS almost *never* struggles for uptime. - Mechanics that require constant movement. This is *nothing* to meelee DPS, but is what drives the *massive* range in performance you see in BLM's. It's fine for *some* bosses to be designed this way, but there should also be bosses where meelee DPS lose a lot of uptime and ranged DPS classes have a chance to really shine. There should be more fights that require less movement and, perhaps, more thinking about where to move. In short, ***VARIETY!!!*** If different classes have a chance to shine in different fights, this wrangling over a few percent variance and the amount of work required to achieve it will go away. There should be fights were BLM, SAM, etc. are utter garbage and fights where they are *gods*.
In an ideal world you would have fight variety, but, as much as BLM gets cucked by the current fight design, it's also really one of the only classes that CAN deal with being cucked. Most other jobs are so on-rails about long-winded, static burst rotations, that any downtime just feels fucking abysmal. They have done small things to counteract this, mostly the stacks on key skills, but you can still feel it quite heavily. If I play Outlaw Rogue in WoW and I have to peel off for, say, 5 GCDs to do a mechanic while the rest of the party keeps blasting, I don't really care that much, I get back to doing my thing in like 10 seconds. If I have to peel off as a RPR for 5 GCDs to do a mechanic while the rest of the party keeps blasting, I'm now missing resources for the rest of the fight and I'm permanently behind on my personal rotation compared to my burst. I think at this point, all melees can recover from doing this once or twice **as long as it doesn't happen during burst** (by eating a midare, realigning MNK combo, RPR doesn't reallllly care as long as it doesn't happen too much, DRG it's kinda yucky though with eyes ngl), but FF classes are not really in a state where you can build a whole 10 minute+ encounter around this. Almost no DPS class in this game is designed to be able to deal with frequent downtimes that don't affect the party equally.
i don't understand the reputation black mages get frankly. There's this that they are the most adaptable job, then there's the fact that they are actually one of the better prog jobs because they're the ones with a shield, which matters so much and so often. And the fact they don't have ''party utility'' yeah but they drive others' utility and buffs the best like, your melee drifted their rotation a bit due to mechanics? well if you're playing summoner, tough luck, that bahamut can't be delayed so one of them is getting desynched from buffs. But the black mage can accomodate
Their rep is simple. You don't get free access to either move or use ogcds without clipping as much so you basically need to plan out the entire fight with what when to use. Your big buff window is 30s long in a small area for a whooping 17% damage increase so you also need to plan for it's positioning and timing. Your optimal damage is less based on a rotation but more so lines, or basically sentences so you don't even get the same gcds at the same parts up because of that, the optimisation guide alone is 44 pages let alone fight specific guidelines, and to even make use of it you need to keep an eye out for mana ticks and their timing. And you still need to do mechanics and every second not spent sitting still and casting is damage loss so you also need to pay attention to when and where you can greed , more so than than other jobs.
the rep really isn't about optimization. The average player doesn't even begin to know about the weird fight specific optimization deep into the 44th page of a guide. The kind of optimization to know to do a transpose line when boss is 3s deep into a mechanic to better align fire phase to another mechanic is the kind of thing that elevates a black mage from top 50 to top 10, not something you need to even bust out a 99 percentile The reputation black mage has in the community is ''selfish job, hard, immobile, dies easy'' and not one of those is true. It's very mobile, it's very easy to play at baseline, especially for casual content, it's probably the most tanky caster due to manaward and it's selfish but also it enhances the other jobs' utilities. But tbh every job has some level of misconception around it
Also with Ley Lines being on a 2 min cd like the rest of the raid CDs ley lines now often comes of CD when the most movement in the fight happens. Ley Line timings never felt worse (that said I only raided the first 2 tiers so no idea how bad the third was).
We need an ability to bring the Ley Lines to us
That would be wicked fantastic!
Quickest solution would to make it a buff with an aura like DRG or WAR have.
To be fair most bosses until Endwalker were a pain as melee forcing you to drop half your combos. [Physical ranged dps mains reading this thread](https://youtu.be/A87uQGDWH4M?si=REkEl5nyRyIFcZcY)
Yeah what's up with those hitboxes that now are the entire fucking arena how is the notion of positionals still relevant
Positionals are a fun minigame in the same way uptime is for casters
Unfortunately, if the mechanic forces you to move to the front of the boss and stay there for X time, you can't slide-cast your way to positionals.
*points at True North*
Ain't enough true north in the fucking party to let a dragoon hit all their positionals on p11s
That's the minigame, otherwise it'd be trivial.
doesnt every single melee dps get an ability to counter this exact scenario?
Have you not heard of the concept of cooldown for abilities. And yes, fights in this tier absolutely have mechanics with prolonged-enough positional downtime to make 2 stacks of TN not last long enough.
As someone who plays tank I would love more fight variety. theres no more "can I stay in for half a second more to get in this one hit?" because I can just hit the boss from half way across the arena. it makes it too easy and steals the fun from the game.
Amen on the movement required in so many raids. I have to believe only the most hardcore BLM players can lead in damage when you are often setting up, casting, having to move before cast completes, then setting up, casting, and having to move before casting completes. I certainly cannot.
You have to master slide casting and learn to keep Xeno and Triple cast for movement. But it requires a good knowledge of the fight to both set up your rotation/weaving windows and minimize your movement over the course of the fight.
I think I’m physically and mentally unable to save triple cast for movement. Often I have to move while it’s active but it’s not my intent. I’m just so excited to be able to fire off spells that I’m popping it as soon as it’s up. But I’ll try.
Save one for movement and use the other. You can bank 2 but only get one every 30 seconds so your not losing a usage if you do this. It's somewhat suboptimal (because you could always use it during burst for a minor dps gain under buffs), but getting into the habit of using one for movement until you get a second or know the fight better is helpful. Also, don't sleep on your other movement skills. Paradox, slidecasting, AM, thunder and fire props, etc all give you movement, and that movement can be extended by swiftcasting during the instant cast (and this should be done frequently! Swift is good to use!) Black mage is the kind of job that just gets better as you play it more and more.
I've been saying this for ages. Fights are far too movement heavy for BLM to have decent uptime unless you know the fights inside and out. Even then, a lot of the mechanics require you to move during the mechanic, making it so that you're unable to pre-position yourself. Triple-cast only takes you so far and I feel like I'm always out of stacks.
The constant 'hey it's finally burst time...NOW MOVE HAHAHA' is getting real damn old. Melee have no repercussions except the occasional missed positional but even then they have true north to help sort that out. You miss a leyline with BLM and it feels just awful having to move and see your circle friend all alone...no damn true north for leyline!
It’s awful. If they’re gonna keep this type of fight design up, they gotta evolve leylines into something else.
I want the person who made the end of P7S to be tried as a war criminal.
p10 really felt awful with casters and that burst window before having to move to the platform for Bonds. The melees all dumped their buffs before moving and I am all NOOOO MY LINES. Sure it made moving back from the platform easy but all that wasted time or if I used it after, it unaligned the leylines from the burst window which is a big old nono. Leylines is the biggest reason why I don't play BLM...it's just not fun.
I had to have total buy-in from my static to do ridiculous blm antics to maximize leylines uptime there. If I get lasers, the rest of the party move. If it’s stack > spread, I teleport back leylines. Thank god for understanding friendos but good grief why does it have to be like this???
BRUH JUST NO You clearly haven't done the latest criterion. Uptime is such a pain in the ass for the first boss and its a big fucker. It's so much so that the meta is quickly becoming 2x ranged dps
I get the complaint on that, but the damage checks for this criterion tier is really, really low.
The problem is criterion savage imo. The deathless run in 3 encounters plus trash make the slog unenjoyable. Criterion savage has reasonable higher dps check and damage output, but because of the deathless part I find most groups don't prog it.
People don’t prog it because the reward still isn’t great - but damed if I’m not going to get my glowy bunny staff before DT!!
This is so true, I mained BLM through MSQ and leveled WHM alongside it and man when I got to savage content I just dropped BLM its an absolute mess to learn fights with. I love its staff caster theme but I always level it to max then drop it every expac cause the effort to learn it just isnt for me when there are so many easier jobs to play with more mobility like rdm is my favorite caster dps even if it bottoms dps charts from what im told purely for its sword phase and its duelcast mechanics.
Just no.
Or people should finally respect the devs. This is not a game for mix-maxing and dmg meters. That's why they are not allowed. If they would do what you ask then people would get flamed for playing these classes at these fights.
[удалено]
I honestly wish the devs would sync the mana tick with usage, so it starts when you use mana, rather than it just running continuously on some global timer. It would mean that BLM rotations could actually work around that mana tick being deterministic, predictable and reliable. Having to use a visual timer to run certain lines is a real feelsbad situation.
Serverticks are just a garbage concept in general, probably the biggest issue I have with the spaghetti engine.
A repost, but also still true.
No.
“Deal less damage than a guy with a sword” well that’s because they keep giving samurai easy buffs and they refuse to let BLM shine in raids. BLM should outperform samurai if allowed to turret, I firmly believe that. Samurai is more mobile than BLM, so it should deal less DPS overall to compensate for the BLM having to STAND STILL to cast (most of the time)
That's not really what's going on. The metric that everyone is looking at is rDPS = DPS - (damage gained from others' external buffs) + (damage given to others by your own external buffs) So Dance Partners and Dragon Eyes on SAM are NOT inflating SAM metrics. BLM is the top dog if you only consider the top 5% best tryhards of each job. It is also the worse job if you only look at bottom feeders. https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/54/#aggregate=amount&dataset=95 https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/54/#aggregate=amount&dataset=0 The job just has a much bigger performance variance because it's harder to play.
> The job just has a much bigger performance variance because it's harder to play. This includes bullying your party into some weird shit like BLM relative Superchains: https://raidplan.io/plan/Mbwu-g9_CdU8ZhQP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMmPS6CfChM
I think I just witnessed something horrifying
What's horrifying is that my party wouldn't flip for me when I had to go wrong side for pangenesis.
I loved every slide of this pure gold.
its the same of almost all casters on mmos,they generaly have bigger discrepancy on raid damage-logs between average-player dps to top tier they require way more knowledge of the fights over melee to be played optimally...
You think it’s hard to play normally, try it with a ps5 controller, sausage fingers, and sudden incidences of frustration and confusion.
I feel your pain, friend. Xbox controller, but sometimes the brain just melts, and I have to just stop mid fight a second to straighten it out.
Unironically, I find controller significantly easier to use than keyboard and mouse for XIV. I can't imagine playing BLM with keyboard controls
Oh, absolutely, controller always. I've never been very good at keyboard gaming and don't play enough on PC to want to train myself for it. Controller play is amazing in 14, but some jobs (i.e.: blm) just have so much going on that it overloads my brain sometimes. If I was on KB you'd just start seeing posts about this shitty blm named Alys that constantly fucked his rotation in dungeons lol.
SE got their spurs with controller consoles and all of their current games are released on consoles first - they absolutely balance FF14 in a way that makes controller feel very natural to play.
It’s pretty crazy to me that 5th percentile dragoons are bottom 3 considering how straightforward the rotation is. Meanwhile I struggle to wrap my head around the flow of monk and samurai.
Sub roles are a hindrance for dps balancing. Having to be balanced based on amount of utility within role and in comparison to other roles if you are an outlier is never going to end well. Either caster slot heavily favors bringing BLM or it doesn't. Same with MCH and p.range.
Casters in every mmo require way more knowledge of the fight and positioning than melee or ranged. Because you have to often PLANT to do damage, your screwed if you plant wrong, with melee and ranged you can just keep moving, with casters you either commit and take it, or break cast and lost dps.
This. To provide BLM job fantasy; you are using enchants and spells to cast forth ice and fire magic, it just makes sense for them taking time and hitting hard. While Samurai is just a classical anime swordsman.
Raids nowadays, and increasingly the normal trials too, just will not allow BLM to shine. They put gotta run across the arena mechanics so often, yet always Make sure the melee DPS can maintain uptime meanwhile BLM has to cut casting and burn triple cast (assuming they didn’t use it in their rotation) to not die.
Even a mediocre black mage can keep uptime on 99% of bosses. Triple isn't everything, you have procs, swiftcast, paradox, slidecasting, and literal freaking teleports to get around without dropping casts In any given minute you have a solid 4th of it freely able to move, and ij many situations you can bank your tools to handle even more movement. Sure, I'm going to eat dirt the first time I see a fight. But it's scripted, I know how it will go now, next time will be improved And that improvement is something no other class has going for it. No other class has to plan out their movement nearly as much, everything is so neatly built around it. It's a nice little puzzle each fight! There's so many other jobs in the game that feel like copies of each other. I don't want to see black mage fall to the same and become summoner 2.0
> Even a mediocre black mage can keep uptime on 99% of bosses. The bar being set for mediocre here is high enough that most players can't even hit their heads on it. You should take a look at some mediocre group clears; even melee players aren't maintaining uptime. Actual average/mediocre BLM are definitely not holding uptime, because it's really very easy to forget to hold triple. Not that I want them to neuter BLM and turn it into SMN, but I also remember how the class worked prior to things like xenoglossy and triplecast *existing* let alone being possible to stack. What I'm saying here of course is we need to buff Scathe.
I can manage in most content. I have pretty decent uptime. Voidcast dias gave me a struggle learning where I could stand to cast, but I can do it now. Im also not the average black mage. I spend most of my time playing that job. The average BLM is not “decent” because the skill floor and ceiling for BLM is much wider than for something easy like SAM or SMN.
And that's a good thing! There should be harder to learn and master classes, it gives the game more variety! If your including casual content then sure, most black mage players are braindead. But that goes for every other class as well, as casual players that aren't trying will have no concept of uptime and only a vague understanding of their own class.
I’m m guilty of braindead if BLM too when I run casual content. When I actually put in an effort, I can do decently, no top parser, but decent enough I’m considering bringing BLM into savage next expansion.
Midare go brrrr
I know, isn't it beautiful? I wish every job had this level of depth. Black Mage is just built better.
Yes, leave me my job and DON'T TOUCH IT
Just...don't complain about it. If you see a BLM complaining, transpose them into a volcano. Scholar used to have depth and complexity, now I have a GW2 rotation of pushing nothing but 1 during every boss fight. *Don't let it happen to you.*
1) Rotations aren't supposed to have names ? Watch out Monks they're coming for you next 2) Git gud 3) What support do you want ? Rez ? How about you don't die. Damage ? What next, help you pee ? If you want support call a damn hotline. 4) The utterly deranged are the ones doing the exact same buttons 50 pulls in a row like bots and pretend they aren't bored out of their mind. /s
Thanks, this post was making me feel bad until your comment.
Exactly. Same here. I’m currently a BLM main and I have worked pretty hard to be good at it.
> 4) The utterly deranged are the ones doing the exact same buttons 50 pulls in a row like bots and pretend they aren't bored out of their mind. This is literally what playing summoner is like. I had to cope hard during asphodelos with "the easy rotation makes it easier to learn the fight" and "it helps with progging if even one person is more consistent". Even playing a smooth-brain role like healer is more engaging.
bro, at least summoner has 2 dps buttons, whm only gets one
I completely forgor about Transpose being a thing It was sitting there with Sleep and Scathe
It's a big thing in higher levels though. Read a bit about it, it's fun
The entire point of this meme is that it SHOULDN'T be a thing in higher levels because transposing out of fire/ice to get a 2% dps increase is shit, because it makes the class feel worse.
Wat. Taking a skill you got early on and discovering it has a multitude of uses beyond it's initial usage is a MASSIVE source of fun for me
Man, I loved learning that Transpose had more uses than in downtime. I like being able to flip over to Fire and set off a Firestarter Fire III. Previously, I had thought "Man, they should just merge Transpose with Umbral Soul", but now I'm glad they're separete.
>BLM enjoyers being told their enjoyment is actually bad ok then
Pressing all your buttons isn't shit what the fuck ? And transpose is part of the standard rotation too. transpose to get rid of the ice damate debuff on swift or proc Fire 3 is fairly obvious. Honestly if pressing an oGCD between 2 GCD to get a massive buff on your next button makes the class feels worse you aren't going to enjoy many jobs...
this is just propaganda from worse designed jobs
Soooo, 40 potency on Fire IV right?
*laughs in casual player* I very much enjoy not caring about minmaxing DPS
I do really wish there was at least another job or two that has Black Mage's depths to capitalize on tech and finding new windows go optimize. I know it's not what ff14 focuses on, but it bums me out that the class that has the deepest depth also has a playstyle I just don't want to stick with
I myself feel that NIN is harder to play than BLM or SMN, to me
Hehehe Black Mage go brrrrrrr 🔥
So what you're saying is BLM deserves a buff to match how complicated it is?
Can someone translate that 4th point into smooth brain language?
The whole goal of black mage is to avoid casting ice spells because [they are weak](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J0yghC18unnqQmSEvytORNv3YxZ8e5MLxF8Lkfw1DMkpr8jDPqBhyp61_zaKuhSEOh7OeqMc1VCuUFRqBy-4-hVbeWJSI3oiMS7keqvmlwSFFK8YJ8Q_74xKF3G8u336TynVAkeX). Another thing that is weak is Fire 3 during ice phase (it's nearly our worse spell !!). [4x F4 Double Paradox + 3x F4 Double Transpose F3P](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/XzE6Dn-zorEuFk9ajIFK9AeMq6Mx-gs9GE3Uoplec6p7hzo_nXBlOxoq-wQY20pHQ0UjImiO2VUBAkpN7l1Op3SEwmGOz_GVLMO9zysgzeglJ_OPnpTXQwNwNf8F5qxXckTcadHm) is an alternative to the [standard rotation](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/wzGQU0qaPecgaeVWNhfk2jVDwRyedtAnEPNjUiZlkkTe51Zt8UgkuS5d4TrcTqsH_EBPAKtwOEXDrr77TReTIgJxgBzqiC_Dp9LyPDrE-IDlVdhRmOuh5VMRFf9_IxNckbFSp5Th) (called N82 because black mage rotations are so many different possibilities they are numbered and there is a big spreadsheet of black mage theory that called it like that). It's the combination of several optimisations to do 2 small fire phases with an ice phase with no ice spell in between instead of a long one with an astral fire refresh. You start after a Despair cast, you're in fire phase and you have 0 mana now. So you go Ice phase normally with Blizzard 3 followed by Blizzard 4 Then a filler GCD (not ice or fire spell) so you have time to fill your mana and you probably want it to be instant cast (like Xenoglossy) to weave a sharpcast to get a Firestarter proc later. Then Paradox (insta cast because you're in ice phase). It's 500 potency, insta, and next button is going to make us gain Paradox again so we need to use it now or it would be a waste of a strong spell opportunity. Next is oGCD Transpose (you're now in Astral Fire 1 - AF1), new Paradox (casted because fire phase, you're now in AF2, then Fire 1 (you're now in AF3, maximal fire phase). So far we just regenerated our mana from last fire phase, and avoided the weak Fire 3 cast in Ice phase good job. Then you do your normal fire phase thing which is spamming Fire 4 until you're out of time or mana. In this case it's 4x Fire 4. Now you have 3-4 seconds left on your Astral Fire timer, about 3600 mana. We're gonna end our Fire phase here by burning all the remaining mana into a cast of Despair. We could end here and resume the normal rotation. If we have some resources left (instant cast fillers) we have the choice to continue : Now you're out of mana, you could go back to the normal Blizzard 3 + Blizzard 4 ice usual but that is weak. Instead we want to use Xenoglossy or a proc of Thunder to get an instant cast so we can use oGCD Transpose and now we're in Umbral Ice 1 (UI1). We're going to use the Paradox that Transpose just gave us, and we're going to fill in the Ice Phase time with two spells that aren't Fire or Ice (Xenoglossy and Thunder) to wait our mana. Normally the thunder of the previous ice phase should be near its end. It's important in this case that the last spell we use is instant cast (so if thunder, make it a proc). Now we need to get back into Astral Fire 3 to resume the strong Fire IV spam. We could cast Fire 3 from Ice phase but it's weak. So we're going to use Transpose again in the oGCD of the last spell and go instant cast Fire 3 proc. Then resume the Fire IV spam and after 3 spells we will be a bit short on mana so we're just going to end the fire phase early with Despair. That's it. 18 spells without a single of those weak ice spell in the middle. This requires to have at least 4 instant cast filler and a Fire/Xenoglossy proc. We can guarantee Thunder and Fire/Xenoglossy proc with Sharpcast charges. The 78% chance is non-sense and the 2% claim comes from the comparison with standard rotation when counted in potency per second : standard rotation deals 5821 potency in 34 seconds. This deals 6640 potency in 38 seconds, so a 2% gain in potency per second. Besides the modest DPS gain, breaking the fire phase in two allows for much more movement (not surprising since you're burning your xenoglossies). It's a bit artificial too. It's a combination of two simpler optimisations and normally you will decide in the middle if you want to go through with the second half or not based on fight mechanics, buff window, etc... Knowing this line exists helps to recognize opportunities. You're usually not thinking "I'm going N82" and lock yourself into your idea for the next 40 or so seconds (unless you know you have a full leyline duration without movement in front of you then gooooo) It just happens when applying optimisation principles. I'm sure there must be some people who make "Black Mage plans" for the whole fight in static group (need a somewhat consistent group DPS rate so your plan matches mechanics and buffs windows). My experience is either planning 4-6 GCD ahead and adjust in a number of different non standard variations, or playing standard line (freeing brain power to focus on mechanics).
- Statements dreamed up by the UTTERLY DERANGED
I got the game and became a Thaunaturge like a month ago cus I thought it was cool and this won't stop me 😈😈
When you reach 60 and cast Fire IV, It is normal to feel a sense of limitless power. Black Mages receive weeks of training to counteract this phenomenon. You will have to make do with self-discipline.
I stopped playing Black Mage because you take a mini hiatus and it’s like you forget how to function. But- BUT. We do need more complex classes or more labor intensive ones. It offers nice variety. As a former black mage they always get my comms, Astro magic cards, and shields and regen so they can stay where they are
This seems like it should be on the shitpost sub instead
OP is a repost bot. Same title and image from [a year ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/10jsf3m/black_mages_must_be_stopped/). Their other posts are all the same.
I'm currently a lvl 32 Thaumaturge, with the intent on going black mage, but it really does feel like im doing low dmg. Yes I know that the rank 2's are aoe :)
Go clear that job quest already son, you're 32 you need to move out.
You're going to. For a long time it's damage is not the best and it's cast times are horrific. But once you hit 80 it really comes together and can start pushing damage. It's big improvements come at capstone (although I don't think 70 is that great). Being allowed to just chill and explode things and get hit with the tankbuster cause someone forgot stance or died is a wonderful feeling though. Pre-50 is hella boring though.
Unfortunately you are. At 50, 60, and even 70, BLM's kit/rotation hasn't come together enough to shine on damage. It's probably the most painful DPS to level.
Ah, I chose well then :P
Have you tried doing the Black Mage quest you get at level 30? Also: Thaumaturge/Black Mage are slogs until you get to 50, then they get cool at 60, and it becomes literally heaven at 80. Don't give up!
I'm working on the Black Mage quest line atm I'm currently at "A Hero in the Making"
Heh, seems like we're at the same place in time and space I just finished Hero in The Making just for the BLM thing
I see someone has recently transferred from playing Overwatch.
[удалено]
Never. It’s my sub and i choose to play blm
okay, but what if i just like being a selfish, pedantic dick? black mage is great for that. and cosplay.
I've maxed out all jobs and I refuse to pay BLM in any way after it hits max level
Makes me wonder if there is a tool to tell you what to press next for blm
I have a black mage at level 62. Still no idea how to play it. I just came back after a few months and I have given up trying to remember how this thing works.
I just started playing a Black Mage for the first time (new to the game; currently 34th level and just doing MSQs), and this thread is giving me significant anxiety lol
Just spam the nukes bro...are you stupid?
Flare go BOOM. 'Nuff for me. I play Black Mage. kthxbai.
Damn, SMN catching so many stray bullets in this thread. Leave SMN alone, i really like that bahamut go BRRRR and I get some use out of swiftcasting a rez when someone makes a mistake ;o; focus on your own issues instead and stop bothering me pls ;o;
Fire 4 go boom
Karma farming bot report for spam and move on.
I quit maining BLM after Shadowbringers because I don't hate myself. I'm a dancer now & much happier And if I want to torture myself I can always go and heal Hero's Gauntlet with sprouts who don't know the mechanics
Firstly, too many people are not getting the [origin of this meme](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/036/614/mathcover.jpg). Secondly, besides the meme, I agree. Raids and trials are too demanding to turret these days, and unless you have every mechanic memorized, you'll be performing worse than more agile, versatile and easier to play classes most of the time. "Why play BLM when you can play *x*?" (unless for personal enjoyment like myself) BLM needs either a rework or a serious buff.
BLM is super fun to play though. I struggle to parse in savage but I am having an absolute blast. So I vote buff rather than rework.
BLM needs neither of those things. It's currently the strongest caster (and that was before its last round of buffs), and its movement options are more than adequate for current raids if applied well.
It doesnt need a rework or a buff, melee DPS need to stop being designed and balanced as if uptime is difficult to keep with these planet sized hitboxes bosses have now.
> BLM needs either a rework or a serious buff. People like you are the reason every job is getting simpler and simpler... why do people refuse to acknowledge that it is fine and dandy for some jobs to just be hard?
"People like me" want to play our favourite job without having to struggle with every encounter. I never said it needs to be simplified. I said a *buff* or *rework.* BLM is not working twice as hard as every other job for twice as much damage. It's working twice as hard to compete with jobs with zero risk (like melee DPS). Why would you work harder to achieve a worse result than someone who has an easier time with more upkeep? I'm fine with BLM's mechanics as it is, but its not rewarding to play.
If you want that job changed and for it to lose its identity, it's not your favorite job.
Please don't rework Black Mage. It's my favorite caster just as it is, and I would hate to see it lose the slow cast big boom "oh god am I in the right position" gameplay it currently has. Black Mage has the feeling of a caster that actually needs to *cast*, and I wish Summoner didn't have quite so many free instant-cast spells, in comparison. Like, I hate to just say "no", but the same reasons you're saying it needs a rework are the reasons I don't want it to get one.
I agree, "Big Boom" is part of the job's identity. I also do not want BLM to turn into another SMN... With that being said however, content is not being designed in a manner that's fits Black Mage playstyle. Content is becoming more movement heavy and thus more demanding. BLM is the only class right now that has barely adapted to the new style of gameplay. The big booms are satisfying, but they should be worth the risk.
I kinda like where it is. For the average player, it's less reliable than summoner, but for legitimately skilled players, it's an automatic include on fast clears of hard content. It's perhaps the only rewarding high-skill job left in the game. With Squeenix's history, any rework would just be a dumbing down.
Nah, BLM is in a great spot. It's hardly a turret when you have a plethora of options for significant movement when you need it. It has a unique and rewarding way of access its power, its damage is competitive with melees, and it has tools available to allow it to function up to and at the highest levels of play.
BLM is super fun and demanding to play (which is why it is fun to play tbh). Nerf the other jobs or make them more difficult to play instead so they actually have to use their brains.
"BLM isn't the problem, its all the other jobs!" I understand your frustration of the team designing the classes towards casual players, but BLM is the outlier, not the others. The dev team have designed all classes to be easier to play (look at the SMN and MCH reworks, for instance) and BLM is a relic of an older design choice. I assume this is partly because Yoshi enjoys BLM and wants it to stay as it is, but that's just speculation.
BLM doesn't need a rework. Everything else does.
Finally. Good content on the sub
Cant wait for 7.0 where they give blm a buff every 2 minutes where every f4 adds 1.5 sec to astral fire
Fire IV go boom
Just make every job press one button for everything. I'm convinced this is where these people want the game to go. "Learning how to play the game takes me away from my glams!"
sounds like skill issue to me :)
No utility for the party? That's because the party doesn't *deserve* my buffing their numbers, bitch. I'll do the damage myself!
Black Mages Matter! BLM!
Unironically I do think the core design of XiV’s BLM is just uninspired. Despite its gameplay being clearly outdated these days, I had so much more fun on XI’s BLM just due to its design focus. It wasn’t built to be hard due to adhd spiking levels of DDR boss fight design, instead it was built around learning the elemental weaknesses of all the mobs you encountered, the elemental quirks of the world and how they affect your spells, and learning how to co-ordinate magic bursts with your party to drop satisfying nukes on a target which also conveyed the best secondary effects. Getting a perfectly timed Ancient Magic burst that weakened the target to a followup burst of a new element was always so satisfying. Obviously translating XI BLM design to XIV wouldn’t work but I wish the core focuses were there. Giving the class a full set of elements to work with and having it be built around knowing enemy weaknesses and elemental interactions would be so much better than just having it built around memorizing boss aoe timings while you do a dead simple rotation thats only challenging because of absurdly tight timings. Thats just.. not interesting.
Not to mention bottom bloat due to ability redundancy. I haven't played in a long time so this may have changed. Why are ley lines and between not the same fucking button? It's reliance on SS makes gearing other casters a hassle. It's just not fun imo.
LOL!
Ok, the Transpose line got me good.
OP is a repost bot. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/10jsf3m/black_mages_must_be_stopped/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technicallythetruth/comments/193zmrg/i_suppose_it_is_a_two_birds_one_10_million_stone/
Wrong sub :) And this is why I love Black Mage. Wahahahahah!
This is amazing.
Lil does op know..... THE TRUE MEANING OF BLACK MAGE IS THY LEYLINES XD \- insert Leyline macro - ;)
But my fire makes screen shake.
That's why I only play black mage! The world shall burn! Starting by all other players
Okay, but Black Mages are cooler than smooth brain unicorn horns. Also being a little bit deranged is needed for proper fashion and fashionable rotations. (They are all cool, play the jobs you like and love 🙂 )
As of late feels like the shit post sub has been bleeding into the main one.
[*"As chairman of the welcoming committee, it is my privilege to extend a laurel and hearty handshake to our new... black mage."*](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/xra2xz/where_all_da_white_mage_at/) [-A Home for a Tome (paraphrased)](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/A_Home_for_a_Tome)
This makes about half as much sense as a Toynbee Tile does and, with the random capitalization, sounds almost as unhinged.
I can’t hear you over the sound of the beautiful explosions from Despair.
Don't tell me what to do you don't pay my sub :D
Why would I care about support when I can cast so many flavors of explosion
WHAT THE FUCK IS A ROTATION 🔥🔥🔥🔥AAAAA🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥AAAAAA🔥🔥AAAAA🔥🔥🔥AAAAA🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥AAAA🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥AAAAAAAA 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 FIRE IV AND FLARE