FFXIV Black mage in Dawntrail is NOT BAD (But needs some love)

[@Aisenheim]

No utility, it should hit harder than most jobs.

[@scaper12123]

Back in the day, Runescape did this thing where their newest set of spells, the Surge spells, would animate like combining four spells from the previous tier into one big ball of almighty "die". They eventually changed the animation - god rest its soul - but I feel like Flarestar should have done something like that, looking like you're just pouring all kinds of power into this one singular point, yeeting it at the enemy, and watching the equivalent of a mushroom cloud raise from the crater you just made.

[@TheArnoldification]

flare star not being that strong is a deliberate design decision because if they made it actually powerful it could open up the possibility for those evil scary nonstandard lines to have a use case

[@EbonySeraphim]

I don't have BLM leveled, nor do I plan to (MNK main), but holy crap seeing Black Mage down where it is made me feel really bad for them. BLM is one of two jobs (SAM) that I expect to see higher than Monk in performance on the high end -- considerably higher if we're talking outliers. Yes, I know we're all very viable classes and all content less than an EX trial is clearable with the worst possible DPS combination (maybe not savage?). Still, these jobs are designed with some basic principles in mind and BLM is personally greedy which means it should have some measurably higher personal DPS along with Samurai. Even worse when I consider how much harder it is to play in terms of mobility and knowing the fight specifically. Hats off to you and other BLM mains and I hope they buff it considerably.

[@DragonKnightX12]

I think the problem is they haven't reworked it too match the new modern style of 14. It's still a turret, while all of the big boss fights are so movement heavy.

[@TheCarash]

i do agree with some takes you've made. most of the doom and gloom are from the BLM non-standard enjoyers such as myself. that being said, the job isn't dead but its just that picto sadly brings more to the table atm. Flare star just feels like double down from GNB, if you fuck up somewhere in your rotation, well you're not getting that flare star. thunderhead proc tooks some getting used to and it still feels wonky. like if you're not paying attention and you're stuck in the middle of a fire phase with no DOT because you cant refresh until you go back to ice. i still dont think they needed to remove ice paradox, the icon may as well just have the blm person casting purely fire since its a skill meant to be used in both astral phases. i still love blm. idm picto being the new thing and everyone playing solely because of damage, but my only issue with picto is that it shouldn't do that much damage and give out a buff. it's absurd that it does that. i know SE doesn't like to nerf classes but i heavily think that they're going to reign in some of its potencies because it does way too much damage. i do get that as a blm, you want to be doing big dick DPS, you want to see your name up there above all the other dps and hopefully we get sizeable potency increases along side some much needed love. maybe we get ice paradox back, or sharpcast, or just plain revert to EW blm but thats hard cope.

[@phatymcdaddy]

Na you can at least force a double down with bloodfest. There's no equivalent for black mage. And flare star is only a slightly better F4, it feels really week considering the requirements to use it. Meanwhile double down is a nuke with a much smaller drop off in aoe

[@Leahs_Dad]

i stand by my feelings that black mage only feels so bad because picto is better than it by every single metric which makes you feel bad for even wanting to bring it to raid over picto.

[@KazumiKiguma]

Regarding "feel", tbh, it seems like the team doesn't exactly know what to do. You know what people like? Screen effects like shaking and w/e the effect from Fire 4 is. Flare Star and Despair don't do any of that, they're just non-responsive damage numbers. They started the game giving BLM Flare as their capstone and it still has one of the most satisfying feelings when you use it, making single target have to use Despair was a massive downgrade to the feel of the job even if it meant better numbers. Now they give us Flare Star, a spell used in several other Final Fantasy games and usually as some kind of big beam, but instead it's this small explosion that's got no screen feedback to it and is a smaller explosion than Flare is? There's a reason why vfx mods are some of the most popular things people get.

[@BLM_main]

I agree completely. The first time I used flare I felt like Goku charging up a spirit bomb to save the world. BLM cape fluttering in the wind from the sheer power it was creating and everything. It was one of those 'everyone stand back, let me cook' moments. And that was when I became a BLM main xD I hope the VFX improves in the future because for a long cast high damage class it's important to FEEL like you are actually powerful.

[@phatymcdaddy]

Despair feels good when you can see the animation, at least for me. Problem is it's not an explosion but a pillar so you don't see it on trial or raid bosses cuz it gets lost inside of them. F4, xeno and flare are big explosions that look great and you can still see. Flare star... Is meh looking. Its clearly named after kuja's ultimate in ff9 cuz of the ff9 references this exp, but doesn't look like it, it looks like it could be a f1 lol. Here's kuja's flare star, they could easily make it look like this kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5vWYpyPpah_qassi=FGvHLW3_hZx-oMjN

[@BlackXSunlight]

@@phatymcdaddy Yeah I guess they wanted to remove the separate darts of light that initially form the core of Flare Star to reduce visual clutter, making it more of a hand-launched projectile like in Dissidia. BUT, for an animation reference, they could've pulled inspiration from Vaan's Pyroclasm in XII, which I think was inspired by Flare Stare anyway.

[@BlackXSunlight]

So far, I feel like Flare Star has a decent feel to it, but could use a bit more flash and screenshake on impact. It's just heavy enough in the casting animation to feel like an "ooooh he bout to do it!" move, it's the impact animation that isn't popping my corn. Also I've never liked the animation for Despair. Fire IV is the BLM's most used spell and it has so much visual and sonic impact like a carpet bombing, then Despair feels like pouring the dirty water out of a mop bucket. A more successful VFX for a pillar of fire in past games is Flare in FFX. BLM could use a little more mageyness in its visual identity as we lean closer and closer to just being an elementalist Fire Mage every expansion. An explosive pillar of fire like FFX's Flare sprouting from a runic circle on the ground would be nice. And maybe if they replaced that "satin-sheet falling out of a laundry basket" sound effect with a crackly, bassy gong kind of sound to contrast the higher-pitched whistle-exposition of Fire IV but still sound impressive. I am not opposed to Despair getting replaced with a juicier, better animation at lvl 92 like how SAM's Hakaze gets replaced with Gyofu.

[@asteroidxarmageddon2354]

Kinda hate that using your free insta-cast Thunder for movement can result in a DPS loss. Before you could use a Thundercloud proc with Surecast for guaranteed movement without losing damage. Now if you need to move and your only option is Thunder but the DoT is still ticking, Scathe would be what you'd use.

[@brysonhunter3703]

Honestly this just feels like it makes Scathe not useless

[@phatymcdaddy]

Yea, old insta thunder would pack the dot damage into the initial hit. Not it just resets the dot, but can clip it and lose a tick.

[@brysonhunter3703]

Hang on though, even if you had only JUST reapplied Thunder, its on-hit damage is still higher than Scathe's 100 base (at High Thunder, maybe even before), so if Thunder has like 25 seconds left but you have to move again, 80% of the time you're STILL better off just using another Thunder rather than Scathe

[@phatymcdaddy]

Oh I'm just talking about the difference between thundercloud procs and thunderhead now

[@redgeoblaze3752]

Old thundercloud procs were still technically a DPS loss because the whole on-hit potency was lower than your average rotation potency. It was just punished less because of how heavy that initial hit was.

[@phatymcdaddy]

DT black mage feels like the devs took advantage of YoshiP being busy with ff16, then took it upon themselves to smooth out the skill floor while drastically lowering the skill ceiling. But in the process they forgot to adjust potency for the drop

[@mosley3485]

This literally just isn't true though. The BLM skill floor is considerably higher now than it was before. Average skill players can't keep astral fire up any more. If you check parses for the current ex trials, you'll see that BLM is fairly middling at higher percentiles but when you drop to 50th percentile or below, it's the lowest damage job in the game by a considerable margin. They've raised the skill floor and lowered the skill ceiling. The changes serve no one and just make the job worse for everyone across the board.

[@scaper12123]

They actually raised the skill ceiling, because now you MUST put out the max number of Fire IV during a rotation or you lose your Flarestar opportunity which is a huge dps output drop. Endwalker was far more forgiving.

[@grizzlybear6377]

I honestly just miss Thundercloud. It was fun watching the procs come up (sometimes back to back) and raining lightening on mobs. Especially during periods when the tank is running and pulling.

[@whatneutral]

class feels like actual shit rn, not just from a damage perspective. standard feels worse than its ever felt, even considering you used to have to press enocian. you literally had guaranteed movement with sharpcast, and now early dot refreshes are even worse so that thunderheads movement is honestly kinda trash. you always knew where you were gonna get your procs, and you shouldnt overcap if you're playing correctly even if you were just using sharp for thunder refresh. you have to get flare star or the job is ass, and that button feels horrible anyways. it honestly got more of a rework than dragoon even though it wasnt slotted for one

[@maxmuller6791]

You don't even use high fire anymore either since it's a dps compared to transpose freeze > any filler > transpose > flare > flare > star. Blizz 2 and fire 2 are completely useless buttons once u get flare Fire procs are p much mandatory to be used to skip weak fire 3

[@JollyChuck12345]

I’m just sitting here amazed you play with full animations on, I can’t even tell what’s happening most of the time. 😂

[@snivypootis8959]

I just like to appreciate all the different stuff

[@Tinandel]

I’ve… kinda been cheating, because I’ve been leveling BLM dutifully but doing it in PVP. I’m about one dungeon away from being level 100 and have yet to actually use it in PVE!

[@snivypootis8959]

How could you

[@jarrodgoforth1257]

I’m not a fan of not being able to cast Thunder Unless we are under astral fire. I want to just Be able to use my thunder spells whenever I want

[@grizzlybear6377]

I will miss that along with Thundercloud. (Ps: I'm one of those rookie Black Mages that used to open with Thunder 😉🤫)

[@riplaekic]

Seems like you are supposed to use triple cast during aoe phase for 6 quick casts. I think adding a third charge would allow us to maintain mobility

[@whatneutral]

please dont add more charges of triple cast... thats way too many instants to be interesting

[@phatymcdaddy]

Is there even a fight that you have to be somewhat optimal in that has an AOE phase?

[@mosley3485]

Isn't the entire design philosophy of the job that you can't maintain mobility and need to plan your movement ?

[@johnjackson2834]

I played all caster classes for a while, including each to lvl 100. I cleared group content fastest on BLM with both players and NPCs, with one caveat. . A lot of the increase in dungeon difficulty demands constant movement and hurts BLM more than any other class. Skill required to play BLM competitively has increased. Overall, BLM gave me the most fulfilling play. There remains nothing in the game like the feeling of BLM going BOOM. As far as Pictomancer is concerned it being OP is largely situational. It's initial burst damage is huge. But in extended fights you spend much of your time casting Motifs (enablers that have no effect or damage other than to turn on other spells). These are fixed at 4 second recast which spell speed has no effect on.

[@mewple]

Standard blm feels the same to me and Im enjoying the class. Problem was non standard was the meta and the top dps rotation before and now that its just standard and dps wise its below the middle of the pack lots of people are upset. It will likely get dps buffs, and I wouldnt be shocked to see picto get some nerfs as its heavily overtuned. The only thing I dont like is the thunder changes, but its understandable why they did it. I also dont like that the only new skill is mega flare? When some other classes got new animayions and even skills pre 90 as well as 2 to 3 new skills post 90. It just feels like it got the least amount of care and instead all the focus was on removing non standard play.

[@snivypootis8959]

It is geninuely sad to see non standard go, even if I wasn't great at it personally, kinda just shows how good it was for damage when they removed it

[@mewple]

@@snivypootis8959 I actually stopped playing blm because of non standard so Im glad its gone. I enjoyed stormblood blm the most and sadly this is the closest we're probably going to get as far as fire spam goes.

[@snivypootis8959]

@mewple completely valid :3

[@jimmorrison4ever529]

Well, if standard feels the same to you then you probably didn't venture far off from standard mode. That kind of tells me many other BLM's did higher dps than you. They couldn't have worked harder to make BLM less diverse. Go into Dawntrail's first Extreme as a BLM then tell us how much you love casting Blizzard III and IV, or Umbral Soul, or whatever you need to do while constantly moving. The party is going to love you helping cause enrage because you can't DPS enough without facerolling your keyboard trying to climb back up with that dumb and mindless rotation getting back into fire IV.

[@mewple]

@@jimmorrison4ever529 No I didnt venture off standard blm, and yes my dps was low so I switched classes. I do prefer standard blm rotation, yes I know dps is currently low for blm in high end content. I am currently playing tanks for the extremes. I guess blm mains from end walker are just experincing my frustration from the summoner changes from shadowbringers to end walker, or the machinist changes from stormblood to shadowbringers. Sadly the devs like to change class rotations and identity when new expacs come out and it sucks for people who enjoyed the previous iterations. They wont change it back sadly and its one of the reasons I personally am not too attached to any class anymore and I swap around every patch or so.

[@Hanaserios]

Dude, your words contradict themselves. You don't care how much damage someone does, but at the same time you care how much damage BLM does. BLM is fantastic and at the same time it's not :). I could give a few more examples, but I don't want to nitpick. The sad truth is that they screwed up BLM a bit in 7.0. 1. They removed IceParadox. It's important and it does metter btw. 2. StarFlare needs 6 to even launch. In the meantime, it would probably be a better solution to give each charge e.g. 2-5% (similar to one of the BRD skills) and you choose whether you want to collect 6 charges with full damage or "launch" earlier with less damage. 3. Low damage is really meaningfull for pure-dps job. and more..

[@snivypootis8959]

I actually don't really mind how the damage truly, I just wanted to bring it to light and I do enjoy new black mage, I just think it needs a little bit of adjustments in some areas to be even better imo, but that's just my opinion

[@Hanaserios]

​@@snivypootis8959BLM feel outdated, it's my main but after releasing Dawntrail it feels for me... outdated 😢in my opinion.

[@snivypootis8959]

Outdated, yeah I feel like that isn't necessarily wrong in this case

[@tildian]

I feel like BLM always had guaranteed movement. I know sharpcast being 86'd means you'll know when youll have thunderhead, but if you were not fumbling your rotation, you always had a sharpcasted thunder up for mobility purpose or refreshing your dot.

[@pres002]

Well you can't prove the dps without 3rd party. Which is tos soooo

[@JayAshkevron]

The changes made make playing sub 60 black mage, literally the worst player experience in the game. But I guess any trash class will have its defenders. However good luck getting any new black mage players to fill the ranks. Leveling Black mage is like volunteering to have your teeth pulled without anesthesia.

[@luicifiero]

As if playing Black Mage even before DT wasn't vounteering to get your teeth pulled out w/o anesthesia. At least you get candy afterwards during Endwalker but in Dawntrail you just don't. Oh and for the guy that's leveling Black Mage @ 50, lower leveling have always been an inherent issue with all classes. Please stop bitching, thanks! :D

[@mosley3485]

@@luicifiero Bad take. If it wasn't for people "bitching", you'd still be playing 1.0 - or more accurately, no one would be playing the game and it probably would have been shut down a decade ago.

[@luicifiero]

@@mosley3485 We're not on the same ground here so let me reitirate and articulate what I said; A deleted comment here stated that Black Mage at lower levels felt awful and went into a whole unescesary tangent about how shitty the job is. To which I replied how every job including black mage has that inherent issue. The "please stop bitching part" is not a take, it was a reply to that person's excessive crying. Hope this helps ! :D

[@Dndstories]

At this point there is no reason to play BLM when you can play picto. Period. Easier to play, more mobility, more damage, and utility.

[@snivypootis8959]

@Dndstories That's exactly my point, like right now picto is just better, period. But it's still extremely early so hopefully all hope isn't lost

[@pres002]

Until they nerf it into the ground.... I love picto too much. Not because it's the best dmg but I live the skills

[@bleth821]

Raids should have a balance patch

[@dondidit]

​@pres002 and you better believe it's going to be nerfed lol. Every new job is a power house from the start. A month from now it will be nerfed.

[@Dndstories]

@@dondidit surprisingly viper is where the other melee’s are at and seems to be in a pretty good spot considering it just got released.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Black mage is dead in the water, and after seeing why Pictomancer is broken, so will Pictomancer. It’s just that Black Mage is broken first.

[@BlackXSunlight]

BLM rn just feels like a really cute sweater with an itchy neckline. It's now more optimal to cast High Thunder right after your first ice spell, but I don't like the recast on the thunder spells and just standing there for a tick. I don't like the weird limbo that Xenoglossy sits in for single-target rotation. And are folks using Transpose>Fire(III)starter every other rotation? Idk, feels like when it's really time to shop for groceries and you have to put a meal together with a block of lettuce, Worcester sauce, leftover McDonald's fries, and kimchi. That's what High Thunder and Xeno actually feel like for me: a block of lettuce and kimchi. How am I to make a Michelin-star spread with this?

[@YamiRiku]

blm needs a lot of help, it doesn't feel good to play like how it was before but since this is yoshi-p favorite job i'm sure he's going to fix it soon.

[@obamaorb7426]

Man this job just feels like shit now, all the flexibility and room for skill expression is gone, the way it plays now is so rigid and overly punishing

[@ajsario6804]

They remove High blizzard,High fire , Flare 😅😅 why red mage have new skills 😅

[@MagiusNecros]

BLM got gutted. EW had a nice smooth flow to it. Now it's just clunky and rigid and feels bad to play. PCT and SMN for the foreseeable future.

[@ButterNuss.]

I love how the BLM non standard players act like its the end of the world because their alternate way of playing the class got axed, meanwhile Dragon-Kick Rotation Monks just sit there and accepted their fate of doing the rotation properly this time around. 😂 But seriously now, I think the job needs two adjustments: -First they should change Flare Star to how a.e. Pitch Perfect works on Bard. You can cast it after three Stacks, but it gets exponentially stronger with each additional one. This fixes those weird situations of having 4-5 Stacks and the boss gets invincible or dissapears and you just have to deal with loosing a Flare Star. It will also allow for more Flare Stars during our opener. Am i also wrong for thinking this should be an Instant Cast? -Thunder needs either more initial Damage so its not just a Fancy Scathe for movement anymore, or the DOT needs to last longer so we dont have to squeeze another cast into our now very long Fire manafont Burst Window. I honestly keep forgettin gabout it because it just feels like a wet noodle when it hits.

[@phatymcdaddy]

I wish ppl would stop calling it "non-standard" when everything they did from SB up to DT specifically facilitated not just being a turret caster. Ppl act like its some weird exploit that was never intended when that's completely false. Now with that out of the way, I agree with your suggestions on how to help the job as it is now. I also think that with the mana regen change, blizz should be insta cast while in umbral ice

[@MrMuricon]

They just buffed the class!!! And it’s still trash. No nerfs to Picto either. Just throw the whole job away for end game content. Rip my main of 10 years.

[@TheHellsOutsider]

Not a BLM main; but this is the easiest time I've ever had on BLM. (Have done extremes yet). I agree AoE is garbage. I hope they make Paradox into a "Dropoff" AoE ability just so we can use it in the AoE rotation. Or FIrestarter proc from Paradox gave Flare a small buff on damage. Then the rotation could be High FIre>Flare>Paradox>Flare>Flare Star>Ice. Just a newb's 2 cents. Can't speak to potency or high level play :)

[@AUT331]

wholehearted non standart BLM player here, i unironicaly am glad this playstyle is dead. It made balancing BLM a nightmare and its kinda silly that learning 20-30 sites of pure knowledge (jeah thats the actual size from the non standart BLM tutorial in Balance) to make a playstyle work so you can actually compete with the top of the top. BLM deffinitelly needs changes and balancing right now since the job itself is in big trouble, but i think this is a good step into the right direction. Alot of ppl are upset, but stop being so selfish and ignorant and keep in mind that there are others aswell that want to compete but dont have the time to learn this absolutely over the top and silly playstyle.

[@bleth821]

Still a fun job just definitely less so now in my opinion. I don't care about damage really

[@Nem_FFXIV]

you lsot me at saying picto, as a buffing caster, should be as high as it is

[@solisimperium1203]

wtf they butchered blm. guess i wont be leveling that one anytime soon. endwalker blm supreme

[@guldonis1155]

Blm is just out dated and need a major rework. just look how picto plays, fast cast baseline , no weird 15 sec timer on top of head, you are free to do what you want whenever you want and react to every situation. I dont see how a simple potency buff can fix garbage playstyle black mage have.

[@blackjackfan58]

Youre not good. Plain as that. Its a fun class to play when you're skilled and dancing through the encounter. That said EW BLM was peak and it went backwards and needs help in DT.

[@guldonis1155]

@@blackjackfan58 i talk about combat flow/ rythim your answer is skill issue, are retarded bro ? you are off topic even all the best blm outside tells you the class need a rework because plays bad so. Make read correctly and improve your understanding a little bit

[@MeldinX2]

@@blackjackfan58 Complexity is all well and good if it acually makes you do alot more damage. But when Pictomancer is super simple but not only that deals alot more DPS then it's an issue. Alot of work for just not enough gain.

[@blackjackfan58]

@@MeldinX2 I agree. It needs nerfed and BLM needs buffed big time.

[@phatymcdaddy]

It's feels outdated now, yes. Before this it worked for how they designed content and did acceptable selfish DPS numbers. The only thing it didn't mesh with was the 2 min meta cuz it didn't exactly have a CD and that's also what was appealing about the job, you just consistently blasted and didn't have to worry about fitting certain things into other ppls CD windows. The challenge was to keep the blasting rolling while adjusting

[@IyasuHN2]

Seen a lot of complaints about how hard it is to get flare star out for some people? If you cant do 6 fire 4s with an instant guaranteed fire paradox and a firestarter then i cant help you. Standard is not that hard and pretty much every other job in the game could not cheese its rotation before. Thats literally what the other jobs already have to do without drifting. (not you mnk. get your DK shenanigans out of here) The job is weaker than i feel like it should be, but as someone who preferred standard blm for years i genuinely fail to even grasp how you fail to hit that 6 fire 4s requirement and i struggle sympathizing with not having cheesy ways to increase dps.

[@snivypootis8959]

I don't think it's hard to get all 6 fire ivs out, it really isn't, just wish there was a bit less strictness with it, like apex arrow

[@phatymcdaddy]

What jobs are you comparing it to? Summoner is all insta cast besides fire egi, red mage is 50+% insta casts, both don't need to keep casting so their gauges continue to function. They didn't need to "cheese" their rotation. Melee? They can have 100% uptime bar intermission phases, hell they can keep their DPS up while not even facing a boss. And yes, "standard" isnt hard at all. Also "non standard" wasn't cheesing, it was using the tools they have been giving black mage since stormblood

[@IyasuHN2]

non-standard even by name implies that it was known use of an unintended rotation no different than boot dk to gain dps. At some point down the line it was bound to get corrected and punish those who avoided it. Also dualcast gets talked about a lot but blm freedom of movement honestly has been superior to red mage since it got xenoglossy up until the introduction of grand impact...ESPECIALLY at 90 with ice paradox.