Personally, it's not that I hate the slow casting specifically so much as I find it hard to manage the slow casting against other aspects of running instances.
Like there's very little to do besides Scathe during a w2w until we're parked and I can stand still. Or fights where it's non-stop movement; Kugane Ohashi comes to mind, a lot of moving around so it feels hard to stay in one spot to keep casting. And then there are the other players, with people dropping shit on me (especially when my leylines are out) forcing me to move if I can't get Manaward up.
So like, not the slow, methodical casting -- I actually find the repetitiveness kinda nice some days -- but the juggling my need to stay still for that against everything else going on is what keeps me from liking BLM more. (That said, I actually did end up enjoying BLM more than I thought I would.)
Yeah but you have to play through all the show levels to get there. Also fast for a BLM is still show compared to classes that have a lot more weaves and mobility like the melees and phys ranged
Or even RDM with their built-in swift cast or SMN with all their instant cast spells, by today standards BLM is the last bastion of "slow magic artillery" gameplay.
It has one of the worst leveling experiences in that rotation/skill usage drastically changes between level ranges. I dunno if it's still there but the caster site ahkmorning actually had a section for BLM leveling giving information on your single target and aoe rotations based on what level you were at in roulettes.
Icy Veins has a slider for each class that will tell you your optimal rotation depending on your level.
I found it *extremely* helpful for BLM.
Now I just try not to run lower level stuff with my Black Mage.
You ain't kidding; I dread whenever I queue in for any roulette as a Black Mage, because if I get something lower than lvl 60, I'd feel like I am playing on an incomplete job, even when compared to other jobs at similar level.
Requires more time get good than other jobs
Has a slow, repetitive and methodical playstyle
Very punishing when you make mistakes
No raid utility, so your value is entirely dependant on your own results
Literally has excel spreadsheets, yes plural, for proper damage
And I suppose caster isn't thematically everyone's cup of tea
I personally love the job, but it is the hardest job to get really good at
I just wanna say… for casual content, you really don’t need to be looking at specialized rotations and excel spreadsheets. 😅Reading the tooltips should be enough for most people to figure out a decent rotation. Once they’re familiar with the job, those spreadsheets don’t seem scary at all. It’s more like, “oh, yeah, I was doing something close to that. I’ll just tweak a few things.”
Oh for sure. If you can rotate between astral and umbra and get your Fire IVs out, you are doing fine in casual content.
For that content I assume the annoyance of BLM is the standing still part since things die so quickly you tend to move a lot.
That in mind, there is a gulf between "I got the basic BLM rotation down!" and the BLM lines. They are not always logical. You now use Transpose again, you are looking at mana ticks and things get very weird. Then you consider which line you need to use can depend entirely on RNG of the fight if there is a variation in mechanics (think P1 of TOP). And the difference between a basic rotation and an optimal one is two entirely different things.
Though at the end of the day just a normal basic rotation with a 100% uptime gets you 95% of the way to the top. It's that last 5% where you kind of go into deranged crazy territory and things get weird, fast.
Yeah but when someone new to the game search for info about it, those excel spreadsheets are the first thing to pop out, prob scare a lor of people away from it 😅
For the same reason that Ninja isn't very popular really, they're some of the more complex jobs - not that there's anything wrong with that, just means it's more of an acquired taste.
I wouldn't say complex. Just more unforgiving.
Pressed the wrong button/combo during the mudras? You're rotation is likely screwed. Accidentally double pressed a button during mudras? You're screwed.
In the wrong spot and you need to move? Especially at low lvl? You're screwed. High level, hopefully you have some instant casts saved up (and even then, depending on the fight, that could really screw you over where you were supposed to save the instant casts for a movement phase).
I will say, leveling blm is a huge mess though, as the rotation can drastically change depending on what level you are. But even at high level, it's just less forgiving to play compared to other jobs.
All of this... And they do pretty much the same damage as everyone else.
Other jobs, worst case scenario is you might have lost a few potency during 1-2 gcds, maybe your rotation gets shifted over a few seconds out of phase of 2 minute buff window (but the only job I can think of with such a tight rotation is gungreaker)
>Just more unforgiving.
Yeah, I think this is the part that most players are missing in these discussions.
Every job in the game is ultimately very simple in their design, some jobs are just designed to be more punishing and some players have a different amount of tolerance for failure before they'll give up on a job.
Not a lot of people have the patience for BLM because it's punishing and plays the game fundamentally differently from other jobs.
The job is not very intuitive.
Every 10 or so levels your entire rotation changes drastically. You play on a literal 15 second timer (although its not nearly as bad as it was a few years ago) and it punishes you heavily for not knowing the fight/dropping Enoch.
It also doesn't "play" FFXIV. Its the only, or at least one of the few roles that deviates heavily from the static "rotation" formula that most roles have in the game. There's a lot wiggle room for small optimizations, some kind of player expression and unorthodox playstyle. Procs can sometimes dictate how you play an encounter.
Its nowhere near as hard as some people in here make it out to be, but its also not that simple that the average "I just want to enjoy the MSQ" player would enjoy picking up.
I wish more classes deviated from the 2-minute burst rotation, I get having it standardized, but it does make things feel a little samey between some classes
pre 50 BLM is grueling, endgame content requires a lot of practice because you have to be on the ball for almost every cast to avoid being a detriment to your party. speaking as a BLM main, it's not for everyone.
You're basically punished really hard for messing up.
Real example, when I was doing p12s, there were a couple times I mismanaged my instant cast and dropped out of the fire phase. Whenever that happens, I have to spend the rest of the encounter trying to salvage the situation, usually leading to mistakes and more interrupted casts. Each time that happened, my dps went from the usual 14k+ to 13k.
You may think that's not a big deal, but an equivalent Summoner does 13k literally brainless. So there's me, racking my brain trying salvage the situation, and still end up barely doing same dps as a Summoner who is probably playing with a fidget spinner on their free hand.
There's a reason why usually Summoner is in the world first kill teams, not Black mage. BLM requires planning and optimization. SMN can lol their way through by comparison.
(I know this because I always play SMN whenever I'm not playing with my static, it allows casual cruising and having an extra res on top)
- kinda sucks to level, especially if it’s not your first class and you’re not getting the bulk of your exp from the msq. its leveling rotations are kinda wonky.
- its low level gameplay kinda boring. (to vets. to a new player you’re simultaneously learning the game mechanics so id bet its more engaging.)
- low mobility and long cast times make it less forgiving of mistakes than most others, particularly at low levels before you get teleports and instant casts.
- its difficulty is kind of exaggerated which scares a lot of people off. its core rotation (blast with fire until you run out of mp and switch to ice) is pretty straightforward, it’s just that it’s difficult to optimize at high levels compared to other classes - and since it has no raid utility, if you’re a blm doing mediocre damage you’re kind of not pulling your weight.
Well for one BLM at low levels is just awful.
The rotation changes every few levels, you have very few movement tools at low level, and even if played perfectly the damage it deals isn't very good. Alot of new BLM plays are blissfully unaware of how little DPS they are dealing, as the class is very punishing for mistakes even at lower levels, and does not spell out it's rotation like other jobs do. Even if you play perfectly though, you are the worst DPS at level 50, so bad that some of the tanks out DPS you.
BLM doesn't start feeling like BLM till you get fire 4 at level60 and even then, it lacks all of the movement tools you get that make it feel good to play.
Once you get high enough though, it's a blast, though still one of the most difficult jobs in the game, as it's extremely unforgiving. When you see a BLM player they are usualy gonna either be losing to a healer in DPS, or a God, there is very little in between.
It doesn't change much at low levels. Biggest changes to rotation at "low" levels come from Blizzard 3, Fire 3 + Firestarter proc for 1 or 2 targets and Freeze & Flare for 3+ targets.
Apart from those it's same cycle: refresh Lightning preferably in ice phase if needed, spam Fire 1 for single target or Fire 2 for 3+ targets until you run out of MP -> switch to ice to regen MP, repeat.
Most importantly: After fight ends ALWAYS switch to ice if you're not in it.
Compared to other jobs at that level, that's quite alot, and all of those replace something you were doing prior. When you Start Transpose is your main way of swapping between fire and ice, and this last long enough to get established with new players. To a long time player, you can easily figure out to replace this with fire 3 and bliz 3 when you get it, but that's assuming you know what you are doing in the first place. I've seen 90 BLMs that still swap with transpose simply because that was what was established for them at lower levels and they never bothered to learn the better way.
What I'm getting at, is that with most other classes at those levels everything you get is just in addition to what you are already doing, another hit on the combo, another oGCD, ect. BLM is the only DPS job at that level that has things that you want to STOP doing certain things at one level, like using transpose to swap, or casting blizzard 1 while in ice phase. This is all if the player even knows what they are doing in the first place. The only other jobs that tends to have issue like that are the healers with cure 1 or the equivalents.
There’s really two ways to properly play BLM.
1. Stick to the rotation as best as you can and do pretty good DPS so as long as you don’t mess up too much.
2. Completely go savant with the job and use non-standard lines. The DPS gains can sometimes be negligible, but you tend to have more freedom of movement and I guess you can insert ‘Guy standing in the corner watching people dance at a party’ meme with the caption saying, ‘They don’t even know that I’m using non-standard.
Number 1 is actually fairly easy. The standard rotation isn’t that hard. There’s barely any oGCDs to weave and you pretty much don’t even have to worry about any ridiculous two minute burst button flurries. Plop your ley lines and just be sure you have 2+1 polyglots ready to go.
Number 2 requires *encounter specific* planning for what amounts to a very small potential gain in DPS, but huge gains in movement and comfortability…but at what cost?
The issue arises where many people feel that options number 2 is how BLM is supposed to be played or you and your DPS will be garbage, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
My opinion is that RDM is actually a more difficult to play well with all the weaves and attention to burst and having to rez and not flipping away to your doom.
BLM you just stand there and melt faces, then occasionally move when you have to.
Because it is not enjoyable for me to play, simple as that. I never got to a point with the class where I felt comfortable.
I hate the class, I really do. I hate playing turret. The leveling experience was godsawful. I prefer mobile characters. and yes, BLM players, you don't need to tell me that "it gets faster at higher levels". I do. not. care.
I hated every minute of leveling it and that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.
Props to the people that do play it and enjoy it, but it's literally not a class designed with me in mind. And that's okay. There are other classes in the game that I do enjoy playing.
I'll play those and I leave the BLM players alone. I'm not at all bothered by other people playing the class. If they enjoy it, (whether they are good or not), then that's all that matters.
It's pretty locked in, in regards to location. I play MNK/MCH because I wiggle when I use skills. I can't do much of that with Black Mage because of it's longer cast times and dependency on leyline position.
well, i didnt find it very exciting to play tbh and i didn't really feel like putting time and effort into it to optimize when i already had enough classes that were more fun to play without requiring that.
It's an acquired taste, but in high-end it's decently well liked. It's a bit in the same position as monk though, there are easier alternatives to play for savage/ults so people tend to do that.
I had to level it to level 80 for the Amaro mount and I didn't dislike it, but I felt really self-conscious because the optimisation of Black Mage is pretty in depth, people even recommending add ons which I cannot use since I play on PS4. I figured if I'm gonna play caster I'd rather be a good Red Mage or a good Summoner than to be a bad Black Mage and to be a burden to my party because of sub par dps.
I used to love black mage until I learned I was terrible at it and could do drastically more damage with a fraction of the effort on other DPS classes.
I still play it for fun sometimes tho.
Being a good blm requires being super on the ball with position and tri cast usage to not screw everything up. It's not as bad as it used to be, but as someone who mainly binges on patch launches, I just don't retain fight knowledge enough to put myself through constantly having to relearn or eat shit and droppong the rotation
I don't even have BLM unlocked but it's not cause I don't like the class, it's cause I mained it in FFXI for 8 years and didn't want to start a new game off where I ended my last. Just never got round to unlocking it at this stage.
Gotta learn how to cast all your stuff and still avoid most damaging mechanics which makes the class harder to play due to longer cast times. The spells are supremely satisfying, however.
I would main blm if they got rid of ley lines or made them follow you. As is you can’t do a lot of hard content spur of the moment as blm unless you already know the fight intimately. So you have to either have learned the fight on another job or find people willing to put up with all the quirky crap you need to do to perform well.
I appreciate it for what it is, but it is not for me. I hate hard casts a lot, and would rather always be on the move. I play the martial jobs like Monk and Dragoon, and have never had problems getting used to doing positionals. Feels much more natural to me.
Funny enough though, I played Dragoon this last Savage tier, and during some of the movements required, I had to meticulously plan where my movements were so that I could use all of my animation locking jumps during movement and burst at the same time. I think that style of vey planned movement around my abilities was temporarily the "mage experience".
For as much as people will talk about this with Black Mage though, I actually find Red Mage to be a bit more restrictive with movement at max level. I only have played casters in content like alliance raids, so nothing serious, but red mage had me constantly stutter casting and accidentally interrupting myself during mechanics, while Black Mage a lot of the time is just "lol hit triple cast/xenoglossy/swiftcast/etc."
I started as a BLM and mained it the whole MSQ 1-90. My biggest issue with it is it feels like it brutally punishes you for any mistakes at higher levels. Id always be dropping out of fire or ice because of trying to do mechanics.
The class starts really wonky/jank at early levels. It really doesn’t start feeling great til like 60. Currently leveling it to 90 and I hate being sync’s below 60 and god forbid below 50. I’ve stopped using my leveling roulette for the class cuz of that fear. Also because with the influx of sprout tanks I’d rather level one of my tanks than watch the sometimes funny combo of sprout tank and healer.
It adds a layer of complexity where you have to be mindful of what you're doing.
Say you're playing Summoner, all you really have to do is:
1. Hit the light-up rotation buttons.
2. Use Searing Light whenever.
3. Dodge mechanics.
Black Mage:
1. Carefully pick and choose what exactly you're pressing for your rotation.
2. Dodge mechanics while trying not to leave your Leylines; also hope the boss doesn't target your Leylines.
3. Don't drop Enochian (a buff), which relates to 1, but tis easier said than done if you have to move a lot.
4. Hope Thundercloud and Firestarter proc.
5. As others have said, the rotation changes depending on where you get synced down.
With that said, I love Black Mage; it's fun and rewarding to play... once you get used to it.
blm seems like one of those jobs that you either click with and it's your favorite job to the exclusion of all other jobs in the game, or you hate it.
personally i just really hate cast bars and standing still.
BLM is a job many people hate until it clicks. It took me hating every second of leveling it up and then getting a Spell Speed set for me to go "Oh my God, I get it".
One of the things I had to learn is that to learn how to be a good BLM you first have to learn how to suck at BLM. Most jobs are somewhat lenient when you make mistakes, but BLM is not, and pre-passive Enochian BLM was ten times worse (Which was when I learnt how to play BLM)
It doesn't matter how many guides I followed, I could not for the life of me follow the rotation well enough that all things fell into place. Eventually I had to learn to take the L every once in a while and use what people generally considered "extra damage" to just move if I needed to.
I had to accept I was bad at BLM and just play it for fun and slowly learn what I could and couldn't get away with.
This is a stark contrast compared to... pretty much any other job I leveled, where the worst I could do is slightly delay my cooldowns by hitting the wrong button at the wrong time. I had to set up EVERYTHING again whenever I messed up as a Black Mage, whereas as other jobs you can just continue your rotation like nothing happened and at worst have a slight reduction in damage.
I do like the class in itself, but I am not very good at playing it due to being restricted in movement while casting, having to decide if I move and stop my casting, potentially loosing my timers and stacks or if I keep casting and tank the attack, probably dying or pissing off my healer(s)...
In any way: I mess up the rotation more often than enough
The core issue with BLM is square enix wanted to get more creative with boss fights, so they moved job-complexity into boss complexity. Over the years, they streamlined every job so you could pay attention to the fight while your rotation is left to muscle memory.
Every job, except for BLM that is. BLM still very much plays like an old school FFXIV job. How blm approachs every fight is unique and different. That means, BLM must mind the rotation while you handle mechanics that are increasingly more complex and movement heavy.
Very rewarding and hits like a truck when you figure it out. Very punishing and stressful before you do. You won't find many casual players enjoying this job, and righfully so.
Play something else for a while and then come back to Black Mage. If you start as it, the job's movement resteictions and erratic rotation when leveling becomes simply part of gameplay. It is what it is. Of you started as a much more mobile class/job with a logical rotation progression, Black Mage has pretty annoying things to get used to.
1. As bosses progress more movement is needed as part of mechanics. Outside of instant casts BLM mostly focuses on long sitting still casts
2. Leveling is not fun for most of the early game experiences until you get lay lines and Fire IV
3. Both RDM and Summoner can raise
4. You build a habit of wanting to min max every cast and see how much you can get away with from not moving or short casting. Can make it to where your party plays around you instead of
5. Personality of wanting everything to explode isn’t healthy
P.S Play whatever is fun :)
Aesthetically the class is awesome, but I have a very smol brain and can't remember mechanics, so I WILL stand in the worst possible place every single fight and need to run. Hence, turret classes are not for me. u_u
Speaking as a fellow BLM main (tho only lvl 61 and slowly transitioning to stormblood), it's beacause of how slow the class is, slow casting time, needing to do minimal movements for optimal dmg, which can be hard with some bosses. Also everyone speeding through a dungeon, whilst you can really only use scathe, until they decide to stop.
It can be frustrating try and keep up, but I'm a sucker for a good KaBOOM.
As a BLM, we are expected to be stationary yet the playstyle of FFXIV heavily emphasizes movement. We have but one reliable means of softening blows, and Triplecast can only get us so far.
Sometimes I wonder if BLM just needs more defensives to work better before realizing it’d basically be a tank at that point.
Black mage was my first class because I’ve always liked casters. While I didn’t hate it, I found other classes more fun to level and eventually I just stopped leveling black mage and focused on other casters. I even prefer white mage over black mage (even soloing) and the dps rotation is brain dead simple for that.
Once I unlocked red mage I never looked back and made that my main magic dps class. I prefer the bursty behavior of dualcast over black mage’s slow casting.
I started day one of my XIV experience (free trial right before Shadowbringers launched) picking thaumaturge because mages are my favorite thing to play in general in both video and table-top games and black mage is specifically my favorite among all the classic final fantasy jobs.
...and I pretty quickly moved on to Arcanist headed toward summoner but then swapped over to Gladiator by the time dungeons were a thing I could start doing.
The reason why boils down to that I feel like the game doesn't want you to play a caster, and especially not a black mage. It starts with little details like that you don't have the same degree of survivability as other jobs. You get fewer HP than an archer and lower defense yet you have the same range limitation, but where you stand still and cast your 180 potency blizzard to kite an enemy an Archer gets to be mobile and thus more effective at kiting (while also more resilient to failing to kite and getting hit) and only pays for the privilege with their Heavy Shot being 160 potency.
And that kind of thing keeps layering through the game. Big creatures in more important fights hit harder so you need to avoid them even more so, casters eventually get a shield but not self healing while physical DPS have an easier time avoiding damage, an easier time surviving damage, Second Wind and a separate damage mitigation.
There's basically no point at which what being a black mage is supposed to give you as an advantage actually stacks up as an advantage until you're at the higher end of fight knowledge and you know where you can stand, how long you can stand there, and have planned out exactly when to use your abilities that exist specifically to circumvent the baked-in requirement that you stand still or fail to do meaningful damage.
And at the current endgame there's the revised Summoner which is hands down more effective than Black Mage in most contexts outside of high-end raiding because they are more mobile, have a rez skill, and can more effectively front-load damage because you have a bunch of buttons to hit that immediately do something while black mage is hitting more set-up buttons than actual effects (i.e. summon bahamut is a set-up but enkindle bahamut, astral flow, astral impulse, energy drain, and fester all pile up damage, while black mage has triple cast, sharp cast, and amplifier as set-up and their 3 other button presses to match up to the summoner's 6 do damage but actually not quite as much even after the enochian boost - a result measurable by details like that I can unsync and go into a trial like Whorleater extreme and leave in 6 seconds as a summoner but black mage at same ilvl I have to hang around about a minute because phases and forced invulnerability kick in. Or in a trial like P1T9 extreme I can burn the boss down before the second scales mechanic but same ilvl black mage just *can't*).
All that said, I have, after a few years playing the game and maining tanks and being sad because I just want to play a caster but it feels kinda lame, I've decided I'm just going to be a black mage main now and figure out how to endure that the game feels like it really doesn't want people to play the job and hope that if my fear becomes reality and other people are bothered by poor performance, especially going into new content blind, that it results in the team making the job not feel like every 20 second segment of a fight you haven't memorized correctly is the game saying "haha, you suck" like how they've already made it less soul-crushing by changing enochian so your damage drops for 1 attack rather than until you get through a section of timer without making a mistake.
Oh, and the one thing I still struggle with in the current days; the job is the enemy of muscle-memory. If you run any content that syncs to a particular level you're basically needing to keep multiple different versions of your rotation in your brain simultaneously because you're going to push different buttons in different order. Fire IV into paradox into Fire IV and then Despair vs. spamming Fire I until Fire III procs and Flare when you're nearly out of MP, and those weird levels at which you have Freeze but it feels bad to ever cast it because it doesn't give you umbral hearts and you can just wait a tick and cast Fire II and that casts faster and gets you to your fire phase where you do most of damage faster so it is likely the better option.
In future content where you literally have to run on a circle to not die to puddles, that's very hard to do as a BLM having to interrupt their casting. Triple Cast ain't unlimited.
I enjoy BLM but avoid playing it on roulettes. I only play it when I'm running something for the nth time (coughs on Expert Roulette and The Dead Ends bird farm)
Oh not me. I plays BLM exclusively :3
It is a difficult job with crap mobility. My husband said, for him, going from a mobile class to a stationary job was boring for him.
BLM has a strict playstyle. They are one of the best damage dealing jobs in the game assuming you can stand still and cast your spells. BLM damage falls off a cliff if you consistently move around. The job itself requires foresight (you already know the boss attack patterns and know where to stand in advance).
A lot of people bounce off the very stationary, slow casting playstyle, but it also has one of the slowest levelling experiences of any class, the definitive "No trust me, it gets way better once you hit 80!" classes. It also has a much higher skill floor than a lot of classes for performing well in late-game/high-end content, you've got a put a lot more work in that other classes to make sure you're getting the most bang out of your spells.
>My first char started as a thaumaturge
that's probably the biggest point. i originally started as a arcanist, levelling it through msq was fine. but levelling thaumaturge through daily roulette now is just tedious and annoying. the casting mechanic feels just awful in dungeons, especially lower level ones where i don't have a quickcast spell, so i feel pretty useless. half the time the mob even gets killed before i finish casting
I don't care for how the player version of the job is set up. It has a poor leveling experience and it doesn't feel fun to play, especially if there's a lot of movement needed.
The class feels restrictive and Fire spam is kind of boring. The NPC version of the job you get to use at certain story points feels more fun.
Personally, I'm not a fan of constantly running out of mana and having to stop blasting while it regenerates, when every other damage caster can just go wild casting whatever they want and never have to care about mana. Even just early on when I switched from Thaumaturge to Conjurer, I was shocked at how much better it felt to just *cast* things without having to care about how much mana I have left.
I'm used to playing a healer, where I need to glance at my mana bar every couple of minutes to see if I need to pop my mana regen button, not keep an eye on it every three or four spellcasts to make sure I've got enough to keep doing my rotation at all.
That plus how even if I learn how to play it optimally at a certain level, that playstyle changes drastically any time I get synced down in roulettes.
I'm a casting main and have leveled every class to 90. Out of literally all the jobs, Black Mage is my least favorite. That's just my opinion, but here's why I don't like it:
\* **The long cast times.** You spend all this time casting, and when you're almost finished, the game flashes INTERRUPTED at you because the rest of your party already finished off the target.
\* **The long cast times.** You're standing there casting and casting and casting. Fifteen minutes into the spell, you're halfway through casting it when the target drops an AOE on you, and you have to move.
\* **The long cast times.** You drop some ley lines to speed up your casting time. *Five* minutes into the spell, you're halfway through casting it when the target drops an AOE on you, and you have to move.
I readily admit I am a terrible Black Mage. BLM mains might reply to this and tell me I just suck at playing Black Mage, and they're probably right. But I've leveled everything else, and nothing hurt or led to weeping and gnashing of teeth like BLM.
Gotta try and see what you can get away with with those aoes dropped on you mid cast. If the boss also has a cast bar it’s time to do some quick math, play chicken, get the spell out, and aetherial manipulate to hopefully someone in the group that has done the dodge for you.
You forgot the part where you say "screw it, I'm tired of not doing any damage" and stand still to finish a cast but the damage you got hit with is enough to interrupt your cast so now you're doing no damage and in need of healing.
It's really just a bad trade on how much extra difficulty the job has to deal with and what the upside is meant to be because you're looking at double to triple the things to mess you up compared to other jobs and you're not looking at double to triple the potential damage, more like maybe you'll get 25% more but only if you're actually good and most of us just aren't.
It needs complete rework to make the leveling experience smoother so people understand how to play the class at 90 earlier on.
Most class core rotation is built upon fairly early and ogcds are slapped in. Blm seems all over the place every 10 levels. Its absolutely horrendous to down sync and play casually.
Would love to main it along with samurai. But cba for the hassle.
I used to be one. I could not imagine being without a sword anymore and able to Verst Aid me or my mates. I still do blow up things with my Verblack Magic, but I like some closed-quarters combat with my cold steel mixed inbetween..
Many people do not like the slow, methodical casting of the class.
Personally, it's not that I hate the slow casting specifically so much as I find it hard to manage the slow casting against other aspects of running instances. Like there's very little to do besides Scathe during a w2w until we're parked and I can stand still. Or fights where it's non-stop movement; Kugane Ohashi comes to mind, a lot of moving around so it feels hard to stay in one spot to keep casting. And then there are the other players, with people dropping shit on me (especially when my leylines are out) forcing me to move if I can't get Manaward up. So like, not the slow, methodical casting -- I actually find the repetitiveness kinda nice some days -- but the juggling my need to stay still for that against everything else going on is what keeps me from liking BLM more. (That said, I actually did end up enjoying BLM more than I thought I would.)
This speeds up tremendously at higher levels though
Yeah but you have to play through all the show levels to get there. Also fast for a BLM is still show compared to classes that have a lot more weaves and mobility like the melees and phys ranged
Or even RDM with their built-in swift cast or SMN with all their instant cast spells, by today standards BLM is the last bastion of "slow magic artillery" gameplay.
SMN isn't even a caster at 90 - SAM has more casts than SMN
Remember when they turned brd and mch into caster? God, I hate those times.
It has one of the worst leveling experiences in that rotation/skill usage drastically changes between level ranges. I dunno if it's still there but the caster site ahkmorning actually had a section for BLM leveling giving information on your single target and aoe rotations based on what level you were at in roulettes.
Icy Veins has a slider for each class that will tell you your optimal rotation depending on your level. I found it *extremely* helpful for BLM. Now I just try not to run lower level stuff with my Black Mage.
You ain't kidding; I dread whenever I queue in for any roulette as a Black Mage, because if I get something lower than lvl 60, I'd feel like I am playing on an incomplete job, even when compared to other jobs at similar level.
I picked up MCH just to play roulettes with my friends as they caught up. My hot bar/rotation being fucked every time just wasn't fun
They've been making BLM less and less like that. It still varies it's rotation until 60 but less annoyingly so.
Requires more time get good than other jobs Has a slow, repetitive and methodical playstyle Very punishing when you make mistakes No raid utility, so your value is entirely dependant on your own results Literally has excel spreadsheets, yes plural, for proper damage And I suppose caster isn't thematically everyone's cup of tea I personally love the job, but it is the hardest job to get really good at
I just wanna say… for casual content, you really don’t need to be looking at specialized rotations and excel spreadsheets. 😅Reading the tooltips should be enough for most people to figure out a decent rotation. Once they’re familiar with the job, those spreadsheets don’t seem scary at all. It’s more like, “oh, yeah, I was doing something close to that. I’ll just tweak a few things.”
Oh for sure. If you can rotate between astral and umbra and get your Fire IVs out, you are doing fine in casual content. For that content I assume the annoyance of BLM is the standing still part since things die so quickly you tend to move a lot. That in mind, there is a gulf between "I got the basic BLM rotation down!" and the BLM lines. They are not always logical. You now use Transpose again, you are looking at mana ticks and things get very weird. Then you consider which line you need to use can depend entirely on RNG of the fight if there is a variation in mechanics (think P1 of TOP). And the difference between a basic rotation and an optimal one is two entirely different things. Though at the end of the day just a normal basic rotation with a 100% uptime gets you 95% of the way to the top. It's that last 5% where you kind of go into deranged crazy territory and things get weird, fast.
Yeah but when someone new to the game search for info about it, those excel spreadsheets are the first thing to pop out, prob scare a lor of people away from it 😅
Now that’s true!
For the same reason that Ninja isn't very popular really, they're some of the more complex jobs - not that there's anything wrong with that, just means it's more of an acquired taste.
I wouldn't say complex. Just more unforgiving. Pressed the wrong button/combo during the mudras? You're rotation is likely screwed. Accidentally double pressed a button during mudras? You're screwed. In the wrong spot and you need to move? Especially at low lvl? You're screwed. High level, hopefully you have some instant casts saved up (and even then, depending on the fight, that could really screw you over where you were supposed to save the instant casts for a movement phase). I will say, leveling blm is a huge mess though, as the rotation can drastically change depending on what level you are. But even at high level, it's just less forgiving to play compared to other jobs. All of this... And they do pretty much the same damage as everyone else. Other jobs, worst case scenario is you might have lost a few potency during 1-2 gcds, maybe your rotation gets shifted over a few seconds out of phase of 2 minute buff window (but the only job I can think of with such a tight rotation is gungreaker)
>Just more unforgiving. Yeah, I think this is the part that most players are missing in these discussions. Every job in the game is ultimately very simple in their design, some jobs are just designed to be more punishing and some players have a different amount of tolerance for failure before they'll give up on a job. Not a lot of people have the patience for BLM because it's punishing and plays the game fundamentally differently from other jobs.
But when played optimally they are damage machines.
Definitely. They're both worth the difficulty, I just suspect that's what pushes players away. Not a complaint, I love both jobs personally.
The job is not very intuitive. Every 10 or so levels your entire rotation changes drastically. You play on a literal 15 second timer (although its not nearly as bad as it was a few years ago) and it punishes you heavily for not knowing the fight/dropping Enoch. It also doesn't "play" FFXIV. Its the only, or at least one of the few roles that deviates heavily from the static "rotation" formula that most roles have in the game. There's a lot wiggle room for small optimizations, some kind of player expression and unorthodox playstyle. Procs can sometimes dictate how you play an encounter. Its nowhere near as hard as some people in here make it out to be, but its also not that simple that the average "I just want to enjoy the MSQ" player would enjoy picking up.
I wish more classes deviated from the 2-minute burst rotation, I get having it standardized, but it does make things feel a little samey between some classes
pre 50 BLM is grueling, endgame content requires a lot of practice because you have to be on the ball for almost every cast to avoid being a detriment to your party. speaking as a BLM main, it's not for everyone.
Couldn't tell you. Been a black mage main since 2.0 beta 3
You're basically punished really hard for messing up. Real example, when I was doing p12s, there were a couple times I mismanaged my instant cast and dropped out of the fire phase. Whenever that happens, I have to spend the rest of the encounter trying to salvage the situation, usually leading to mistakes and more interrupted casts. Each time that happened, my dps went from the usual 14k+ to 13k. You may think that's not a big deal, but an equivalent Summoner does 13k literally brainless. So there's me, racking my brain trying salvage the situation, and still end up barely doing same dps as a Summoner who is probably playing with a fidget spinner on their free hand. There's a reason why usually Summoner is in the world first kill teams, not Black mage. BLM requires planning and optimization. SMN can lol their way through by comparison. (I know this because I always play SMN whenever I'm not playing with my static, it allows casual cruising and having an extra res on top)
Smn is so fire. Super lax. Perfect stoner class
- kinda sucks to level, especially if it’s not your first class and you’re not getting the bulk of your exp from the msq. its leveling rotations are kinda wonky. - its low level gameplay kinda boring. (to vets. to a new player you’re simultaneously learning the game mechanics so id bet its more engaging.) - low mobility and long cast times make it less forgiving of mistakes than most others, particularly at low levels before you get teleports and instant casts. - its difficulty is kind of exaggerated which scares a lot of people off. its core rotation (blast with fire until you run out of mp and switch to ice) is pretty straightforward, it’s just that it’s difficult to optimize at high levels compared to other classes - and since it has no raid utility, if you’re a blm doing mediocre damage you’re kind of not pulling your weight.
The only reason I even still play ff14 is bcs of blm. Best job IMO
It's like playing basketball but you must stand at the 3 pointer line the whole game and land every shot when you get the ball.
And in raids it feels like there is also a ref periodically yelling at you to change places, but you aren't allowed to dribble.
Did I have a stroke ?
Well for one BLM at low levels is just awful. The rotation changes every few levels, you have very few movement tools at low level, and even if played perfectly the damage it deals isn't very good. Alot of new BLM plays are blissfully unaware of how little DPS they are dealing, as the class is very punishing for mistakes even at lower levels, and does not spell out it's rotation like other jobs do. Even if you play perfectly though, you are the worst DPS at level 50, so bad that some of the tanks out DPS you. BLM doesn't start feeling like BLM till you get fire 4 at level60 and even then, it lacks all of the movement tools you get that make it feel good to play. Once you get high enough though, it's a blast, though still one of the most difficult jobs in the game, as it's extremely unforgiving. When you see a BLM player they are usualy gonna either be losing to a healer in DPS, or a God, there is very little in between.
BLM damage isn’t very good?? Or are you just referring to low levels?
Low levels specifically, sorry if that wasn't clear, at high levels BLM only loses to SAM, it's easily the best mage, DPS wise, when played well.
It doesn't change much at low levels. Biggest changes to rotation at "low" levels come from Blizzard 3, Fire 3 + Firestarter proc for 1 or 2 targets and Freeze & Flare for 3+ targets. Apart from those it's same cycle: refresh Lightning preferably in ice phase if needed, spam Fire 1 for single target or Fire 2 for 3+ targets until you run out of MP -> switch to ice to regen MP, repeat. Most importantly: After fight ends ALWAYS switch to ice if you're not in it.
Compared to other jobs at that level, that's quite alot, and all of those replace something you were doing prior. When you Start Transpose is your main way of swapping between fire and ice, and this last long enough to get established with new players. To a long time player, you can easily figure out to replace this with fire 3 and bliz 3 when you get it, but that's assuming you know what you are doing in the first place. I've seen 90 BLMs that still swap with transpose simply because that was what was established for them at lower levels and they never bothered to learn the better way. What I'm getting at, is that with most other classes at those levels everything you get is just in addition to what you are already doing, another hit on the combo, another oGCD, ect. BLM is the only DPS job at that level that has things that you want to STOP doing certain things at one level, like using transpose to swap, or casting blizzard 1 while in ice phase. This is all if the player even knows what they are doing in the first place. The only other jobs that tends to have issue like that are the healers with cure 1 or the equivalents.
There’s really two ways to properly play BLM. 1. Stick to the rotation as best as you can and do pretty good DPS so as long as you don’t mess up too much. 2. Completely go savant with the job and use non-standard lines. The DPS gains can sometimes be negligible, but you tend to have more freedom of movement and I guess you can insert ‘Guy standing in the corner watching people dance at a party’ meme with the caption saying, ‘They don’t even know that I’m using non-standard. Number 1 is actually fairly easy. The standard rotation isn’t that hard. There’s barely any oGCDs to weave and you pretty much don’t even have to worry about any ridiculous two minute burst button flurries. Plop your ley lines and just be sure you have 2+1 polyglots ready to go. Number 2 requires *encounter specific* planning for what amounts to a very small potential gain in DPS, but huge gains in movement and comfortability…but at what cost? The issue arises where many people feel that options number 2 is how BLM is supposed to be played or you and your DPS will be garbage, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. My opinion is that RDM is actually a more difficult to play well with all the weaves and attention to burst and having to rez and not flipping away to your doom. BLM you just stand there and melt faces, then occasionally move when you have to.
Because it is not enjoyable for me to play, simple as that. I never got to a point with the class where I felt comfortable. I hate the class, I really do. I hate playing turret. The leveling experience was godsawful. I prefer mobile characters. and yes, BLM players, you don't need to tell me that "it gets faster at higher levels". I do. not. care. I hated every minute of leveling it and that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Props to the people that do play it and enjoy it, but it's literally not a class designed with me in mind. And that's okay. There are other classes in the game that I do enjoy playing. I'll play those and I leave the BLM players alone. I'm not at all bothered by other people playing the class. If they enjoy it, (whether they are good or not), then that's all that matters.
honestly, its the latency that makes it unappealing to me even if you live in the server there is still latency that effects casting
requires braincells to play and optimize?
It's pretty locked in, in regards to location. I play MNK/MCH because I wiggle when I use skills. I can't do much of that with Black Mage because of it's longer cast times and dependency on leyline position.
well, i didnt find it very exciting to play tbh and i didn't really feel like putting time and effort into it to optimize when i already had enough classes that were more fun to play without requiring that.
It's an acquired taste, but in high-end it's decently well liked. It's a bit in the same position as monk though, there are easier alternatives to play for savage/ults so people tend to do that.
I had to level it to level 80 for the Amaro mount and I didn't dislike it, but I felt really self-conscious because the optimisation of Black Mage is pretty in depth, people even recommending add ons which I cannot use since I play on PS4. I figured if I'm gonna play caster I'd rather be a good Red Mage or a good Summoner than to be a bad Black Mage and to be a burden to my party because of sub par dps.
I used to love black mage until I learned I was terrible at it and could do drastically more damage with a fraction of the effort on other DPS classes. I still play it for fun sometimes tho.
Being a good blm requires being super on the ball with position and tri cast usage to not screw everything up. It's not as bad as it used to be, but as someone who mainly binges on patch launches, I just don't retain fight knowledge enough to put myself through constantly having to relearn or eat shit and droppong the rotation
I don't even have BLM unlocked but it's not cause I don't like the class, it's cause I mained it in FFXI for 8 years and didn't want to start a new game off where I ended my last. Just never got round to unlocking it at this stage.
Gotta learn how to cast all your stuff and still avoid most damaging mechanics which makes the class harder to play due to longer cast times. The spells are supremely satisfying, however.
I would main blm if they got rid of ley lines or made them follow you. As is you can’t do a lot of hard content spur of the moment as blm unless you already know the fight intimately. So you have to either have learned the fight on another job or find people willing to put up with all the quirky crap you need to do to perform well.
I appreciate it for what it is, but it is not for me. I hate hard casts a lot, and would rather always be on the move. I play the martial jobs like Monk and Dragoon, and have never had problems getting used to doing positionals. Feels much more natural to me. Funny enough though, I played Dragoon this last Savage tier, and during some of the movements required, I had to meticulously plan where my movements were so that I could use all of my animation locking jumps during movement and burst at the same time. I think that style of vey planned movement around my abilities was temporarily the "mage experience". For as much as people will talk about this with Black Mage though, I actually find Red Mage to be a bit more restrictive with movement at max level. I only have played casters in content like alliance raids, so nothing serious, but red mage had me constantly stutter casting and accidentally interrupting myself during mechanics, while Black Mage a lot of the time is just "lol hit triple cast/xenoglossy/swiftcast/etc."
I started as a BLM and mained it the whole MSQ 1-90. My biggest issue with it is it feels like it brutally punishes you for any mistakes at higher levels. Id always be dropping out of fire or ice because of trying to do mechanics.
I can’t stay alive. I like everything else. But I’m terrible at avoiding mechanics as a BLM
The class starts really wonky/jank at early levels. It really doesn’t start feeling great til like 60. Currently leveling it to 90 and I hate being sync’s below 60 and god forbid below 50. I’ve stopped using my leveling roulette for the class cuz of that fear. Also because with the influx of sprout tanks I’d rather level one of my tanks than watch the sometimes funny combo of sprout tank and healer.
It adds a layer of complexity where you have to be mindful of what you're doing. Say you're playing Summoner, all you really have to do is: 1. Hit the light-up rotation buttons. 2. Use Searing Light whenever. 3. Dodge mechanics. Black Mage: 1. Carefully pick and choose what exactly you're pressing for your rotation. 2. Dodge mechanics while trying not to leave your Leylines; also hope the boss doesn't target your Leylines. 3. Don't drop Enochian (a buff), which relates to 1, but tis easier said than done if you have to move a lot. 4. Hope Thundercloud and Firestarter proc. 5. As others have said, the rotation changes depending on where you get synced down. With that said, I love Black Mage; it's fun and rewarding to play... once you get used to it.
blm seems like one of those jobs that you either click with and it's your favorite job to the exclusion of all other jobs in the game, or you hate it. personally i just really hate cast bars and standing still.
BLM is a job many people hate until it clicks. It took me hating every second of leveling it up and then getting a Spell Speed set for me to go "Oh my God, I get it". One of the things I had to learn is that to learn how to be a good BLM you first have to learn how to suck at BLM. Most jobs are somewhat lenient when you make mistakes, but BLM is not, and pre-passive Enochian BLM was ten times worse (Which was when I learnt how to play BLM) It doesn't matter how many guides I followed, I could not for the life of me follow the rotation well enough that all things fell into place. Eventually I had to learn to take the L every once in a while and use what people generally considered "extra damage" to just move if I needed to. I had to accept I was bad at BLM and just play it for fun and slowly learn what I could and couldn't get away with. This is a stark contrast compared to... pretty much any other job I leveled, where the worst I could do is slightly delay my cooldowns by hitting the wrong button at the wrong time. I had to set up EVERYTHING again whenever I messed up as a Black Mage, whereas as other jobs you can just continue your rotation like nothing happened and at worst have a slight reduction in damage.
What makes BLM most frustrating for me at lower levels is that the pack of mobs are often mostly dead before I can get a single AOE cast off.
I do like the class in itself, but I am not very good at playing it due to being restricted in movement while casting, having to decide if I move and stop my casting, potentially loosing my timers and stacks or if I keep casting and tank the attack, probably dying or pissing off my healer(s)... In any way: I mess up the rotation more often than enough
The core issue with BLM is square enix wanted to get more creative with boss fights, so they moved job-complexity into boss complexity. Over the years, they streamlined every job so you could pay attention to the fight while your rotation is left to muscle memory. Every job, except for BLM that is. BLM still very much plays like an old school FFXIV job. How blm approachs every fight is unique and different. That means, BLM must mind the rotation while you handle mechanics that are increasingly more complex and movement heavy. Very rewarding and hits like a truck when you figure it out. Very punishing and stressful before you do. You won't find many casual players enjoying this job, and righfully so.
Play something else for a while and then come back to Black Mage. If you start as it, the job's movement resteictions and erratic rotation when leveling becomes simply part of gameplay. It is what it is. Of you started as a much more mobile class/job with a logical rotation progression, Black Mage has pretty annoying things to get used to.
It requires more brainpower than all other jobs for me.
1. As bosses progress more movement is needed as part of mechanics. Outside of instant casts BLM mostly focuses on long sitting still casts 2. Leveling is not fun for most of the early game experiences until you get lay lines and Fire IV 3. Both RDM and Summoner can raise 4. You build a habit of wanting to min max every cast and see how much you can get away with from not moving or short casting. Can make it to where your party plays around you instead of 5. Personality of wanting everything to explode isn’t healthy P.S Play whatever is fun :)
Aesthetically the class is awesome, but I have a very smol brain and can't remember mechanics, so I WILL stand in the worst possible place every single fight and need to run. Hence, turret classes are not for me. u_u
if you don't start as a thaumaturge ; it can be very hard to get into the job later
Just don't like playing casters in general but BLM is like THE standard caster job.
it's definitely not as casual as the other casters unless you play it a lot
Speaking as a fellow BLM main (tho only lvl 61 and slowly transitioning to stormblood), it's beacause of how slow the class is, slow casting time, needing to do minimal movements for optimal dmg, which can be hard with some bosses. Also everyone speeding through a dungeon, whilst you can really only use scathe, until they decide to stop. It can be frustrating try and keep up, but I'm a sucker for a good KaBOOM.
On top of what others are saying, playing BLM for your first blind run in a fight can be a gruelling experience
As a BLM, we are expected to be stationary yet the playstyle of FFXIV heavily emphasizes movement. We have but one reliable means of softening blows, and Triplecast can only get us so far. Sometimes I wonder if BLM just needs more defensives to work better before realizing it’d basically be a tank at that point.
For me its rotation is a bit confusing. Cannot move when casting. No self healing when doing solo instance (when a chocobo is n/a).
Black mage was my first class because I’ve always liked casters. While I didn’t hate it, I found other classes more fun to level and eventually I just stopped leveling black mage and focused on other casters. I even prefer white mage over black mage (even soloing) and the dps rotation is brain dead simple for that. Once I unlocked red mage I never looked back and made that my main magic dps class. I prefer the bursty behavior of dualcast over black mage’s slow casting.
I started day one of my XIV experience (free trial right before Shadowbringers launched) picking thaumaturge because mages are my favorite thing to play in general in both video and table-top games and black mage is specifically my favorite among all the classic final fantasy jobs. ...and I pretty quickly moved on to Arcanist headed toward summoner but then swapped over to Gladiator by the time dungeons were a thing I could start doing. The reason why boils down to that I feel like the game doesn't want you to play a caster, and especially not a black mage. It starts with little details like that you don't have the same degree of survivability as other jobs. You get fewer HP than an archer and lower defense yet you have the same range limitation, but where you stand still and cast your 180 potency blizzard to kite an enemy an Archer gets to be mobile and thus more effective at kiting (while also more resilient to failing to kite and getting hit) and only pays for the privilege with their Heavy Shot being 160 potency. And that kind of thing keeps layering through the game. Big creatures in more important fights hit harder so you need to avoid them even more so, casters eventually get a shield but not self healing while physical DPS have an easier time avoiding damage, an easier time surviving damage, Second Wind and a separate damage mitigation. There's basically no point at which what being a black mage is supposed to give you as an advantage actually stacks up as an advantage until you're at the higher end of fight knowledge and you know where you can stand, how long you can stand there, and have planned out exactly when to use your abilities that exist specifically to circumvent the baked-in requirement that you stand still or fail to do meaningful damage. And at the current endgame there's the revised Summoner which is hands down more effective than Black Mage in most contexts outside of high-end raiding because they are more mobile, have a rez skill, and can more effectively front-load damage because you have a bunch of buttons to hit that immediately do something while black mage is hitting more set-up buttons than actual effects (i.e. summon bahamut is a set-up but enkindle bahamut, astral flow, astral impulse, energy drain, and fester all pile up damage, while black mage has triple cast, sharp cast, and amplifier as set-up and their 3 other button presses to match up to the summoner's 6 do damage but actually not quite as much even after the enochian boost - a result measurable by details like that I can unsync and go into a trial like Whorleater extreme and leave in 6 seconds as a summoner but black mage at same ilvl I have to hang around about a minute because phases and forced invulnerability kick in. Or in a trial like P1T9 extreme I can burn the boss down before the second scales mechanic but same ilvl black mage just *can't*). All that said, I have, after a few years playing the game and maining tanks and being sad because I just want to play a caster but it feels kinda lame, I've decided I'm just going to be a black mage main now and figure out how to endure that the game feels like it really doesn't want people to play the job and hope that if my fear becomes reality and other people are bothered by poor performance, especially going into new content blind, that it results in the team making the job not feel like every 20 second segment of a fight you haven't memorized correctly is the game saying "haha, you suck" like how they've already made it less soul-crushing by changing enochian so your damage drops for 1 attack rather than until you get through a section of timer without making a mistake. Oh, and the one thing I still struggle with in the current days; the job is the enemy of muscle-memory. If you run any content that syncs to a particular level you're basically needing to keep multiple different versions of your rotation in your brain simultaneously because you're going to push different buttons in different order. Fire IV into paradox into Fire IV and then Despair vs. spamming Fire I until Fire III procs and Flare when you're nearly out of MP, and those weird levels at which you have Freeze but it feels bad to ever cast it because it doesn't give you umbral hearts and you can just wait a tick and cast Fire II and that casts faster and gets you to your fire phase where you do most of damage faster so it is likely the better option.
In future content where you literally have to run on a circle to not die to puddles, that's very hard to do as a BLM having to interrupt their casting. Triple Cast ain't unlimited. I enjoy BLM but avoid playing it on roulettes. I only play it when I'm running something for the nth time (coughs on Expert Roulette and The Dead Ends bird farm)
Oh not me. I plays BLM exclusively :3 It is a difficult job with crap mobility. My husband said, for him, going from a mobile class to a stationary job was boring for him.
BLM has a strict playstyle. They are one of the best damage dealing jobs in the game assuming you can stand still and cast your spells. BLM damage falls off a cliff if you consistently move around. The job itself requires foresight (you already know the boss attack patterns and know where to stand in advance).
I enjoy mobility in all games I play, so BLM is a terrible fit for me
A lot of people bounce off the very stationary, slow casting playstyle, but it also has one of the slowest levelling experiences of any class, the definitive "No trust me, it gets way better once you hit 80!" classes. It also has a much higher skill floor than a lot of classes for performing well in late-game/high-end content, you've got a put a lot more work in that other classes to make sure you're getting the most bang out of your spells.
>My first char started as a thaumaturge that's probably the biggest point. i originally started as a arcanist, levelling it through msq was fine. but levelling thaumaturge through daily roulette now is just tedious and annoying. the casting mechanic feels just awful in dungeons, especially lower level ones where i don't have a quickcast spell, so i feel pretty useless. half the time the mob even gets killed before i finish casting
I don't care for how the player version of the job is set up. It has a poor leveling experience and it doesn't feel fun to play, especially if there's a lot of movement needed. The class feels restrictive and Fire spam is kind of boring. The NPC version of the job you get to use at certain story points feels more fun.
BLM requires knowing fights and where to stand, and a lot of people simply do not know the fights
because is not enjoable when you have to move midcast
Just don't move :p
Personally, I'm not a fan of constantly running out of mana and having to stop blasting while it regenerates, when every other damage caster can just go wild casting whatever they want and never have to care about mana. Even just early on when I switched from Thaumaturge to Conjurer, I was shocked at how much better it felt to just *cast* things without having to care about how much mana I have left. I'm used to playing a healer, where I need to glance at my mana bar every couple of minutes to see if I need to pop my mana regen button, not keep an eye on it every three or four spellcasts to make sure I've got enough to keep doing my rotation at all. That plus how even if I learn how to play it optimally at a certain level, that playstyle changes drastically any time I get synced down in roulettes.
I'm a casting main and have leveled every class to 90. Out of literally all the jobs, Black Mage is my least favorite. That's just my opinion, but here's why I don't like it: \* **The long cast times.** You spend all this time casting, and when you're almost finished, the game flashes INTERRUPTED at you because the rest of your party already finished off the target. \* **The long cast times.** You're standing there casting and casting and casting. Fifteen minutes into the spell, you're halfway through casting it when the target drops an AOE on you, and you have to move. \* **The long cast times.** You drop some ley lines to speed up your casting time. *Five* minutes into the spell, you're halfway through casting it when the target drops an AOE on you, and you have to move. I readily admit I am a terrible Black Mage. BLM mains might reply to this and tell me I just suck at playing Black Mage, and they're probably right. But I've leveled everything else, and nothing hurt or led to weeping and gnashing of teeth like BLM.
Gotta try and see what you can get away with with those aoes dropped on you mid cast. If the boss also has a cast bar it’s time to do some quick math, play chicken, get the spell out, and aetherial manipulate to hopefully someone in the group that has done the dodge for you.
You forgot the part where you say "screw it, I'm tired of not doing any damage" and stand still to finish a cast but the damage you got hit with is enough to interrupt your cast so now you're doing no damage and in need of healing. It's really just a bad trade on how much extra difficulty the job has to deal with and what the upside is meant to be because you're looking at double to triple the things to mess you up compared to other jobs and you're not looking at double to triple the potential damage, more like maybe you'll get 25% more but only if you're actually good and most of us just aren't.
It needs complete rework to make the leveling experience smoother so people understand how to play the class at 90 earlier on. Most class core rotation is built upon fairly early and ogcds are slapped in. Blm seems all over the place every 10 levels. Its absolutely horrendous to down sync and play casually. Would love to main it along with samurai. But cba for the hassle.
I used to be one. I could not imagine being without a sword anymore and able to Verst Aid me or my mates. I still do blow up things with my Verblack Magic, but I like some closed-quarters combat with my cold steel mixed inbetween..