Are You Satisfied With Black Mage As It Is Currently?

I posted this on the official FFXI forum, but I figured it would be seen more here! ^.^

I've been a BLM since I started in FFXI, but I find myself playing the job less and less. It seems rare to see BLM being used outside of Abyseea and some older content. To be fair though I have done Incursion as a BLM and my delve group has utilized a BLM on some occasions. BLM can be good for soloing reives and is pretty decent in WKRs.

I think the main issue that I'm concerned with is the lack of attention that BLM has gotten in the past updates. Our biggest problem seems to be Magic Accuracy against high-tier mobs. Stacking MACC instead of Magic Damage/Magic Attack seems to be a self-defeating cycle. The only way that BLM is viable in Incursion is to have a GEO alongside simultaneously boosting the BLM MACC/MAB and weakening the mob's Magic Defense.

Some thoughts I had:
Boost BLM elemental magic accuracy (or add Elemental Magic skill to some weapons)
Increase the effectiveness of higher-tier spells (maybe add MACC vs high-MDEF mobs)
Make non-elemental magic damage more effective (comet/meteor make them less of a novelty)
Allow BLM some method of reducing the enemy's magic defense (similar to frazzle)
Boost the potency of elemental enfeebles (burn, shock, etc)
Reduce the recast of Enmity Douse (5 minutes would be nice, or have a way to significantly decrease the recast via merit/job points)

BLM has some decent gear, but there hasn't been many stand-out pieces recently.
It would be nice to see equipment that features Elemental Magic Skill, MD, MAB, INT or a combination of all.

I do hope this doesn't come across as whining about the "good ol' days" I'd just like to see BLM as the glass cannon it was meant to be.

Anyone else have thoughts?

Every event is going to have the "efficient" way of doing things. So, regardless of what upgrades are suggested or given to BLM, people are going to find and use the fastest most efficient way to clear an event. This is why many jobs wind up relegated to the events and roles they have in modern day FFXI.

I make this comment as someone who first leveled RDM back in 2005 and then went back to level other jobs when it would be "required" for various events.

On the note of thoughts on what you've suggested, I think the comet/meteor thing could be interesting along with increased elemental enfeeble potency.

Giving BLMs something similar to frazzle would defeat the purpose of giving RDMs frazzle in the first place.

I also don't see SE changing either of BLM's merit categories for reduced Enmity Douse, but they could just reduce the recast timer in an update. Not sure what reducing it to 5 minutes would really help with as in most situations pulling hate in an event you're describing these changes for would probably end in the BLM getting killed by the time they use douse.

It all depends on what you are doing and how you are doing it.

Most events have some place for a blm. The biggest exception is when it is a melee zerg. Each delve has a good place for blm, the merit bc's will often have place for blm even some that are designed better for blm.

Of course the cycle of macc vs mab comes into play. This is also for melees as well. A melee in a full acc set doesnt have as much attack str or multi attack.

Sadly tho blm wont ever 'parse' as high as some dds. This is probably the larger issue. I think maybe something can be done about that. Then again mb with the constant fudo, vs spam should give some edge. I wouldnt mind seeing a macc and magic damage traits on blm. they should be the best nukers but sch often pulls ahead.

Black Mage is great in some content like wildskeeper reive. Safe tier 1 nukes for 1500+ and not die.

Magic Accuracy for nukes needs to be greatly increased. Unlike physical attacks, there's comparatively fewer buffs to boost Magic Accuracy(i.e no sushi for m.acc...even Crepes only boost m.acc by 2-6 compared to sushi which is 70+). There's also fewer JAs and spells to boost m.acc compared to most melee which get some form of accuracy trait or accuracy JA. This could also be because mobs tend to have relatively lower m.eva than they do physical evasion therefore requiring less m.acc to get unresisted compared to how much melee acc is needed to not whiff, but I'm not a blm so idk.

SE could be like "you want to hit with your spells? get GEO and COR buffs. Melees needs songs/rolls buffs to land, so why shouldn't BLM need support buffs from other jobs to land their spells too?"

I'm not arguing against efficiency - We all have jobs that are 'better' at endgame than others. I'm just thinking BLM hasn't gotten much love from SE in quite some time.

The devs did say that they were thinking about adjusting elemental magic some time ago, but nothing has really been said since (that I'm aware of anyway).

And I totally agree, BLM is very nice in several places (especially WKR and Outer Raz Skirmish), but it is under represented in many end-game activities (AA & other high-tier battlefields).

As far as something similar to Frazzle, Frazzle lowers magic evasion, not magic defense. I'm thinking something specifically MDef-down related.

Jobs should be balanced. But since SE nerfed time between spells, blm spam strategy of tier II became useless.

In order to fix blm issue, SE must reduce time between spells, in order to make tier 2 a useful option again. And about high tier, they should increase the damage base, so we could focus our gear in MACC, int and etc, cuz atm we struggle between macc and mab.
It's simple, I don't know why SE can't keep all DD in balance. Before this stupid nerf my dps was very nice even in Ark Angel. Now It's a crap. I had to gear Geomancer to join nowadays in events.

Strengths of BLM:
1) No engage delay for our damage
2) Substantially better unbuffed DPS than a melee
3) Damage can be essentially hate free
4) One of the best sources of AoE damage in the game
5) Manawall (rez cap to 30 JPs prz)

Weaknesses of BLM (most have already been hit):
1) Magic Accuracy is an issue at higher levels. We need magic sushi, or at least elemental magic sushi.

2) Magic damage buffs do kind of suck at the moment. The best we have is Malaise (~2x damage), and it still doesn't really compare to melee Haste (5x damage).

3) We require too many buffs in group content. In group content where we can't afford to take hate, we have to lean on AM. AM has a longish recast time, which means we need high levels of Haste to really sustain our nuking if the monster has any specific elements that it resists. So we not only need magic damage buffs and sources of Refresh, but we also need Haste similar to a melee in order to be damage competitive. If we're doing high-end content, we also need magic accuracy buffs to stay competitive at the moment.

4) GearSwap makes nuking jobs dramatically better, but vanilla users are still screwed. They can't take advantage of the 80% fast cast cap or occasionally quickens in any reasonable way, and that's a problem that needs to be fixed. BLM will never be a respectable DD without 80% fast cast (and hopefully occasionally quickens procs), and SE will be left attempting to balance the job for two very different user populations until then. If they balance the job so that vanilla users are competitive with hasted melee with a reasonable buff level, my BLM is going to end up shitting all over every DD.

5) That extra half a second that you have to wait after you move before you can cast again without getting interrupted is actually incredibly limiting for magic jobs in roaming situations. If they eliminated it, BLM would be even more potent in situations like Outer Ra'Kaznar skirmish.

6) I worry about our reliance on Spaekona's Coat +1. Gear becomes obsolete eventually.




In terms of tales of success, I have parsed comparable to SAM in the past but it took a considerable amount of support and was only against iLevel 127 content. I'm certain that it could still get better, but the amount of support that it requires is inefficient as hell. I'd say these adjustments should take place in two stages. The first stage would be introducing a potent Elemental Macc food and giving us some kind of Spaekona's Coat-like job trait that levels up (say 1% at 30, 2% at 60, and 3% at 90). The second stage would be introducing a way for vanilla users to actually benefit from all that fast cast and occasionally quickens and then balancing magic damage accordingly. They could also fix problem #5 in the second stage if they wanted.

When is SE going to hire you as a consultant?

I think BLM should get a form of Occult Acumen followed with an ability to convert TP into increased Magic DMG or at least allow it to affect the Magic accuracy Similar to how DDs level of tp affect certain WS, or a job trait that allows you to have higher magic acc with MP% and let it decrease in value as your MP% decreases, just some thoughts.