Here are all the significant changes to the game since the release of this guide: 7.1 Patch Notes: Flare's cast time is now 3 seconds, making it worth finishing Astral Fire with certainly before level 60. I'd argue it might be worth using to finish Astral Fire states until you get Despair on single target. Ley Lines now have 2 charges. This doesn't really change how you use it, but massively boosts its flexibility, and also gives you an "extra" use per duty. Despair now is instant. This doesn't really change how you use it, but massively increases flexibility. Enochian was changed from 33% to 32% at max level. 7.05 Patch Notes: All three Thunders potencies were adjusted slightly. This doesn't really change how you use them. More importantly, Umbral Soul was adjusted: It now freezes the Umbral Ice timer when used. Furthermore, if used when out of combat, it immediately maxes out your MP and maxes you out to Umbral Ice 3, so you only need to press it once. Once unlocked at level 58, it also immediately gives 3 Umbral Hearts when out of combat. The timer is frozen until you switch to astral fire (thanks for the correction Dave). This means when running between fights, you simply have to switch to ice, and use Umbral Soul ONCE and you're good. If something like a cutscene appears in a fight, removing control of your character, if you can see it coming, using Umbral Soul before you lose control can preserve your Umbral Ice state until after the mechanic! Additionally, aside from various potency increases, ICE PARADOX has been added back in! If you enter Umbral Ice from Astral Fire 3, you will gain a Paradox Marker. While you have a Paradox Marker, BOTH F1 and B1 turn into Paradox. The ICE version of Paradox is free to cast, increases Umbral Ice by 1 (not that it really matters much), but does NOT recover MP as it does Unaspected damage and not ICE damage. Due to its rather high potency, and flexibility, it may be beneficial to use Paradox whenever you are in Umbral Ice, however, due to its lack of impact on... Everything else in the rotation, depending on the situation, it can be skipped, or used for repositioning during Umbral Ice, whatever you fancy really. I am honestly not 100% at this time what is best, but I imagine using Ice paradox in every umbral ice state may at least be a good move! 7.01 Patch Notes: Umbral Soul, which previously was a level 76 spell, has been moved down to level 35. You need to be in Umbral Ice to use it, and it simply increases your Umbral Ice state by 1, and recovers MP as if you cast an Ice Spell to do so - so like casting Blizzard 1 but with no target. When running between fights, use Transpose to switch to Umbral Ice and then repeatedly use Umbral Soul. When downtime presents itself in a fight, you can do this too. At level 58, where Umbral Hearts are introduced, Umbral Soul is upgraded to also grant you one Umbral Heart per use. This does not change how you use it.
Wow, thanks for writing this! I was looking up umbral soul in the video and was wondering how to use it but you already explained how to use it after the update today! :) Thanks for your skill and rotation videos by the way, I'm a lvl 54 Black mage at the moment and I only know how to play because of your videos. Thanks again and keep it up! Your channel is an amazing resource for all (new and old) black mages out there!
Honestly a huge change and massive qol for BLM, probably the biggest change in the entire patch if you ask me because it allows you to immediately get back in to doing damage after downtime in pretty much all relevant content, instead of having to spend time with the long cast of fire 3 or casting freeze/Blizzard 4 post lvl 58 to get umbral hearts.
I want to actually correct something with 7.05: at this time, casting anything doesn't cause the Umbral Ice timer to tick down, it's only when you switch to Astral Fire state. You can in theory cast blizzard 4 100 times in a row without the timer ticking.
@davethemage7081 oh wow really?! Okay that is pretty cool, that means when the boss looks like it's about to cutscene or something, you can go to ice, umbral soul, and then just fill with stuff there until it happens, instead of being stuck doing nothing because you did it early! 😁
Thanks for making this! I found your guide as soon as I hit lvl 80 and realized I absolutely do not have the mental juggling skills required to play this job even sub-optimally lmao It will be leveled through allied societies and frontline roulette, godspeed to anyone smart enough to play this job o7
*SONG* 21 Job guides in dawntrail to goooo, 21 job guides in dawntrail! Made a black-mage guide thats the best! 20 job guides in dawntrail to go.... :P ---- Thanks for the video again m8!
This is one the jobs I barely play, I level it to 100 and forget about it. Thanks for the guide! I had completely forgotten BLM again. Now I can at least try to play decently on it and not grief lol.
It ends. With BIG BANG ATTACK! Also a good thing to note, one of the announcements today said that Umbral Soul will be getting a level reduction in 7.01. No indication of how much, but the wording implies it will be learned at a lower level post-patch
They did not say how they are changing BLM they just said they will address the issues but it would make sense to add a level reduction to umbral soul… or revert the dumb rework (jk it won’t happen)
@@dillon268 I personally like the rework, other than the loss of Ice Paradox. I know my opinion on the matter is a rather unpopular one, but I stick by it.
@raarasunai4896 the only good thing about the rework was integrating sharpcast into paradox, which is the same reason they removed the enochian button. The Astral Soul mechanics are ass.
I'm so amused at the idea of a genuinely viable AOE rotation being to use two triplecasts, swiftcast, manafont, and an ether to go Flare Flare FlareStar Flare Flare Flare FlareStar. This is the true black mage experience, ascending to the throne of Maximum Explosions Wizard
@brysonhunter3703 this is what I've been doing for days now. It's quite fun when you have all the cds ready. Then on the next Astral fire phase I hard cast 2 flares, use foul to weave swift cast then flare star.
@@paulb4480 At level 58, you unlock Umbral Hearts. If you cast Flare with at least one of these in hand, it only costs 2/3rds of your MP, and Flare accepts "all of your MP" as long as you have at least 800 for whatever reason, so if you have at least 2400 MP and 1 (or more) umbral hearts, you can cast Flare, land on 800 MP, and cast Flare again!
Thank you for the guide. I was hoping to level Black Mage before the changes but didn't get a chance. I've been spending the bulk of DT level the job and it's been really fun. Even finding work arounds when I'm low on MP between dungeon pulls. I know a lot of the changes have been controversial and they're still working out the kinks with the new MP system, but I think there's something here worth building on. They've already anounced a few changes to BLM with easier MP management at lower levels and increased potencies. But I wanted to get your opinion on two other pieces of criticism that have been swirling around. 1: Any Fire spell in AF should provide stacks of Astral Soul. 2: Any Spell cast in UI should restore MP
I feel that if *any* fire spell should grant astral soul, then flare star might need to work differently. And I don't think 6 works as the peak of its power. I also think there may be reason to say it has to be a spell that costs mp, otherwise Firestarter is going to be crazy! Any spell giving mp in UI i feel kind of defeats the purpose of umbral ice. Players that want this, I feel, mainly envision themselves casting xenoglossy every time. Couple that with the astral soul thing you mentioned, and incidentally it is very easy and totally possible to get six astral soul stacks without umbral hearts making blizzard 4 pointless 😅 That is of course just my perspective, and I understand a lot of players asking these things are doing so because they want flexibility. I just see that that flexibility is likely going to be used to make other parts of the toolkit obsolete 😕 With that said, I am glad to hear you are taking the changes in stride! I've also had fun relearning the job with the changes! 😊
So one Lvl 100 opener i experimented with (even though it feels awful), was Fire 3, High Thunder (Weave Ley Lines + Amplifier), 2x Fire 4, Xenoglossy (Weave Triplecast), Fire 4, Flare (to get max my gauge) and Flare Star, followed by Mana Font and then our normal fire/ice rotation That got me very similar results to doing a normal Ice opener at least I got to 1% on Stone, Sky, Sea lvl 100 Extreme Trials with that Flare opener, only using EW food as a fresh 690 ilvl and no potion ( Also i just realized after watching your gameplay in the background while you explain stuff, that i very often forget to Transpose before Fire 3ing when i have a free cast, for some extra potency... That alone might've been enough to beat Stone, Sky, Sea back then :'D )
It makes sense it would give you similar results! 😊 The unfortunate reality is that if you replace the flare and flare star with F4 and despair, you gain 10 potency 😰 While it would be a "slower" opener, given it adds a GCD to it, if you replace the despair here with flare, you could then do flare star (since that should bring you to 7 astral soul stacks) and then continue the rotation, however this would also impact where you place triple casts i suppose, and it might get extremely tight on time then! 😅 And yes the F3 trick could give you a bit extra! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh oh true, i didn't even pay too close attention at the potencies there 🤣 At least now i know for sure F4 + Despair is always gonna outdo Flare + Flare Star 😅 It just.. feels bad to cast more F4 and Despair, when you end up not even getting the juicy Flare Star. But on the other hand, i believe the "optimal opener" is always gonna depend on the length of the fight, if you wanna minmax (or the mechanics of the fight, like the with Valigarmanda EX at the start, where you cant Ley Lines on pull, because you have to move very early. There it felt alot better to open "slower" with ice and "delay" fire a little until i can place Ley Lines) And sometimes it might not even matter if i do extra F4's before Despair on the opener, because (in theory at least) you could very well end up spending exactly those F4 GCDs you didn't do on your opener, with more F4's at the end of a fight instead. BLM is such a love/hate relationship for me, where it feels awkward for a while until you really learn a fight, and then it feels amazing to play :'D Thanks for the input btw!
They really gotta look at the potencies for blizzard 2 and fire 2 (and their upgrades), forgoing those spells for a umbral ice 1 freeze, transposing, casting flare twice, casting flare star, and transposing back is being considered to be more effective assuming you put instant cast spells before each transpose, I don’t know how that translates to lower levels or if it even does more potency per second in aoe
The key is that it still requires you to instant cast basically all of it for it to be a gain. Given that it is a specific circumstance I don't see an issue with leaving that as a beneficial strategy (it's like a vestige of non standard!) But on that note, I do think fire 2 and blizzard 2 deserves more potency!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I really wish the calculation for the aoe potency per second was easier to clear confusion, but I'm still divided since on paper against a target, taking 6 seconds to do 200 potency to all targets vs taking 4 seconds to do 240 potency to the first target and 144 to the remaining targets...I dunno, this is nothing to mention of flare star's potency weirdness
They tend to not touch BLM potencies per skill, and instead alter the damage modifier in Enochian. Enochian buff is not listed on the potencies so it can make it look kind of weird! But the damage does need a bit of work heh
@prismriver659 actually part of the reason for the problems with fire 2 and blizzard 2 going into dawntrail is that they nerfed both high fire 2 and high blizzard 2 from 140 potency to 100 potency! So while you are right they tend to not touch them, they have made exceptions! 😅 I believe blizzard 2 and fire 2 were also straight 100 potency before dawntrail while we are on the subject!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh they also nerfed Flare’s potency, while individually on tooltips flare was buffed, they took away Enhanced Flare which took Flare from I think 200 potency to 280 potency in Endwalker, now it is a flat 240 potency (ignoring fall off to other targets)
I recommend watching my 1-50 starter guide. (there should be a link in the description I think, otherwise search for my channel and black mage 1-50 and a dawntrail related video should pop up) Read the patch note changes in the pinned comment, a few smaller things changed in regards to umbral soul so it's worth knowing. Then watch this guide again, and make sure you follow and understand each part one at a time up to the point your black mage is at level wise. Many have said they found it immensely helpful to practice each thing in the video on a striking dummy as I explain it. I am confident you can do this if you want! 😁
I leveledy black mage from 1-80 And as soon as endwalker came out, I just stopped lvling black mage (aside from a journal every now and then) Now that it's dawntrail, I need a job that can do fates, and I haveachinist, and black mage to lvl using them Do I remember how to play black mage, GOD NO So hopefully I can watch this when I get home and relearn
Its even stranger now because with the recent Flare buffs, at level 100, flare flare flarestar -> transpose -> Freeze -> Thunder/Foul -> Transpose -> Repeat is actually more effective! :/
I know it’s not optimal, but l found that when your in your astral fire cast 2 Fire IV then Paradox then 2 Fire IV then Fire 3 proc then 2 Fire IV and finish with Despair and Flare Star. You lose your instant Fire 3 to go back into Astral Fire but this provides more flexibility for movement and weaving Xenoglossy or Thunder procs.
Of course, ultimately you need to use paradox and fire starter for when you need to move, but also refresh astral fire, so you could get very weird with it depending on your needs! 😊
Did you know Black Mage is the top of the DPS cha- Pictomancer: Look at me, I'm the new top DPS chart now. I'm not the biggest fan of those mana regen changes, but I hope they just return the old one or give us something to easily regen back when we're not in battle. Especially those under lvl 50.
Well, a job doesn't need to be at the top to be fun! As long as it is strong enough that it isn't getting excluded or something! 😅 I do hope we get umbral soul or something at lower level!
@@CaetsuChaijiChthat's true, job is not completely useless if you like it and just want to play it. But for efficiency... all you can do is damage, and your damage is significantly less than brainless pew-pew picto with buffs, heals and mobility. So why? For what reason I should prefer blm if not just for lulz? It's just sad tbh
@@koshi-dono idk about you but, regardless of relative in-game power level, I would pick BLM over PCT any day of the week because It feels cooler and more fun to hit my opponents with elemental evocations that shake the screen with their destructive power rather than like. Moogles and cartoon hammers. I don't need the damage numbers to be higher to feel that way. (But also i do think pictomancer is a bit overtuned lol)
BM is OK but I think they should rename this job to Pyromancer! We are using more fire spells & less ice & lightening spells! It no longer feels good to play anymore!
Some oddly specific questions for, well basically BLM between lvl 26 and 60 (only that specific cause it's where I'm at) regarding Thunder casts. The first thing I'm wondering is, while doing wall to wall pulls before the pack is settled, is it just best to do Transpose > Thunder 2 cycling while chasing the pack? It's the only thing that comes to mind to keep *some* uptime while not falling behind trying to cast Umbral/Astral spells, but I'm not sure if there's a better approach. Only other thing I get the sense is starting a spell cast while the tank is doing the first pull, but then just thunder spamming afterwards The other thing I'm not sure on is, due to still getting muscle memory down, I sometimes find myself in Umbral ice with a pretty fresh DOT for thunder 2/3. in those situations, is it still best to use my umbral cast of thunder, even if it only refreshes a few seconds on the DoT? I have to assume it would be, even if it's "less damage" immediately than going right back into Astral Fire, but it always feels strange to me. - I realize in an optimal rotation, thunder casts are always being spent since I'm still timing mine wrong, and it ensures the DoT's always active between states. But I'm far from optimal right now xD
I would say doing something is better than nothing, so if you have no other options for damage on the move, then thunder is good! Depending on target count, thundering one guy, and then another and so on can be better than using thunder 2 on all of them over and over! For your umbral ice example. Before level 60, OPTIMALLY, applying thunder when it is running out is best. It doesn't matter which mode you're in, as you have all the time in the world in both states. At level 60 reapplying in astral fire can be a bit tight, but OPTIMALLY reapplying when it is running out is best 😅 But if you need an instant for something, planning it like that can also work. Again, something is better than nothing! I hope this helps! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I'll just try to go on instinct and focus more on not letting it drop off entirely xD I dont get the sense BLM is going to be a main caster for me, but the leveling experience is fun, at least!
"Did you know...".... Retrace has no range limitation? :) Anyway. You still want cast fireIIs in your aoe rotation. It gives you time to get another tripplecast for flares. Its not fastest way, but more sustained, since hardcasting flare, flare, flare star is...ugh. Btw, did you know Ultima weapon prototype in Dun Scaith has Flare Star attack? Two proximity AoEs? About that opener, i have already seen it in another video....but problem is it demands pretty high spellspeed as its very intensive. Any small hiccup and you wont get despair out in time. I tried it couple times, without potion, and its only just. Im worried with potion, which takes little bit of time, it wont be reliable. I'll wait if something else shows up, so far there isnt much to find. So i stick to classic blizzard opener. Example would be ex trial 1. I start with b3, thunder, amplifier, b4, following with f3, f4, tripplecast because its time to run for the first mechanic, two f4s on the move to the edge, thunder, paradox, last tripplecast on f4....and since its time to run back to the centre, tripplecast, f4, swiftcast, f4, despair and flare star. Xenoglossy where time allows. Then boss use slow raidwide, so i drop ley lines, convert and do my rotation up to last f4 and despair(using fireproc in middle instead of paradox and paradox later, depends how it aligns), which is time to make another run to the edge. Sometimes you can cast flare star before dash, sometimes after which is harder because another mechanic, but you have fresh fireproc as backup. You really cannot do any complicated opener there, you have to try fit between mechanics best you can.
I have tried moving heaven and earth to get a 2nd Flare Star in the F3 opener and I couldn't figure it out (at least not in a way that wasn't a potency loss). I really wish SE would design around the F3 opener but they seem to be hard set on designing around the B3 opener.
@falcon43302 some ethers give enough for one F4 cast, so if you could manage to do the manafont part of the opener without using paradox at all, so you have 7 F4s, this can be possible with Firestarter used cleverly. Then you can use ether into another F4 perhaps after the final despair letting you use astral soul again. Not sure where to get the instant casts for it from though, maybe a xenoglossy? Unfortunately, ether shares cooldown with tinctures, which are far more impactful. So this wouldn't be worth the effort 😅
Thanks for the upload! One thing I’m confused about is why do you wait to cast ley lines before triple cast. Because ley lines is supposed to help reduce cast time while triple cast makes it instant. In other words wouldnt it be better to cast it after triple cast on cool down so it can last longer and speed up the fire 4s in the general rotation?
Just a quick tough. In the end of the single target rotations, would it not be better to just go flare and flare star instead of despair and being halfway in the flare star gauge? Potency wise it would be better
Flare taking a full extra second to cast I believe is the thing that makes the difference that makes it not worth it 😰 The important thing to keep in mind is potency per second in this case 🤔😅
im new to blm and have some questions: at 9:33 why not double weave LL and triplecast after thunder here? also at 9:48 why do you wait after until after two F4s before weaving LL and triplecast?
Typically when buffs like this are used at somewhat oddly "late" times, it is about timing it with raid buffs in a coordinated group. In the case of the ley lines, applying them at that time tends to enable ley lines to cover most or all of the manafont astral fire state, and while ley lines position won't move that much in the opener, the astral fire states will become longer as a result of despair and much later flare star, which would be nice to have in the ley lines too 😊 You can try and play with the ley lines timing a bit! In casual content it is a lot less likely there would be any coordinated buffs to play around anyway! 😊
All the time I've been playing lvl 100 Black Mage, I've done the AoE rotation wrong! Mostly because the "All"-cost on Flare has always been a red flag for me for no reason. I really need to get it right from now on. But does this mean that spamming High Fire II below lvl 100 is still better than just casting 2 Flares in a row, and then back to ice phase?
Dumb question. Throwing the sc after final f4 into flare over despair into flare star not worth it because of the slower start? I assume that it wont work because of the timeing required to squeeze in the potion/ keep the F4 rolling for the opening dmg. Just curious if you tested that.
This particular example has been calculated in the black mage community specifically because of the desire to have that extra flare star, but no, using flare instead of despair in this way is a loss by comparison unfortunately! 😢
@@CaetsuChaijiCh that's a bit sad 😢. It makes it feel like blm doesn't have the same payoff other jobs have by being lvl 100. GNB Feels so nice at 100, same with war.
I use 1-0 and - and + to access the bottom bar, however I use an mmo mouse with a thumb grid, which I specifically use the front six buttons to access the right hand side: 123 on the mouse is 0-+ on the hotbar. 456 on the mouse is 789 on the hotbar. The middle bar is accessed by holding shift, plus the previously mentioned system. The top bar is accessed by holding alt plus the previously mentioned system 😊
Due to how it would immediately make it impossible to reach flare star in that astral fire state, you would never do so under normal circumstances. However if something got completely in the way of your rotation and you had to refresh it and had no other options, it might be better? I just think at that point you would probably already have switched to ice to try and recover from there anyway! 😅🤔
Another question is when on AOE rotation and I cast triple cast for two flares and manafont for an extra flare. Should I proceed to cast another flare for 4 instant flares?
For aoe what I do if I have every cd ready I will high blizzard 2, freeze, high thunder 4, Leylines and amp, high fire 2, triple cast, flare, flare, flare star, then triple cast manafont, flare flare flarestar. The damage is super fun.
@@thenameisgibz3343if this is pre-100, you're not left with anything to do after that fourth flare other than B2+Freeze, so if you triplecast to make that fourth flare instant you're effectively wasting the other two instant spells on b2 and freeze. Seems like you would gain more from just using your second triplecast charge on your NEXT AF state. If this is post-100, the presence of Flare Star means you're only wasting one of the three, but again you could just triplecast your next AF and get 2 instant flares and a flare star, which seems to me like more of a gain.
Paradox, the action, was not removed. Commonly, we referred to paradox by ice or fire paradox because it functioned differently depending on whether you were in umbral ice or astral fire. Ice paradox has been removed, because paradox no longer works, at all, in umbral ice. Fire paradox got quite stacked, because it is now instant (which used to be something only ice paradox had), and it guarantees Firestarter instead of only having a chance. 😊
Just looking at that hotbar reminds me why I could never get into and enjoy this game. Having upwards of 36+ individual icons/buttons for playing some classes is just stupid. If they designed it properly (or re-designed) you could have the exact same classes with less than half the horrible UI and button bloat
Blm doesn't have many spells he just has random stuff on his bars all bunched together example he has return and sleep on his bars it's just the way he has it set up
While there are a lot of buttons, you can see in the demonstrations that I rely on about less than half of them to actively attack, and the rest are situational! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Oh I know ;) I play FF way way back at launch, and off and on a few times since. One of the major reasons I finally "gave up" on it was the UI and all the buttons required for classes. Sure, you only need half of them for most fights... but half of 36 is still a lot. They need to evolve and improve the UI and general combat experience. More contextual abilities. Best example I have is feral druids in WoW. used to be that you had to have unique buttons for abilities when in stealth, abilities when behind, abilities when in normal form, abilities when in bear, cat, human, etc. Now, the bars change based on what "stance" you're in. Abilities do "backstab" damage if you're behind, otherwise they just do normal damage... stuff like that. Same functionality.... far fewer buttons!
It's a shame the class has been cut off non-standard and became so easy to play. They really need to stop removing complexity from everything and then top-loading (hah, get it) the fights
I know some players that enjoyed non standard loads that suggest the way you are forced to play it at max level, while less complex, is harder than non standard 😊
Harder definitely doesn't always mean more challenging in an engaging way. It can be harder in a tedious way that's unpleasant. ..Which is what I'm seeing here, particularly for ultimates. TOP was bad enough already, but without the tools of non-standard it's just a no, screw that. lvl70 ult blm in ew had a pretty bad rep, but it was actually quite alright, but until the umbral soul level reduction it's comedically unplayable right now
@@jamesrickman6497nonstandard lines in endwalker were certainly more flexible and required more knowledge to utilize well. dawntrail black mage presents its own challenges in proper flarestar/despair sequencing with manafont up and properly fitting 3+ xenos into buff windows. while I dearly miss endwalker black mage, this version is still enjoyable and challenging to play at its full potential.
It's funny that youtube gave me this video despite the fact that you use keyboard, rather than a controller. Goes to show the state of google/youtube these days.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Right? I wish the search could be more useful, but alas, it seems either no-one has posted a video for it or google is just THAT incompetent.
I play on controller and find your guides immensely helpful. The buttons don’t change it’s just a layout. You hit them in the order daddy Cae recommends and that’s it
Here are all the significant changes to the game since the release of this guide:
7.1 Patch Notes:
Flare's cast time is now 3 seconds, making it worth finishing Astral Fire with certainly before level 60. I'd argue it might be worth using to finish Astral Fire states until you get Despair on single target.
Ley Lines now have 2 charges. This doesn't really change how you use it, but massively boosts its flexibility, and also gives you an "extra" use per duty.
Despair now is instant. This doesn't really change how you use it, but massively increases flexibility.
Enochian was changed from 33% to 32% at max level.
7.05 Patch Notes:
All three Thunders potencies were adjusted slightly. This doesn't really change how you use them. More importantly, Umbral Soul was adjusted: It now freezes the Umbral Ice timer when used. Furthermore, if used when out of combat, it immediately maxes out your MP and maxes you out to Umbral Ice 3, so you only need to press it once. Once unlocked at level 58, it also immediately gives 3 Umbral Hearts when out of combat. The timer is frozen until you switch to astral fire (thanks for the correction Dave). This means when running between fights, you simply have to switch to ice, and use Umbral Soul ONCE and you're good. If something like a cutscene appears in a fight, removing control of your character, if you can see it coming, using Umbral Soul before you lose control can preserve your Umbral Ice state until after the mechanic!
Additionally, aside from various potency increases, ICE PARADOX has been added back in! If you enter Umbral Ice from Astral Fire 3, you will gain a Paradox Marker. While you have a Paradox Marker, BOTH F1 and B1 turn into Paradox. The ICE version of Paradox is free to cast, increases Umbral Ice by 1 (not that it really matters much), but does NOT recover MP as it does Unaspected damage and not ICE damage. Due to its rather high potency, and flexibility, it may be beneficial to use Paradox whenever you are in Umbral Ice, however, due to its lack of impact on... Everything else in the rotation, depending on the situation, it can be skipped, or used for repositioning during Umbral Ice, whatever you fancy really. I am honestly not 100% at this time what is best, but I imagine using Ice paradox in every umbral ice state may at least be a good move!
7.01 Patch Notes:
Umbral Soul, which previously was a level 76 spell, has been moved down to level 35. You need to be in Umbral Ice to use it, and it simply increases your Umbral Ice state by 1, and recovers MP as if you cast an Ice Spell to do so - so like casting Blizzard 1 but with no target. When running between fights, use Transpose to switch to Umbral Ice and then repeatedly use Umbral Soul. When downtime presents itself in a fight, you can do this too.
At level 58, where Umbral Hearts are introduced, Umbral Soul is upgraded to also grant you one Umbral Heart per use. This does not change how you use it.
Wow, thanks for writing this! I was looking up umbral soul in the video and was wondering how to use it but you already explained how to use it after the update today! :) Thanks for your skill and rotation videos by the way, I'm a lvl 54 Black mage at the moment and I only know how to play because of your videos. Thanks again and keep it up! Your channel is an amazing resource for all (new and old) black mages out there!
@ZGaMeR2k3 I'm glad you found it helpful! Thank you! 😄
Honestly a huge change and massive qol for BLM, probably the biggest change in the entire patch if you ask me because it allows you to immediately get back in to doing damage after downtime in pretty much all relevant content, instead of having to spend time with the long cast of fire 3 or casting freeze/Blizzard 4 post lvl 58 to get umbral hearts.
I want to actually correct something with 7.05: at this time, casting anything doesn't cause the Umbral Ice timer to tick down, it's only when you switch to Astral Fire state. You can in theory cast blizzard 4 100 times in a row without the timer ticking.
@davethemage7081 oh wow really?! Okay that is pretty cool, that means when the boss looks like it's about to cutscene or something, you can go to ice, umbral soul, and then just fill with stuff there until it happens, instead of being stuck doing nothing because you did it early! 😁
Thanks for this guide, from a new player that decided to main BM
I hope you enjoy the journey!
Thanks for making this! I found your guide as soon as I hit lvl 80 and realized I absolutely do not have the mental juggling skills required to play this job even sub-optimally lmao It will be leveled through allied societies and frontline roulette, godspeed to anyone smart enough to play this job o7
I'm glad you found it helpful! Unfortunate you found the job too complicated, but that is alright! 😁
*SONG*
21 Job guides in dawntrail to goooo, 21 job guides in dawntrail!
Made a black-mage guide thats the best!
20 job guides in dawntrail to go.... :P
----
Thanks for the video again m8!
21 kinds of jobs on the wall, 21 kinds of jobs!
Take one down, guide it around
20 kinds of jobs on the wall! 🤣
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Yeah your rhryme is better :P
21 Job Guides in Dawntrail to go, 21 Job Guides to goooo!
Make one fine, post it online
20 Job Guides in Dawntrail to go!
This is one the jobs I barely play, I level it to 100 and forget about it. Thanks for the guide! I had completely forgotten BLM again. Now I can at least try to play decently on it and not grief lol.
I do hope you enjoy it a bit more now! 😊
I love your guides. Cannot wait to see scholar, summoner and pictomancer :)
Thank you so much! I'm glad to hear that! 😄
It ends. With BIG BANG ATTACK!
Also a good thing to note, one of the announcements today said that Umbral Soul will be getting a level reduction in 7.01. No indication of how much, but the wording implies it will be learned at a lower level post-patch
Indeed very true! I will mention it in a pinned comment when we actually have it! 😁
They did not say how they are changing BLM they just said they will address the issues but it would make sense to add a level reduction to umbral soul… or revert the dumb rework (jk it won’t happen)
@@dillon268 I personally like the rework, other than the loss of Ice Paradox. I know my opinion on the matter is a rather unpopular one, but I stick by it.
@@raarasunai4896I also like the rework (other than the loss of ice paradox) so you're not alone either
@raarasunai4896 the only good thing about the rework was integrating sharpcast into paradox, which is the same reason they removed the enochian button. The Astral Soul mechanics are ass.
I'm so amused at the idea of a genuinely viable AOE rotation being to use two triplecasts, swiftcast, manafont, and an ether to go Flare Flare FlareStar Flare Flare Flare FlareStar. This is the true black mage experience, ascending to the throne of Maximum Explosions Wizard
Explosions! MORE EXPLOSIONS!!
*I SAID MORE EXPLOSIONS!!!*
@brysonhunter3703 this is what I've been doing for days now. It's quite fun when you have all the cds ready. Then on the next Astral fire phase I hard cast 2 flares, use foul to weave swift cast then flare star.
How do you cast multiple flares in aoe rotation? It uses all your mana right?
@@paulb4480 At level 58, you unlock Umbral Hearts. If you cast Flare with at least one of these in hand, it only costs 2/3rds of your MP, and Flare accepts "all of your MP" as long as you have at least 800 for whatever reason, so if you have at least 2400 MP and 1 (or more) umbral hearts, you can cast Flare, land on 800 MP, and cast Flare again!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh oh wut i did not know that. Thanks!
Thank you for the guide. I was hoping to level Black Mage before the changes but didn't get a chance. I've been spending the bulk of DT level the job and it's been really fun. Even finding work arounds when I'm low on MP between dungeon pulls. I know a lot of the changes have been controversial and they're still working out the kinks with the new MP system, but I think there's something here worth building on.
They've already anounced a few changes to BLM with easier MP management at lower levels and increased potencies. But I wanted to get your opinion on two other pieces of criticism that have been swirling around.
1: Any Fire spell in AF should provide stacks of Astral Soul.
2: Any Spell cast in UI should restore MP
I feel that if *any* fire spell should grant astral soul, then flare star might need to work differently. And I don't think 6 works as the peak of its power. I also think there may be reason to say it has to be a spell that costs mp, otherwise Firestarter is going to be crazy!
Any spell giving mp in UI i feel kind of defeats the purpose of umbral ice. Players that want this, I feel, mainly envision themselves casting xenoglossy every time. Couple that with the astral soul thing you mentioned, and incidentally it is very easy and totally possible to get six astral soul stacks without umbral hearts making blizzard 4 pointless 😅
That is of course just my perspective, and I understand a lot of players asking these things are doing so because they want flexibility. I just see that that flexibility is likely going to be used to make other parts of the toolkit obsolete 😕
With that said, I am glad to hear you are taking the changes in stride! I've also had fun relearning the job with the changes! 😊
Great stuff, TY for the guide!
I'm glad to hear that you found it helpful! Thank you! :D
Saved, now waiting on the AST guide😊
Yay! 😄
oh yeah, astro would be better then a new warrior guide XD
i didnt think about that, i was thinking about my mains
@@SageTheDragonWitchAren't we all? Though I feel like I have an important guide and a less important guide to wait for (DRG and RPR respectively) lol
So one Lvl 100 opener i experimented with (even though it feels awful), was Fire 3, High Thunder (Weave Ley Lines + Amplifier), 2x Fire 4, Xenoglossy (Weave Triplecast), Fire 4, Flare (to get max my gauge) and Flare Star, followed by Mana Font and then our normal fire/ice rotation
That got me very similar results to doing a normal Ice opener at least
I got to 1% on Stone, Sky, Sea lvl 100 Extreme Trials with that Flare opener, only using EW food as a fresh 690 ilvl and no potion
( Also i just realized after watching your gameplay in the background while you explain stuff, that i very often forget to Transpose before Fire 3ing when i have a free cast, for some extra potency... That alone might've been enough to beat Stone, Sky, Sea back then :'D )
It makes sense it would give you similar results! 😊
The unfortunate reality is that if you replace the flare and flare star with F4 and despair, you gain 10 potency 😰
While it would be a "slower" opener, given it adds a GCD to it, if you replace the despair here with flare, you could then do flare star (since that should bring you to 7 astral soul stacks) and then continue the rotation, however this would also impact where you place triple casts i suppose, and it might get extremely tight on time then! 😅
And yes the F3 trick could give you a bit extra! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh oh true, i didn't even pay too close attention at the potencies there 🤣
At least now i know for sure F4 + Despair is always gonna outdo Flare + Flare Star 😅
It just.. feels bad to cast more F4 and Despair, when you end up not even getting the juicy Flare Star.
But on the other hand, i believe the "optimal opener" is always gonna depend on the length of the fight, if you wanna minmax (or the mechanics of the fight, like the with Valigarmanda EX at the start, where you cant Ley Lines on pull, because you have to move very early. There it felt alot better to open "slower" with ice and "delay" fire a little until i can place Ley Lines)
And sometimes it might not even matter if i do extra F4's before Despair on the opener, because (in theory at least) you could very well end up spending exactly those F4 GCDs you didn't do on your opener, with more F4's at the end of a fight instead.
BLM is such a love/hate relationship for me, where it feels awkward for a while until you really learn a fight, and then it feels amazing to play :'D
Thanks for the input btw!
They really gotta look at the potencies for blizzard 2 and fire 2 (and their upgrades), forgoing those spells for a umbral ice 1 freeze, transposing, casting flare twice, casting flare star, and transposing back is being considered to be more effective assuming you put instant cast spells before each transpose, I don’t know how that translates to lower levels or if it even does more potency per second in aoe
The key is that it still requires you to instant cast basically all of it for it to be a gain.
Given that it is a specific circumstance I don't see an issue with leaving that as a beneficial strategy (it's like a vestige of non standard!)
But on that note, I do think fire 2 and blizzard 2 deserves more potency!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I really wish the calculation for the aoe potency per second was easier to clear confusion, but I'm still divided since on paper against a target, taking 6 seconds to do 200 potency to all targets vs taking 4 seconds to do 240 potency to the first target and 144 to the remaining targets...I dunno, this is nothing to mention of flare star's potency weirdness
They tend to not touch BLM potencies per skill, and instead alter the damage modifier in Enochian. Enochian buff is not listed on the potencies so it can make it look kind of weird!
But the damage does need a bit of work heh
@prismriver659 actually part of the reason for the problems with fire 2 and blizzard 2 going into dawntrail is that they nerfed both high fire 2 and high blizzard 2 from 140 potency to 100 potency! So while you are right they tend to not touch them, they have made exceptions! 😅
I believe blizzard 2 and fire 2 were also straight 100 potency before dawntrail while we are on the subject!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh they also nerfed Flare’s potency, while individually on tooltips flare was buffed, they took away Enhanced Flare which took Flare from I think 200 potency to 280 potency in Endwalker, now it is a flat 240 potency (ignoring fall off to other targets)
Super helpful thank you
I'm glad to hear that! Thank you!
im so lost Q.Q i got this job to 80 in shb through alliance roulette and now i dont know what to do and its all so confusing
I recommend watching my 1-50 starter guide. (there should be a link in the description I think, otherwise search for my channel and black mage 1-50 and a dawntrail related video should pop up)
Read the patch note changes in the pinned comment, a few smaller things changed in regards to umbral soul so it's worth knowing.
Then watch this guide again, and make sure you follow and understand each part one at a time up to the point your black mage is at level wise.
Many have said they found it immensely helpful to practice each thing in the video on a striking dummy as I explain it.
I am confident you can do this if you want! 😁
@CaetsuChaijiCh thank you! I will try my best! 🙏🏼🦋
@thehighfolk if you end up with particular questions you are also welcome to ask them and I will try my best to help!
Love love love lvlng BLM. so much fun as everything changes constantly and you have to figure it all out :D
That's a very positive spin on it! That's great to hear! 😄
I leveledy black mage from 1-80
And as soon as endwalker came out, I just stopped lvling black mage (aside from a journal every now and then)
Now that it's dawntrail, I need a job that can do fates, and I haveachinist, and black mage to lvl using them
Do I remember how to play black mage, GOD NO
So hopefully I can watch this when I get home and relearn
I hope it will help! And good luck with the journey!
Yeah after the high fire changes to potency i instinctively went into flare spam and it felt weird but also wasnt gonna touch high fire lmao.
Its even stranger now because with the recent Flare buffs, at level 100, flare flare flarestar -> transpose -> Freeze -> Thunder/Foul -> Transpose -> Repeat is actually more effective! :/
I know it’s not optimal, but l found that when your in your astral fire cast
2 Fire IV then Paradox then 2 Fire IV then Fire 3 proc then 2 Fire IV and finish with Despair and Flare Star.
You lose your instant Fire 3 to go back into Astral Fire but this provides more flexibility for movement and weaving Xenoglossy or Thunder procs.
Of course, ultimately you need to use paradox and fire starter for when you need to move, but also refresh astral fire, so you could get very weird with it depending on your needs! 😊
Did you know Black Mage is the top of the DPS cha-
Pictomancer: Look at me, I'm the new top DPS chart now.
I'm not the biggest fan of those mana regen changes, but I hope they just return the old one or give us something to easily regen back when we're not in battle. Especially those under lvl 50.
Well, a job doesn't need to be at the top to be fun! As long as it is strong enough that it isn't getting excluded or something! 😅
I do hope we get umbral soul or something at lower level!
@CaetsuChaijiCh true! Pray they just bring back ice paradox. Hahaha. 🥲
@@CaetsuChaijiChthat's true, job is not completely useless if you like it and just want to play it.
But for efficiency... all you can do is damage, and your damage is significantly less than brainless pew-pew picto with buffs, heals and mobility.
So why? For what reason I should prefer blm if not just for lulz?
It's just sad tbh
@@koshi-dono idk about you but, regardless of relative in-game power level, I would pick BLM over PCT any day of the week because It feels cooler and more fun to hit my opponents with elemental evocations that shake the screen with their destructive power rather than like. Moogles and cartoon hammers. I don't need the damage numbers to be higher to feel that way.
(But also i do think pictomancer is a bit overtuned lol)
BM is OK but I think they should rename this job to Pyromancer! We are using more fire spells & less ice & lightening spells! It no longer feels good to play anymore!
Some oddly specific questions for, well basically BLM between lvl 26 and 60 (only that specific cause it's where I'm at) regarding Thunder casts.
The first thing I'm wondering is, while doing wall to wall pulls before the pack is settled, is it just best to do Transpose > Thunder 2 cycling while chasing the pack? It's the only thing that comes to mind to keep *some* uptime while not falling behind trying to cast Umbral/Astral spells, but I'm not sure if there's a better approach. Only other thing I get the sense is starting a spell cast while the tank is doing the first pull, but then just thunder spamming afterwards
The other thing I'm not sure on is, due to still getting muscle memory down, I sometimes find myself in Umbral ice with a pretty fresh DOT for thunder 2/3. in those situations, is it still best to use my umbral cast of thunder, even if it only refreshes a few seconds on the DoT? I have to assume it would be, even if it's "less damage" immediately than going right back into Astral Fire, but it always feels strange to me.
- I realize in an optimal rotation, thunder casts are always being spent since I'm still timing mine wrong, and it ensures the DoT's always active between states. But I'm far from optimal right now xD
I would say doing something is better than nothing, so if you have no other options for damage on the move, then thunder is good! Depending on target count, thundering one guy, and then another and so on can be better than using thunder 2 on all of them over and over!
For your umbral ice example. Before level 60, OPTIMALLY, applying thunder when it is running out is best. It doesn't matter which mode you're in, as you have all the time in the world in both states. At level 60 reapplying in astral fire can be a bit tight, but OPTIMALLY reapplying when it is running out is best 😅
But if you need an instant for something, planning it like that can also work. Again, something is better than nothing!
I hope this helps! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I'll just try to go on instinct and focus more on not letting it drop off entirely xD I dont get the sense BLM is going to be a main caster for me, but the leveling experience is fun, at least!
"Did you know...".... Retrace has no range limitation? :)
Anyway. You still want cast fireIIs in your aoe rotation. It gives you time to get another tripplecast for flares. Its not fastest way, but more sustained, since hardcasting flare, flare, flare star is...ugh.
Btw, did you know Ultima weapon prototype in Dun Scaith has Flare Star attack? Two proximity AoEs?
About that opener, i have already seen it in another video....but problem is it demands pretty high spellspeed as its very intensive. Any small hiccup and you wont get despair out in time. I tried it couple times, without potion, and its only just. Im worried with potion, which takes little bit of time, it wont be reliable. I'll wait if something else shows up, so far there isnt much to find. So i stick to classic blizzard opener.
Example would be ex trial 1. I start with b3, thunder, amplifier, b4, following with f3, f4, tripplecast because its time to run for the first mechanic, two f4s on the move to the edge, thunder, paradox, last tripplecast on f4....and since its time to run back to the centre, tripplecast, f4, swiftcast, f4, despair and flare star. Xenoglossy where time allows. Then boss use slow raidwide, so i drop ley lines, convert and do my rotation up to last f4 and despair(using fireproc in middle instead of paradox and paradox later, depends how it aligns), which is time to make another run to the edge. Sometimes you can cast flare star before dash, sometimes after which is harder because another mechanic, but you have fresh fireproc as backup.
You really cannot do any complicated opener there, you have to try fit between mechanics best you can.
Great guide! Would it make sense to use an ether single target to get another despair if you aren’t using a tincture?
If you can make sure you swiftcast so the ether is weaved properly then I can at least only imagine it is beneficial! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh thanks! I’ll give it a try!
oh shit fuck dude, Im levelling black mage rn and this was what I needed, waiting for you to do a monk guide too
I'm glad to hear it, thank you! 😄
I have tried moving heaven and earth to get a 2nd Flare Star in the F3 opener and I couldn't figure it out (at least not in a way that wasn't a potency loss).
I really wish SE would design around the F3 opener but they seem to be hard set on designing around the B3 opener.
I guess what it would take ultimately is if flare did enough damage on single target to make it not a loss! 😅 But that's so specific!
Mana pots? Not sure how much Dawntrail pots give. Haven’t leveled my DoH yet
@falcon43302 some ethers give enough for one F4 cast, so if you could manage to do the manafont part of the opener without using paradox at all, so you have 7 F4s, this can be possible with Firestarter used cleverly. Then you can use ether into another F4 perhaps after the final despair letting you use astral soul again. Not sure where to get the instant casts for it from though, maybe a xenoglossy?
Unfortunately, ether shares cooldown with tinctures, which are far more impactful. So this wouldn't be worth the effort 😅
Thanks for the upload! One thing I’m confused about is why do you wait to cast ley lines before triple cast. Because ley lines is supposed to help reduce cast time while triple cast makes it instant. In other words wouldnt it be better to cast it after triple cast on cool down so it can last longer and speed up the fire 4s in the general rotation?
It reduces recast time too.
Indeed, ley lines reduces both the cast and recast time! 😊
@@koshi-dono Oh didn’t know that
Just a quick tough. In the end of the single target rotations, would it not be better to just go flare and flare star instead of despair and being halfway in the flare star gauge? Potency wise it would be better
Flare taking a full extra second to cast I believe is the thing that makes the difference that makes it not worth it 😰
The important thing to keep in mind is potency per second in this case 🤔😅
im new to blm and have some questions:
at 9:33 why not double weave LL and triplecast after thunder here?
also at 9:48 why do you wait after until after two F4s before weaving LL and triplecast?
Typically when buffs like this are used at somewhat oddly "late" times, it is about timing it with raid buffs in a coordinated group.
In the case of the ley lines, applying them at that time tends to enable ley lines to cover most or all of the manafont astral fire state, and while ley lines position won't move that much in the opener, the astral fire states will become longer as a result of despair and much later flare star, which would be nice to have in the ley lines too 😊
You can try and play with the ley lines timing a bit! In casual content it is a lot less likely there would be any coordinated buffs to play around anyway! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh i see, thanks for answering! your guide has helped me a lot
All the time I've been playing lvl 100 Black Mage, I've done the AoE rotation wrong! Mostly because the "All"-cost on Flare has always been a red flag for me for no reason. I really need to get it right from now on. But does this mean that spamming High Fire II below lvl 100 is still better than just casting 2 Flares in a row, and then back to ice phase?
No, below 100 you cast high fire 2 until you have one umbral heart left, then you cast flare twice. 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Thanks!
Make a Pictomancer guide please
I'm working on it! 😅
WAR next?
So the opener from endwalker really has been extended I’m assuming? After manafont that’s when the endwalker opener comes back in?
Not sure. I feel like after manafont is a bit of its own opener, but I guess it's slightly similar? 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh the only way I could have solved it thinking on my own is starting in ice at this point
Dumb question. Throwing the sc after final f4 into flare over despair into flare star not worth it because of the slower start? I assume that it wont work because of the timeing required to squeeze in the potion/ keep the F4 rolling for the opening dmg. Just curious if you tested that.
This particular example has been calculated in the black mage community specifically because of the desire to have that extra flare star, but no, using flare instead of despair in this way is a loss by comparison unfortunately! 😢
@@CaetsuChaijiCh that's a bit sad 😢. It makes it feel like blm doesn't have the same payoff other jobs have by being lvl 100. GNB Feels so nice at 100, same with war.
@chump5876 aside from the janky optimized opener I feel blm is nice! But yeah it is weird! 😅
What keybinds do you use to do spells on 3 hotbars
I use 1-0 and - and + to access the bottom bar, however I use an mmo mouse with a thumb grid, which I specifically use the front six buttons to access the right hand side: 123 on the mouse is 0-+ on the hotbar. 456 on the mouse is 789 on the hotbar.
The middle bar is accessed by holding shift, plus the previously mentioned system.
The top bar is accessed by holding alt plus the previously mentioned system 😊
sorry if you've said this already.. But do you ever use a regular fire 1 during level cap rotations? level 100
Due to how it would immediately make it impossible to reach flare star in that astral fire state, you would never do so under normal circumstances.
However if something got completely in the way of your rotation and you had to refresh it and had no other options, it might be better? I just think at that point you would probably already have switched to ice to try and recover from there anyway! 😅🤔
Emard Causeway
Another question is when on AOE rotation and I cast triple cast for two flares and manafont for an extra flare. Should I proceed to cast another flare for 4 instant flares?
For aoe what I do if I have every cd ready I will high blizzard 2, freeze, high thunder 4, Leylines and amp, high fire 2, triple cast, flare, flare, flare star, then triple cast manafont, flare flare flarestar. The damage is super fun.
I’m level 73 so I haven’t unlocked those yet, but I’ll keep this mind when I do
You could swiftcast for a fourth flare but you could also just cast the fourth flare normally! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Ahh ok. So let’s say I don’t have a swift cast. Would you recommend using another triple cast or save it until the next rotation
@@thenameisgibz3343if this is pre-100, you're not left with anything to do after that fourth flare other than B2+Freeze, so if you triplecast to make that fourth flare instant you're effectively wasting the other two instant spells on b2 and freeze. Seems like you would gain more from just using your second triplecast charge on your NEXT AF state. If this is post-100, the presence of Flare Star means you're only wasting one of the three, but again you could just triplecast your next AF and get 2 instant flares and a flare star, which seems to me like more of a gain.
Thought they got rid of paradox??
Only ice paradox! Fire paradox got quite stacked to compensate!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh huh? I mean the actual action paradox was removed..I’m confused on what you mean by ice and fire paradox
Paradox, the action, was not removed. Commonly, we referred to paradox by ice or fire paradox because it functioned differently depending on whether you were in umbral ice or astral fire.
Ice paradox has been removed, because paradox no longer works, at all, in umbral ice.
Fire paradox got quite stacked, because it is now instant (which used to be something only ice paradox had), and it guarantees Firestarter instead of only having a chance. 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh you are correct..I was doing roulettes and didn’t realize I was under level 90..derp
Just looking at that hotbar reminds me why I could never get into and enjoy this game.
Having upwards of 36+ individual icons/buttons for playing some classes is just stupid.
If they designed it properly (or re-designed) you could have the exact same classes with less than half the horrible UI and button bloat
Blm doesn't have many spells he just has random stuff on his bars all bunched together example he has return and sleep on his bars it's just the way he has it set up
Back to Minecraft for you. It's really not that hard fam
While there are a lot of buttons, you can see in the demonstrations that I rely on about less than half of them to actively attack, and the rest are situational! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Oh I know ;)
I play FF way way back at launch, and off and on a few times since. One of the major reasons I finally "gave up" on it was the UI and all the buttons required for classes. Sure, you only need half of them for most fights... but half of 36 is still a lot.
They need to evolve and improve the UI and general combat experience. More contextual abilities.
Best example I have is feral druids in WoW. used to be that you had to have unique buttons for abilities when in stealth, abilities when behind, abilities when in normal form, abilities when in bear, cat, human, etc.
Now, the bars change based on what "stance" you're in. Abilities do "backstab" damage if you're behind, otherwise they just do normal damage... stuff like that. Same functionality.... far fewer buttons!
@@pxprimary3790 so you want it dumbed down to wow standards haha play viper it literally gives you a glowie line to follow
It's a shame the class has been cut off non-standard and became so easy to play. They really need to stop removing complexity from everything and then top-loading (hah, get it) the fights
I know some players that enjoyed non standard loads that suggest the way you are forced to play it at max level, while less complex, is harder than non standard 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I respectfully disagree. It's just more punishing but that doesn't make it harder
Harder definitely doesn't always mean more challenging in an engaging way. It can be harder in a tedious way that's unpleasant. ..Which is what I'm seeing here, particularly for ultimates. TOP was bad enough already, but without the tools of non-standard it's just a no, screw that. lvl70 ult blm in ew had a pretty bad rep, but it was actually quite alright, but until the umbral soul level reduction it's comedically unplayable right now
We could go back to heavensward where some classes were so weird they basically weren't allowed in high end content...
@@jamesrickman6497nonstandard lines in endwalker were certainly more flexible and required more knowledge to utilize well. dawntrail black mage presents its own challenges in proper flarestar/despair sequencing with manafont up and properly fitting 3+ xenos into buff windows. while I dearly miss endwalker black mage, this version is still enjoyable and challenging to play at its full potential.
The opener is so unfun now. We just needed garanteed fire 3 proc and sharpcast gone. That's all.
Transpose into picto
As a BLM idk if the class feels boring or I just wanna try something new like picto for a bit 😅
With all the new stuff it wouldn't be surprising if you were more excited about different jobs!
It's funny that youtube gave me this video despite the fact that you use keyboard, rather than a controller. Goes to show the state of google/youtube these days.
Well unless you specifically looked for a controller guide, I don't see why the advice in the video couldn't be useful for you 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Right? I wish the search could be more useful, but alas, it seems either no-one has posted a video for it or google is just THAT incompetent.
I play on controller and find your guides immensely helpful. The buttons don’t change it’s just a layout. You hit them in the order daddy Cae recommends and that’s it
you change to Pictomancer, you welcome
Calling this an advanced guide is a bit of a clickbait.
*insert xkcd comic about experts vastly over estimating the knowledge of a lay person*