Let me preface this by saying that I love BLU. It was my first job to L75, and I've been taking all of the notes I can. Here's where BLU is good:
Support spells: Comes with own self-haste in Refueling, Blink, Stoneskin, AoE Stoneskin via Diamondhide, Feather Tickle is great for reducing TP (Light of Penance, not so much), Feather Barrier is great for an Evasion boost, and you have your drain spells in Blood Drain, Digest, or Blood Saber (for AoE), as well as MP Drainkiss or Magic Hammer for MP drain (so long as they are not undead). *I also didn't tack on Auto-Refresh, as that costs a lot of slots and points which could be better suited elsewhere.
Offensive spells: 1. Mind Blast with a 5 second cast at 9.9 yalms 2. Heat Breath with a 10 second cast at 11.9 yalms 3. Flying Hip Press with an 8 second cast at 4.9 yalms
For Healing: Our Magic Fruit costs a smidge more what a Cure 4 would, and can hit upwards to what a Cure 5 would with 500 HPs.
Briefly touched upon for downsides: Basically only 3 damage spells vs level-equiv or higher enemies. Our heal spells are party-only. They are unable to be used on people in an alliance or not in your party. /THF and Sneak/Trick Attack don't work for Phys spells. Furthermore, Phys spells in general do not hit with any form of regularity despite +Acc gear and +Acc (and +Mag acc for kicks) merits. No AF.
What could be improved: Currently, 292 is the cap for Blue Magic with merits, and then there's the +5 from relic (not counting maybe getting +4 from the -1 feet with Wyrm Abj) is the only thing we can do to currently bump that up. I personally would genuinely be happy with being able to buy the L60 AF Magus Jubbah for 1 mil gil for example, for the immediate now, without stressing about the range of so many other spells.
I have faith that our 2 hour will work at some point. Also, that Phys Spells will eventually be addressed. I recall on retail, the big ones were Bludgeon, Death Scissors, Frentic Rip, and Cannonball. Maybe also Disservement? Some things just will never be addressed due to "out of era," like being able to get Fast Cast trait as we do not have access to those zones, but that's life.
For the comment that we could AoE well, and had 2 drains and 2 MP drains... we did. But now, 3 yalms or somesuch to use Blood Drain? It's far less beneficial. Just like Head Butt with the stun being applied is less common as well, and can't be done from 20.9 yalms away. We were gimp-ish and were a Jack-of-Jack-of-all-Trades as it was with that range boost. I realize that only being able to cast heal spells in-party was that way on retail as well and will likely not be changed. That was offset by us doing solid damage be it physical or as a mage. I realize we are not the powerhouse nukers that Black Mages are with sheer damage. We are a less-tanky Red Mage, that can't heal as well, can't solo as well, and our spells can be a lot of work to learn. The counter-argument of, "Why not just play Red Mage, then?" is not applicable. It is a different class entirely.
I have heard there is talk of nerfing our main damage spell, Mind Blast. I see less than zero reason why this should be the case. Even if it is factually true that it can do 2,500+ on VERY SPECIFIC ENEMIES like some Gods, the reality is that a Black Mage can cast another spell from twice the distance away that will mean more damage than our one spell (sure, at the cost of more MP) while we're waiting 30 seconds on our recast timer to do Mind Blast again, at 9.9 yalms. This is not a complaint, merely a logical reason to not change the one great thing about the job.
Last edited by Strael on Sat Apr 22, 2017 3:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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