At least FF14 teaches you casting only fire spells doesn't work right away, and not when you reach Hell difficulty in Diablo 2 and find your fire exclusive sorceress can't hurt any demons...
Yea, D2 is pretty hilarious with how some builds just suddenly stop working in Hell, or in certain zones where everything is immune, or least resistant, to your damage type.
Oh fun! Elemental immunities in a game with creative build options! At that point it feels very much like the game going "do whatever you like, oh except that!" 😂
@@CaetsuChaijiCh It's a bit worse in D2 than other RPGs, perhaps, because the game strongly encourages you to dump all points into a single elemental tree, due to how skills gain bonus damage based on how many points you put into other (connected) skills in the same tree, until it then very severely punishes you for doing so. 🙃 Similar thing with poison.
@@NatiiixLP forb my beloved, 25 skill points for a perfectly usable alternate damage type then you run into the countess who is both fire *and* cold immune so you have to wait for Emilio to do his thing
@@siosilvar I wouldn't just say "run into Countess", because if you're playing LoD (or R), you will most likely want to _farm_ Countess quite a lot, and, good god, will it hurt with those immunities... 💀
One time in Baelsar's wall i met a blm that...ONLY. casted flare, like exclusively flare, nothing else. Just flare. Then he would transpose, wait in ice for mp, transpose, flare.
I also think an additional reason why Black mage has the reputation of bieng the most missunderstood job is how easy it is to notice when someone plays it wrong since everything you do is proudly displayed on the party list. Jobs that don't have cast times can more often be played wrong without the party noticing.
Oh absolutely 100%. The fact black mage has the longest cast times on average also means whatever choice you made is prominently displayed for the longest possible time! This is also why, for example, red mages spamming slow spells are a much more likely to observe mistake than... Somehow... Red mages spamming melee combos without mana! 😁
I'm impressed by the variety of ways in which BLM can be played completely incorrectly, yet still somewhat logically, if you ignore all the tooltips and numbers.
I dont think ive said this, but thank you for making these guides. Learning the game is much more fun, and easier to understand with your breakdowns. Also, i would like to say that you are my inspiration to be a mentor and help others. Thank you so very much, Cae!
Thank you so much, Panda! That makes me very happy to hear! Words like this are something I always appreciate 🥰 And I hope you have lots of fun helping others as well! 😄
Agreed. The amount of info for white mage that I passively absorbed before I properly started it in the last month or two has made it a very pleasant experience xD
I remember a reddit post one time where someone went and parsed themselves trying ice mage.... Sadly, they were parsing higher than some randoms they were paired with....
hard cast red mage is my favorite. a player sees the longer cast time spells do more damage, and they can do two in a row, so.... they do, completely ignoring their short cast time spells. surely, if you're spending all this time casting a spell, it must be stronger, right?
I've seen a lot of people transposing into ice, then using lucid dreaming, transposing into fire to get a despair off, transposing back, etc while lucid dreaming is up
Yeah there are a few recent non standard lines that involve transposing into ice with lucid, hanging out long enough to get 800+ mp transposing to fire and then using despair. I recall this one being considered helpful if, say, manafont is almost ready as it allows you to play for time for about 10 seconds, so you don't have to finish the fire phase, exit and do a whole new fire phase for 30 seconds before it is time to manafont. It makes things slightly smoother! But it is more complex than what it might initially look like and I'm sure some black mages get that one wrong too!
if a Black Mage is casting lucid dreaming, they're either playing non-standard or insane. It doesn't really have a place in the "intended" mana economy for BLM, but you can do weird things with it
You know, i have played for a long time and have always heard about these ice mages but i have literally never once met someone that thinks like that. Even when the ice spells had binds. The closest i ever came to someone that acted like this was i once met a bard that refused to play songs because they were a sniper, not a singer. And when i explained all their strongest attacks are locked behind using songs they didnt care, and when i suggested they try machinist because thatd be a job that fits their role play desire better they said they didnt want to go back to level 30.... Because they were already level 50 lmao
Let's say I've only met a handful of ice mages in my years of playing, which is how I at least know there's a handful of different possible causes and reasons! As you mentioned yourself, sometimes you'll meet a player that has decided to play a job completely counter to what all logic suggests, and nothing you can say will sway them! Some of the players that go off track often either figure it out, or are told relatively early, some of them may need a more detailed explanation to change course! 😅 Let's just say I met an ice mage at level 96! Also thank you for sharing that story, that's equally ridiculous! 🤣
I hope this "already level 50" happened back in ARR, not recently, because... lol. But, yeah, same, I've never seen an "ice mage" on JP. I see people only using single-target in trash pulls, or only AoE skills in boss fights. I see healers not being a green DPS and wasting GCDs. I see tanks engaging in all manners of madness, often without any mits or even without stance. I see RDM not using their melee combo at all, or spamming their melee combo whenever they can be in melee range. But a BLM with permanently full mana is something quite easy to notice, and I never noticed it so far.
@@dustinhatfield8373 Damn, well, of course if didn't happen in ARR if you're talking about MCH, lol, I'm an idiot. I kinda relate to not wanting to re-level, but I also like playing all kinds of jobs, but yea, 30 to 50 really doesn't take very long. However, I'm also someone who'd much much rather play Archer, Rogue and Gladiator with the original class design rather than the jobs they become. The classes feel cool, but the jobs feel pretty meh to me.
@@NatiiixLP it would definitely be nice if the classes were still viable as their own thing like they were back in the day. I can sympathize with them for sure I would much rather be a ranger than a bard. Though I will say dawntrail bard is my favorite iteration of bard. It went from being the job i disliked the most overall to being my favorite physical range
I have simple advice for a level 100 Black Mage. "If you cast Flare Star, you're doing it right". The puzzle of figuring out how to build up the Astral Gauge and earn a Flare Star without running out of MP (or Astral Fire, for single target rotation) is enough to lead players down the correct path.
I agree, but something about flare star still seems underwhelming. After all the build up, it still hits like a fire 4. That should be the bigger hitter along with xenoglossy.
I was actually expecting to see something about it here. I picked it up for the express purpose of learning how to do it. It certainly isn't the optimal choice to use, but it will hold up in terms of raw damage once you can keep it going
Yeah that one is an interesting one! I would say personally that it is viable enough that putting it on a list like this would be unfair! It actually kind of works! 😁
@CaetsuChaijiCh It does need some practice and even a little bit of specialized gear or over-gearing in some cases, but it can either clear or come extremely close to taking out stone, Sky, sea dummies in practice. If you do make a video talking about it, I can personally confirm from the experience that having too much spell speed can potentially hurt the rotation. Leylines makes it difficult to use transpose without having to wait a fraction of a second constantly. It probably is a little bit faster than it would be normally, but also becomes locked to the transpose timer instead of the gcd timer. I was actually doing it both to see what max speed would be like, but also because I was curious whether it was possible to completely eliminate the need for leylines entirely unless you were planning to have a burst window in the middle somewhere. Even using patchwork (anything with speed on it) gear for the most part, I can still keep up quite well in the content I have done. I haven't done all current savage/extreme stuff, but I do intend to see how well it does when I get the chance.
@Mystery27zx to the speed part: yeah that's indeed because transpose's cooldown is a huge limiting factor, so you don't want any speed! Back in endwalker I actually did demonstrate the infinite paradox rotation which equally didn't work well if you had spell speed! 😁 For that reason, ley lines definitely doesn't make things easier! 😂
@CaetsuChaijiCh It actually throws off the entire rotation even without leylines as well. With some speed, you don't have any issues, but the closer you get to max speed, the more it tends to cause lag time for triple and swiftcast, because you wind up using them so quickly they actually can't come off cooldown fast enough for you to use them again. If speed is desired, a "healthy maximum" is actually somewhere around 2.35 seconds on the safer side. A "perfect flow" actually is somewhere around 2.4 seconds, though it does assume the use of leylines for more damage.
well. glad i actually watched this through. because your description of 'Transpose Mage' is basically just the very early levels as a Thaumaturge when you basically only have Fire Blizzard, Transpose and Thunder (why do sleep and addle exist?). where avoiding the unaspected state requires using Transpose, which at least between reading tooltips (speaking from the new player end of things) seems like the thing to do as you go a whole arduous cast time cycle without a damage bonus or mp on hit. is interesting to know that whole flow eventually gets axed, or i guess more accurately transpose gets supplanted entirely (feels extremely weird but it works how it works at higher levels i suppose). must store this in memory somewhere.
Something to keep in mind is that at even higher levels, players have found ways to optimize making use of transpose for damage gains, but it is not necessary for the basic rotation at least, once you get to level 35 or so 😊
one thing that bugs me is when i run into people in lower levels that tell me i'm doing the fire rotation wrong and that i should be using fire 3 as my main damage instead of fire 1.....
@@CaetsuChaijiCh legit had a wanderer's palace (hard) run with a tank that wouldn't read chat and pull the mobs out of the red circles that gave a buff me and the healer were trying to tell them about that buff. multiple wipes at the final boss and my co dps who was a blm as well was basically blaming me for the wipes because i wasn't casting fire 3 as the main attack when it was plain obvious that it's becaus the tank wasn't pulling the boss out of the red circles 😅
…This video reminds me that I need to win a duel in Bozja with the new (and still bad) single-element black mage rotations. Ice Mage, Scathe/Xenoglossy Mage, Thunder Mage… I think Scathe/Xenoglossy Mage is dead because umbral ice regen is gone, but the other two should be interesting with the new changes.
If you allow yourself to set up umbral ice, and to use umbral soul, then scathe could work (I mean, in theory, it's up to you to make the rest of the way! 😂) Good luck! It sounds really hard!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Yeah, I might have to make use of Umbral Soul, despite it technically being an ice spell. Does no damage after all, so it shouldn’t count, right? Also thank you! Flexing on the fire-only mage with any single element BLM is always funny to do, so I’m hoping that I’m able to pull off what I did in EW despite those playstyles being nerfed-
I wouldn't say Black Mage is that complicated in its rotation. One of the problems, which I run into at times, is being able to maintain Astral Fire. 15 seconds isn't that long time, and it's quite easy forget to use Fire I/Paradox to keep it running. In the heat of combat, if you need to move, this can become an even bigger issue. Before getting Triplecast, this can happen quite often in my experience. I haven't seen that many Ice Mages, but I have seen level 60+ Black Mages, that still do level 50 rotation.
Genuine question. What are you supposed to cast while on the move, when both quick cast and triple casts are on cooldown? Scathe > transpose > thunder spell is the only "rotation" that seems to make sense. (Not level 100 BLM yet)
At low level, thunder and scathe cycling like that is legitimately a decent option. As you level up and get options like triple cast, you start having way more ability to get creative with it. I would say if both swift and triple cast are on cooldown and you have nothing else available, that's a planning issue! At 80+ xenoglossy is an instant option. At 90+, paradox is technically also an option. At 100 even despair is an instant option, so it is a lot about thinking ahead a bit or saving something just in case! 😊
If we're talking about "on the move" like when the tank is running out front pulling a bunch of trash, I've found that you can almost always get at least 1 or 2 AoE casts off by using Aetheric Manipulation targeting the tank/another melee to bring yourself back to the front of the pack, giving yourself time to cast a spell or two while enemies are running past you
While I haven't seen an off-brand Black Mage since HW, I did have a funny moment recently where I accidently made someone into a Transpose Mage. I was talking with someone about the idea of Transposing into Astral and using a Firestarter proc over just using the proc to switch to Astral, and someone leveling BLM misunderstood it to mean Transposing was always a gain. We cleared it up eventually after doing a leveling roulette together.
I use this rotation: Swiftcast -> Fire 3 -> Fire 4 -> Fire 4 -> Triple Cast -> Fire 4 ->Flare -> Flarestar -> ice 3 -> Ice 4 ->Paradox -> Fire 3 -> Paradox Oh and 1 or 2 times Bolt with DoT in it
I've done the "Balance Mage" thing myself because that's how the job starts out telling you how it's done, alternating Fire and Ice right into each other, and since EVERY OTHER JOB usually has its combo+gauge spender sorted out by 50, and nothing really gets added by 50 for BLM either to make you think otherwise (if anything the whole "full instant stacks of Umbral Ice/Astral Fire into each other" encourages it), I just kept right on doing it. Doesn't help either that mobility is EVERYTHING in FF14, and that standing in one place for too long (or standing too far away) is very bad, so those faster casts make all the difference to stay out of danger or let me get back into healer range quicker after I had to move. Something "potentially" dying faster by doing the "correct" rotation doesn't mean anything if I end up dead or having to be healed all the time myself because of said "correct" rotation putting me in a vulnerable spot. I'm not going to risk getting my squishy, non-mobile (Aetherial Manipulation sucks, as does all dashes that require an ally target to function) self hit just to squeeze a couple of drops of potency from a sloooower cast that won't make most fights go that much faster anyway. Above all though, I just don't like playing BLM (it's my least favorite job period), and most of its leveling to 100 was done with Weekly Challenges/PVP because regardless of playing it wrong or right, I just did not like its rotation at all, and don't even get me started on the abomination of it's job gauge with a thousand things going on all at once, or that they felt the need to give it a second one, which I will never engage with because I will never do level 100 content on BLM. It just isn't a very fun job to me (before and after Dawntrail) no matter how I play it.
Ironically "Fire Mage" would be the optimal way to play if it was possible. If Manafont was a 60 second cooldown or even just had more stacks, you could probably stay in fire mode for a very long time. The only downside would be no thunder or paradox which would make moving hard.
Yeah it could almost kind of work! Before dawntrail, due to thundercloud and Firestarter, if you were so lucky that you got a proc every time it was possible, you could POSSIBLY spend 60 seconds doing F1T3cF3pT3c looping! Without procs, in dawntrail, it is actually possible that I'd rather have a pure ice mage over a pure fire mage though! 😂
I need to explain that in Shadowbringers Thunder and Thundercloud were actually the two most important abilities, because Sharpcast was enabling the equivalent of dropping a Xenoglossy every 24 seconds. Yes. Thundercloud procs had a total of like 700+ potency. (I don't remember the exact number) I have *never* seen a Thunder mage in the way described in this video in my 6 years playing the game. What I have seen is Black Mages either celebrating Thundercloud, which is no longer a thing, or lamenting its loss. And if this is getting mistaken for "Thunder mages" I just have to laugh. Because back in ShB, I ran 3600 SpS to maximise Thundercloud procs, as well as do an alternative opener... So I kinda was a Thunder Mage, back then, but it was a mark of prestige to be so.
"i like to be a fire mage" immediately gets you to the basics of the job. Wanna cast more than 4 fire spells? cast your ice spells! (but as few as possible because we dont like ice here)
I've seen many BLMs play completely wrong, but the ones that I remember vividly (and that you didn't mention) are those that spam F3 once they get it, and those that spam B4 in UI3 until the timer is running out, and only then they switch to AF3. I also wouldn't be surprised if some people used F4 until timer is running out before switching to UI3 instead of refreshing with F1, as it is admittedly a very weird thing to do (if not for the fact that umbral hearts would make no sense otherwise).
Oh yeah the ones where they just use the "highest ranked spell" are awkward! But yes the one about using F4 as much as you can and then switching to ice because the alternative (using F1) is weirder is actually pretty understandable. I would also say that I think if I met someone that did that in the wild, I don't know if I would even notice without looking super closely at them! 😊
I met a Scathe mage in Aetherfont this week. There is an enemy that uses Scathe in there. It wasn't a player. BLM is one of the jobs I leveled to 100, but would never bring to any hard content. Been too long since I played it and it is not properly geared. Don't think I saw any entirely incorrect BLMs in the wild. Although I rarely pay attention to what everyone else does as long as I don't notice a major issue.
I was an MP battery mage, but not for the MP, simply because fire 1 took too long to cast to reset the astral fire timer, whereas blizzard 3 was much faster of a cast and I would just Regen back to full MP, recast thunder, and try my fire rotation again These days I gave up trying to be optimal with fire 4 and now cast fire 1 after two fire 4s instead of three
I have only leveled up to level 32 when I was trying all the classes, I didn't enjoy it but at least I know I was playing it wrong too. Gives me a reason to give it a second chance later.
The best thing you can do as a blm, and I have ten years experience, is try to remember the fights, and accept that you’ll put your leylines in exactly the wrong place at least once 😹
Back in endwalker I used to open fights with ice phase because of course you want those umbral hearts before you start blasting right? Particularly with flare star opening with fire is counter intuitive at lower levels of play since you aren’t even able to get a flare star without umbral hearts. It’s more of an opener than a rotation but I’d expect it’s pretty common in casual play.
It is quite funny that if you compare black mage to other jobs, it is pretty clear that in the time where a warrior sets up their damage buff, or a paladin gets their first royal authority up and what not, black mage can easily cast B3 Thunder B4 and then start their burst "properly"! But it equally makes sense that thanks to manafont (and before dawntrail, various other reasons), black mages opener is over 30 seconds without that lead up, so might as well start blasting immediately! That doesn't change that it feels incredibly counter intuitive! 😂 I have heard yoship commonly does the ice opener though! 😊
I wonder if you could have a full messed up party. Ice Mage combined with say, Healer that doesn't attack, and... not sure any specific way to mess up a tank job.
It is quite fascinating but it is not a completely unheard of scenario, partly caused by other games sometimes giving you options that look fine but actually are bad, so some players try to out smart the game by galaxy braining a bit too hard and bam! Ice mage! 😂
About the transmute bit, isn't it still stronger to switch from ice to firer via transmute and using paradox to get to 3 astral? Iirc paradox dmg is not cancelled with astral, right? So you trac, use paradox, do you 3 firer 4's, then 3 and back to 4, finish with despare? You save 1 ocd thanks to tranc
Nope. Paradox only gives you +1 astral fire state. I think you may have misunderstood what is commonly known as the af1f3p standard, which is to use transpose from ice to fire, and then using a Firestarter boosted fire 3 to properly engage your fire state. This is slightly better than using your Firestarter proc in any other circumstance once you learn fire 4. And no you should never use fire 3 normally in the middle of a fire state. By the time you unlock paradox your average fire state starts with fire 3 (either from ice, or with Firestarter after transpose), then about 3 fire 4s, then paradox, then 3 more fire 4s, and then despair. At lower levels paradox is replaced with fire 1. 😊
I've seen people put off using bahamut in their openers on summoner instead going into energy drain and using fester and ruin 4 before doing anything else. Sometimes sprinkling in a few ruin 3s. I guess because they figure they should save their harder hitting spell, maybe?
My best suggestion aside from what you suggested is before the ew rework, I believe you had to actually spend your aetherflow before you could dreadwyrm trance (which then led to bahamut) so maybe some returning player didn't bother to try? 😅 More likely your suggestion is right though!
Ooh, I know a way to mess up Black Mage: let me play it. More often than not I will inevitably trip over my own fingers just as I get into a groove with it and completely tank my performance. :P
I personally would just see black mages in their 3 second (im exaggerating) cast times and be like what is the appeal of spending half the fight in like 2 casting animations. Decided to unlock it and see what the hype is and theres alot more going on than i thought lmao
I have never been taught or told or explained the Elemental features and quirks of a BLM as in, "this is a Elemental Mage, pretty common idea in Fantasy". I have always viewed BLM (as a fan of FF14 BLM) as a Siege Unit. Where I am here locked in place (not really, but choosing to stay immobile) and firing like an Artillery Cannon, over and over and over, then switching to UI, to "Reload" and going back to barraging the Enemy with constant repeated shelling in AF. And i never understood how other people refuse to follow this simple routine because they insist that the class is Elemental and they get to just drop half their kit for "Flavor"
Am I doing something wrong? I find black mage to be easier than bard. Start with ice switch cast thunder cast fire 1 or 3 until OOM thunder ice 3 ice 1 switch and repeat (on single target). It's super simple. Am I doing it wrong?
@CaetsuChaijiCh oh so I am the rare transpose mage. Oh well I'll start paying attention to it's switching out automatically and save a button push! Thanks!
I will say, the new BLM levelling experience is probably gonna make this worse. It's completely unintuitive up until level 35 and actively punishes you for playing the job like you're supposed to.
"I want to be a thunder mage" Bro you have like 2 thunder spells how can you be one 😭 There is no way someone actually thinks thunder black mage is a thing and viable
By the time many black mages choose to be an ice mage they often only have like 2-3 ice spells! But I get what you mean, it is incredibly unlikely, so let's hope we don't meet any! 😅
I do hope one day we can get like an actual ice phase damage wise, because the ice animations are so frickin cool and it's sad you never really get to see them all that often
At least FF14 teaches you casting only fire spells doesn't work right away, and not when you reach Hell difficulty in Diablo 2 and find your fire exclusive sorceress can't hurt any demons...
Yea, D2 is pretty hilarious with how some builds just suddenly stop working in Hell, or in certain zones where everything is immune, or least resistant, to your damage type.
Oh fun! Elemental immunities in a game with creative build options! At that point it feels very much like the game going "do whatever you like, oh except that!" 😂
@@CaetsuChaijiCh It's a bit worse in D2 than other RPGs, perhaps, because the game strongly encourages you to dump all points into a single elemental tree, due to how skills gain bonus damage based on how many points you put into other (connected) skills in the same tree, until it then very severely punishes you for doing so. 🙃
Similar thing with poison.
@@NatiiixLP forb my beloved, 25 skill points for a perfectly usable alternate damage type
then you run into the countess who is both fire *and* cold immune so you have to wait for Emilio to do his thing
@@siosilvar I wouldn't just say "run into Countess", because if you're playing LoD (or R), you will most likely want to _farm_ Countess quite a lot, and, good god, will it hurt with those immunities... 💀
One time in Baelsar's wall i met a blm that...ONLY. casted flare, like exclusively flare, nothing else. Just flare. Then he would transpose, wait in ice for mp, transpose, flare.
We've found the person to blame for CS3 taking away MP regen lmfao
I also think an additional reason why Black mage has the reputation of bieng the most missunderstood job is how easy it is to notice when someone plays it wrong since everything you do is proudly displayed on the party list. Jobs that don't have cast times can more often be played wrong without the party noticing.
BLMs in roulettes not casting Fire IV....
Oh absolutely 100%. The fact black mage has the longest cast times on average also means whatever choice you made is prominently displayed for the longest possible time!
This is also why, for example, red mages spamming slow spells are a much more likely to observe mistake than... Somehow... Red mages spamming melee combos without mana! 😁
I'm impressed by the variety of ways in which BLM can be played completely incorrectly, yet still somewhat logically, if you ignore all the tooltips and numbers.
I dont think ive said this, but thank you for making these guides. Learning the game is much more fun, and easier to understand with your breakdowns.
Also, i would like to say that you are my inspiration to be a mentor and help others. Thank you so very much, Cae!
Thank you so much, Panda! That makes me very happy to hear! Words like this are something I always appreciate 🥰
And I hope you have lots of fun helping others as well! 😄
Agreed. The amount of info for white mage that I passively absorbed before I properly started it in the last month or two has made it a very pleasant experience xD
Ice magic? We all know that if you run out of MP, the options you have at hand are running away or brandishing your scepter as a club.
I remember a reddit post one time where someone went and parsed themselves trying ice mage....
Sadly, they were parsing higher than some randoms they were paired with....
4:21 The camera tilt is a small touch, but I wasn't expecting that kind of flourish, really nice
Thank you! Glad it is being appreciated! 😁
hard cast red mage is my favorite. a player sees the longer cast time spells do more damage, and they can do two in a row, so.... they do, completely ignoring their short cast time spells. surely, if you're spending all this time casting a spell, it must be stronger, right?
Haha yep! That ones a classic too! I usually refer to that one as the ultra slow mage! 🤣
I've seen a lot of people transposing into ice, then using lucid dreaming, transposing into fire to get a despair off, transposing back, etc while lucid dreaming is up
Yeah there are a few recent non standard lines that involve transposing into ice with lucid, hanging out long enough to get 800+ mp transposing to fire and then using despair. I recall this one being considered helpful if, say, manafont is almost ready as it allows you to play for time for about 10 seconds, so you don't have to finish the fire phase, exit and do a whole new fire phase for 30 seconds before it is time to manafont. It makes things slightly smoother! But it is more complex than what it might initially look like and I'm sure some black mages get that one wrong too!
if a Black Mage is casting lucid dreaming, they're either playing non-standard or insane. It doesn't really have a place in the "intended" mana economy for BLM, but you can do weird things with it
You know, i have played for a long time and have always heard about these ice mages but i have literally never once met someone that thinks like that. Even when the ice spells had binds.
The closest i ever came to someone that acted like this was i once met a bard that refused to play songs because they were a sniper, not a singer. And when i explained all their strongest attacks are locked behind using songs they didnt care, and when i suggested they try machinist because thatd be a job that fits their role play desire better they said they didnt want to go back to level 30.... Because they were already level 50 lmao
Let's say I've only met a handful of ice mages in my years of playing, which is how I at least know there's a handful of different possible causes and reasons!
As you mentioned yourself, sometimes you'll meet a player that has decided to play a job completely counter to what all logic suggests, and nothing you can say will sway them!
Some of the players that go off track often either figure it out, or are told relatively early, some of them may need a more detailed explanation to change course! 😅
Let's just say I met an ice mage at level 96!
Also thank you for sharing that story, that's equally ridiculous! 🤣
I hope this "already level 50" happened back in ARR, not recently, because... lol.
But, yeah, same, I've never seen an "ice mage" on JP.
I see people only using single-target in trash pulls, or only AoE skills in boss fights.
I see healers not being a green DPS and wasting GCDs.
I see tanks engaging in all manners of madness, often without any mits or even without stance.
I see RDM not using their melee combo at all, or spamming their melee combo whenever they can be in melee range.
But a BLM with permanently full mana is something quite easy to notice, and I never noticed it so far.
@@NatiiixLP this bard story happened in 6.4 I believe lol.
@@dustinhatfield8373 Damn, well, of course if didn't happen in ARR if you're talking about MCH, lol, I'm an idiot. I kinda relate to not wanting to re-level, but I also like playing all kinds of jobs, but yea, 30 to 50 really doesn't take very long.
However, I'm also someone who'd much much rather play Archer, Rogue and Gladiator with the original class design rather than the jobs they become. The classes feel cool, but the jobs feel pretty meh to me.
@@NatiiixLP it would definitely be nice if the classes were still viable as their own thing like they were back in the day. I can sympathize with them for sure I would much rather be a ranger than a bard.
Though I will say dawntrail bard is my favorite iteration of bard. It went from being the job i disliked the most overall to being my favorite physical range
I have simple advice for a level 100 Black Mage.
"If you cast Flare Star, you're doing it right".
The puzzle of figuring out how to build up the Astral Gauge and earn a Flare Star without running out of MP (or Astral Fire, for single target rotation) is enough to lead players down the correct path.
That is a very good point. "flare star is meant to be used. Figure out how to do that and you're probably doing at least okay" 😁
I agree, but something about flare star still seems underwhelming. After all the build up, it still hits like a fire 4. That should be the bigger hitter along with xenoglossy.
Paradox spam is very cool, saw a vid on here a while back about a rotation that has 100% instant casts with swiftcasts and triplecasts at lv100
I was actually expecting to see something about it here. I picked it up for the express purpose of learning how to do it. It certainly isn't the optimal choice to use, but it will hold up in terms of raw damage once you can keep it going
Yeah that one is an interesting one! I would say personally that it is viable enough that putting it on a list like this would be unfair! It actually kind of works! 😁
@CaetsuChaijiCh It does need some practice and even a little bit of specialized gear or over-gearing in some cases, but it can either clear or come extremely close to taking out stone, Sky, sea dummies in practice. If you do make a video talking about it, I can personally confirm from the experience that having too much spell speed can potentially hurt the rotation. Leylines makes it difficult to use transpose without having to wait a fraction of a second constantly. It probably is a little bit faster than it would be normally, but also becomes locked to the transpose timer instead of the gcd timer.
I was actually doing it both to see what max speed would be like, but also because I was curious whether it was possible to completely eliminate the need for leylines entirely unless you were planning to have a burst window in the middle somewhere. Even using patchwork (anything with speed on it) gear for the most part, I can still keep up quite well in the content I have done. I haven't done all current savage/extreme stuff, but I do intend to see how well it does when I get the chance.
@Mystery27zx to the speed part: yeah that's indeed because transpose's cooldown is a huge limiting factor, so you don't want any speed! Back in endwalker I actually did demonstrate the infinite paradox rotation which equally didn't work well if you had spell speed! 😁
For that reason, ley lines definitely doesn't make things easier! 😂
@CaetsuChaijiCh It actually throws off the entire rotation even without leylines as well. With some speed, you don't have any issues, but the closer you get to max speed, the more it tends to cause lag time for triple and swiftcast, because you wind up using them so quickly they actually can't come off cooldown fast enough for you to use them again. If speed is desired, a "healthy maximum" is actually somewhere around 2.35 seconds on the safer side. A "perfect flow" actually is somewhere around 2.4 seconds, though it does assume the use of leylines for more damage.
well. glad i actually watched this through. because your description of 'Transpose Mage' is basically just the very early levels as a Thaumaturge when you basically only have Fire Blizzard, Transpose and Thunder (why do sleep and addle exist?). where avoiding the unaspected state requires using Transpose, which at least between reading tooltips (speaking from the new player end of things) seems like the thing to do as you go a whole arduous cast time cycle without a damage bonus or mp on hit. is interesting to know that whole flow eventually gets axed, or i guess more accurately transpose gets supplanted entirely (feels extremely weird but it works how it works at higher levels i suppose). must store this in memory somewhere.
Something to keep in mind is that at even higher levels, players have found ways to optimize making use of transpose for damage gains, but it is not necessary for the basic rotation at least, once you get to level 35 or so 😊
And yet still no pink mage!
Maybe one day when the white and red mages find a way to fuse together! 😄😂
A white mage and a red mage from my static got married irl, I will keep you posted 😹
Pictomancer?
Scholar! Fairy type!
one thing that bugs me is when i run into people in lower levels that tell me i'm doing the fire rotation wrong and that i should be using fire 3 as my main damage instead of fire 1.....
Oh dear that one is ROUGH... When people that have no idea start giving bad advice 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh legit had a wanderer's palace (hard) run with a tank that wouldn't read chat and pull the mobs out of the red circles that gave a buff me and the healer were trying to tell them about that buff. multiple wipes at the final boss and my co dps who was a blm as well was basically blaming me for the wipes because i wasn't casting fire 3 as the main attack when it was plain obvious that it's becaus the tank wasn't pulling the boss out of the red circles 😅
thanks for explaining all this!
I'm glad you enjoyed! 😄
…This video reminds me that I need to win a duel in Bozja with the new (and still bad) single-element black mage rotations. Ice Mage, Scathe/Xenoglossy Mage, Thunder Mage… I think Scathe/Xenoglossy Mage is dead because umbral ice regen is gone, but the other two should be interesting with the new changes.
If you allow yourself to set up umbral ice, and to use umbral soul, then scathe could work (I mean, in theory, it's up to you to make the rest of the way! 😂)
Good luck! It sounds really hard!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Yeah, I might have to make use of Umbral Soul, despite it technically being an ice spell. Does no damage after all, so it shouldn’t count, right?
Also thank you! Flexing on the fire-only mage with any single element BLM is always funny to do, so I’m hoping that I’m able to pull off what I did in EW despite those playstyles being nerfed-
at least ice phase gets natural regen still. Better get comfy with Lucid spam.
I wouldn't say Black Mage is that complicated in its rotation. One of the problems, which I run into at times, is being able to maintain Astral Fire. 15 seconds isn't that long time, and it's quite easy forget to use Fire I/Paradox to keep it running. In the heat of combat, if you need to move, this can become an even bigger issue. Before getting Triplecast, this can happen quite often in my experience.
I haven't seen that many Ice Mages, but I have seen level 60+ Black Mages, that still do level 50 rotation.
Genuine question.
What are you supposed to cast while on the move, when both quick cast and triple casts are on cooldown?
Scathe > transpose > thunder spell is the only "rotation" that seems to make sense.
(Not level 100 BLM yet)
At low level, thunder and scathe cycling like that is legitimately a decent option. As you level up and get options like triple cast, you start having way more ability to get creative with it.
I would say if both swift and triple cast are on cooldown and you have nothing else available, that's a planning issue!
At 80+ xenoglossy is an instant option. At 90+, paradox is technically also an option. At 100 even despair is an instant option, so it is a lot about thinking ahead a bit or saving something just in case! 😊
If we're talking about "on the move" like when the tank is running out front pulling a bunch of trash, I've found that you can almost always get at least 1 or 2 AoE casts off by using Aetheric Manipulation targeting the tank/another melee to bring yourself back to the front of the pack, giving yourself time to cast a spell or two while enemies are running past you
While I haven't seen an off-brand Black Mage since HW, I did have a funny moment recently where I accidently made someone into a Transpose Mage.
I was talking with someone about the idea of Transposing into Astral and using a Firestarter proc over just using the proc to switch to Astral, and someone leveling BLM misunderstood it to mean Transposing was always a gain. We cleared it up eventually after doing a leveling roulette together.
I use this rotation:
Swiftcast -> Fire 3 -> Fire 4 -> Fire 4 -> Triple Cast -> Fire 4 ->Flare -> Flarestar -> ice 3 -> Ice 4 ->Paradox -> Fire 3 -> Paradox
Oh and 1 or 2 times Bolt with DoT in it
ok but what if Im a flare main and only use flare
Ah the megumain! 🤣 Well it's certainly not the most effective strategy let's say! 😁
I've done the "Balance Mage" thing myself because that's how the job starts out telling you how it's done, alternating Fire and Ice right into each other, and since EVERY OTHER JOB usually has its combo+gauge spender sorted out by 50, and nothing really gets added by 50 for BLM either to make you think otherwise (if anything the whole "full instant stacks of Umbral Ice/Astral Fire into each other" encourages it), I just kept right on doing it. Doesn't help either that mobility is EVERYTHING in FF14, and that standing in one place for too long (or standing too far away) is very bad, so those faster casts make all the difference to stay out of danger or let me get back into healer range quicker after I had to move. Something "potentially" dying faster by doing the "correct" rotation doesn't mean anything if I end up dead or having to be healed all the time myself because of said "correct" rotation putting me in a vulnerable spot. I'm not going to risk getting my squishy, non-mobile (Aetherial Manipulation sucks, as does all dashes that require an ally target to function) self hit just to squeeze a couple of drops of potency from a sloooower cast that won't make most fights go that much faster anyway.
Above all though, I just don't like playing BLM (it's my least favorite job period), and most of its leveling to 100 was done with Weekly Challenges/PVP because regardless of playing it wrong or right, I just did not like its rotation at all, and don't even get me started on the abomination of it's job gauge with a thousand things going on all at once, or that they felt the need to give it a second one, which I will never engage with because I will never do level 100 content on BLM. It just isn't a very fun job to me (before and after Dawntrail) no matter how I play it.
I was a transpose mage until you mentioned transpose mages. Thanks!
Well I propose we pioneer a new age: Shield mage. Equip a one-handed staff and the strongest shield you can
Ironically "Fire Mage" would be the optimal way to play if it was possible. If Manafont was a 60 second cooldown or even just had more stacks, you could probably stay in fire mode for a very long time. The only downside would be no thunder or paradox which would make moving hard.
Yeah it could almost kind of work! Before dawntrail, due to thundercloud and Firestarter, if you were so lucky that you got a proc every time it was possible, you could POSSIBLY spend 60 seconds doing F1T3cF3pT3c looping! Without procs, in dawntrail, it is actually possible that I'd rather have a pure ice mage over a pure fire mage though! 😂
I need to explain that in Shadowbringers Thunder and Thundercloud were actually the two most important abilities, because Sharpcast was enabling the equivalent of dropping a Xenoglossy every 24 seconds. Yes. Thundercloud procs had a total of like 700+ potency. (I don't remember the exact number)
I have *never* seen a Thunder mage in the way described in this video in my 6 years playing the game. What I have seen is Black Mages either celebrating Thundercloud, which is no longer a thing, or lamenting its loss.
And if this is getting mistaken for "Thunder mages" I just have to laugh. Because back in ShB, I ran 3600 SpS to maximise Thundercloud procs, as well as do an alternative opener... So I kinda was a Thunder Mage, back then, but it was a mark of prestige to be so.
"i like to be a fire mage" immediately gets you to the basics of the job. Wanna cast more than 4 fire spells? cast your ice spells! (but as few as possible because we dont like ice here)
My filler rotation at 100 has been this (ogcd weaves in parentheses):
B4 -> Xeno/HT (transpose) -> Paradox -> F3 -> Despair (transpose) -> Paradox (swiftcast/triplecast) -> B3 (transpose) -> Paradox -> F3 -> F4 -> F4 -> F4 -> Despair (transpose) -> loop
It's actually a consistent damage gain in addition to casting less often.
I've seen many BLMs play completely wrong, but the ones that I remember vividly (and that you didn't mention) are those that spam F3 once they get it, and those that spam B4 in UI3 until the timer is running out, and only then they switch to AF3. I also wouldn't be surprised if some people used F4 until timer is running out before switching to UI3 instead of refreshing with F1, as it is admittedly a very weird thing to do (if not for the fact that umbral hearts would make no sense otherwise).
Oh yeah the ones where they just use the "highest ranked spell" are awkward!
But yes the one about using F4 as much as you can and then switching to ice because the alternative (using F1) is weirder is actually pretty understandable. I would also say that I think if I met someone that did that in the wild, I don't know if I would even notice without looking super closely at them! 😊
Balance Black Mage sounds like Red Mage but without the fencing sword.
I met a Scathe mage in Aetherfont this week. There is an enemy that uses Scathe in there. It wasn't a player.
BLM is one of the jobs I leveled to 100, but would never bring to any hard content. Been too long since I played it and it is not properly geared.
Don't think I saw any entirely incorrect BLMs in the wild. Although I rarely pay attention to what everyone else does as long as I don't notice a major issue.
Oh yeah the weird crystalline creatures! 🤣
When I was leveling, I figured out if you alternate ice 3 and fire 3, it's all insta cast. I played that way for a little bit lol.
I was an MP battery mage, but not for the MP, simply because fire 1 took too long to cast to reset the astral fire timer, whereas blizzard 3 was much faster of a cast and I would just Regen back to full MP, recast thunder, and try my fire rotation again
These days I gave up trying to be optimal with fire 4 and now cast fire 1 after two fire 4s instead of three
I have only leveled up to level 32 when I was trying all the classes, I didn't enjoy it but at least I know I was playing it wrong too. Gives me a reason to give it a second chance later.
The best thing you can do as a blm, and I have ten years experience, is try to remember the fights, and accept that you’ll put your leylines in exactly the wrong place at least once 😹
At least now with two charges you have slightly more wiggle room to think about holding it - you'll still put it in the wrong place of course! 🤣
Ley Lines are a defensive ability, primarily used to bait AoEs away from your party :P
Back in endwalker I used to open fights with ice phase because of course you want those umbral hearts before you start blasting right? Particularly with flare star opening with fire is counter intuitive at lower levels of play since you aren’t even able to get a flare star without umbral hearts. It’s more of an opener than a rotation but I’d expect it’s pretty common in casual play.
It is quite funny that if you compare black mage to other jobs, it is pretty clear that in the time where a warrior sets up their damage buff, or a paladin gets their first royal authority up and what not, black mage can easily cast B3 Thunder B4 and then start their burst "properly"! But it equally makes sense that thanks to manafont (and before dawntrail, various other reasons), black mages opener is over 30 seconds without that lead up, so might as well start blasting immediately!
That doesn't change that it feels incredibly counter intuitive! 😂
I have heard yoship commonly does the ice opener though! 😊
I wonder if you could have a full messed up party. Ice Mage combined with say, Healer that doesn't attack, and... not sure any specific way to mess up a tank job.
Tank that only does 123 combos and no defensives. Some melee dps only doing filler rotation. Weird stuff like that perhaps! 😂
@@CaetsuChaijiCh The man the myth the legend ranged attack only drg or nin.
@@ashensage7968 "I'm a Javelin main"
I think its crazy that someone would see all these tools in a job and think "actually I know best how to use this, the game is stupid and Im smart!"
It is quite fascinating but it is not a completely unheard of scenario, partly caused by other games sometimes giving you options that look fine but actually are bad, so some players try to out smart the game by galaxy braining a bit too hard and bam! Ice mage! 😂
About the transmute bit, isn't it still stronger to switch from ice to firer via transmute and using paradox to get to 3 astral?
Iirc paradox dmg is not cancelled with astral, right?
So you trac, use paradox, do you 3 firer 4's, then 3 and back to 4, finish with despare?
You save 1 ocd thanks to tranc
Nope. Paradox only gives you +1 astral fire state. I think you may have misunderstood what is commonly known as the af1f3p standard, which is to use transpose from ice to fire, and then using a Firestarter boosted fire 3 to properly engage your fire state. This is slightly better than using your Firestarter proc in any other circumstance once you learn fire 4.
And no you should never use fire 3 normally in the middle of a fire state. By the time you unlock paradox your average fire state starts with fire 3 (either from ice, or with Firestarter after transpose), then about 3 fire 4s, then paradox, then 3 more fire 4s, and then despair.
At lower levels paradox is replaced with fire 1. 😊
@CaetsuChaijiCh OK, didn't know para only gives 1
The "press the glowing button" is a very good argument but thats only my adhd speaking xD
I've seen people put off using bahamut in their openers on summoner instead going into energy drain and using fester and ruin 4 before doing anything else. Sometimes sprinkling in a few ruin 3s.
I guess because they figure they should save their harder hitting spell, maybe?
My best suggestion aside from what you suggested is before the ew rework, I believe you had to actually spend your aetherflow before you could dreadwyrm trance (which then led to bahamut) so maybe some returning player didn't bother to try? 😅 More likely your suggestion is right though!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Oh that is definitely possible! I completely forgot about that...
Ooh, I know a way to mess up Black Mage: let me play it. More often than not I will inevitably trip over my own fingers just as I get into a groove with it and completely tank my performance. :P
I personally would just see black mages in their 3 second (im exaggerating) cast times and be like what is the appeal of spending half the fight in like 2 casting animations. Decided to unlock it and see what the hype is and theres alot more going on than i thought lmao
Indeed! It is a very complex job with a lot of space to get creative with it the deeper you go! 😄
maybe someday Black Mage will function like Wizard101 wizard where you can specialize into a specific class of spells, but that day is not today
4:45 i get the point, but I think it's funny that a lot of fps games actually make knife only a viable strategy and quite doable.
Fair point lmao 🤣
I have never been taught or told or explained the Elemental features and quirks of a BLM as in, "this is a Elemental Mage, pretty common idea in Fantasy".
I have always viewed BLM (as a fan of FF14 BLM) as a Siege Unit. Where I am here locked in place (not really, but choosing to stay immobile) and firing like an Artillery Cannon, over and over and over, then switching to UI, to "Reload" and going back to barraging the Enemy with constant repeated shelling in AF.
And i never understood how other people refuse to follow this simple routine because they insist that the class is Elemental and they get to just drop half their kit for "Flavor"
Am I doing something wrong? I find black mage to be easier than bard. Start with ice switch cast thunder cast fire 1 or 3 until OOM thunder ice 3 ice 1 switch and repeat (on single target). It's super simple. Am I doing it wrong?
You may want to check the transpose mage section because it sounds like that is what you are doing 😊
@CaetsuChaijiCh oh so I am the rare transpose mage. Oh well I'll start paying attention to it's switching out automatically and save a button push! Thanks!
Maybe next expac black mages can get a new passive or cooldown that buffs the damage of frost spells so you can cast more than 1 per ice phase
I will say, the new BLM levelling experience is probably gonna make this worse. It's completely unintuitive up until level 35 and actively punishes you for playing the job like you're supposed to.
ice mage is actually preferred.... in extreme rare cases e.g. specific deep dungeon sets when optimizing for speed w/ str poms... 😆
"I want to be a thunder mage"
Bro you have like 2 thunder spells how can you be one 😭
There is no way someone actually thinks thunder black mage is a thing and viable
By the time many black mages choose to be an ice mage they often only have like 2-3 ice spells! But I get what you mean, it is incredibly unlikely, so let's hope we don't meet any! 😅
i prefer my sleeper build which uses only sleep and auto attacks
if you wanna play a caster and be lazy, dont pick black mage and grief by playing ice mage! just play summoner
I want to be a scathe mage
I do hope one day we can get like an actual ice phase damage wise, because the ice animations are so frickin cool and it's sad you never really get to see them all that often
lol @ people trying to play BLM like it's a WoW class.