So. You Want to Play Black Mage.

"So, you’re telling me that you actually walked over to the Thaumaturges’ Guild in Ul’dah... and became a thaumaturge?"

Interesting move.

Well, I hope you’re ready to stand still a lot more often. Especially if you’re a melee player一or, really any class that isn’t a caster, period. Because guess what? You just grabbed the slowest class in the game!

...Not really. But good news—we like destroying things anyway! It’s fun! Thaumaturgy as a whole is kind of complicated, anyways. It involves a lot of fire and ice, and it’ll take a while to get a feel for the class (and eventually, the job as a whole); but, once you manage to bear through all the irony (and profanity) this guide tosses at you, you’ll definitely get the hang of it. I know you will!

Let me start really quickly (this won't be quick at all) by saying that I love Black Mage with all my heart. When I started (actually) playing XIV, I always saw it as one of the coolest jobs to play in the game. Hell, in the numerous attempts I first tried getting into the game, it was always my first class! I... never got past leaving Ul'dah, but that's A Realm Reborn's fault, let's be honest.

Black Mage is a notably proficient caster of high damage explosions, but it's often seen as a "selfish sentry", with a "complicated" rotation (it's not) and/or "boring" gameplay (summoner is right there guys (joke)). And, while the selfish part might be true (totally is), it is way more than the slow and clunky turret it's painted out to be.

I can't speak for every Black Mage out there. There's too many of them. But I'm pretty sure most of us can agree that this job is awesome. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't still be playing it—and I'm sure as hell gonna tell you why it's awesome!

Or... well, I guess I can try to tell you why. It'd be... kinda hard to get that many people to peer-review this guide.

I want to preface this by saying that this is not entirely “by-the-book” on how to play Black Mage. This entire thing is really a passion project; despite my 10,000+ hours in the job (what a reference), I can't confidently say I'm “officially certified” to talk about this or whatever—not yet, at least. I made all of this for fun! It is still a guide, though, so if it helps, that means I accidentally did my job. And that's good! Just know it might not be a "perfect" guide. This is my first time writing something like this, after all.

In other words, while this guide takes a “leveling” perspective, trying to progressively explain the fundamentals of Black Mage and its spellkit in a way that’s silly but easy to understand,

it will not一and I cannot stress this enough一teach you the “most optimal” way to play this job.

If you were looking for a less comical, more genuinely detailed, and seriously put-together guide, here are some I'd recommend:

• WeskAlber's “1 to 100 Leveling Skills” video guide;
  a superbly well-edited visual showcase of how the class/job evolves and operates, covering all major changes from Lv. 1-100
• The Balance’s 7.x Black Mage Guide, by Rika Vanih and many others;
  a written guide taking on a technical tone to explain BLM at Lv. 100 and its possible optimizations (like GIRL applications, if that sounds silly enough to make you check it out)
• The Balance’s 7.x BLM Leveling Guide—also by the same people;
  a short and concise guide explaining the exact points from Lv. 1-100 where the rotation changes, and showing what you should be doing by certain levels

Don’t take only my word for things. Got it? Cool!

Now, I know the title of this entire guide has “Black Mage” in it, but I’m pretty sure you don’t even have your soul crystal yet.

Do you?

Let’s assume you don’t.

By the time you read this, you are Lv. 2.

That’s great一you know what that means? You’ve already got two spells! Blizzard and Fire! Something you might have already noticed (if you didn’t catch it already) is that these spells are far different than many other casters’ spells at this low of a level. Why? Well, on every skill, there’s two important factors. The third is conditional, but we’re mainly here to discuss why Thaumaturge (and Black Mage) is “slow”: your Cast and Recast times.

Unlike every other class, who either gets to use their attacks Instantly or have to wait 1.50s for it to cast, you have to wait a whole 2.5 seconds! It might not say that in the screenshot, but it is 2.50s一trust me. It’s strange, because that’s also the time you must wait in order to cast that spell again!

All skills have the exact same recast time of 2.5 seconds, which is otherwise known as the global cooldown, or GCD (I’m going to be using that term a lot, so remember!). What does this mean? You're probably gonna be spam-pressing the button you use to cast, and the time to move between spells is (nearly) nonexistent. So, if you want to attack, you’re gonna be doing a LOT of standing still.

Most people’s worry when they start playing this class is getting hit by the enemy. As such, they’re mostly found interrupting their cast by moving to try and escape an enemy’s auto attack, something that is unavoidable (just like your own auto-attack, which in this case is just bonking the enemy with your stick).

This is where Thaumaturge’s (and, more importantly, other casters) most important mantra comes into play:

“COMMIT TO THE CAST”

Stand still. Cast the attack. You either do damage, or you don't. Moving too early interrupts your only way of surviving. You’re gonna take damage anyway, so why move? Just cast it. The moment you completely adopt this mentality, the moment you can actually start playing (and enjoying) the class. Because for the next ~60 levels, it’s not gonna get much easier.

Well一I mean, it will, but we’ll be a while. Okay?

So what were we discussing? You have Blizzard and Fire, right? That also means that there’s a spiky gauge on your screen somewhere. I know you see it一or have seen it; it’s kinda hard to miss. It should look something like this:

This is your Elemental Gauge! It’s very pointy. Don’t touch it. (not like you can...) As you know (or as you don’t know), it’s a very important part of your class一and eventually, your job as a whole. It works with you as you play, and you work with it as it plays! If... if that makes sense. Let’s just go over how it works.

Whenever you stand still for that 2.5 seconds to cast Blizzard or Fire, the gauge will light up, and it’ll look something like this:

Now, as of grabbing this screenshot, I am currently dying in Sastasha level synced, getting my ass beaten by two bats. But that’s okay. This is for educational purposes, even if I’m dead on the ground as of right now. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Your Elemental Gauge is now active! For this example, I casted Fire, so I’m in a state known as Astral Fire. In this state, all Fire spells do more damage (+40%) at the cost of using more MP with no MP regen. This is basically your “kill” phase, and it lasts for only 15 seconds. If you continue casting Fire, the timer will keep refreshing! It’s all listed under the spell as follows:

The important part here is the Additional Effect. Each cast of Fire “grants Astral Fire or removes Umbral Ice”. If the former happens, Astral Fire continues, starting from 15 seconds. But what about the latter?

That’s the fun part. Casting Fire while under the opposite state一Umbral Ice一will simply get rid of it. It’s the easiest way to goof when playing this class. But don’t worry: we aren’t gonna laugh at it yet. That’s what the guide is for.

I’m dead on the ground again. This is Umbral Ice, the opposite of Astral Fire. Instead of a damage boost, all spells use no MP, and you get MP back from any Ice spell (+2500 MP). This is your “break” phase, for lack of a funnier way of saying it, and it’s what you must resort to if you cast Fire so much that you cannot cast it anymore.

While you’re in either state, keep this in mind: spells of the opposite element will do less damage than normal. However, casting spells of the opposite element will also use no MP! That’s kinda nice, to be honest; surely this is how you switch elements, right?

No

Welcome to the Checkpoint! One of them, at least.

This is where I preface what I’m about to say with a few “requirement” bullet points一and by a few, I mean like one. You are still allowed to read past these checkpoints if you don't hit all the dots, but things may be a tad confusing.

That means we can talk about a neat little ability that you learned (against your will) called Transpose! It looks like this:

Instead of casting spells to swap between your “kill” and “break” phases, Transpose instantly does it for you! This is the way you should be changing elements, instead of casting Blizzard twice while under Astral Fire. It’s not efficient that way一trust me!

Basically, when you cast Fire so much that you’ve run out of MP, press Transpose. Then you’ll switch over to Umbral Ice to get your MP back by casting Blizzard. Once your MP is entirely back, press Transpose again. Now you can get back to committing arson with Astral Fire. Simple!

What makes Transpose special, however, is that it does not follow the rules of a GCD: it’s an oGCD, or an “Off-Global Cooldown”!

With its own personal cooldown (5 seconds), you can use it in-between your casts (aka. "weaving"), AND it won't set other spells on a short cooldown. You don’t have to wait an extra 2.5 seconds of doing nothing to cast something else一you can just get right back to burning things!

So, when it comes to your “rotation”, it goes a little something like this:

Fire > Fire ... > Transpose > Blizzard > Blizzard ... > Transpose ...

Cast Fire until you run out of MP, then Transpose to Umbral Ice.

Cast Blizzard until your MP comes back, then Transpose again to Astral Fire.

Rinse and Repeat!

With this in mind, this also means that you can now carry Umbral Ice/Astral Fire when there’s nothing to attack. If your party is moving on to the next group of enemies, just keep using Transpose to cycle between Umbral Ice/Astral Fire so that you don’t have to spend an extra 2.5sec to start it back up!

It’s time we talk about something important: ruining the life forces of multiple entities at once.

Or... just, y'know, hitting multiple enemies.

How’s your Blizzard II feeling? Awkward, right? Normally, in other Final Fantasy games, the skill with the higher number on it tends to be stronger... (and isn’t called "Blizzard II". It’s called Blizzara.) But this one does less damage than Blizzard! Why?

Well, first off, from now on, we’re going to be calling the first Blizzard spell just Blizzard I. Same with your first Fire spell: it’s Fire I now. I’m doing this for the sake of cohesion across all spell names so you know exactly what I’m talking about here.

Now, about this spell....

First off, it takes a whole 3 seconds to cast compared to Blizzard I (or Fire I)’s 2.5 seconds, which means it oversteps GCD by a lot. It also does 100 less potency than Blizzard I, so it’s not the better option for killing. But why?

The main reason... is that it’s an area of effect attack (AoE)! If you haven’t heard of it before in the game (or... at all), it basically hits everything in an effective area. This is the point of Blizzard II: it’s intention is to hit the target AND everything else around it, no matter how many enemies there are.

Usually, you want to be using this when there are three or more enemies that are grouped together. If there are two enemies instead, it wouldn’t hurt to use Blizzard II, but it’s more recommended to go back to hitting one enemy. Blizzard I is a single-target attack, while Blizzard II is a multi-target attack. Therefore, you do less damage if you use Blizzard II on one enemy. That’s a lot of damage you could be doing!

All of this, including the longer cast time and damage difference, goes for Fire II as well, which you also should have. Keep in mind, casting the opposite element will still cancel your phase, no matter if you use [element] I or [element] II. And remember: no AoEs on single targets!

Before I talk about the Very Shocking Applications of Thunder I and Thunder II, I want to point something out to you real quick. You might have noticed it like, 8 levels ago, but I’m here to either reiterate or tell you for the first time. Check it out:

Look!! There’s two crystals now!! That means there’s two little balls floating around you whenever you cast a spell of the same element twice! I’m dead again!

This is made possible by a trait you got called Aspect Mastery II. These states are referred to as Umbral Ice II and Astral Fire II (just like how we were doing with our spell names; from now on, we now say Umbral Ice I and Astral Fire I), and their respective effects are now... more effective!

• Astral Fire II boosts Fire damage even more (+60%),
• Umbral Ice II increases MP given from Ice spells even more (+5000 MP),
• and, while in either state, spells of the opposite element do even less damage (-20%)

Unfortunately, using Transpose will still only give you Astral Fire I/Umbral Ice I, but it’s still a far better option than using the opposite element, so you should continue to use it when switching.

Now, here’s the catch. That is not what this section is discussing. We’re here to talk about two spells in particular that I haven’t gone over yet. They’re very important, because they both work off of another newly obtained buff that makes THM a bit nicer to play.

The spells in question are...

Thunder I and Thunder II. They’re just like your Fire and Blizzard spells一you have the single-target version and the multi-target version一except they do not have their own state on the Elemental Gauge. Their only purpose is to make your enemies suffer for an extended period of time via something called... well, damage over time (DoT).

These aren’t spells you cast 24/7 like Fire or Blizzard, however! Casting either Thunder spell will place a debuff on the target(s) that does a certain amount of damage over time. It's a good thing Black Mages are also semi-mathematicians for some reason. Sorry if you're not fond of that. Or congrats if you are!

This damage ticks every 3 seconds, so if you want to calculate the total damage either of them do: simply take the duration of the debuff, divide by 3, and multiply by the potency. For example, Thunder I does 45 potency over 24 seconds, so it’ll do a total of 360 potency over time if left alone. (24 / 3 = 8, and 8 * 45 = 360)

Now, you may be wondering why I haven’t said a word about how to cast it. (You most definitely aren’t.) Well... before Dawntrail was a thing, Thunder spells worked a tad differently than they do now. But luckily, some of its pre-Dawntrail influence is still around, in the form of... this thing:

let me discuss why this is a big deal

Whenever you enter Astral Fire or Umbral Ice, you will get a conditional buff called “Thunderhead” (I died again it looks like that). This is the game changer. Do you remember how I said you, as a Thaumaturge (black mage), must adopt the mentality that you are to “commit to the cast”?

Fuck outta here with that. This is the beginning of learning when to break that mantra. Whenever you have the Thunderhead buff, you are allowed to cast Thunder I or Thunder II. Instantly. It also lasts for 30 seconds, which means you are given MOVEMENT FREEDOM for that duration of time until you use it, something that is already extremely uncommon to see with this class.

Now, to be fair, you already have an instacast spell called Scathe (obtained at Lv. 15 from a class quest). You may have either caught on to using this already, or just avoided it entirely. However, it doesn’t have much more payoff as Thunder I/II, and its uses don’t truly extend far outside of using it whenever you aren’t allowed to stand still (god damn it, tanks; STAND STILL).

The point is, Thunderhead (sort of) serves as encouragement to use your Thunder spells. It’s nice to work with, and... at least I don’t have to joke about Straight Shot or Freecure anymore.

Let’s be honest.

Real quick, before we get into the actual section, let’s talk about the two abilities you got from your class/job quests: Manaward and Manafont.

Manaward is an oGCD ability that actively encourages you to “commit to the cast”.

Since we’re still in A Realm Reborn territory, a lot of AoEs don’t give you debuffs when you stand in them; however, that doesn’t mean all of them are safe. But, if you truly adopt the mentality of a Thaumaturge, and experiment with the dangers around you, you will know what AoEs you can and cannot stand in. Luckily, Manaward helps with this by giving you a shield equal to 30% of your HP. That’s enough to survive one or a few hits! Which gives you time to cast that spell.

Manafont, on the other hand, is for a different thing, and it does... a lot.

For starters, it gives all your MP back on use. That’s cool. More stuff to set on fire! On top of that, it gives you Thunderhead (for an extra Thunder cast), and it’ll give you all your Astral Fire crystals as well, which... I guess, is nice! It's kinda like a "reset button" if you think about it. Though you’re probably doing something wrong if you already aren’t in that state. You can only use it while you’re in Astral Fire, so if you somehow run out of MP outside of that (which is kinda hard to do), then... uhhhh... whoops?

Alrighty, then...

From this point onward, I’m going to try to be ‘technical’ about the terms we already know. I’m solely doing this for cohesion and simplicity. And not because I’m starting to get lazy typing out things like Umbral Ice III or Thunder I and stuff like that. This roughly follows the terminology other BLMs use, so...

Get this memorized.

• For all Fire spells, they will be prefixed with F
• For example, Fire I is F1
• and Fire II is F2
• and Fire III is F3
• For all Blizzard spells, they will be prefixed with B
• For example, Blizzard I is B1
• and Blizzard II is B2
• and Blizzard III is B3
• For both Astral Fire and Umbral Ice states, they will be referred to as AF and UI respectively
• For an ambiguous example, Astral Fire will be AF
• For a specific example, Umbral Ice III will be UI3
• For all Thunder spells, they will- do you see where this is going now?
• Thunder I is T1.
• Thunder II is T2.
• Got it? Good.

So. Let's talk.

Did you notice how I mentioned Fire III and Blizzard III? Yeah. The game just changed.

You’re a Black Mage now.

It’s time to work with it.

Thanks to a cool trait you get at Lv. 35 (Aspect Mastery III), your gauge now has three crystals. THREE!!! This is super important, because it now means that I’m once again dead on the floor, and Astral Fire and Umbral Ice are at their strongest.

• AF3 boosts all Fire damage by a lot more (+80%),
• UI3 makes all Ice spells give all MP back (+10000 MP),
• and, while in either state, spells of the opposite element do far less potency (-30%)

Casting F1/B1 three times while not in any state will push you to AF3/UI3, but Transpose will always continue to swap elements down to the first level一that aspect of it never changes. It’s not perfect, but there’s not really much of a way around it anyways...

...that is, had the other part of Aspect Mastery III not existed. It will forever change how you switch elements from this point on.

Transpose is a joke now. Sort of. We aren’t going to stop using it, as there are more practical applications for it, but you'll no longer actively use it to swap elements. As the description puts it, casting Fire II or Blizzard II will instantly give you AF3/UI3. It’s awesome and totally doesn’t invalidate the use of Transpose at all!

Not only that, but whenever you are in AF3/UI3, casting a spell of the opposite element will not only just use no MP, but will also take half the time to cast! You know what that means: goofing your gauge with F1/B1 is even more probable and even more severe!

Don’t worry: we still aren’t gonna laugh at it yet. That’s what the guide is for. But how does any of this relate to F3/B3?

F3 and B3 are now your primary forms of switching between “kill” and “break” states. It is just like F2 and B2, except it’s for single-target situations. Although both F3 and B3 have a cast time of 3.5s, the faster cast times under AF3/UI3 still apply, so switching between the two states is now far nicer to do, because you also get a bit of MOVEMENT FREEDOM thanks to the extra second you get to move around!

Despite the fact that you are still mostly glued in place casting your spells, Aspect Mastery III makes playing Black Mage a whole lot nicer to deal with. It also opens so many different possibilities for the job, and all that happened was you got another crystal! It’s weird to have three balls float around you now, isn’t it?

However, this also means a few other things:

• You should now be starting with F3/B3 so you can get AF3/UI3 ASAP.
  This also applies to dealing with multiple enemies: use F2/B2 to get AF3/UI3.
• I know it’s funny, but using F3 and then B3 (or F2 and then B2) over and over again is not a valid rotation. I know it’s funny. I know it is. But it just don’t work like that

• Goofing is now more of a bad thing now that you have three Balls™, but that’s okay! You can always use transpose or use B3/B2 to quickly switch over to UI before your AF timer runs out!
• YOU DO NOT HARDCAST F3 WHILE UNDER AF
• IT’S A WASTE OF DAMAGE AND MP
• FUCK

So. Patch 7.01 and 7.05 happened, and uh... Well, they did a funny little thing to one of the abilities, and it was such a shift in the currents of aether that I guess it just moved itself to this part of the guide now.

Christ—okay, so... Umbral Ice, am I right?

Ah, yes—of course! The cool spell. Pun severely intended.

Have you caught yourself transposing to keep your timers up? Maybe when all the enemies in the pull are dead, but you still have some MP while you’re under Astral Fire? And you’re spamming Transpose to carry your AF/UI stacks, in this period of “downtime”?

Congratulations! We now have a remedy to the solution! Transposing over to UI is still okay; however, you are no longer confined to just having one UI crystal.

Thanks to Umbral Soul, you won't have to awkwardly juggle one singular ice ball all the time! Life has successfully been made a tad easier, because—get this—using it will refresh and completely FREEZE THE TIMER. Feels wrong already, doesn’t it? It’s like magic! Black magic, if anything... wait.

It may be instacast, but do not be fooled; it is still part of GCD, just like Scathe. It also acts differently depending on where you use it:

• using it during combat will give you ONE UI crystal and restores some MP depending on crystal count. Double whammy!
• using it outside combat will give you ALL UI crystals and restores ALL MP regardless of crystal count. Free reset!

As long as you are in UI, you can quite literally keep your timer going infinitely! I stress the “as long as you are in UI” part, because Umbral Soul can only be used while under Umbral Ice. Pretty straightforward. I get to call you weird if you’re using it any other time.

This ability was NOT this cool before (pun not intended this time), by the way. Having it give you all your resources back, let alone pause your timer, would’ve been unheard of way back when; this was just a button you had to SPAM whenever there was nothing going on. Even worse—it wasn’t at this early of a level!

Regardless, it’s a tad bit more of that MOVEMENT FREEDOM you’re getting. Your “break” phase is now even more of a break phase, because you should always catch yourself using this whenever you’re moving inbetween pulls, or when the boss can’t be hit at the moment. They’re all periods of “downtime”, moments where you can’t really actively do anything. It’s the opposite of “uptime” (sort of), where you actually “kill” things, y’know?

Certainly better than having this be at Lv. 76, am I right?

Haha... ha...

Okay, keep reading.

Oh boy. It’s been a trip, hasn’t it? You must be feeling a lot right now. Either you enjoy Black Mage a lot more than you thought you would, or you absolutely despise leveling it right now. That’s completely fine... because guess what? We’ve got some more movement and destruction tools to go over!

Nothing special with the gauge this time around. It’s the best it can be. For now, the game was nice enough to give you more MOVEMENT FREEDOM, in the form of:

let me discuss why this is a big deal (again)

Well, there’s not really much to discuss. At least, I don’t think so. The good news is that I didn’t have to die to get those photos. Thank Jesus Christ and His 11 Copies, am I right?

No?

...so Firestarter lets you instantly use F3 (for free!), just like how Thunderhead lets you instantly use T3. However, unlike Thunderhead, Firestarter isn’t guaranteed to show up; it’s a 40% chance. As long as you keep casting F1, this will have a chance to activate.

Combined with Thunderhead and Swiftcast (and ignoring Scathe once again), that’s a whole 7.5 possible seconds you could have to FREELY MOVE AROUND. We are progressively moving out of the mentality of standing still all the time as this job continues.

This is the other reason why I stress (and I do severely) to new BLM players that you should never, EVER hardcast F3 while under AF. Without Firestarter, hardcasting F3 spends more MP and more time for less damage. F1 is still faster, and the F3’s you try to cast could have been FREE thanks to一you guessed it一Firestarter!

But oh boy. Our movement tech don’t stop there. Now we’re gonna be using your own party members as methods to escape danger. Check this out.

No, it’s not “slidecasting”.

That’s called abusing server ticks to get some movement out of the end of your cast.

This is Aetherial Manipulation. We use this to “aetherskate”! It’s oGCD, with its own cooldown timer of 10 seconds.

Just finished a cast and we’re still standing in an AoE? Look at a teammate and aetherskate!

Wanna keep up with your party while they're pulling more enemies? Look at your tank and aetherskate!

Outside the healing range because you’re stupid and forgot about what happened to Avere all that time ago in MSQ? Look at your healer and aetherskate! And then cry about how you weren't healed in time.

The only issue comes with targeting a teammate, which can be kind of a pain to do sometimes. Fortunately, if you're a mouse + keyboard player, you can set up a “mouse-over” macro to have it activate without actually clicking someone! Something like this should work:

And, to top it all off, thanks to your efforts in doing... whatever it was in the Black Mage questline (I kinda forgot一it’s been a minute), the game decided to give you an iconic Final Fantasy spell! Despite the fact it doesn’t look like many past renditions... it is still just as explosive.

Ladies and gentlemen,

you can Flare your enemies.

Flare (FL). You know how Freeze is like B2 but more powerful? Yeah. It’s like F2 except far more powerful. Flare takes a not-as-god-awful 3 seconds to cast (just like F2), but it does a wonderful 240 potency (168 to others), and it’s still such an awesome spell regardless.

Unfortunately, it takes all of your MP when you cast it. Fortunately, there is a limit to this MP requirement: you need 800 MP or more to be allowed to cast it. And, thankfully, Flare’s damage is also NOT dependent on MP, no matter how much or how little you have when you cast it. When you can't cast F2 anymore, finish with a Flare!

Just remember: this can only be cast while under Astral Fire. It doesn’t matter if it’s AF1 or AF2 (preferably AF3), but you must be in AF to even use it.

Another thing I should mention is that you totally could use Flare as a "single-target finisher”.... but you shouldn’t use it like that. Flare is a fun spell, but you’d be better off just casting B3 when you’re left with 800 or 1200 MP or whatever when it comes to one enemy.

Unless it’s a boss and they’re on 0.7% HP or something. Then feel free to cause whatever chaos you like.

Man. A Realm Reborn... sucks.

Okay, actually, it’s not all bad. Even with all the “MOVEMENT FREEDOM” we’ve been given at this point, things are still kinda slow, and the flow of the job is just kinda garbo. We’re still practically glued to the ground, and while “committing to the cast” is a good mentality, it’s only really “good” when you know exactly when to follow it and when not to.

Trying to be "optimal" this early on proves to be annoying as well. It really comes down to what you know about the circumstances you’re in and what you make of them. It’s not a bad thing entirely... It’s just kinda tough that the job only really picks up at Lv. 35.

But hey, once we got there, it wasn't so bad! There were, at least, quite a few things to work with. The Elemental Gauge isn't terrible to manage, especially with an ability like Umbral Soul. Moving around isn't as terrible to deal with either, thanks to Aetherial Manipulation. And we can't forget about Firestarter...

At least this isn’t a truly in-depth “retrospect” of the job. We'd be here for way longer if it was. Plus, that’s not what you came here for. You came here for a guy trying to explain how to play Black Mage. Emphasis on trying.

What a rollercoaster we've gotten ourselves into. But you persisted, and we’ve gotten this far, so.... Good job!

Hopefully Heavensward can do us one better. We’ll get that actual movement freedom eventually, right...?

*sigh*

You are locked in place for 30 seconds. (not literally.)

Why? For reduced cast times. These Ley Lines are an ability given to every Black Mage, and the way they work sets in stone the idea that “black mages don’t fucking move” (quoting some angry ass tank).

It has a reaaally long 120s charge time (like Manaward and Manafont), but the good news? That's a charge time and not a cooldown (that wasn't there before)! We'll get to that a bit later, but using it will draw a line-woven circle onto the ground一despite your artistic incapabilites. Standing in it makes you... well, cast faster! Also you can bonk your enemies 15% faster now. I guess.

More specifically,

• all spells with 2.5s cast times are now about ~2.13s,
• all spells with 3s are about ~2.55s,
• all spells with 3.5s are about ~2.98s,
• and so on. You get the idea; faster spells :D

That’s a whole lotta stuff you can do now. Within 30 seconds? You’re practically doing almost 15 casts in total! That... probably doesn’t sound like a lot. But it’s definitely more than the average 10-12 casts you normally do in rotation, which is definitely more damage! And that's not even including your second charge...

Now, it is no longer just a matter of what you can and cannot avoid and/or stand in. It is now a matter of: where, within this 3-yalm radius circle, can you safely do your job for 30 seconds?

(My only pro tip for you is to not stand directly in the middle...)

Ley Lines isn’t inherently bad. You just have to get used to standing still is all. Placing them down is a commitment, and you must therefore know where and when you should place them. It's like playing a game of "How long until the game decides this was a bad idea?" that immediately ends when the ground turns orange under your lines.

Just know that you should still prioritize doing [the mechanic]. Saving your life一and possibly others一is always better than committing to the cast, after all.

Ley Lines, as a whole, is a blessing, a curse, and a mystery.

(lalamint pictured. this still gives the buff)

Now, for the tiny word of caution: although you get two charges of Ley Lines, the charge time is still 120 seconds一NOT 60 seconds. You also can't have two sets of lines out at the same time. That would be illegal... and honestly inefficient. So, despite the lines kinda holding you in place already, it's technically MOVEMENT FREEDOM一just a weird kind, but only if you can use them wisely!

“Hey, what are those funny looking sharp blue things?”

Please tell me you asked that. I died on the first pull of The Antitower for this screenshot. Please tell me you’re asking about the Umbral Hearts. PLEASE. I need a reason to talk about this part of BLM that isn’t just Fire IV. Please tell...

... Sigh.

Okay. I don’t know if you did or not, but let’s just assume you are asking.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this sentence and you’re Lv. 58 AND did your job quests (like a normal person), then you have Blizzard IV! You’ve either not been using it or you probably have and had no real clue what it did. Or you’ve been using it and you totally knew. But you’re reading this guide as if you’re oblivious to everything.

It has the same 2.5s cast time as B1 (even though the screenshot says otherwise) and does way more damage; but, just like Freeze, it can be cast only under UI and does not refresh the timer. Even if it does more damage, it's not worth your time using it 24/7 until UI runs out. Just once!

On the bright side, this skill comes hand-in-hand with a trait that single-handedly unlocks the next part of your spiky Elemental Gauge! Whenever you cast B4 successfully, you’ll get three special needles stuck in your gauge. What makes them special?

Well, well, well. Look at you now. Cold-hearted at Lv. 58 with your brand-new trait (and aforementioned spiky object), Umbral Heart. It wasn't in colored text before for nothing.

Each one of those acupuncture needles nullifies the doubled MP cost of any Fire spell. Double the damage at half the cost! (roll credits) For example, F1’s 1600 MP becomes its normal 800 MP with one Umbral Heart!

It works weirdly with Flare, however. It doesn’t change the whole “let’s just remove your entire MP bar on use” thing entirely; Flare just gets rid of ALL your Umbral Hearts to use 1/3 of your MP. Luckily, you only need one! On the bright side, this means—you guessed it—you can Flare twice if you wanted to. Without using Manafont! I’m starting to think these needles are actually cool (i always knew they were).

The addition of this "mechanic" to the job affects some of your other spells and abilities as well! For example,

• Umbral Soul will now give one Umbral Heart per use. Outside of combat, it gives all three. You’ll certainly be ready to explode another unwilling target.
• Manafont will give three Umbral Hearts, meaning you’ll be allowed to just... re-do your entire Fire phase again!
• Freeze has an actual use now other than just being a slightly better B2! Every successful cast gives three Umbral Hearts! I knew it wasn't completely useless.
• Just like how B1/B3 is single-target and B2 is multi-target, B4 is single-target and Freeze is multi-target一both with the added bonus of Umbral Hearts!

But wait,

It doesn't stop there

fuck outta here with that F1 bullshit

Shit gets heated now. Literally. You got to Lv. 60. You did all your job quests and avoided my utter disappointment. And now you have Fire IV, which (quite literally) serves as 70% of your entire DPS from here on out.

Same deal as B4. You can use it only under AF, and it doesn't refresh the timer, but like... 320 potency? In your "kill" phase? C’mon. That’s a shitload of damage. It’s almost two times as much as F1, and it’s certainly better than F3 despite being on a 2.8s cast time (the screenshot is gaslighting you once again).

From now on, this is your main form of attack. No more Firestarter (sorta). F1 has been reduced only to keeping the AF timer up, so you can cast F4 to your heart’s content!

Cool. That was the award-winning Heavensward!

For the sake of the funny (and also because you need it), I’m going to try and explain another rotation. By now, we’ve basically entered “mechanics overlap”, and your rotation has started to get a bit more involved. You’re no longer just “casting F1 until you can’t,” but don't worry一it’s still fairly easy to get down. We aren’t Summoner levels of smooth-brained, after all (no offense).

For now, here’s what you can do at Lv. 60.

This is the basic idea:

SINGLE-TARGET

B3 > B4 > F3 > F4 > F4 > F4 > F1 > F4 > F4 > F4 ...

Assuming you’ve already “opened” into your rotation,

• Cast B3 to enter UI3
• Cast B4 for your Umbral Hearts
• Cast F3 to swap to AF3
• Cast F4 three times (using Umbral Hearts)
• Cast F1 to refresh the timer
• Cast F4 three more times
• If you wish to do so, use Manafont and repeat the entire AF phase
• Repeat by casting B3 to swap back to UI3
• And so on! Unless you die. In that case, cry about it.

For AoEs, it’s a bit different:

MULTI-TARGET

B2 > FR > F2 > F2 > F2 > FL > FL > ...

Assuming you’ve already “opened” into your rotation,

• Cast B2 to enter UI3
• Cast Freeze for your Umbral Hearts
• Cast F2 to swap to AF3
• Cast F2 two more times (using Umbral Hearts)
• Cast Flare (using the last Umbral Heart)
• Cast Flare again
• If you wish to do so, use Manafont and repeat the entire AF phase
• If you wish to do so, use any 800 MP ether to cast another Flare. Five of them, dear Gods...
• Repeat by casting B2 to swap back to UI3
• And so on! Unless you die. In that case, cry about it.

If you’re worried about how to start your rotation, it’s better to start with a Fire spell like F3/F2. I just wrote a Blizzard spell first because it demonstrates the flow of the rotation better. Thunder is not listed, as its position remains variable. This means that you don't have to use it ASAP 24/7; you just gotta get a feel for when you should.

One of the key things to note in the single-target rotation is that most of your damage relies on risking your timer now (since F4 doesn’t refresh it like F1). So, if you mess up your rotation at any point in time, don’t worry一that’s normal (you know what they say: Always Be Casting)! Black Mages can mess up during their "kill" phase because of this, but there are ways to avoid it:

• Casting B3/B2 before the AF timer runs out
• Pressing Transpose before the AF timer runs out
• Really any solution that ends with you entering UI somehow
• If you really have to, using Manafont before the AF timer runs out

Now, for your single-target rotation, finishing with Flare (aka. using it at the end of your "kill" phase)... is still not recommended. It’s not detrimental at this level, but一y'know, once again一not advised.

I've seen quite a few people do this, so to make sure, I tested it. Sort of.

Not to an extremely scientific degree, but I followed the single-target rotation I listed before. Thanks to the wonderings of another Black Mage, I went out to "Stone, Sky, Sea: Level 60" and did two tests一the only difference being incorporating the use of Flare in the second.

That second test was very identical to the first one. Like, scarily identical. It is still a tad awkward to use because of the 3s cast, but it isn’t necessarily that big of a loss; so, if you’ve (somehow??) already incorporated it in your own single-target rotation, that’s cool! Just be ready to stop doing that later down the line.

Trust me. You’ll get a spell later on that does the same thing but better.

And just to reiterate, as a safety measure...

you do not hardcast F3 under AF

it doesn't do shit for you

A Black Mage reaching Lv. 62 is one that has learned to fully attune to their singular brain cell, and link it directly into their Ley Lines. Sometimes, as we find ourselves distanced from our Lines, we are lost, disorientated, and simply just not fast enough. Making the most out of those precious 30 seconds we give ourselves is important. The Lines are our lifeblood, and parting ways with it is never easy.

So... you've been led astray from your only brain cell.

Need it back?

Say hello to the Not-Aetherskate. No one calls it that.

Between the Lines lets you immediately skate back to your "anchored brain cell" (after spending time to resolve a mechanic, or whatever it is you do) so you can get back to standing still for your shortened cast times. oGCD. No MP requirement. 3 second recast, because you’re only really gonna use it like once. And that’s when you realize your Ley Lines are about to disappear. lol

That's all well and good, but... it was not what I came here to discuss.

Let me preface this next ability... by saying that I think standing still is kinda funny.

Apart from literally every other job in the game... we do it the most. And we also do it the best. The identity of the job, if you will! There’s always some strategy to it as well. Black Mage is probably the one job that’s just really good at narrowly avoiding death, because we just really wanna get in an extra F4 cast or something. I’m sure melee players would understand.

If we read the room well enough, any attack or AoE simply become suggestions to us. We commit to the cast like no one else ever could, and it strikes fear (or hatred) into so many of our fellow teammates (especially our healers). In a world where every attack could spell your doom... to be able to survive such scenarios just to get one more spell out is daredevilish, and yet it is fun regardless.

Me, personally? I wouldn’t give up that excitement for anything else.

With that being said,

yeah you have like 9 swiftcasts now

LET ME STRESS HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS
OH MY GOD

How many times have I said “MOVEMENT FREEDOM” in this guide at this point? Seven by now, right? I should’ve said it two more times. No, I should've said it WAY more一you have no idea how serious this is. I mean, you probably do, if you bothered to read the description of Triplecast. And that’s if the NAME didn’t catch your eye.

Look at it. LOOK AT IT. Triplecast is an oGCD, just like Swiftcast, and it has two charges. It may have a charge time (recast) of 60 seconds, but for 15 WHOLE SECONDS, you are allowed to cast three spells instantly. You won't have to worry about overstepping your GCD, too! The MP requirement for your spells may still be there, but the cast time is just GONE.

Now, think about this for a second一just sit here and think about it with me.

Triplecast一two of them. Swiftcast. Thunderhead. And if you have Firestarter on standby? Just think. That’s ~22.5 seconds you get to do damage AND move freely. You, at this point, (technically) have NINE ENTIRE SWIFTCASTS no I was not lying. And, while we don’t really have a lot of things in our arsenal to weave (remember; that's using oGCD moves in-between GCD moves), you can most certainly weave other things in there if you need to, like Ley Lines for example, or Manafont if you wish!

Do you UNDERSTAND just how much the game has changed?

You, a job who strategically had to learn where to stand to avoid movement and optimize casting without interruption, are now being given yet another method to just... not. It’s now “you, a job who strategically uses their 4 forms of instacasting to optimize both movement and casting”. Especially since, for most fights, you only really have to move every once in a while. Things like Triplecast and Swiftcasts being on the cooldowns they have will basically feel like nothing.

You no longer have to use Scathe all the time if the tank is pulling a group of enemies just to hit something. Triplecast. Flare those idiots three times or something.

You no longer have to struggle to get out of The Unsafe Spot™ you're completely in the middle of. Triplecast. Cast F4 or B3 or something while you make your way out of certain danger.

Maybe you’re just bored of casting. Triplecast. I guess?

I trust that, by this point, goofing is something you don’t even do anymore. You don’t mismanage your resources... too often. You know what that means?

Nothing stops you now.

You are a force to be reckoned with.

And you will not be stopping of your own will. Anytime soon.

Remember this?

Now there’s a “clock” on your gauge.

Funny story about this image if you couldn’t see it一I had to use Sleep to make sure I got every important part of the new stuff showing. Twice.

Well, I’m... I’m dead again, but now we can talk about the clock.

Welcome to Lv. 70! After doing all your job quests, the game has decided to stick yet another pointy bit on the Elemental Gauge. What does it do, and why does it tick over that one part of the gauge I (you) had no clue about?

Recall how Black Mage just passively got better at Lv. 56. That’s Enochian we’re talking about. Used to be a thing that you had to cast, and it lasted for 30 seconds, as long as you didn’t somehow die in the middle of it.

Nowadays, it's a passive buff that stays on while you're in UI/AF. But how does this clock relate to Enochian even remotely?

Not only are you now naturally better at brutally exploding your enemies by an extra 5%, but this trait has decided that if you do your job correctly for 30 seconds, you basically get a win button.

In other words, if you stay within UI/AF and let the “clock” tick down to the diamond at the bottom of your gauge... you get to cast:

fuck off: the spell

Hoo boy. Things are about to get a lot more Foul. It does not matter what state you are under, whether it be “kill” or “break”. So long as you stay under those states for a collective 30 seconds, you will get a Polyglot. As long as you have one, you are allowed to target one enemy and deal 600 potency to it (and 240 potency to anything else).

It’s your strongest move (yeah一stronger than a F4 under AF3), and it does not matter what state you use it in.

For example, while Enochian’s 10% damage boost does affect it, AF’s 80% damage boost does not affect it, because that only affects fire-aspected spells. That’s why Scathe and Thunder spells are also unaffected by AF's damage boost: they aren’t fire-aspected spells (surprise). And neither is Foul一it is unaspected to any element.

It doesn’t matter if you use it on one target or multiple. You always gotta use it. It’s such a good spell. That’s like free damage. If that wasn’t reason enough, the clock will continue to tick even if you have a Polyglot already. So, it is possible to keep doing your job correctly (keeping the timer going) and lose out on a Polyglot because you had one already. In short, as soon as Foul comes up, prioritize it. Something is going to die by your staff一even if you don’t know what it is yet!

It can’t.

That was Stormblood. And with it came the last important part of your Elemental Gauge. There’s nothing else we have to spend time looking at, because you’ve basically got it all.

There’s the three crystals we can get for Umbral Ice and Astral Fire, one returning your MP and the other increasing your damage...

there’s the Umbral Hearts, nullifying the increased MP cost from being in AF...

and there’s the Enochian clock, somewhat awakened, that gives Polyglot after being under UI/AF for 30 seconds.

That’s it. The entire gauge is practically there at Lv. 70! All the important parts are now being used, at least. The job basically feels complete at this point, which is strange for a job that一saying it once again一literally spends most of its time not moving. Just casting. Because we love casting spells.

You've got no more job quests to do (save one, but it's optional). The gauge doesn’t get any more complicated from here on out. We’re all good... and it's a nice close too, since the Free Trial ends here. You’re quite the Avatar of Destruction now, huh?

So... What else could the game possibly give you?

This section used to be kinda long before, due to going through 10 levels worth of stuff. Fortunately, Patch 7.x cut down on a lot of things, so now there's a very awkward gap of Nothing for ~8 levels. But don't worry: the road from Lv. 70 to 80 gives way to two Very Important Buttons!

Get ready.

I really hope you didn’t get to this part of the guide with the whole "using Flare on single-target" mindset still. I didn’t stress it like hardcasting F3 while in AF because you don’t have as much freedom to cast Flare regularly that way. I just really hope you haven’t been doing it.

Don’t even ask why.

I told you why.

I’m gonna tell you now.

Despair (D).

Is like Flare.

But it’s Single. Target.

I truly do not get why they waited until now to give you a move like this.

350 potency. Same qualities as Flare. It can be used only in AF and it refreshes the timer when cast. It uses all MP, with the same 800 MP limit, and takes 3 seconds to cast. The only difference is that it doesn’t listen to Umbral Hearts.

Now, when you cast F4 so much to the point you can’t cast it anymore, do not think of immediately using B3 (or Flare). Despair is now your “kill” state finisher.

Epic. Astral Fire just got even hotter! haha

But... this section goes up to Lv. 80. Did we miss something?

i don’t think i can stress this one enough

Where to begin... Okay. So now you have two Polyglots, thanks to...

Enhanced Polyglot, which does what I just said. Simple enough—there’s two now, so you can worry a bit less about over-capping your Polyglots! Also, two Fouls! That's like a whole 5 seconds of GCD that you’d have to waste to get them in, but you could always just Triplecast or someth-actually, no. I can’t keep this bit up. You need to know.

Foul is instacast now. Yippee! No need to waste any type of Swiftcast on it. This is nice, but... Why did they do this, exactly?

Go back and read the title of this section.

I’ll wait.

Did you remember?

Good. Let’s talk about this for a minute.

Take note of the cast time. Take note of how much damage it does. Take note of what this spell uses. Take note of how much damage it does. Recall how many Polyglots we can hold. Take note of how much damage it does.

Xenoglossy (Xeno) is your second “fuck off” spell. Take note of how much damage it does. Let that sink in.

Foul became instacast because of Xeno, a spell so strong it puts Scathe to even further shame.

And, just like that, you’re given EVEN MORE movement freedom! Once again, if everything conveniently lines up一both Triplecasts, Swiftcast, Thunderhead, Firestarter, two Polyglots, and an extra Polyglot coming up thanks to the clock一that’s 30 possible seconds of doing basically whatever you want while still doing damage. That’s a very specific setup with some very specific spells, but all of these “what-ifs” are to demonstrate just how much you’re being allowed to MOVE. Standing still is but a concept now.

Now, you have a single- and multi- target variant for just about everything.

• Your “main” ice/fire spells have a single and multi variant.
  For example, Blizzard I has Blizzard II, and Fire IV has Fire II.
• Thunder III, a single-target spell, has its multi-target counterpart, Thunder IV.
• Freeze, a multi-target spell that gives Umbral Hearts, has a single-target counterpart that also gives Umbral Hearts, Blizzard IV.
• Flare, a multi-target spell, now has a single-target counterpart, Despair.
• Foul, your multi-target “fuck off” button, now has a single-target counterpart, Xeno.

You win in any scenario now. Either a group of enemies get fucked over, or one in particular gets completely screwed.

There is no losing here.

This first part will only take a second.

This is Amplifier. And it’s about to amplify your ability to say “fuck off.”

It’s an oGCD with a 120s cooldown, and it gives you a Polyglot. For free! As long as you're in UI/AF. Because it can’t be used any other time.

If you have room for one more, using this is perfect!

If you have two Polyglots already, using this is a waste.

However, if you have two Polyglots, and you cast things correctly just before the Enochian Clock can give you another Polyglot, you can manage to get in four Xenos in a row (this can be done with Foul too). 880 times 4. That short ~10s burst is 3520 potency. That’s SUPER messed up. And that’s not even counting Enochian!

Polyglots, by a non-XIV definition, speak four or more languages.

We don’t do that. We do get to say “fuck off” four or more times, though.

And yet... we don’t stop there. We’ve got yet one final thing to put on the gauge.

(ignore the fact there are no hearts一i already used them.)

Man. How far we’ve come, am I right? Every spiky part is now being used (almost). I still advise that you don’t touch it. (not like you could at all...) Which means it’s time I talk about the new part of your arsenal.

THAT fucking thing

and THIS fucking spell

That’s right. The Paradox Marker was there from the beginning. I know you were wondering about that part of the gauge at least once. Now we get to talk about it!

Paradox is... kinda complicated. It’s not a spell you can manually put on your hotbar.

Here’s how it works: Whenever you swap states from Astral Fire to Umbral Ice, OR Umbral Ice to Astral Fire with all Umbral Hearts, you obtain the Paradox Marker.

Just like that, Blizzard and Fire are both nowhere to be seen. Why? They’re both Paradox now. And it’s a tad strange.

Firstly, it’s unaspected (THAT IS HOW YOU SPELL IT GOOGLE), so it’s unaffected by your Elemental Gauge’s probable damage boosts/reductions. If that sounds like a lot, just remember it’s a 500 potency spell, no matter what.

Secondly, it’s instacast, which is pretty cool! It also won’t use an Umbral Heart if you have those lying around, so you won’t have to worry about losing one after B4 or before F4. Despite your weird fire-ice combo spell of conflagration, it does not care for MP reduction!

These qualities of Paradox are constant, regardless of elemental state. However, the spell acts differently depending on what state you ARE in. For example,

• if you cast Paradox while under Astral Fire,
• then it will use 1600 MP, refreshing the timer and activating Firestarter
• if you cast Paradox while under Umbral Ice,
• then it will use no MP, refreshing the timer without activating Firestarter

Now, think back to the single-target rotation from Interlude B. That one spot where we use F1 to upkeep the timer? Paradox. Thinking about leaving UI? Paradox before you go. No reason not to use it, after all. It’s 500 points of free damage.

Fun fact, actually: using Transpose for Paradox is actually very plausible! Used to be a bit of a meme way back when. But it’s also very... situational. Using it as part of your normal rotation, though?

Well... that'd be pushing into the wonderful world of “non-standard” gameplay. A realm of knowledge built by the countless Black Mages who gave their souls (probably) to optimize and mobilize the various different parts of their rotation. And it all started with this, a spell containing the Ultimate power... Paradox...

...whatever. Blah, blah, blah一that’s a rabbit hole for another time and place.

Okay... we’re almost done.

...almost. I still have to give a basic rundown of what the “standard rotation” would look like at this level. We already had a glance of it back in Interlude B, but this time it gets real. Content starts getting crazy and, while it may not be complex, so does your rotation.

Once again, this is the basic idea:

SINGLE-TARGET

B3 > B4 > P > F3 > F4 > F4 > F4 > P > F4 > F4 > F4 > D ...

Assuming you’ve already “opened” into your rotation,

• Cast B3 to enter UI3
• Cast B4 for your Umbral Hearts
• Cast Paradox to refresh the timer
• Cast F3 to swap to AF3
• Cast F4 three times (using Umbral Hearts)
• Cast Paradox to refresh the timer
• Cast F4 three more times
• Finish with Despair
• If you wish to do so, use Manafont and repeat the entire AF phase
• Repeat by casting B3 to swap back to UI3
• And so on! Unless you die. In that case, cry about it.

AoEs, of course, go just about the same

MULTI-TARGET

HB2 > FR > HF2 > HF2 > HF2 > FL > FL > ...

Assuming you’ve already “opened” into your rotation,

• Cast HB2 to enter UI3
• Cast Freeze for your Umbral Hearts
• Cast HF2 to swap to AF3
• Cast HF2 two more times (using Umbral Hearts)
• Cast Flare (using the last Umbral Heart)
• Cast Flare again
• If you wish to do so, use Manafont and repeat the entire AF phase
• If you wish to do so, use any 800 MP ether to cast another Flare. Five of them, dear Gods...
• Repeat by casting B2 to swap back to UI3
• And so on! Unless you die. In that case, cry about it.

...Yeah, your rotation isn’t really much different than it was way back at Lv. 60. It’ll kinda stay like this from now on.

Keep in mind that these rotations are not completely "optimized". They do not account for many things, such as: when you should use Ley Lines; keeping T3/T4 up ~100% of the time; when you should use Triplecast, Swiftcast, Manafont; when to use Xenos or Fouls... the list goes on and on.

All of these nuances are for you to figure out. The rotations above are meant to serve as a baseline for how things should be going for you. If you can find room for optimization, by all means一go for it! Your spells may be situational, but every scenario is different, and it’s up to you to learn when you should and shouldn’t do things!

And, once again, just to reiterate as a safety measure...

you do not hardcast F3 under AF

it doesn't do shit for you

You won’t believe what they do to Thunder at this level.

What a shocking twist of events... It’s no Burst from PvP, but they remembered one (two) of your favorite spells of all time! And they’re purple now! Quick detour: you know, Thunder is PURPLE on the elemental chart, so I was tired of only T4 being the purple one and not T3. Now it visually makes sense, and both spells look WAY cooler thanks to your new trait:

More high spells. Insulting if you’re a lala (me).

Thunder III and Thunder IV become High Thunder (HT) and High Thunder II (HT2 i guess. it’d be weird if i went back to T2 all of a sudden, i feel), each being ever so slightly stronger.

• HT does 150 potency, and 60 per tick over 30 seconds (600 overall)
• HT2 does 100 potency, and 40 per tick over 24 seconds (320 overall) to all targets
• and it is still better on two enemies. :D

The more notable trait about this upgrade is that their DoTs last... a few seconds longer. If you’ve been around pre-7.x, HT should feel familiar—it’s just T3 before they changed it. Now it’s back to being “normal” and lasting 30 seconds instead of the strange 27 seconds it did before. HT2, on the other hand, is a longer version of T4, lasting 24 seconds—certainly longer than it used to be “way back” when it only lasted for 18.

The fact that these debuffs last longer is probably to account for the length of time you spend in your killing phase. HT2 will especially feel this way, because each cycle you go through between UI and AF will (most likely) have at least one HT2 cast. Either way, there will probably be some drift that you’ll still have to adjust for—if you care about the 100% uptime, at least. It’s fine if you don’t. It’d be cooler if you did though.

Huh. So, Scathe is still kinda... just there, isn’t it?

Okay this one is sort of a big deal. But first, story time!

So... Ever since I started working on this guide—originally half jokingly—I had a pretty high confidence level on my personal mastery as a Black Mage. I wrote all of my words with that same confidence, and purposefully made the tone of it stupid so that it would feel more welcoming to poeple who also thought "I have no idea what I'm doing with this job."

Then I got to this part, and...

...well, I can't say I'm not conflicted.

Every change this job got in 7.x has felt fine so far, if not fun! Though, I feel like I'm cheating with some of them. Like having Umbral Soul at a super-early Lv. 35. And I don't think that feeling is going to away soon. To put it simply, a lof of stuff has felt really fun and smooth, but also... surreal? I think that's the right word? It feels weird enough to where trying to even be excited through my words is starting to get difficult.

Here—let me just show you what I mean. Because I feel a very strange type of "excited" right now.

Remember Ley Lines? I'm sure you know that brain cell you keep dropping on the ground that you like to teleport to all the time, right? Between the Lines?

yeah next time just move them

(???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????)

It's...

It's super cool! Like, it's more MOVEMENT FREEDOM and all that!

But like it feels wrong. Like "I should not have this" wrong.

I actually cried when this got shown off in the Job Actions trailer for Dawntrail, and I don’t know what emotion I should’ve taken from them. That is how conflictingly cool this is.

At Lv. 96, using a charge of Ley Lines will turn it into Retrace (unless you made it a separate button). It’s oGCD, so you can weave it if you want, and it allows you to just... take your lines and put them somewhere else. You look like a real Star doing it.

Now, don’t get me wrong; this button is nice. Awesome even! It’s one hell of a cool ability to have and I’m not disappointed about it at all! But, regardless of how cool it looks, it's basically the equivalent of just using Ley Lines again.

You know the deal already: you gotta know when to use it and where you'll use it. That game of "how long until the game decides this is a bad idea" doesn't go away. If anything, with the content you'll be doing, it's gonna be even harder! On top of dodging stuff, you gotta rule out whether it’s a good idea to move back to your lines or move lines back to you. Ah, yes... your favorite pasttime of reconsidering your life choices, AoE after AoE after AoE...

Quite the complex game you got to play now, huh? You’ve got a tool to move to your anchored brain cell, and now you have a tool to just straight up move it. Adjusting for those faster cast times should be easier now—you've gotten this far, after all.

Right?

(of course I’m right. You’re a black mage.)

This is it. The last part.

I promised myself I wouldn’t go on another tangent like in the previous part. But I had to go through a lot of thought about how I wanted to write this because, the moment I did, I began to think about the job as a whole a lot more. It's tough to think about, but maybe it's because I still have yet to get used to it.

My intention remains, however, to explain this job in a (somewhat) comical yet understandable way. All I'll say is that I apologize if that starts to fall off in this section.

Before we get to [the actual reason why I wrote this part], let's talk about one of your spells reaaaal quick. Guess who!

"...but wait it's just despai-" LOOK AT THE CAST TIME.

It is now INSTANT while you're under AF! Crazy! No more having to risk your timer to pull it off. Weird that it took until Lv. 100 to get it, but no complaints, right?

So why is it like that now?

New trait time. Enhanced Astral Fire decided that AF should get yet another buff: the reason why Despair casts instantly as long as you aren't holding an ice cube (aka. in your "break" phase).

...wait, that was the second half. What the hell is an "Astral Soul"?

And here we are. Your actual final spell. This one in particular—your true "penultimate" spell—is the sole reason those preliminary thoughts began to surface. Flare Star.

It looks awesome AF (haha), and with it comes yet a new addition to the clutter on your screen (which you are probably very neat and tidy about... I hope).

The Elemental Gauge got too busy (I guess), so it decided to invite its friend: the Astral Gauge! A Black Mage with two gauges... the thought of it is weird, and yet the reality of it is even weirder. What do you mean, "it's not spiky?" We like spiky things! Right? I mean, as long as we don't touch them... Well, whatever. Let's talk about this new button.

The standard rotation for a Black Mage’s AF phase is generally:

use F4 three times, toss in a Paradox, use F4 three more times, and then Despair.

That sentence is important, and so is this next one.

There used to be room for some slight variability in that,

but then Flare Star walked into the room and decided "nah that's kinda stupid."

In order to use it, you need to fill the Astral Gauge by obtaining Astral Soul, which can only be done by casting F4 (increases by one) or Flare (increases by three). Basically, you’ll be casting F4 six times, or casting Flare twice. It has a cast time of 3 seconds, and—get this—it doesn't reset the timer.

In short: it’s your new overall killing finisher. Whether it be single- or multi- target, you’re always gonna be ending with this one. Now you have a reason to be casting F4 as much as you can, or Flare twice if you're doing AoE. Because if you don't, you lose out on a spell that does 400 potency.

Doesn't sound like a lot, but once you factor in the AF damage boost, you realize that's actually 720 potency (400 base*1.8 AF3 multiplier)—minus the falloff.

Since we're talking numbers, here's a comparison: it's no 880 from a Xeno, but it's a lot more than a Despair's 630 (350*1.8), a Foul's 600, and a Flare's 432 (240*1.8), so that means it's a very, VERY big deal. Missing a Flare Star cast lies in the list of biggest goofs you could ever pull, and it's quite up there.

When this spell was originally a thing, it was arguably... kinda hard to fit it in. It was hard-coded into the rotation in a way that I personally didn't like, but (bias be damned) thanks to Despair being something you can instantly use at this level, it's far less of an issue to worry about not hitting Flare Star. Or goofing any part of your single-target rotation, really.

Almost feels kind of illegal, doesn't it? Notice how many "illegal" things we're doing by now?

The rotation may be just the slightest bit more standardized now, but come on—they literally gave you a bomb to toss at your enemies. Another one! Actually, you don’t even toss it! You just whack it in a general direction and hope that whatever living soul that collides with it gets sent straight to the Twelve.

It is, after all, just another way to flare your enemies, and you still look like quite the star doing it.

And yet, despite how explosive this job is, we... are still not done! There are a few more things I want to go over before you leave. Unless you already left.

I know I said I didn’t particularly plan on talking about “optimization” or whatever, just to not make this guide look more intimidating than the page count already makes it... but Black Mage is just strong. And it’s also very expansive. There’s plenty of room for flexibility—a lot more than people may think! So, I’ll go over a few things, and you can be on your way.

Sound good? Yes? No?

Better not be no.

First off,

1. things do a lot more damage than you think.

You may have caught glimpses of me implying this before, but I’m laying it out for you very obviously now—just in case you didn’t catch on.

F4 isn’t really 320 potency. Flare isn’t actually 240 potency either. They may be listed as such to give you a general idea of what’s stronger and what isn’t, but they are a lot more than they seem. You gotta remember that you’re naturally doing more damage via three traits:

• Maim and Mend (increasing all damage by 30%. we don’t really factor this one)
• Enochian (increasing your magic damage by 32% while under UI/AF)
• and Astral Fire (all potency on Fire spells are increased, up to +80% at AF3).

“Potency”, “damage”... either way, they may as well be the same thing. So remember: if, for some reason, you still thought Flare Star was 400 potency, then trust me: it’s not. Far from it.

Second off,

2. HF2 kinda... sucks?

Yep. That’s what the title is alluding to!

Because Flare Star exists, it’s kinda... not worth it to use HF2. If you recall the multi-target rotation—or, more simply, the AoE rotation—from Interlude D, you use HF2 quite often. But, at Lv. 100, you just... stop doing that.

Instead of what it was before, it’s more along the lines of this:

HB2 > FR > HF2 > FL > FL > FS ...

...where you omit the extra HF2 casts and skip straight to Flares so that you can cast Flare Star in your rotations faster. Imagine my surprise when I found out this was the better AoE rotation!

To be completely honest, I’m not entirely surprised. HF2 only has a potency of 100—not exactly a big improvement from its previous 80—which, compared to Flare and Flare Star, isn’t really a lot. Your time is better spent on bigger, flashier explosions than the firesand you have leftover in your pocket.

And finally,

3. don’t forget to Experiment!

I’m sure you’ve noticed by now (you kinda have no choice here), but your rotation is still very flexible.

To give an example, your party’s biggest damage will usually come across every two minutes in the form of party-wide buffs (eg. abilities that are usually on 120 sec. cooldowns, like your Ley Lines). If you’re always expecting your rotation to go a very specific way by those two minutes... don’t.

You are a Black Mage, and you have numerous tools of destruction at your disposal. Your prime objective, before and by the time those “burst phases” arise, is to figure out what you should do to get the most damage possible in under ~20-30 seconds. Ley Lines (and Amplifier) is your only real indicator of when a “burst phase" happens, so the moment you use Ley Lines, you should be out for blood. The Twelve should be in fear of what you do.

Furthermore, your rotation is never always “consistent”. You will (usually) never perform the exact same way, in the exact same order you did two minutes ago. It’s hella case-by-case! No one situation is exactly the same; all that stays the same is what you should be doing. You should be casting F4 six times in each AF phase, but you don’t have to do it a specific way—unless you decide a “way” works best for you, there and then.

Your “order” lies within your “chaos”.

And what matters most is that you experiment. Unless it’s your “opener”, but that’s a very different subject. Make use of your flexibility! Understanding this is the first and most key step into entering the optimization side of things whenever you choose to go down that road. You’re doing wonderful now, being an icon of mass destruction and all, but know that you have TONS of room to do better... if you’re so inclined!

And, one more time, because... I think it’s funny...

you do not hardcast F3 under AF

it doesn't do shit for you

"So, you’re telling me that you actually walked over to the Thaumaturges’ Guild in Ul’dah... and became a black mage?"

"Yes. Yes I did."

That's everything! How are you feeling?

What a trip. I have no clue what type of person would be reading this guide. There will probably be people out there who use this unironically. Probably not. I’ve had that in mind the entire time I worked on it. I was mainly writing it for fun, but I still kinda wanted to give people a basic summary of the job as a whole, too.

And yet, I say “basic”, yet this thing prints into 80 pages... Oops.

Well, I could've done worse. There’s many other finer details that I could’ve gotten into, such as the very niche uses for Scathe (yeah), the practical applications of Sleep (it's not completely terrible), gear stats (Spell Speed... hoo boy), et cetera...

Point is, no matter what type of player you are一whether you be a new player who genuinely wanted to try out THM and then BLM, or someone who just wanted to level BLM and get it over with, or someone who began to love the job in the process of doing so, or someone who was already playing BLM but didn’t really have a clue as to what they were doing, or a former 6.x player who...

...er, I hope that this guide一stupid as it was一helped you out to some accord!

Or maybe you just read it for fun. That’s cool too!

As someone who’s been playing Black Mage for two years as of writing this (which might not be a lot to some), this was really fun to do. And so is playing the job! Despite all the changes it’s gone through, I like to believe the core of it is still there. Even if I haven’t seen them all. Now you aren’t glued to the ground 24/7 like you were at the beginning, and moving around一while still obviously requiring some strategy一is actually kinda fun to handle thanks to the tools you’re given.

Contrary to popular belief, Black Mages don't stand still all the time. I mean, we kinda do, but we just make it more interesting than others.

Way more interesting.

So. You wanted to play Black Mage.

...How was it?

by Mint “Lalamint” Sphere

Crystal, Goblin

d(•ᴗ<)o