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A Black Mage Uses 15 Skills
BeansnBread
Member EpicPosts: 7,254
They actually get 24 skills but 6 of them are redundant (Fire/Ice/Thunder 1 and 2) and 3 of them are from the Archer class that give a physical power booster, a physical accuracy booster and a threat reducer for physical damage. So, that brings us to the following 15:
| Name | Level | Effect | Cooldown |
| Transpose | 4 | Buff Switch | 12 sec |
| Surecast | 8 | Interupt Prevention | 30 sec |
| Sleep | 10 | Single Target CC | 2.5 sec |
| Scathe | 15 | Instant DD | 2.5 sec |
| Swiftcast | 26 | Next Spell Instant | 180 sec |
| Convert | 30 | Health -> Mana | 180 sec |
| Fire III | 34 | Main DPS | 2.5 sec |
| Freeze | 35 | AOE Root | 2.5 sec |
| Blizzard III | 38 | Secondary DPS | 2.5 sec |
| Apocatastasis | 40 | Magic Resistance Cooldown | 120 sec |
| Lethargy | 42 | Snare | 30 sec |
| Manawall | 45 | Defensive Cooldown | 120 sec |
| Thunder III | 46 | DoT | 2.5 sec |
| Flare | 50 | AOE DPS | 2.5 sec |
| Aetherial Manipulation | 50 | Port to Friendly | 180 sec |
This is an acceptable DPS rotation for lowish level Thaumaturge:
Always make sure your Thunder DoT is up
Spam Fire until mana runs out
Use Transpose to switch your buff to ice
Spam Blizzard until mana fills up
Use Transpose to switch your buff to fire
Repeat
**In light of more information regarding the BLM mechanics, I'll be posting a more solid priority based rotation for endgame coming up. I'm actually starting to get really interested in the class mechanics as I learn more.
Besides that you have some solid CCs in Sleep, Freeze and Lethargy. Sleep is a single target 30 sec CC that breaks on damage and Freeze is an AoE root that lasts for 10 seconds. Lethargy is a mediocre snare that lasts 12 seconds and is on a 30 second cooldown.
Your defensive cooldowns are Manawall and Apocatastasis. Manawall makes it so that you don't take damage for the next two attacks. Apocatastasis is usable on party members and reduces elemental damage taken by 30%.
Convert trades health for mana and is on a 3 minute cooldown.
Swiftcast is on a 3 minute cooldown and makes your next spell instant and is best used with long cast times like Flare (4 second cast) or Freeze (3.5 second cast). Surecast makes your next spell uninteruptable and is on a 3 minute cooldown.
Comments
Is this Black Mage the job, or Thaumaturge the class?
Also, your rotation is incomplete. You're forgetting skills from other classes to buff you for things like damage and crit rate. Can't honestly tell what the best rotation will be currently due to no one knowing what Arcanists are going to have in terms of skills.
Pretty cool list broken down like that though. Maybe it'll help some people who think Thaum is all about spamming ice.
Black Mage is a job. I gave you exactly everything you can possibly take with you as a Black Mage with the exception of the ones I listed in the opening paragraph. There are only 3 other skills they can take from a class other than Thaumturge or Black Mage and that is in Archer. The first paragraph tells you why I did not include them.
Edit: And the DPS rotation is not incomplete. Unless of course they change things, which they very well might.
Yeah, over here:
http://www.ffxivinfo.com/class/thaumaturge.php
You can see above the skills list the name of all the classes and jobs.
The Thaumaturge class has access to those skills but a BLM job does not.
I think thats something alot of people arent realizing. While as a class, such as THM or LNC, you do have access to many abilities from every other class, with minimal restriction.
But when you move from your class, into a "JOB", you actually get alot more restricted. You no longer have access to the other classes abilities like you had before your job. This is done on purpose to give jobs more direction and purpose, filling a role.
Ah, you are correct.
Shame. I hope they do change this though. It would be nice if instead of having a useless PUG to draw skills from (0 usable) they changed it to ARC or open up some PUG abilities.
As I keep staring at the skills and what is available, I would say there is no shame in playing the Thaumaturge class in a group at all. They appear to have a similar single target DPS and they have access to so many interesting things that many people might opt to actually even roll them in some groups. What they sorely lack is the AoE damage, mana regen, AoE root and a couple of nice defensive cooldowns. They can make up the defensive cooldowns in other ways, but that AoE stuff is probably the main reason that BLM will be hard to pass up for many people.
"But... It's just a spam fest, and all you're doing is pressing 1,2,3 over and over again, ad nauseum!" - according to certain others around here and elsewhere.
Great post, and I'm glad you did it. The same can go for any other class/job as well. Of course you can treat the game like a spamfest, hitting the same 2-3 skills over and over again... and do okay. But then don't complain when you're bored (I'm saying "you" to mean anyone in general, not any one in particular, by the way).
People are playing the game up to like, level or 15 maybe, where the number of skills available to you are limited by design, and then coming to forums like these and attempting to broadcast their "assessment" of the entire game based on that. Either these people are doing it deliberately just to give the game a bad rep, or they really haven't noticed how in every MMO they've played - including their personal first and/or favorite - the game starts off slower and more basic with fewer options. It's the way they work.
People tend to forget that. Though they're a "MMO Vet" who's seen it all before, there are others coming into the game for the first time who haven't. Those early levels are intended to guide them along and get them into the game so that they, too, are comfortable and familiar with everything.
Things definitely get more involved as you progress. Fights become tougher, party play becomes more involved, more options open up. Before long you realize the combat system, and the skills themselves, are a means to an end... not an end in themselves.
Did you play the blackmage in group play? Or are you going off of what you read?
What I read.
Thought so... good luck at being a good Black mage. Maybe wait till you actually play it before you start telling others "this is your rotation, this is how you will play your class". Just saying...
I have played a Thaumaturge to 22.
Would you like to try and make some adjustments to it that you think will increase DPS?
I think OP was just referencing the argument/hate a lot of people are shelling out against the notion that FFXIV:ARR is just 1-2-3 button combat.
No one, not even level 50's with relic (I'll ask friends later to be sure) know what the best rotation is currently, as there isn't even content in the game above level 35 with the exception of high level normal monsters (if you use the same rotation for low hp monsters that die fast compared to boss monsters with higher hp pools, that's silly). It's fun and could even be helpful to speculate, but without actually testing it out (dare I say parse) you can't tell for sure.
Nah, I will wait till I play it and I got buffs and what not from all the other classes in group play with all the top gear and such before I start making these kinds of suggestions. Thanks for the info tho.
This rotation is meant to just bash a target dummy really. So single target big HP. Smaller mobs you just drop the thunder and manage your buff and mana better. There is really no way to squeeze anything more out of it because there are no other ways to do it with the skills available for the job.
I think that other guy just wants to be a stinker for whatever reason. It really just comes down to math though. It was a really easy version of theorycrafting.
gameplay > graphics
Really how about you go post on there board about how great it is and get off the FF XIV boards kthanksbye
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Brieen - UO,DAOC,WOW,SB,EQ,EQII,EVE,LOTR,D&D,Rift,FFXI and some others I dont care to list......
yea i really dont want a 100% wow clone
What separates a good BLM from a bad one will be MP/hate management, proper use of convert, and how good your group's bard is.
Which is the same as versions 1.0 except there you mainly used thunder/thundera only as your offensive spells in most single target boss situations which made it A LOT duller.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
A lot of skills to work with and be original.
I hope people enjoy and accept the number of skills.
In some guys people actually complain about a lot of skills. I don't see any fluff skills here, if these are the final skills.
That was the problem with 1.0's original combat you had a ton of skills and could freely choose them pretty much between classes with the original armory skill system. But there was a lot which was useless, a lot which was clearly better, and the result was that the only "freedom" it really provided was to gimp yourself.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
From a few friends who have lvl 50 BLM's you can stack all 3 thunder dots at the same time and they will do significant damage so you are already wrong there in what skills we will be using. As other people said I would wait till we see some high lvl content added which is supposed to be next beta weekend or the one after (possible rumor haven't been able to confirm this).
Are you sure that Raging strike, and Hawk Eye are only for physical damage? The tool tip says that Raging strike is 20% damage buff non specific about being physical. The old Raging strike tool tip did say it was specific to physical attacks though so it maybe just old 1.0 info.
Hawkeye is definitely physical accuracy or at least that is what the tooltip says specifically. Raging strikes says "attack power." I don't know for sure, but I read up on it in the beta forums and people were saying it was physical.
I'll do the math on the additional thunders and revise things if they need to be revised.