With another new expansion in Final Fantasy 14 comes a massive update for classes, meant to add new capabilities at the new level cap and adjust their viability up until then. At the Dawntrail Media Tour, we got a chance to get our hands on these new class upgrades—and I opted to focus on the one class I know pretty well at this point: Black Mage.
To say the least, Dawntrail brings a massive set of changes to the Black Mage class that fundamentally change the way you’re going to play the class. There’s less proccing and more moving—and a few abilities have been altered fundamentally in such a way that you’re swapping between Fire and Ice more.
Based on my hands-on time at the Media Tour, here are the biggest highlights of the Black Mage class changes you need to know.
No More Standard Thunder Casting
Gone is your ability to just hit Thunder whenever you want. In order to cast Thunder from here on out, you’ll basically need to either start your Astral/Umbral timers, or swap from one aspect to another, which grants you Thunder through the Thunderhead trait.
Doing so, at least, will give you that former proc of a zero-mana cast with zero cast time, though the recast time is still in place, keeping it as a cooldown spell. However, gone now is that extra proc chance that allows you to re-up it.
Basically, in order to get (and keep) your Thunder, you’ll need to flip between Fire and Ice for your rotation… which is known as a “standard Black Mage rotation.” Wild. It’s not a change I’m personally a fan of, but in the name of encouraging a Black Mage rotation (and discouraging Ice Mage-ing), I can get with it.
Paradox Is Condensed
Two major things have happened with Paradox. Firstly, it only procs now when you swap to Astral, never Umbral/Ice anymore. In that sense, it’s the same as before: You need three Umbral Hearts, and to go from a three-Umbral state to a three-Astral state by Fire 3.
However, on the other hand, it’s an instant cast that grants you a free Firestarter for that free and instant Fire 3 cast. It’s not free, but an instant cast is better than the prior standard cooldown, as now it’s a neat little bit of mobility for your Fire phase.
Sharpcast Is Gone
As a result of these massive changes, including multiple way to proc certain traits, the developers have taken away Sharpast entirely. That means you’ll need to always take the “alternative” way to cast them: Astral/Umbral swaps for Thunder, and straight-up cast Paradox for Firestarter, or pray for that 40% proc with Fire 1.
It’s the other change that I’m not personally fond of, even less so than Thunder’s changes, as it removes a scrap of mobility with the Fire 1 + Firestarter combo, or when re-upping Thunder.
Move Your Leylines
Yeah, you saw that in the Live Letter: You can move your Leylines.
Upon casting Leylines, the ability Retrace replaces the Leylines button on your hotbar. All you have to do is move over, hit the button, and after a small animation delay, you get your Leylines back. Keep in mind that you only get this once per Leylines cast, so use it wisely. On the whole, it’s better than your White Mage pulling you out of nowhere (unless they know what they’re doing).
These are certainly the changes you’ll need to know to dive back into Black Mage once Dawntrail drops. There’s plenty more to check out though, and I got as much of that as I could during the Media Tour, so be sure to check out the video for everything you need to know--and my personal impressions of the class.
Full Disclosure: Travel and accommodation to this preview event were provided by Square Enix.This article is based on gameplay of an in-development build of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Dawntrail, and content in the final version is subject to change.
