FFXIV Black Mage: Endwalker Job changes
Last Updated on: 30th October 2021, 08:07 pm
In the recently live streamed Letter from the Producer LIVE Part 66, numerous details were revealed about the upcoming expansion to the hit MMO Final Fantasy XIV, Endwalker. The Live Letter primarily focused on the changes and adjustments being made to all of the jobs currently in the game and the two new classes. While I’m not a master at every class in the game, I have a baseline knowledge of every class, enough to comment on the most apparent changes. Here’s everything we know about the new FFXIV Black Mage!
NOTE: As the Media Tour embargo has lifted, extra info has come out about all jobs. While most of the information is still fairly accurate, I’ll be making a piece per “role” in the game to make note of especially interesting things we couldn’t glean from the Job Actions trailer.
READ MORE: Endwalker Caster DPS changes: new info from the Media Tour
As a disclaimer, all content in the video is technically subject to change, and Naoki Yoshida did mention that not every new trait or action has been shown in the Job Actions trailer. Additionally, my comments are based on a mixture of the content shown and discussed and speculation based on previous job knowledge. Without further ado, let’s get started! Here’s the Job Action Trailer for reference.
As with many DPS Jobs in FFXIV, Black Mage looks to be more of an expansion of its Shadowbringers iteration that aims to only strengthen that which makes the jobs appealing in the first place.
READ MORE: FFXIV Summoner: Endwalker Job changes
As Black Mage is the single highest damaging class in the game that pays for this through fewer mobility options and strict fight memorization, these changes look to further its dramatic damage through extremely cool-looking new moves. The main addition seems to be the moves that are mixing Ice and Fire magic, and it is interesting to note that these reset the Astral Ice and Astral Fire timers. This could mean Fire I has no use in the rotation anymore, as it was only used to refresh Astral Fire.
Other new moves seem to have been added, namely two Ice moves which I couldn’t recognize as any existing moves, and a few Fire ones as well. I’m quite curious as to what these will be and how they fit into the rotation as a whole.
One big Quality of Life change has been added, though, which is the removal of Enochian as an action and its replacement as a trait. Some have complained this oversimplifies the job, but it honestly felt like a buff that was active 100% of the time for any reasonably skilled Black Mage and took up a valuable hotbar slot. Needlessly restricting Fire and Ice IV to a buff which is almost always up is, well, needless, and the difficulty of the class mainly came in optimizing mobility.
READ MORE: FFXIV Red Mage: Endwalker Job changes
Nevertheless, Black Mage players look to be in for a treat with the Endwalker iteration of the Job through multiple cool new abilities and small changes which help the class perform better than ever before for new and old players alike!
