Black Mage: Guide to Playing the Job

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Job Overview Through devastating magic spells, Black Mages bring tremendous firepower to the battlefield. In battle, Black Mages are often called upon to participate in skillchains by finishing each chain off with a magic burst, adding deadly accuracy and even more destructive power to their already impressive elemental magic spells.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Black Mage has access to many powerful offensive spells and many support job possiblities, making one useful in almost any situation.
• Offensive spells are not hindered by enemies' physical defense and evasion, making it impossible for a Black Mage's damage to miss, although they can be resisted espically at higher levels when monsters gain the ability to cast Shell on themselves.
• Warp spells make returning to one's Home Point painless and easy.
• Has an edge against enemies that are highly resistant to physical attacks.
• At higher levels (60+) Black Mages can take on at least Tough-Incredibly Tought monsters, with a combination of Sleep, enfeebling spells, and then nukes.
• Escape is a dungeon crawler's Godsend and can prevent party wipeouts due to links, pops, or aggro from wandering mobs.

Weaknesses

• Damage is limited by MP, so resting is a very common activity in a Black Mage's daily routine.
• Physical defenses and HP are extremely low, making Black Mage's very easy to kill in battle.
• High damage spells equals high enmity.

Race Selection

Final Fantasy XI allows players to choose between five different races, each with its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of stats. While certain races' stats are better matched to some jobs more than others, the differences are never so profound as to prevent any race from playing any particular job (except for Elvaans and Black Mage). All players can excel at any job they so choose, provided they have the skill and the equipment; the race selection is mostly an aesthetic decision.

Tarutaru Pros - Highest MP pool allows for more spell casting without healing and highest INT leads to a slight boost in damage and fewer black magic resists. Cons - Lowest HP leads to survivability problems. This should be noted that this is mainly a problem during the lower levels, before your Subjob gives you acess to Blink and Stoneskin. Elvaan Pros - Good survability matching that of Hume and Galka and the highest STR allows for minimally extra melee power. Cons - Lowest INT and 2nd lowest MP pool means spells will deal the least amount of damage and care must be taken when casting in large amounts. Hume Pros - Tied for both 2nd Highest MP pool and 2nd highest INT. Balance of survivability and nuking power being strong enough to take some hits with moderate spell damage modifiers. Cons - Middle of the road stats.

Mithra Pros - Tied 2nd highest MP pool and INT allows for decent spell casting and a moderate boost in damage. Also the high AGI can help in evading attacks. Cons - As with Hume, middle of the road character, though due to slightly worse Race Specific Gear when compared to Hume, is slightly worse in terms of INT and MP gear. Galka Pros - Highest HP and VIT leads to best survability of any race. Cons - Lowest MP pool and 2nd lowest INT means often needing MP equipment and spell damage will be less than those races with higher INT

Stats at Level 1 Race HP MP STR DEX VIT AGI INT MND CHR Hume 25 24 5 7 5 7 8 6 6 Elvaan 27 22 6 7 6 6 7 7 6 Tarutaru 21 30 4 7 5 8 10 6 6 Galka 30 18 6 7 7 7 8 6 5 Mithra 25 24 5 9 5 8 8 6 5

Stats at Level 75 Race HP MP STR DEX VIT AGI INT MND CHR Hume 895 616 48 61 48 61 70 53 56 Elvaan 1016 540 57 58 53 53 62 62 56 Tarutaru 669 844 40 61 45 66 76 50 56 Galka 1167 540 57 58 53 53 62 62 56 Mithra 895 616 45 75 45 70 70 50 48

Information obtained from [JesterX's Guide to Vana'Diel]

Support Job Options

While not the only choices for Support Jobs, the following are the most commonly chosen for Black Mage.

White Mage

Black Mages choose White Mage as their support job because it gives a the second most amount of MP. It also gives boosts to their Mind stat and gives them access to healing spells, allowing them to play backup healer when the main healer is hard pressed. Also, the spells Stoneskin and Blink are a big perk.

Red Mage

Black Mages choose Red Mage as their support job because it gives some extra MP, as well as an additional boost in INT. It also gives them access to certain Red Mage only enfeebling spells (E.g. Gravity)which are amazing for soloing as well as Blink, Stoneskin, and Phalanx Healing spells are also part of the package, once again allowing them to backup heal, although not to the same extent as if they had chosen White Mage. Fast Cast is a double edged sword, good for decreasing the amount of time it takes to cast a spell, but bad if the mage is already prone to overcasting spells.

Summoner

Black Mages chose Summoner as their support job because it gives the biggest boost to their MP pool. The boost in INT it gives also helps give their spells that extra push, and the ability to summon spirits and avatars helps a Black Mage more extensively deal with links as well as provide some support to the party(eg.Aerial Armor) and use the Carbuncle pull trick for linking situations. The Auto Refresh Job Trait at level 50 is also attractive to many.

Note: Although Carbuncle can provide limited healing abilites, the lack of other healing options may harm invite rates.

Ninja

Black Mages chose Ninja as their support job because of Utsusemi. These extra shadows protect the mage from enemy blows, and the Dual Wield ability allows them to equip two one-handed weapons at a time, and gain any stat bonuses such equipping options allow them. Although Dual Wield will allow the Black Mage the opportunity to equip two wands, this option is severely limited and past 51, once the elemental staves like the Ice Staff become available, you will find that /Ninja will be outdated as the + INT is not as useful as the extra damage from the staves.

Note: Lack of healing abilities might hurt invite rates.

Thief

Treasure Hunter and Sneak Attack for farming and Flee for Movement Speed. Sneak Attack also stacks with Spirit Taker for more MP gain which can be useful.

Beastmaster

Charm and Leave are a nice way to deal with annoying aggro if your CHR is high enough and Pets are great for melee DD while farming mildly difficult monsters. Pets can also tank while you skill up which can be useful.