Black Mage Guide

See also: DPS Guide and Guides

This is a guide covering basic mechanics and a few optimization tips for Black Mages.

Fire and Ice

Black Mage play is all about managing Astral Fire and Umbral Ice, stacks of which are indicated by your Elemental Gauge.

• Astral Fire ("Fire Phase"), indicated by fire crystals on your gauge, increases fire damage. Use fire spells as much as possible until your MP is close to 0.
• Umbral Ice ("Ice Phase") allows quick mana restoration. Stay in ice to let your MP regenerate back to 10,000.

You will be able to have 2 stacks of each at level 20 and 3 stacks at level 40. Using some fire spells like   Fire in ice phase will eliminate all your stacks (and vice versa, some ice spells will eliminate fire stacks) - you don't want this to happen. Therefore,

• Before level 40, use   Transpose to switch from fire to ice when your mana is dry, and ice to fire when your mana is full.
• After level 40, use   Fire III to switch from ice to fire, and   Blizzard III to switch from fire to ice against single targets. (For multiple targets, look below.) This means you should always be at either 3 fire stacks or 3 ice stacks - nothing in-between. There is little reason to use Transpose at this point.

Fire Phase

• Before level 60, the combo is   Fire III - spam   Fire and use   Fire III whenever you gain a free proc (a zero cast time, zero mana cost attack).
• After level 60, the combo is   Fire III -   Fire IV three times -   Fire -   Fire IV three times
  • The reason why you have to use   Fire in the middle is because   Fire IV does not refresh Enochian, and you never want Enochian to expire;   Fire refreshes Enochian.
  • You can get away with using   Fire IV four times before Enochian expires - do so if there is nothing else to do.
• After level 72, end the fire phase with   Despair.

Ice Phase

• Before level 60, the combo is   Blizzard III - fillers.
• After level 60, the combo is   Blizzard III -   Blizzard IV - fillers (can be before Blizzard IV).
• Appropriate fillers, roughly in order of priority: A thundercloud proc or thunder if it fell off the boss;   Foul (Lv. 70-79) or   Xenoglossy (Lv. 80);   Blizzard.

Other Spells

•   Enochian (Lv. 56) should be cast the moment the fight begins (after your starting   Fire III or   Blizzard III), and whenever it drops off (but don't let it drop off).
• Cast   Thunder (Lv. 45:   Thunder III) whenever it falls off the enemy, or whenever you have a Thundercloud proc and the proc is about to disappear.
• Use   Ley Lines (Lv. 52) whenever up; it is a significant DPS increase.
  • But try not to put it in a death area.
• Use   Aetherial Manipulation (Lv. 50) (teleport towards friendly target) and   Between the Lines (Lv. 62) (teleport towards Ley Lines if any) to aid your movement.
•   Manafont should be used to extend your fire phase. After you have   Despair (Lv. 72), use it after Despair.
•   Umbral Soul (Lv. 76) is useful for keeping Enochian between mob groups in dungeons or during boss transition phases.
•   Triplecast (Lv. 66) and   Swiftcast can allow you to move while casting.
  • They can also increase your DPS if used with long cast time spells. For example:   Triplecast -   Despair -   Manafont -   Fire IV -   Despair
• Lucid Dreaming has no use for Black Mages.
• Stack(s) of Polyglot (Lv. 70) should be used for   Xenoglossy (Lv. 80) or   Foul (Lv. 70-79, or against multiple targets at Lv. 80) without overflowing.

Multi-target Spells

Multi-target DPS is a mess for lower level Black Mages, so here are some rough guidelines:

•   Freeze (Lv. 35) is superior to   Blizzard II with very few exceptions. Use it to switch to ice phase (you may need to Transpose first before Lv. 72).
  •   Freeze is also helpful for single-target: it can be used to recover if you drop Enochian.
• Before level 68, you want to cast   Fire II when there are four or more targets, and end fire phase with   Flare (Lv. 50).
• After level 72, your AOE combo is   Freeze -   Flare -   Flare (repeat) (5+ targets) or   Freeze -   Fire III -   Flare -   Flare (repeat) (3-4 targets). You can use Manafont after Flare to get another Flare.
• Keep   Thunder II (  Thunder IV) up against the targets.

Other tips

• Black Mages abhor movement, even more than other mages because movement could cause Enochian to drop. Be prepared to adapt to the fight and save up some movement options until you know the fight. Your movement options include Swiftcast, Triplecast, Thundercloud proc, Xenoglossy, and Scathe. (It's better not to have to resort to Scathe.)
• A cheap mana potion can allow you to cast more spells in fire phase.

Older guides:

• Black Mage Guide/A Realm Reborn
• Black Mage Guide/Heavensward
• Black Mage Guide/Stormblood