In days long past there existed an occult and arcane art known as black magic? A potent magic of pure destructive force which legend told was born forth by a sorceress of unparalleled power. Those who learned to wield this instrument of ruin came to be called black mages, out of both fear and respect for their gift. Yet then, as now, great power served to corrupt the judgment of mortal man and send him down the path of ruin.
And so it is that now, after many years, there are few left versed in the ways of black magic. Yet an old criminal soul, condemned to life in the dark depths of an Ul’dahn prison, has come forth claiming to be one of the last remaining black mages. He has emerged from his shadowy confinement…but to what end?
Patch 1.21 saw the introduction of jobs to FFXIV, which allows you to become one of the traditional jobs from the FF series after completing a quest.
A Thaumaturge can become a Black Mage by equipping the Soul of the Black Mage item after completing the first quest. The details for this quest are below.
| Quest | NPC | Location | Conditions |
| Taking the Black | Yayake | Ul’dah Merchant Strip, Thaumaturges’ Guild | THM 30 |
For each quest you complete, you will be rewarded with a new ability, while the latter quests will also reward you with artifact (AF) armour that is shown in the screenshot above.
Introduction to Black Mage
The Black Mage is a classic magic damage dealing job making use of the elements of Fire, Ice and Lightning as well as crowd control mechanics such as Sleep and Bind.
Black Mage Attributes
As a Black Mage your main attribute is Intelligence (INT) as this increases magical damage. You should be focusing on equipment with this stat. For secondary stats you should be focusing on the likes of Spell Speed, Direct Hit Rate, Determination and Critical Hit Rate in addition to simply boosting INT.
Spell Speed and Critical Hit Rate are self explanatory in what they do. For the other two, Determination is used to boost the damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP recovered when healed while Direct Hit Rate is Stormblood’s replacement for Accuracy. Instead of a simple hit or miss effect that Accuracy could give, having low Direct Hit Rate for a fight will reduce damage dealt so it is important to improve this stat.
Black Mage Stances
It is important to understand the two main stances of the Black Mage. These being Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. You will switch between these during almost every fight. Astral Fire is designed for maximum damage output while Umbral Ice is designed for recovering MP. There are also three different levels of potency in each stance, each being more beneficial than the last. In short:
Astral Fire: Increases fire damage and MP cost of fire spells. Reduces ice damage and ice MP cost.
Umbral Ice: Increases MP regen, decreases MP cost of fire spells, increases MP cost of ice spells.
You can use the Transpose ability to instantly which between stances. I recommend using it to switch from Astral Fire to Umbral Ice, then switching from Umbral Ice when ready to an Astral Fire III by using the Fire III spell. This is because Transpose may not yet be ready for a second use.