Black Mage Melding, Stat Priority, and Consumables — Dawntrail 7.1

This page covers generalized substat priority, melding recommendations, and suggested consumables for Black Mage. For specific optimized best-in-slot builds and gear combinations, refer to the Black Mage Best-in-Slot Guide page.

Black Mage scales well with all relevant substats, resulting in two main types of builds--one focusing on high Spell Speed, and the other focusing on high Critical Hit (with more moderate Spell Speed). Due to most gearing options not having both Spell Speed and Critical Hit, these two types of builds have different substat priorities.

High Spell Speed sets:

1. Weapon Damage;
2. Intelligence;
3. Spell Speed;
4. Determination;
5. Direct Hit;
6. Critical Hit.

High Critical Hit sets:

1. Weapon Damage;
2. Intelligence;
3. Spell Speed to a comfortable level;
4. Critical Hit;
5. Determination;
6. Direct Hit.

Weapon Damage (denoted by "Magic Damage" on the tooltip for your weapon) and Intelligence are the two most important stats for Black Mage. Both of these stats come with using higher item level gear, and they will almost always be more important to prioritize over any preferred substat spread.

Substats do not give value per point, but instead in specific small intervals often referred to as "stat tiers." Adding enough substat to reach a new stat tier provides a gain, but points between these tiers are effectively wasted. Optimized sets may deviate slightly from the listed priority in order to optimize around stat tiers and provide the highest average estimated output.

Spell Speed is a secondary stat that the job both scales well with, and it can enable more comfort/ease of execution. The output for Black Mage will be comparable along a wide range of Spell Speed values, so it is recommended to prioritize a value that feels the best for you when starting to meld. However, while playable even at base Spell Speed, a suggested minimum to try to hit is around 1700 Spell Speed.

Critical Hit scales quadratically, affecting both rate and the resulting damage multiplier upon successful critical hit. At a lower quantity (which you end up with for a high Spell Speed build), the value of Critical Hit is low, so the stat is not prioritized for melding. However, a set that has a higher amount naturally before melds will benefit most from prioritizing the stat after reaching a comfortable Spell Speed value.

Determination provides a linearly scaling multiplier to damage dealt. Direct Hit affects the chance of a direct hit, with a flat 25% damage multiplier. Both of these substats have similar value on average, with Determination being slightly stronger. Therefore when melding, it will generally be best to aim for similar values of both substats, with a slight bias towards Determination.

Overall, Black Mage is flexible with melding and substats. Wide ranges of secondary stat spreads will often end up with comparable average output, so it is difficult to go wrong with melding choices outside of going below a playable Spell Speed for you.

Food: For high Spell Speed sets, food that boosts Spell Speed and Determination/Direct Hit is generally recommended. For high Critical Hit sets, food that boosts Spell Speed and Critical Hit is preferred. Specific food used is taken into account for each optimized set listed over on our Black Mage Best-in-Slot Guide.

Potions: For Black Mage, the highest tier potion that increases Intelligence should normally be used to maximize output. While MP potions to extend your Astral Fire phase may be an enticing option, these share a cooldown with stat potions and do not provide as large of an increase in damage. However, they do have decent value in dungeons for use on additional Flares for AoE when you want to do slightly more damage without burning through comparatively expensive Intelligence potions.