Eyes on Final Fantasy Forums > Final Fantasy: Nerds in Paradise > Final Fantasy I > Black Mages suck

[Rei]

Hm. I remember him doing just as much as my Thief, if not a little more. At any rate, it was a bunch more than any number of Black Mages. And I remember using Black Magic less than, say, ten times in the entire game. Maybe 2 or 3 Bolt somethings on Kraken. So, I figure the total damage my Red Mage dealt is a whole bunch more than I would've had a Black Mage do.

Depends on style, I suppose.

[omnitarian]

Black Mages stink, Red Mages rock. There. I said it.

When you get down to it, all you get in taking a BM is a few more MP, and NUKE.

Pick a Red Mage and you have higher HP, higher defense, decent attack, and a slew of white magic.

The Black Mages higher MP makes very little difference. Before you get the SOANDSO2 casting items, the MP will only be a help in the peninsula and the Earth Cave. Afterwards, I would rather have an extra healer than 1 more charge of LIT3.

As far as level 8 Black Magic is concerned, you get them too late in the game to be of any real use. The sky tower and the temple of fiends don't pose any real problem that could be solved with a NUKE.

As far as accusations of Red Mage becoming obsolete, they are thoroughly baseless. Red Mage easily keeps up to par in magic no matter where you are. He may end up with less Attack Power than fighter, but at least he's on the radar. Black Mage will never do any sufficient physical damage. If you want to count in the Masamune, you must give Red Mage the same liberties.

[Dragonfire]

Like i've said, I'm not really against Red Mage, I just don't think that he is any better than any other class (well except BB of course, but that goes without saying). Go with Fi/Fi/RM/BM, and you won't have any problems. You'll have extrordinary physical damage, awesome black magic, and decent white magic, combined with your potions, you'll be all set.

[desh]

Why does it seem like so many ppl hate the Black Belt? Granted he is pretty worthless up until level 10, but after that he pretty much stays on par with the Fighter/Knight in terms of damage. It's like this: fighter gets new sword, and jumps up in damage, you level up some, and the black belt catches up to fighter in dealing damage, then fighter gets new sword, and the process repeats. But after level 42 or so Black Belt does more damage; I know 42 is a pretty high level, but I know most of you probably level up that high, and seeing your Black Belt/Master dealing out 2k+ damage is really cool.

[Behold the Void]

I like Black Mages, though they can be pretty weak during many normal fights, whenever I need a little magical aid they always come through for me. I have a party consisting of a Fighter, A Red Mage, a White Mage, and a Black Mage, so I have uber magic on my side. The Black Mage and White Mage are great for the specialized magics, whereas the Red Mage is mainly an attacker but also has his own selection of magic to use when needed.

[Rase]

Originally Posted by desh

but I know most of you probably level up that high...

Why would you? You can beat it at level 25, level 30 is high enough, unless you suck, in which case you wouldn't have made it that far.

[Freya Coral]

Originally Posted by Black Mage FF1

Yep the Bm's in FF1 blow big time, so discuss
Talk about the worst/crappiest/useless character in FF1. AKA the Bm.

The Black Mage/Wizard kicks a$$ (all hail the almighty NUKE!)!! The absolute worst character in FF1 is the Black Belt. He doesn't get good until about level 10, which takes ages in the NES version. I'd sooner use a Thief for his fleeing ability.

[Marak]

What it really boils down to for me is the fact that, despite what you may think, NUKE/Flare really doesn't do all that great of damage. Not as much as I feel it should do, at any rate. Then we factor in that a BM doesn't do more damage with his spells than a RM (since stats in FF1 do nothing; everything is based on your current Level). THEN, we factor in all the useful White spells a RM can get that a BM cannot: AFIR, AICE, ALIT, any CURE spell, LIFE, EXIT... I'll trade CURE and LIFE and EXIT for a bunch of instant-kill spells that don't work and NUKE any day.

I want to love the Black Mage, I really do. I love the concept of the faceless, Catclaw-weilding magical badass, I do. But in my experience, the Red Mage adds more to the party overall: better battle skill, better HP, better Defense, better spell selection (sans NUKE).

Which is why the best party in the game remains 3 Fighters and either a Red Mage or White Mage. GG Chaos, we're Level 19.