How Is Black Magic?

[SkyCake]

Heya! I originally typed up a long post with several questions, but decided on just the most important one. How does Black Magic fair in all stages of the game? So, start, mid, end, post. Also! Trying to avoid as many spoilers as possible.

I'm wondering cause I just beat the FFIII Steam version. After beating it several times on 3DS and Android, I can safely say BM is useless in the mid to end game. I tried really hard on my last run in FFIII to use a Magus, but just couldn't bring myself to let someone be so useless. At JL 50 Magus, I changed him to a Ninja and he was instantly (( at JL1 )) doing more damage.

So! Should I expect the same here? Is BM only useful when using the correct element, but most of the end-game enemies have no weakness? From my Google searches (I'm trying to avoid spoilers), I haven't really seen anyone bash BM in FFV like I do for FFIII. So, I'm currently under the assumption that it scales much better in this game.

Also! "Just use the mystic knight" isn't really helpful. From my limited understanding, it is better for offensive magic use. But, I'm wondering only if Black Magic is still useful throughout the entire game. As long as he's doing at least half of the damage of my other characters, I think I'd be sated.

[RegalStar]

A lot of bosses in world 1 are weak to one of the three elements; Break is pretty useful to kill some tough randoms instantly in world 2 (although Bio is less powerful than Titan at that point for boss killing; it costs less MP and is almost as strong though), and 4x reflected boosted -Aga on a single enemy is like the strongest magic attack you can get. I think they're pretty useful in most stages of the game.

[Tanaka Taikikku]

Black magic spells as opposed to the elemental spells from summoner is not scaling (much). That pretty much means fire/blizzard/thunder is very powerful when you get them, but very soon becomes relatively weak unless you hit a elemental weakness. Same happens when you get fira and eventually firaga. At certain timings the black magic caster is the strongest, as other timing they are relatively weak.

Personally I find myself relying way more on blue mage/summoner/chemist for magic damage, as I like the utility those classes give that black mage lacks. Black mage do a good job keeping up in the pure damage department though.

As far as jobs go in FFV, most are useful at one point or another in the game, and it usually depends on what kind of spells/summons/armor/weapons you happen to pick up.

For a first playthrough I would certainly recommend you use the black mage, it's pretty straight forward compared to say blue mage or chemist, who in their turn relies on the player to be fairly familiar with the game to be used efficiently.

[SkyCake]

Thank you so much, you two! I meant to reply to you sooner, RegalStar. Sorry!

So, it seems that Black Magic is better off in this game when compared to FFIII. I'm only level 21, but it's still doing fine. I've mixed BM and Summoner, but I'm having a lot of fun mixing all of the classes. Maybe it won't pan out when I reach the late game, but I'm enjoying it more than FFIII. I think that's partly due to the other classes not doing as much damage as I initially expected. So far, all the DPS jobs seem relatively similar in terms of damage done. Hope it stays that way! In FFIII, the other DPS job will quickly pull ahead of a Magus/Black Mage.