In Final Fantasy XIV, a patch went live recently that brought balance changes to PvP. The job “Black Mage” stood out in particular as it received many buffs. Coincidentally, it is also the favorite job of the MMORPG’s director, Naoki Yoshida.
Since April 2022, the new competitive PvP mode Crystalline Conflict has been raging in FFXIV. Along with the mode came significant revisions to the skills and functions of combat jobs in PvP. Since then, the devs have released individual balance adjustments.
These buffs were given to the Black Mage: The latest adjustment in PvP (via official site) went live last week. With the exception of the Red Mage, all listed jobs received at least one buff, but the majority were given to the Black Mage.
Almost every single skill of the job received at least one buff. It included everything:
- Spell power was increased
- Duration of positive effects was extended
- Cast time of spells was reduced
- CC abilities were strengthened
- Defensive effects were newly added or additionally enhanced.
Even though not all changes went live directly with patch 6.11a, and some are planned for 6.15 in June, it is still an impressive list.
On tier lists by notable FFXIV YouTubers like Mr. Happy or Desperius, the Black Mage has so far landed in the lower ranks like B or C. Thus, the buffs are not entirely unwarranted.
However, there have been plenty of playful jabs from the FFXIV community directed at director Naoki Yoshida. After all, it is well known that the Black Mage is his favorite job.
“Guys, we memed too hard”
This is how players reacted: Even though the buffs for the Black Mage were not unwarranted, their number has still caused quite a stir. On social media and reddit, players discussed the balance adjustments and commented that the Black Mage became really strong as a result.
At the same time, there was a whole bunch of memes and jokes about how the job received so many buffs simply because it is Yoshida’s favorite job. The director of the MMORPG used his power to give his favorite a big boost so that it performs better in PvP.
- “Maybe I should just learn the job he [Yoshida] plays.” – Enk1ndle on reddit
- “Yoshi P reached Crystal rank on Black Mage multiple times and then buffed it afterwards. What a flex” – nineball22 on reddit
- “My hatred for Black Mage players shot up as quickly as hyperinflation.” – MuksyGosky on reddit
Additionally, there was the fact that Yoshida was frequently spotted in PvP on the Japanese servers in the weeks leading up to the buff. He played with his official account Yoshi’p Sampo.
According to the Global Community Lead, Toshio Murouchi, who accompanies his boss on every producer stream, Yoshida tries to play a few rounds of PvP during his breaks. He climbed the rank ladder quickly to the highest rank, Crystal, with his Black Mage characters on the Elemental, Gaia, and Mana data centers.
This is what Yoshida says: Most of the jokes and memes about the Black Mage are not meant to be taken too seriously by their authors, but they reached Naoki Yoshida and he seems to have taken them quite seriously. Because a few days after the release of the patch notes for 6.11a, a detailed blog post appeared from him where the MMORPG director discussed the balance changes.
Although we make all job adjustments according to the guidelines mentioned in points 1 and 2, the Black Mage had the lowest win and usage rate across all ranks as of May 6 (up to 14% lower compared to the job with the highest win rate). Therefore, we felt it necessary to strengthen him.
This is an example of a job adjustment, and the Black Mage is by no means an exception. We handle adjustments for other jobs in the same way, but this time, the altered numerical values of the Black Mage caused significant inconvenience. For this, I sincerely apologize.
Naoki Yoshida
Yoshida explained that balance changes are influenced by several factors, such as the statistically job-specific win rates of individual jobs or their usage rate in PvP.
The adjustments from patch 6.11a also came with a delay. They were based on the data the team collected from the launch of Crystalline Conflict up until May 7. However, the balance adjustments had to be tested and debugged for several weeks before the release.
Accordingly, the patch came with a delay, and by the time of release, the team had already gathered new feedback indicating that the Black Mage was a strong job. Therefore, balance patch 6.11a overshot the mark.
Yoshida also emphasized that the length of the list of Black Mage buffs is not a sign of favoritism because he enjoys playing the job. Apparently, the jokes really concerned him, and he wanted to dispel any doubts about his neutrality.
By the way, the Black Mage is also the preferred job of Scripe, who is the leader of the best WoW guild in the world. He is currently tackling the ultimate raid in FFXIV:
The best WoW guild is trying to tackle the hardest raid in Final Fantasy XIV, and it is amazing
