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I see that a lot of people are big fans of battle mages. I've gotten one up to 100 from a burning event and, while I love the class conceptually, I just feel like it's pretty weak. Bossing is awful and even mobbing can be a pain at times. Am I doing something wrong?
Note: I main an Aran so I'm used to running through absolutely everything with little repercussions.
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For bossing, you need to make sure you are using both Condemnation and Dark Shock, as well as your choice of Aura (most choose Yellow Aura). Also use Grim Contract if you are only fighting 1 monster. This makes your attacks hit one mob for more damage. Attack with Finishing Blow, teleport up as soon as the animation for Finishing Blow has started, and repeat as soon as you hit the ground. You need to be pretty close for an up-teleport Dark Shock to hit the bosses. It takes a while to master. You can also teleport side to side the same way. Dark Shock is about 40% of your damage when bossing, so you need to get the attacking pattern down in order to boss efficiently. You'll also need to pop Dark Genesis every time it's up so that you have a Final Attack, and pop Battle Master for more Condemnation procs.
Here's a demonstration of my battle mage in dojo: (this uses a side-to-side teleport as you can't teleport up in dojo)
http://plays.tv/s/KzS1R5fQTF6v
Battle Mages are swift. Even without Yellow Aura, their base movement speed is fast and their teleport let's you teleport midair even if there's no platform or ground nearby. This means that you could teleport all around the map swiftly without having to use ropes or ladders and use Dark Chain to drag your enemies to you without moving or use Dark Burst to drag yourself to enemies. Then, there's Grim Contract, which will attack up to 10 enemies if you defeat a number of monsters.
As for bossing, 4th job marks the beginning of useful bossing skills. Battle Rage focuses on one enemy and increasing attack power, but this combined with Grim Contract, Dark Aura, Dark Genesis (which has the useful passive of continuously attacking a single enemy during cooldown), Dark Shock, and overall handling by Teleporting around enemies as they use forward-facing attacks and sending them in for a loop, makes you quite formidable, and since your movement speed isn't something to laugh at either, you could keep ahead of a lot of attacks. Plus, Finishing Blow can attack even with moderate distance between you and your enemy and you could teleport backwards just before attack animation which means if you time it right, you can even give yourself some space.
Even though they're mages, BaMs are NOT squishy characters I mean, compare my 26k HP at lvl 136 BaM to my 15k HP at lvl 147 Kanna and 12k HP at lvl 133 Beast Tamer (that's only a 3 level difference, btw). Huge difference right there, especially since neither of these mage classes have Magic Guard to protect them. They are tough, which increases their survivability in boss fights.
Lastly, the BaM's high mobility, ability to teleport swiftly everywhere and a means of dragging monsters (or you to them) means that even though you're killing everything really fast, you're still not bored because you're not just mashing a single button. They don't have a lot of buffs either. Simply a lot of toggle-able skills.
I don't main a BaM, but I find them a very flexible class, good for mobbing AND bossing, especially if you can get a hang of how they handle. Maybe someone else who mains a BaM could give more detailed insight (or even correct me on some points), but these are my thoughts and observations of my own experience.
I have tried playing mine again, and unfortunately I'm going to disagree. I'm either bored or in pain due to the skills used these days. I keep on hearing how Battle Mages are supposedly fun, but frankly experience has taught me otherwise. To be honest, my own feelings of the class have it at the bottom of the list with Blaze Wizards. I have more fun with Beast Tamers in bear mode, for crying out loud.
Just my own opinion, but the class feels much like a very stale style. Survivability isn't the key for me, more like with the lack of skills as the original poster mentioned. The class just feels like whoever was on the design section of the development team during the revamp called this one in while sick.
My 200k range wind archer already dishes out over a third of the dps of my 1m range non-telecasting battle mage. Take me back to the days of 'summon reaper', 'twister spin' and 'body boost'.