Bunch of questions about the class

[Yorak]

I'm trying to decide what class / race to be while I'm waiting on a server pass. The three that look the most appealing to me are Black Mage, Dark Knight, and Dragoon. So I'm trying to find out the benefits and downsides to each, how they comapre with each other, and their roles and desirability in the later stages of the game.

1.) How do black mage casting times compare with weapon delay times and special techniques for Dark Knights and Dragoons? How does overall spell damage compare with overall melee damage?

2.) Is there a lot of downtime for black mages due to a need to meditate? Does Psych or Sylph or whatever the MP-draining spell work well?

3.) Are reagents required for many spells? Are they expensive?

4.) Is the difference between Tarutaru and Hume black mages very signifigant in later stages? I hear there's a damage cap...do Hume BMs reach it, or does it tend to be out of their grasp?

5.) What would you say is the best thing about Black Mages?

6.) What would you say is the worst thing about Black Mages?

[Secrenja]

Re: Bunch of questions about the class

1. You may have the wrong idea about that. Every job has a weapon they can auto engage in, Different delay times in between weapon hits greatly differs from casting times. Casting time Is a little bar that fills up once youve selected a spell to cast. spells like stone and water take like 1-3 seconds to cast, But stone2 or water2 would take like 3-4 seconds to cast. Weapon delay is how long it will take for your next physical attack. IE lets say your weapon delay is 200, and your using a dagger. Lets say a WAR is using a scythe and its delay is 500. Its only natural to assume(but Im not 100% sure on this) that your ratio of attack to the wars would be 5:2
Spell damage Is typically higher than melee damage, but you have to but in the side notes like Magic takes up MP, You need to wait a certain amount of time in between each magic spell to cast again, and if you "all out nuke" the enemy, the monster will aggro you, and you can easily become mage stew.
2. Not nesscessarily alot of downtime, if you know what you are doing. Your not supposed to use all of your MP on one monster, but typically after each battle you should rest. You also have the RDMs and BRDs to cast refresh's or you could buy/make your own juice. Just remember, its not your fault if your group starts a battle and your not ready unless you say "I'm ready". The mp drain magic is called aspir, And I don't think I ever saw somebody use it in beta, so I doubt its that useful.
3. regeants?
4. Tars have more MP, can cast more spells, Higher MND. Humes just plain do not excel. The only difference you would notice is the MP. To be honest I never saw a high level Hume BLM, so I can't be positive on this question.
5.Best things. Lots of damage, magic Burst, Escape/Warp
6.Worst-cant tak a hit

[Yorak]

Lemme clarify a little bit...

I know about melee autoattack and damage / delay, for the most part. Basically I'm interested in overall damage per second (DPS), and how overall BM DPS stacks up against the overall DPS of a Dark Knight wielding a scythe or a Dragoon wielding a lance. Yeah, I might be hitting them for 400 per spell while they're doing 80 per hit with their scythe, but if their scythe hits 4 times between the time I cast spells and then they let loose with a weapon tech, the difference isn't all that great.

Reagents are items required to cast spells; often they get used up when cast. How many spells use up items when cast? If they do, how hard are they to come by?

[Secrenja]

O, well BLM doesn't require regeants, you buy the scroll, you learn it, and all it requires is mp.

And I'm not sure about the DPS Q