Black Mage (Final Fantasy XII)

Mages who channel elemental forces into deadly magicks.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age description

Black Mage is a License Board in the Zodiac versions of Final Fantasy XII. It is represented by the zodiac sign of Capricorn. Black Mage specializes in using magick for offense and exploiting enemies' elemental weaknesses.

The Black Mage has access to 137 licenses, which require 8,086 LP to unlock, as well as up to 12 additional licenses through summon licenses costing 780 LP, and 2 additional licenses costing 145 LP through Quickening licenses.

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Black Mage is a magickal class that uses black magick as its main means of attack. It wields staves or hand-bombs, as well as mystic armor to boost its magick power but, interestingly, it can also equip some heavy armor pieces. Due to its high damage output and ability to target multiple enemies, Black Mage excels in taking out mobs of enemies quickly. However, it cannot use weapons with high attack power, has few restorative magicks and low HP.

In The Zodiac Age version, the player can unlock two license boards for each party member.

Black Mage with Time Battlemage results in an efficient magic blaster and support unit with highly damaging Black Magick regenerating MP through the Warmage augment, leaving plenty of MP to cast the Time Magick buffs as needed. The access to mystic armor and extra number of Magick Lores from the Black Mage will also give the Time Magick enemy debuff spells a higher rate of success. The Black Mage and Time Battlemage pairing also has a surprisingly solid number of hit points due to the two jobs bypassing each other's Esper unlocks for HP licenses—only 30 HP less than a single-job Knight without Exodus.

All the heavy armor users with shields (Foebreaker, Knight and Red Battlemage) give the Black Mage, whose big damage tends to attract unwelcome attention, better defense and chance to evade. Black Mage-Knight can also wield the excellent White Robes + Excalibur combination. Red Battlemage's Black Magick would be redundant, but its Arcane Magick includes the most powerful elemental spell: Ardor. With Black Mage's staves, this combination lets the character use the Flame Staff to boost Ardor. If used on oiled enemies, this can be among the most damaging attacks.

Combining Black Mage with Monk gets three Swiftness licenses and the Black Mage is able to bypass the Esper lock on them. Monk has high HP and access to White Magick, including Holy, boosted by the Black Mage's maximum Magick Lores and the ultimate staff (Staff of the Magi), which augments Holy damage by 50%. Though Holy's damage is high, its casting time is so slow using other spells matches or eclipses damage done with Holy, anyway. Monk is also a powerful physical attacker, which is useful before the most powerful spells become available. However, the damage of Monk's poles is compared against the target's Magick Defense, not physical Defense. This combination also prevents the Monk from accessing Genji Gloves to maximize pole damage.

Coupling Black Mage with Archer allows three Swiftness licenses and access to all HP bonuses without Famfrit on either board. Burning Bow would allow the casting of a powered up Firaga, and gives decent physical damage, all in the same weapon. Shemhazai unlocks four heavy armor licenses between the boards, but the player must choose between Mirror Mail on the Black Mage board or Heavy Armor 10, 11 and 12 on the Archer's board, and the elemental damage of Archer's arrows is inferior to the Black Magick spells. Black Mage-Archer also nets all Item Lores, and the Archer's Cura can be as good for healing as a White Mage thanks to Black Mage's mystic armor and Magick Lores.

Pairing Shikari with Black Mage (or Red Battlemage or White Mage or Bushi), allows the character to equip the Yagyu Darkblade (Dark-elemental weapon) and the Black Robes (Dark damage boosted by 50%) all at the same time, for fighting Yiazmat and other enemies that are weak to Dark. The lack of Genji Gloves in this combination is not an issue, since the +50 Speed from Germinas Boots provides a greater damage boost to ninja blades than Genji Gloves do, anyway.

Machinist gives the option of consistent physical damage when the enemy's magick resistance is high, and light armor HP bonuses. Black Robes can be used with Dark Shot, and Machinist has Steal, Remedy Lore 3, and Potion Lore 3, three Swiftness, Green Magick 1, high level Time Magicks, and Achilles.

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