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Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage Guide & Review

Black Mage is one of the classes in Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT). There are a ton of classes in FFT and it can be overwhelming trying to figure out which is the right one. Which skills and abilities are good? Which classes are good? This guide will tell you everything you need to know about the Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage class.

Black Mage
Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT)

final fantasy tactics black mage class guide

Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage Quick FAQ

How do you unlock the Black Mage class in Final Fantasy Tactics?

The Black Mage class requires Chemist level 2 to unlock.

How much total JP does it take to master the Black Mage class in Final Fantasy Tactics?

It takes 8,400 total JP to master the Black Mage class.

What kind of stat growths does the Black Mage class offer in Final Fantasy Tactics?

Black Mage gains excellent MP growth, below average Attack growth, and average rates for other stats.

What kind of skills does the Black Mage class learn in Final Fantasy Tactics?

Black Mage learns four levels of Fire, Ice and Lightning spells as well as other offensive magic, as well as support abilities that increase magic damage.

Stat Growths

(Lower is better)
HP: 12 MP: 9 SPD: 100 PA: 60 MA: 50

In Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mages get very good MP growth, terrible PA growth and average everything else. It’s not typically a class you want to level in. However, they do have the largest MA multiplier of any class — 150%. The next closest is Time Mage with 130%.

That means while they don’t gain extra MA per level, whatever MA you have naturally is boosted by 1.5x as long as you’re in the Black Mage class. This makes them ideal to be the main class for any character relying on abilities that use MA as their primary source of damage (like Samurai’s Iaido skills and Geomancer’s Geomancy).

Moveset: Black Magick

Ability NameJP Cost
Fire50
Fira200
Firaga500
Firaja900
Thunder50
Thundara200
Thundaga500
Thundaja900
Blizzard50
Blizzara200
Blizzaga500
Blizzaja900
Poison150
Toad500
Death600
Flare1000

Black Magick has all the elemental spells you could want and more. Like with all mages, though, Black Mages suffers from FFT’s charge and faith mechanics.

The powerful black magic spells have immense charge times that limit their usefulness, and their damage is reduced on low-faith enemies. There are ways to build a character to try to diminish these drawbacks, but Black Magick pales in comparison to the kind damage a Black Mage with Iaido can put out instantly in a large AoE.

In practice, Black Magick is pretty powerful throughout the early and middle parts of the game.

Reaction Abilities

Ability NameJP Cost
Magick Counter800

Magick Counter returns any spell that’s cast on the character back to the caster. It sounds alright in theory, but in practice you will almost never see this spell, and it doesn’t work with anything you’d want it to.

It only works on spells that target a single tile, so big AoE nukes like the -aja spells and all the summons are out. Plus, whenever an enemy casts a spell and goes into charge mode, it puts a big “kill me” sign on their back.

Support Abilities

Ability NameJP Cost
Arcane Strength400

Arance Strength, which increases the damage of MA based abilities, is actually pretty good. It significantly boosts the damage of Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage’s own spells as well as any MA-based secondary abilities you want to put on him. Overall a pretty nice damage boost.

Movement Abilities

None

In Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage doesn’t gain access to any unique movement abilities so there’s nothing to discuss here.

Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage Overall Assessment

In Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage is the go-to class for anything related to magic power. Any moveset that relies on MA is made stronger by using Black Mage as the main class. Not just Iaido, which I kept mentioning throughout this article, but also Summons, Time Magick, White Magick, Oratory — anything that uses MA in the calculations.

Black Mage is a popular main class not only because of Black Mage’s insane MA multiplier, but also because he can equip rods (Wizard Rod adds 2 MA) as well as hats and robes (options in both categories for increasing MA).

If you’re a Final Fantasy Tactics fan and you haven’t tried the Black Mage / Iaido combo, I highly recommend it. It can be time consuming to set up, but it’s one of the class combos that truly shines on par with some of the broken movesets possessed by the special characters you recruit.

That about covers it for the Final Fantasy Tactics Black Mage Class. Be sure to check out the Games Section for more content like this and click here for more game guides related to FFT.

Final Fantasy Tactics Class Guides:
Squire â€“ Chemist â€“ Knight â€“ Archer â€“ Thief â€“ Monk â€“ Geomancer â€“ Dragoon â€“ Ninja â€“ Samurai â€“ Dark Knight â€“ White Mage â€“ Black MageTime Mage – Mystic – Summoner – OratorBard – Dancer â€“ Arithmetician – Mime – Onion Knight

Author

  • Ryan Night

    Ryan Night is an ex-game industry producer with over a decade of experience writing guides for RPGs. Previously an early contributor at gamefaqs.com, Ryan has been serving the RPG community with video game guides since 2001. As the owner of Bright Rock Media, Ryan has written over 600 guides for RPGs of all kinds, from Final Fantasy Tactics to Tales of Arise.

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