(I kinda agree with Dome here, which is funny because I was going to joke at his expense about it.)
Thanks for the tallies of things, Fantactic1316 and Gaignun.
Anyone want to finish things off and do a tally of weapons used? I'm pretty sure Throwing Knife and some of the crappier ones won't show up at all even as one-ofs. *cough*BowGun*cough* [/asking too much]
Anyway, I find it hilarious that 36 Black Costumes
is low. Hahaha...that's kinda bad, especially given at least two other things absorb Dark that don't totally suck now, though at least N-Kai Armlet could still use a boost since Confusion doesn't even exist in ARENA anymore.
Looked at what not healing skills are most used... masamune 32. Steal heart at 17... god I hate that ability. Also what is up with holy these days, it seems everyone uses holy instead flare these days.
Besides what Fantactic1316 already said, it's also because, on the flip side, Black Magic still sucks or, rather, it's at least still outpaced by other things as it unfortunately always has been since vanilla. All it has over Summon Magic, which has revival that Black Magic lacks and gets past both Reflect and M-EV, is Frog, Death, Poison and Flare. Death and Poison suck and are obviated by far too many things to be worth counting, so only Flare and Frog really count. Ironically, due to Reflect Ring's upgrade to blocking Silence and boosting magick, despite both Flare and Holy being reflectable, it means that the decreased use of Magic Ring means that Holy element isn't absorbed any more. As such, when that Reflect eventually does go down, Holy is not going to be absorbed and it is better for interrupting things and being more difficult to interrupt itself even without Short Charge as well as being cheaper MP-wise.
It's not that Black Magick isn't usable. It's just that, besides Flare (arguable), literally the only things it has going is elemental-absorption, that the elemental Tier 4 that gets past Reflect and Frog, which is useful if Frogged.
Even then, though, elemental-absorption is pretty much restricted to Fire since Scholars better Ice and Lightning abilities to abuse and even
then Wizards have to compete with the utter BS of the currently overpowered magic guns, which are 100% accurate and don't take MP. Furthermore, outside of Flare, Wizard's whole direct offense gets severely hampered by singular pieces of equipment due to White Robe and Venetian Shield. Even Frog has to compete with both a couple of instant-cures to Frog (Stigma Magic & Maiden's Kiss) and the much quicker, more accurate Esuna as well as (ab)useable equipment that already blocks Frog like the universally wearable Chantage.
On top of all that, Black Magic has to compete with every other Faith-based magic being more useful since
all that Black Magic can do is ultimately cause damage--usually only to single target--
if it can get past M-EV or try to Frog people; Poison and Death don't count less because of the dismissive argument that they "suck", but because they're both ultimately useless since all Black Magic does besides Frog people
is damage. Why the hell would you bother with minimal damage over time--especially when other classes have 100% Poison abilities--and an iffy chance pf single-target instant-Death when you already do is direct damage capable of OHKOing
and you already have to deal with Raise 2's "everything's 100% okie-dokey" bullshit?
...Sorry, that ended up being a rant that would be better-suited Abilities thread and that isn't something I feel FFMaster or even ARENA itself are necessarily to blame for. However, needless to say, it's really not surprising that Holy is a lot more popular than Flare, especially since Mages don't automatically absorb Holy now by virtue of Magic Ring being the only mage-accessible item to block Silence.
