Gear (or Other) Priorities For My BLM

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Gear (or other) priorities for my BLM
 Sylph.Nubuo
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By Sylph.Nubuo 2017-01-27 09:03:44
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Hey all, looking for some advice on what to focus on first for making my BLM awesome. I've been gone from the game for a while and could just use some advice on what to focus on in what order to get the most bang for the buck for my time. Here's my current gear:

ItemSet 349191

I'm focusing on doing as much damage as possible so I can round up lots of critters and -ga them in as few casts as possible. Would anyone be able to suggest what pieces of gear would boost my damage the most?

I'm making the assumption that gear matters more than Job Point purchases or anything else I could be doing, is that valid? I've seen it mentioned a lot, but figured I'd get that claim validated.
 Bismarck.Snprphnx
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By Bismarck.Snprphnx 2017-01-27 09:38:03
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This is a good start

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/38032/kaboom-a-guide-for-black-mage/
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 Shiva.Spynx
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By Shiva.Spynx 2017-01-27 09:57:00
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Pretty much all the gear in the set you posted is now outdated with "easy" to get options from Escha except:
  • Hat/legs for FC set

  • Body for CP/high tier spam on low magic evasion targets

  • Acumen Ring (till shiva+1 if you have spare cash)



My suggestion is to check the link Snprphnx gave you that contains a lot of good stuff and focus at first on the biggest improvements such as Amalric hands (Escha Sky T1), Lathi (Escha Sky T2) and Merlinic head/feet/legs (Reisenjima T1). This will give you a huge amount of magic accuracy/attack/burst bonus to simplify the CP grind.

Quote:
I'm making the assumption that gear matters more than Job Point purchases or anything else I could be doing, is that valid? I've seen it mentioned a lot, but figured I'd get that claim validated.

Gear will give you a bigger boost than JP in general but the difference between a master and a 0 JP BLM is huge in term of dmg output/accuracy so try to work on them (BLM is always in high demand during CP campaign)
 Shiva.Arislan
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By Shiva.Arislan 2017-01-27 10:16:46
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There's a few things that you could buy off the AH (most for cheap) that would significantly upgrade your performance right away: Friomisi Earring, Shiva Rings (NQ are fine), Arasy Staff +1, Seshaw Cape, Saevus Pendant +1, Toro Cape.

There's also a few quested items that would be big upgrades: Barkarole Earring, Elemental Obis.

BLM is more than just nuking too... game has gotten to the point where a great Fast Cast set is mandatory (need to be able to land multiple strong MB's on a single chain)... Witful Belt, Prolix Ring, Weatherspoon Ring, Orunmila's Torque, etc.

That'll lay the groundwork for you to do basic ilvl content... like ~CL119 (Escha Zitah, non-SR Adoulin content, UNM). Any higher and the M.Acc requirements start to get very steep, so take it step by step.

Edit: if you're able to get into Reisenjima, you can join Domain Invasion campaign right now and get free NM drops from there... maybe you'll luck out and land some Merlinic.
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 Asura.Verbannt
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By Asura.Verbannt 2017-01-27 10:35:50
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I would first make a good manawall set using DT and the ambuscade cape along with emp feet 109 (119 if you can) as it opens more things up that you can do on your own.
 Sylph.Nubuo
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By Sylph.Nubuo 2017-01-27 12:18:25
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Snprphnx: Isn't the Kaboom guide like 3 years un-updated except by reading 100+ pages of posts? I was going to go off of the sets in the Black Sacrament guide.

Spynx: Thanks, I'm having trouble finding people to do content with, but if I can, I'll try to do those T1/T2 NMs. There's no way to solo those with BLM right?

Arislan: Yeah, I've been told to abandon worrying about -ga spells and focus on Magic Burst stuff instead. I HATE the idea of managing 20 different gear sets, but I guess I'll have to bite the bullet if I want to really do endgame content. Also yeah I can get into Reisenjima, so i'll check out the DI stuff.

Verbant: So I don't understand the point of a DT set for a black mage. Even soloing my Trusts should be taking all the hits, why do I need a DT set?
 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2017-01-27 12:50:58
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1.The sets on the first page of the Kaboom guide ate up to date. The two guides are actually a bit of contention among some. I still recommend the sets in the original guide sticky.

2.Your basic progression is WKR>Alluvion Skirmish>Merlinic/Amalric, with some smattering of JSE (artifact, relic, empyrean) here and there for JAs or special needs. If you have friends that can help you skip a step, do that. Otherwise, it's gear one step to beat the next.

A well geared SoA BLM can solo (with 5 trusts) all of T1 and T2 Zi'Tah,most of T1 and T2 Ru'Ann,and once you have some of that gear, sonme of the T1 Reisenjima.

3. BLM has become incredibly gear dependent...I'm sure I'm like most BLMs so let me give you a rundown of my sets nowadays-

-4 free elemental nuking sets (low accuracy, mid accuracy, high accuracy, occult acumen build)
-magic burst set
-3 enfeebling sets
-Death set
-2 melee sets
- WS sets for 3 primary WSs.
-PDT
-MDT
-Refresh
-cute potency
-enhancing magic


A lot is expected of us. By the same token, we are capable of so much more, so in my mind, definitely worth the effort.

4.You'll want a PDT set because you'll pull hate at some point in your life, and if you're soloing, you still have to pull. Not to mention while soloing for cp on BLM it is more efficient to summon buffers compared to a tank or DDs and burn down mobs. And you'll want a MDT set because mobs have a bigger casting radius that you do more often than not, meaning to be in casting range, you can sometimes be susceptible to AoEs.

My suggestion is to start with upgrading your AF119 legs, and if you have Vagary wins, empy body,hands, and feet. AF legs you'll use for drain and aspir forever. Empy feet are a permanent piece as well due to the mana wall effect, and ok nuking until you get better. The body is solid nuking and auto-refresh until better options come, and is great idle mp. Hands are great nuking until amalric or merlinic. Earrings- buy the frio and quest the barakole. Back, do several ambuscade capes,starting with int/macc/mdmg/MAB augments for your first. For a staff do a Yilan shout group, honestly a rdm/nin can solo it if they know what they are doing because of ho scaling and get a lathi. Don't have to worry about random augments and is a great weapon.
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 Shiva.Spynx
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By Shiva.Spynx 2017-01-27 13:44:51
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Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
A well geared SoA BLM can solo (with 5 trusts) all of T1 and T2 Zi'Tah,most of T1 and T2 Ru'Ann,and once you have some of that gear, some of the T1 Reisenjima.

To be honest BLM solo capabilities as a mage are limited by lack of strong DOTs(Helix) and solo MB (you could SC with Ayame with a good tp set but it's not really efficient and hard/unsafe on higher tier/reij NMs). Spamming spells leads to long fight and more room for mob nasty moves/human error/bad luck.

You should try to team up with a SCH in your same situation or willing to help. This would give you access to most content Celebrindal mentioned depending on which trust you have available. If you also find a GEO (mobs will have same hp with 1 or 3 people so 3 is the magic number) your life will be even easier.
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 Asura.Verbannt
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By Asura.Verbannt 2017-01-27 13:45:41
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The big reason for the dt is for manawall, the way it works is the dt lowers the damage you would take, that can be augmented by stuff like phalanx if possible, then the manawall set takes out even more dmg.

with a good set you can hold even 135+ mobs at bay by your self as long as you don't run out of mp manawall wont wear off due to dmg absorbed. meaning you have more ability to tank than your trusts do for a period of time assuming you don't burn your mana to 0, and loose manawall.

Also side note the guide The black sacrament has up to date gear sets and talks about why they are needed, the gear in kaboom is not up to date, not to mention TBS guide has information that is relevant with out going through 30 pages of the forum to find the information you need.

The kaboom guide is little more than out of date gearsets with a good amount of information on the comments.

And skip wkr gear its uesless and the skirmish gear it costs too much to be effective not to mention it will take a group to farm that in a reasonable ammount of time, and then it costs way more to augment unless you farm the stones your self which is slow as crap solo, at best 5-6 stones of any value and any kind.

Get merlinic gear, set up group, beg, or buy doesn't matter how you get it really, throw some pellucid stones at it, don't worry abut body lock your AF coat and grind your jp.
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 Asura.Verbannt
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By Asura.Verbannt 2017-01-27 13:51:16
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While it is true that a blm is FAR more effective with a geo and a sch for the mobs that were listed by Celebrindal none require them, a good blue can walk all over those mobs with erratic flutter and occultation and little else.

I believe the point was that the blm can kill those with no one else meaning if they cant find people to help that should not prevent them from fighting those mobs, just read up on the wiki, use your trusts and you will be fine.
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 Shiva.Arislan
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By Shiva.Arislan 2017-01-27 14:28:34
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Shiva.Spynx said: »
To be honest BLM solo capabilities as a mage are limited by lack of strong DOTs(Helix) and solo MB (you could SC with Ayame with a good tp set but it's not really efficient and hard/unsafe on higher tier/reij NMs). Spamming spells leads to long fight and more room for mob nasty moves/human error/bad luck.

Just gotta get creative w/ trusts.

Noillurie and Iroha II can make Light all day long (Kaiten > Amatsu: Suien), and both solo Fragmentation and Light whenever their JA's are up, so that pretty much cover anything that is weak to Fire/Wind/Thunder.

Noillurie and Zeid can make Distortion (Kaiten > Ground Strike) so that covers Water/Ice.

Noillurie is great b/c she has a 4-hit, pretty good acc, and *always* goes at 1000TP unless she's ready to self-SC. The trick is to find a SC partner for her that will hold TP and use a WS w/ the desired properties.

If all else fails, or you have to kill something w/ adds, there's always 5mins of Mana Wall + AF1 body dominance you can count on.
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 Shiva.Spynx
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By Shiva.Spynx 2017-01-27 14:53:55
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Shiva.Arislan said: »
Shiva.Spynx said: »
To be honest BLM solo capabilities as a mage are limited by lack of strong DOTs(Helix) and solo MB (you could SC with Ayame with a good tp set but it's not really efficient and hard/unsafe on higher tier/reij NMs). Spamming spells leads to long fight and more room for mob nasty moves/human error/bad luck.

Just gotta get creative w/ trusts.

Noillurie and Iroha II can make Light all day long (Kaiten > Amatsu: Suien), and both solo Fragmentation and Light whenever their JA's are up, so that pretty much cover anything that is weak to Fire/Wind/Thunder.

Noillurie and Zeid can make Distortion (Kaiten > Ground Strike) so that covers Water/Ice.

Noillurie is great b/c she has a 4-hit, pretty good acc, and *always* goes at 1000TP unless she's ready to self-SC. The trick is to find a SC partner for her that will hold TP and use a WS w/ the desired properties.

If all else fails, or you have to kill something w/ adds, there's always 5mins of Mana Wall + AF1 body dominance you can count on.

Trusts will have accuracy issue on higher level content (especially as they use mostly physical ws), and are usually destroyed by AoE if not tanks. Consider two mobs he'll need: Crom (merlinic legs) will very often kills most of your trusts with 1 AoE/cone and you now have to kite something that hits like a truck and has a ton of HP while running on manawall clock. Not to mention something like dolores(merlinic head) that unless you kill very fast will rape you tanks and GG regardless of manawall. Not saying BLM is incapable to solo but it's just a lot more risk/longer fights when you usually have to kill several anyways to get the drop you want and HP scaling encourages you to get 1-2 helpers.

Thanks for the trusts tips though, didn't know couple of them.
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 Shiva.Arislan
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By Shiva.Arislan 2017-01-27 15:00:56
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Shiva.Spynx said: »
Thanks for the trusts tips though, didn't know couple of them.

Np buddy :)

I did a lot more of this kind of thing before I got SCH up and running. Even on SCH, I still use Iroha II to close Fusion, Fragmentation and Reverberation so I can save strats, MB more often and have more time to pop Ebulliences/meds. (She can do induration too, but it's iffy).
 Asura.Verbannt
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By Asura.Verbannt 2017-01-27 15:07:10
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Its funny that you mention those mobs. While I realize that he likely does not have a blue like mine, me and new geo the other day duo'd that, quite an easy fight.

I hate how much people talk those nm's up. The fact is if people would help others this would not be an issue.

Hell if he wants to transfer to asura I can farm the pieces during my lunch. but fact is the only 'easy' gear is ambuscade gear. Everything else costs more, cant be farmed at all alone, or is worthless. (not saying ambuscade gear is good, it's just not utterly worthless, decent macc mab for what it is and other jobs can use it)

It simply is a waste of time to spend any time in skirmish or wkr. It takes too long, cost too much, has worse stats and is also using a luck based system.

And average social shells can handle those nm's easily. There is no GOOD argument to get wkr gear or skirmish gear for blm.

Also even assuming you did farm the skirmish armor it would not magically make the fight easier, you still 'need' a group. So going for other gear is a meaningless waste of anyone's time.
 Sylph.Nubuo
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By Sylph.Nubuo 2017-01-27 15:07:21
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Woot, even more good info on trusts and gear recommendations. Thanks!

Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
A lot is expected of us. By the same token, we are capable of so much more, so in my mind, definitely worth the effort.

On a completely unrelated note, since I'm also lazy sometimes, what do you think the easiest class is (in the context of solo and the context of parties).
 Asura.Verbannt
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By Asura.Verbannt 2017-01-27 15:25:25
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IMO blue mage for both solo and pt but it requires a large investment into the character, both farmed items and cursed armor you need to buy and upgrade.

It requires gear, understanding of the job, spells, and understanding how mobs work. But with that it does a fair ammount of events, is relatively easy to gear and as far as solo goes its hard to match a blue.

+ regular job in ambuscade and most 135 content
has ton of flexibility magical dmg physical dmg tanking etc
can be a fun job to play
can self buff and cure its self cure cap and haste cap and can
hit dt caps

- initial cost of gear is both gil intensive and time consuming
time sink into spells is a lot of work
anti blue hate runs thick ^.~
will take a while to be recognized as competent by others if at all
and you have to be good at hybrid jobs or its just a crappy mage or shitty dd
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 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2017-01-27 17:22:50
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Sylph.Nubuo said: »
Woot, even more good info on trusts and gear recommendations. Thanks!

Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
A lot is expected of us. By the same token, we are capable of so much more, so in my mind, definitely worth the effort.

On a completely unrelated note, since I'm also lazy sometimes, what do you think the easiest class is (in the context of solo and the context of parties).

Typically, you will discover the more dependent a job is on gear, the more you get to "lazymode". A good example is BRD-a decked out BRD (mythic dagger, ghorn,harp) is on complete lazy mode. And is incredibly powerful in the right circumstances. A great geared PLD doesn't have to work as hard as a lesser geared one to get the same results.

Some jobs require an insane amount of gear, etc just to be effective at top level content. RDM,some two handed DDs come to mind. BLM is in a unique situation- you need key pieces to be effective and you REALLY need enough job points to unlock Death to even be useful on about half of your endgame targets.

If you really want an easy route party wise, go COR.No one will complain I'd you just provide solid rolls to the right people at the start. Then, as you get bored with that, you can expand you capabilities to include DD'ing. Solo wise, any dual wielder sub dancer I would imagine is pretty much mindless..THF,NIN,BLU all sub DNC or DNC main. And since you are solo, the only person you'll offend with your gear is yourself. And Brygid.That ho hates everything I wear.
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 Sylph.Nubuo
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By Sylph.Nubuo 2017-01-30 08:16:24
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Leviathan.Celebrindal said: »
A well geared SoA BLM can solo (with 5 trusts) all of T1 and T2 Zi'Tah,most of T1 and T2 Ru'Ann,and once you have some of that gear, sonme of the T1 Reisenjima.

Ok, so I've been mulling over this one for a few days now. Before I go and begin a long death spiral into despair trying to do this soloing, Can I get a bit more info on what you're envisioning for a "well geared SoA BLM"? And maybe what trusts you're thinking I'd have access to?

For reference, my current trust line up is Gessho/Selh'teus/Zeid II/Apururu/Arciela II. And my gear is as you see above (updated since original post due to some DI gains :) ).
 Shiva.Spynx
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By Shiva.Spynx 2017-01-30 10:04:47
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Grats on the Lathi and Jubbah! Those are still in most high-end BLMs nuking set. "Well geared SoA BLM" refers to a Keraunos/Hagondes +1 or helios with good augments/reforged 119. Looking at your nuking set the most lacking slots are head and legs so I would try to get something better there. A very quick to get and really good improvement would be ambuscade gears, specifically the Jahkri set that you can get(NQ version - through kupons) in only 3-4 D-VD runs and have solid pieces for all slots.

Regarding the trusts selection, my go-to ones are:
  • 1 - Tank: Amchuchu (magic-heavy mobs) and August (physical mobs) but, as you probably do not have them, I would try to get Ark Angel Elvaan that you can solo on Very Easy. Gessho is really good only when the mob is slow and its nasty tp moves are shadow-absorbable but falls short on magic/aoe heavy ones.

  • 2 - Healing: I like Apururu for the AoE cures, convert and the MP-recovery TP move but some people prefer Yoran with cure-skin. Use your personal preference.

  • 3 - Tank/whm support: this is basically the RDM giving refresh/haste and backup cures. I like ArcielaI for her AoE magic defense bonus and AoE heal TP moves(that she'll use often due to innate regain) but she's annoying as she only refreshes you and not the WHM/PLD so only use if MPs won't be an issue(high refresh vorseals). Otherwise Koru-moru/KingOfHearts/Arciela2 in my order of preference

  • 4 - Backup cures: Selh'teus is really good as he gets TP fast and can cure even if silenced but if I already have Apururu+Koru-Moru and silence is not going to happen it may be overkill and you'd be better with another trust able to open/close SC. If you are the one opening/closing the SC, this can be another support slot ( brd - Ulmia/joachim; cor - qultada; MAB - Star-Sybil)

  • 5 - SC parner:refer to Arislan list and you should be able to cover pretty much all elements. Iroha II is really good here as she has AoE healing move (freeing the Selh'teus slot if needed) and can close light

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 Leviathan.Celebrindal
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By Leviathan.Celebrindal 2017-01-30 11:03:16
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The above post is great. The only thing you'll want Hagondes for these days is -DT gear, helios from the SoA era is better (I still use several pieces in an Occult Acumen build). And if course if you have that jubbah you're on your way.

Apu is the tank I used for a long time, but August is a goal. Form a Sinister Reign group, people are always looking for better augments. Can also hope for the robe from it with refresh augment for a good idle piece until Jhakri.
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