iMoogle - An FFXI/FFXIV LS (2003 - 2014)

My view on BLM. Changing around the idea of the thread and opening it up.

Dealing Damage

Since dealing damage is the most focused on purpose of BLM, I will talk about it in detail first.

The primary way of dealing damage is through direct damage nukes, such as Thunder IV.

There are two key points that I will talk about first.

DPS or damage to time ratio
Damage to MP ratio

Since Damage to MP is easier to quantify I’ll start there.

If you take your damage done, and divide it by the mp cost of the spell, you’ll get a number that we can call spell efficiency. The higher this number, the more efficient the spell is, the bigger bang for your buck per say.

There has been ample testing on the base damage of spells and a nice chart on the lolwiki if you’d like to look it up. But I’ll save you from doing the numbers and testing yourself, the tier efficiency goes, Tier 4 > Tier 3 > Tier 1 > AM 2 > Tier 2 > Ga 3 > AM 1.

And assuming you have standard BLM merits, 5 lightning and 5 ice potency, Thunder 4 and Blizzard 4 should be the spells you cast most often, given that the mob has no specific resists.

Another thing that heavily affects Spell Efficiency is the resist rate. The spell efficiency plummets when you get even a ½ resist let alone a 1/16th. So having enough skill and magic accuracy gear is important. Hitting the ceiling resist rate plays a large part in how much over all damage you do in a fight.

Top damage is meaningless if you are last in overall damage.

Here we can tie in the idea of DPS. When I mention DPS on BLM, I’m not talking about how fast I can get a spell off, or how fast I can chain cast spells. I’m talking about how many spells are you able to get off during the course of the whole fight.

Now there are a few limiting factors to this. Obviously the first one is how long the fight is. Since we are talking about events, most fights will last a decent length of time.

Another factor is, do you have MP to continue to nuke? This is where at first you assume that I mean max mp, taru vs galka, etc.

Wrong. This is where a strong MP recovered while Healing set comes into play. If you have a good HMP set you are able to recover mp faster and spend less time resting. Also knowledge of how resting ticks work also plays a factor in how efficient you are. More mp you get the more nukes you can cast.

Since the timers of the spells are rarely a factor in how many times you can cast, mp is usually the kicker in how often you can cast.

And the big factor that I stress all the time. Are you alive?

As soon as you die, you’re obviously unable to cast spells, and deal damage, and strive to achieve one of the purposes that you are expected to do.

When you’re dead, unless you have Reraise up, this takes mp away from the healers, it takes time away from the healers. You have 5 minutes of weakness where the timers on your nukes are doubled and obviously your mp is cut. So basically, in the best case situation, you’ve halved your efficiency for 5+ minutes. And if you die again while weakened you’re completely useless for 5 minutes after you have been raised.

So I’m telling you things to help increase your damage output, thus increase your enmity and I want you to not die on top of it.

There are ways to accomplish this. There are simple things that all BLMs should do, great or average, that will increase their survivability.

First let’s start with the “physical” things. Things like buffs.

Keep at least protect 2 and shell 2 on. They cost minimal mp to cast and last about 30 minutes. Keep blink up. Depending on the mob it may be more important than stoneskin. Now…stoneskin. Maximize it please. 350 extra HP. It is stupid not to cap this. Its not really difficult to do either. Just take the time to set up the macro and bring the gear along. It is one of the more important gear sets that you can have.

I proc a sorcerer’s ring, I know a lot of BLMs do, or want to since the 10 MAB is so appealing to those who hunt big numbers. I’m not going to say don’t proc it ever at events, but be smart.

Also make sure your hp down gear leaves you at the highest possible HP. There is a lot of talk about where your hp has to be at to proc. Here is the answer.

Your HP needs to be 75% of your calculated max HP. Gear that Converts HP to MP, does not affect your calculated max HP.
Example:
Your nuking HP without zenith mitts is 1000. But since you will be nuking with zenith mitts, your showing hp max is 950, but your calculated HP max is still 1000. So 75% of 1000 is 750. Your ring will proc at 750. You do not need to be 712 (75% of 950) to proc your ring. So yes you do not need to be “yellow”. So if you are incorrectly proccing your ring, change it so you will have some extra hp.

Now on to the more technical and game mechanics side of staying alive longer.

When talking about enmity there are two generally accepted “types” of enmity, VE, volatile enmity, and CE, cumulative enmity. CE does not naturally decay and has a cap of sorts. VE decays naturally and only has a theoretical cap. Each action causes some amounts of CE and VE.

Since nukes are high enmity because of the amount of damage they do at one time, you need to realize that if you chain cast high damage nukes, your total enmity will quickly surpass the tank’s and you will pull aggro.

But because of the way that enmity works most likely the tank will have a higher CE value than you so when your VE decays the tank will regain aggro.

So the key here is to keep just under the tanks enmity. If you sit around for a long time after your nuke because you think you’ll pull aggro again, you’re not being efficient, yet if you nuke too much you’ll die and also become inefficient.

No one said that being a good BLM would be easy. You will need to learn on your own how to pace your nukes depending on who is tanking and what mob you are fighting. A good BLM is a BLM that can react well and is dynamic in its play style. The situation will not adapt to how you play, you must adapt to it.

I will show you that BLM is not as a simple of a job as you may believe.

Stunning

In order to stun you must be able to see the move that you are stunning. Your chat filters must be set so you will see the message. In all situations you will need the following chat filters OFF.

Special actions started on/by You, Your party, your alliance, and your foe.

Specific events you will also need

Special actions started on/by Other people and NPCs.

If you do not have the “Other people” or “NPC” filters off you may miss messages in things such as einherjar and dynamis where you are in multiple alliances.

I am not going to create a list of things you need to stun when. You should know what is dangerous.

Stun orders are important to keep from overlapping stuns and to prevent a period of time when no one would be able to stun. The general rule of thumb when stunning is DO NOT cast if you are up to stun. DO NOT cast if you are next in line to stun. You do not want to be casting when you need to stun.

On mobs that do not build resistance to stun it is ok to “Free stun” a few seconds after your turn as come up in order. This gives tanks an extra second or two on their utsusemi cool down. This also slows down the amount of damage the mob can do over the course of the fight. But do not stun as soon as your turn comes up, wait a little while to make sure the next person’s stun is up or let him finish his cast. But on mobs like this you should not “sit” on your stun for more than 30 seconds. But on mobs that do build resistance DO NOT free stun, stun only what is needed. It sucks but you can be sitting on your stun for a long time.

I know it’s a pain and annoying to have to retype parts of macros every event, but having a simple /p chat is very useful as a refresh to whose stun it is. A SOFT call like #14 is ok too.

Like I said before and will continue to say, BLM is not a static job. You need to adapt and be dynamic depending on your situation. Use your head.

but in wow you don't need to use your head lol
you just click click and click ROARRR DPS gogogo

Since you deleted the discussion thread, I'll post here. :s

-Do the Aura Statues suck to sleep or do I suck? When I tried to sleep/grav them, the majority of my enfeebs were resisted.
My enfeeb set (listing only relevant equip):
Main: Wind/Dark Staff (yeah yeah HQ this.. I'm not a mage long enough to care)
Sub: Bugard+1
Ammo: Phantom
Head: Igqira
Neck: Spider Torque (see staff)
Ear2: Morion
Body: AF
Ring1: Diamond
Ring2: Diamond
Back: Rainbow
Waist: Penitent
Legs: JSE
Feet: Rostrum
Enfeeb Merits: 3 (Need to get these up some more)

-Does INT have a bearing on what gets resisted, or only affects damage like I think it does?
Specifically Druid's Slops' Ele+5 vs. Errant's INT+7. Can list nuking set if you want. But mainly I use Druid's unless mob T or under.

Aura Statues, believe or not, do resist magic if you are not A+ in that category. (Hell it can occasionally have freak resists with A+ magic). I like to think those statues are freaks

Assuming you're talking about stats in ulli's room or comparable ones, yea they are more difficult to sleep.

Sell those lappas and get a pluto's staff too. lol

Int affects resists..to a point. The int needed to hit the deminishing return point is a lot lower than skill for the most part...talking big HNMs though. Xp mobs you already have high enough int just from standard gear that it won't affect the resists much, but it will increase your damage. For these mobs you also floor resists so skill won't help either. So may as well go with errant slops.

You left out Hands. If your nation is Windurst (can't remember what you are allied to) you can pick up Master Caster Bracelets. Only good in areas not controlled by Windurst, but still helps...Enfeeb +7(great for Dynamis).

Peach isn't so much of a mage type of guy Doubt he'll spend that lolCP for them :s.

I actually got them when I ding rank 8 2-3 years ago and tossed them last year cause yeah, only useful in outside your nation control and not active in CP/AN zones.

Now I don't have the CP for them. Sitting on 28k, if you count my "stored" PPA, and bracelets are 40k.

I actually switched nations to get them.. got them and realized they sucked balls. Tossed em a few months after I came back lol.



<3 morrigan's lol

How does your efficieny thing with

Tier 4 > Tier 3 > Tier 1 > AM 2 > Tier 2 > Ga 3 > AM 1.
or whatever change when you factor in /sch.?

The extra % you save with dark arts up will surely affect the spells that cost the most the most, and again when you use the Parismony (?) JA, or whichever saves 50%.

That aside, basically does having an extra 10% off each nuke change the order of efficiency?

Even with 10% across the board, the efficiency of each spells doesn't necessarily change much. AM2 can deal massive damage, but is more costly in terms of MP:dmg+ ratio than the cost of a Tier4, Tier3 MP:dmg cost ratio. Yea, the -50% MP JA would throw off the numbers every couple of minutes if you use it and would alter the efficiency of spells if you're chain nuking.

In a controlled fight /SCH is optimal MP wise, but in situations where BLMs take damage (ie)Fafhogg Wings, etc, /RDM is best. Doncha love situational stuff SE give us?