Blm BCNM Experience

[Ailenroc]

Hello. Yesterday, I did my first BCNM40, and I ended up doing it four times. I was partying with a great brd, and people from my LS who I trust a lot, so we won each time we entered the BC. Before I went in, however, I was really nervous. I tried to find information on what a blm would do in this sort of situation, but there really was none. Even a, "It's not that hard" would've helped my nerves a lot.

So, I thought I'd post my experiences with BCNM40, and what I think is important. For blm, it's really not that hard. By the fourth run, it was all very routine. Most of the trick is having a good brd.

Our setup was: RDM/WHM (Main tank healer), WHM/SMN (Bard's main healer, subbed smn for extra mp), BLM/WHM (Me, DD), NIN/WAR (Tank), RNG/WAR (Melee DD), BRD/WHM (Mandy sleeper). We did Steamed Sprouts in Giddeus, and consistently won around 15 minutes.

It was an LS event, they did it 10ish times, I went on 4 of the runs. They only lost once (on a run I wasn't on), because the brd d/c'd.

1. Subjob
I would really recommend having a whm subjob for this fight. Our setup was RDM/WHM/BLM/BRD/RNG/NIN, and even with the RDM/WHM, and the WHM, I still ended up using Paralyna on the tanks a few times per battle. It's not really necessary if you have as many healers as we did, but it was useful. I'd say definitely have whm subbed if you only have 1 main healer. If the brd gets paralyzed and the main healer is busy, and you have smn/rdm subbed... If you have a group you trust, with a whm or /whm healer, you could probably get away with subbing anything, though.

2. Food
I ran out of MP like nobody's business. All the mages I did this with had juices, and it was a BIG help. I'd say at least two juices per battle, three would be nice if you've got gil to spend. Stuff like pie really isn't even necessary, I don't think. After using my mp to below 200, I never really got above that again for the rest of the fight. Yagudo Drinks are the best (2000 a pop on Kujata), it seems, but towards the last run or two I was running low on gil, so I bought Melon Juice (700 per) instead.

3. Strategy
There isn't a humongous amount of strategy to this, but here's what I thought. Mostly, you just nuke stuff to death. The only mob I bothered casting enfeebles on was the Dvorovoi (big black super-Mandy). The Domovoi (white mandys) just went down too fast. The melee's skillchain was Fusion (Blade: Retsu > Flaming Arrow), which was nice, because I could burst with Fire II. My LS said I was doing a good job, so I think I did okay.

As for drops~
I'll just say I made about 200k.

I thought it would be interesting to see what any other blms had to say about doing BCNM40, or any of the higher BCNMs (50, 60, etc.) Post away!

[AtraposBLM]

I never nuked in any of the BC40's that I went on, except on bursts, or on the few times where we couldn't stop an incoming flood when the black mandy was slivered.

Mainly, I healed the melee's, and the other healer healed the bard. On a few runs where everyone knew what they were doing, I was able to throw out a few nukes when possible, but mainly, I found they were a waste of MP. Unless your party REALLY sucks, you'll always be able to kill all the mobs within 30 minutes, so kill speed isn't an issue. If kill speed isn't an issue...the only thing that'll be bad is death. Therefore...cure's are your friend

But yeah, I always used Melon Pies and 3-4 Yagudo Drinks. Of course, those were the days where a single run could net you over 100k per person....ah...those were the days ; ;


As far as BC50 goes...I've only done the mimic chest one once. Got a mimic...good thing my friend was there. I escaped us out (he was a pld...invincible = your friend).


And lastly, the only other BCNM that I've done is BC60. I've done a ton of them, and I've only lost about 3 times. 2 times, I lost doing the Tonberry BCNM. The other time I lost was before I got Sleepga II (a few friends and I planned on doing bcnm's by a certain date, and I had planned on having 120k by that time...which I did...but that day the cost of sleepga II jumped to 200k...so we did the runs anyways. Won 4 out of the 5 attempts). Here's what I've learned about BC60's:

Excluding the BC60 that sleepga II isn't effective on (I forget which one...it's one of the outland ones), this is how it goes:

With a bard:
If you have sleepga II, you win.

Without a bard:
If you have sleepga II and can keep blink/stoneskin up, you win.

Without Sleepga II:
Just as hard as BC40 if not harder (all the mobs have 2 hours).

No matter what, in BC60's, you generally go in, buff up, sleepga II everything, then wait. You can nuke/cure in the interim, but you wait until the mobs wake up, and use sleepga to put them back to sleep. Rebuff, then use sleepga II. Then nuke/cure...then repeat.

If you have a bard, it's even easier, as you won't need any buffs (they might though ). Have them do the first lullaby. Overwrite lullaby with sleepga. Count 25-30 seconds, then overwrite sleepga with Sleepga II. By the time the mobs wake up from Sleepga II, you have the bard lullaby them again, and repeat. Ridiculously easy.


Another nice trick is that most BC60's have a MP user or two in the mix. Make sure you save one for last - you can aspir them for ~100 mp every minute. That usually nets me a good 1,500 mp for free. Between that, ballads, refresh...I have more or less unlimited MP to do what I please with, I just have to make sure I time everything correctly.


BC60's = ridiculously easy with Sleepga II



BC70's - Never done any. Supposedly we're not so great at them...but who the hell knows.

[Ailenroc]

Thanks for the reply, your posts always seem to have good info Atrapos.

I actually went into the fight expecting my sole job to be healing the bard, but my party specifically asked me to nuke, so that's what I did. My party also had two really fantastic healers and a great bard, so I wasn't really needed to heal. If I went with a different group though, I'd definitely heal more. Since it seems bard death = party death. :sweat:

[AtraposBLM]

yeah, 2 healers means you're usually free to do what you want. If there are 2 healers, I usually wait until all the hate has been secured (all white mandies set on the bard, black mandy firmly implanted on the tank), then I manafont-nuke the black mandy. Pop a yagudo drink, then heal/nuke for the remainder. Generally, I only have time for 1-2 nukes before the white mandies are dead, so I usually wait for bursts.

Manafont isn't needed at all, but it gives a nice layor of security against the black mandy.

Also, I have the following macro set and ready at a moments notice:
/ja "Elemental Seal" <me>
/wait 1
/ma "Silence" <t>

If I see flood, I nail it. The next flood is taken care of by the pld/drk, and any subsequent floods are usually interrupted by death

Oh, when you silence flood, the black mandy will still appear to be casting for several seconds...don't panic. One time my paladin thought my silence got resisted, and he panic'd and used his shield bash...only to have the black mandy cast flood again 30 seconds later ; ;

[Patchinko]

While it's not a "higher" BCNM, BCNM30 "Creeping Doom" with Bitoso the Crawler/WHM is great for BLM.

Bitoso has nearly unlimited MP, and thus so do you since you can Aspil incredible amounts from him.^^ A mix of two BLM/WHM and a DRK or NIN/RNG (I saw a video of this way with Sleep and Drain Bolts, which was really impressive) seems to be a popular way of winning it.

The drops aren't so hot, typically, but if you luck out and get a Wizard's Earring, Magician's Earring, Dispel, Erase or Utsusemi: Ni, you can be in the money for a pretty simple 30BCs.^^

[Prefect]

I think a BLM is more useful in the Worm BCNM40 than the more standard Mandragora BCNM40. Since the worms don't bunch up, the increased radius of BLM's Sleepga compared to Horde Lullaby is important. My group does it with 2 RNG, BRD, BLM, RDM, WHM. Both the BRD and BLM are needed to keep all of the worms asleep so you would probably feel more useful there.

[Lauranthalasa]

BCNM30 "Creeping Doom" is amazingly easy with 3 BLM/WHM's. Two days ago was the first time I've ever gone on a BCNM hunt (I'm not in a linkshell that does anything organized, ever, so I'm missing out on lots of group activites that most people do). I have 100+ seals saved up because I never get the chance to do these.

We went in as 3 BLM/WHM's. We each spread out around it and did Sleep > Bind > Aspir > 3xFiraga > Sleep > etc. No one came close to dying. Granted the drops were horrible (best item was a Wyvern's Earring), but it was a lot of fun just going on one, and I hope to do more in the future.

[riceburner4540]

for the mandragora bcnm40, i used -ga nukes to speed up their death. while the melees take care of the black one far away, still within the whm's cure range but well out of my -ga spell radius, i use a blizzaga or a thundaga, timed with when the mandragoras wake up.

so basically, bard does a few horde lullabies and when he has the hate secured, i cast thundaga or blizzaga and make sure it fires right before he recasts his horde lullaby. by the time the black mandragora died, the white ones were all half dead.

[Tetsura]

In my experience i've only ever played the whm role in a BCNM. I've only done BCNM40's though, because i had a static BCNM40 party (we went 35/1, the 1 loss was because brd disconnected).

Our party set up was
Rng/war Mithra
Drk/war Elvaan
War/nin Hume
Blm/whm Taru
Blm/whm Taru (me )
Brd/whm Hume

So basically the 2 blm's would act as a whm and spam cure 1 or 2 and throw in the occasional Divine Seal'd Cure 2 if things got bad (which they never really did)

Though at the end of every BCNM, on the last 2 mandra, the 2 blm's would be able to go nuke crazy :sweat:

Congrats on your BCNM's also, seems like you got yourself a nice reliable group. You should try and set up times when you guys get together for them, it really helps pay the bills.

[Ailenroc]

Thanks for the responses. Yeah, I've tried "Creeping Doom" twice. Lost both times >< Had a drk and 2x blm. Basically, I think we lost because when sleep stopped sticking we didn't Bind enough.

I like my group a lot, but we're running out of seals. I guess it gets harder with rank, because it's so hard for me to get even one now. Or at least harder than it used to be :p