BLM/NIN in Exp Party

[Omni]

It's smart especially if you already have two healers in the PT

In the perfect situation, /nin would probably be nice. I dont deny that, but in all seriousness how many ideal PTs have you gotten 1-40?

I took my BLM to 37 recently and honestly, if I didnt help heal every PT I had would probably be disbanded in 15minutes.

BLM from 30-36 IS even more important that you heal. The lack of true refresh in those levels has MP at a premium. All the help your healers can get would be even more significant. Throwing in a couple Cure IIs, maybe some status cures makes a big difference when your healers are mp starved after 2 fights.

I dont think lowering your resists % is worth giving up all the usefulness /whm can give you. DD shouldnt have the responsibilty I agree, but you know having someone to back you up in a bind means the difference between finishing off the mob or wiping. A Sam shouldnt be responsible for provoking but its sure nice to have that around at lower levels. Might save a BLM if the tank happens to go down.

[IfritnoItazura]

Saying that "you have to be useful" seems to indicate that other DD's should shirk their damage boosting sub job abilities in exchange for the occasional Cure II. Perhaps I should ask all those DRK/THFs to do that... Black Mage is not a support character. Of all the characters in the game, Black Mage is most purely DD. BLM has no defensive ability to speak of and his selection of spells is limited primarily to those that cause damage. Support characters, it can be argued, should have Cures. Damage Dealers should not be held to such a responsibility.

I liked the rest of your post, but this I disagree with strongly.

Support job choice is always situational--the best WAR I've ever met was a JP player who switched from WAR/NIN or something to WAR/WHM (she must have known our RDM was an idiot) for Yhoator Jungle. She backup healed (unlike the RDM/WAR), used bloody bolts to cure herself, and opened Distortion with a two-handed sword.

She "gimped" her damage output for the sake of the party--she adapted her setup and play style to enhance the party. That, is one smart player. I'd invite her on any job.

(The same JP player tanked better on BLU/WAR than 95% of tanks I had in Qufim Island, was top DD as BLM in another Yhoator Jungle party while backup healing... She is just awesome. Well, she's a Mithra, so probably a 'he' instead, but still... just awesome... I think the name is "Mizuki".)

* * *

DRK/WHM can be good, party depending. I used it in Valkurm Dunes to good effects, and a DRK friend of mine sent me tell during a somewhat broken Lv.60-something party that he wished he came as /WHM instead.

* * *

BLM is more flexible than "damage only", and it's a good thing.

The job have some native enfeebling and enhancing magic skills, allowing the players to be more than just DD when using /WHM or /RDM.

There's nothing wrong with being a "second chance" enfeebler, and help out with those spells when the RDM's paralyze or slow or something else didn't land on the first try. It's not like a BLM can open the fights with big nukes anyway. And, given the near uselessness of healing magic skill, a BLM/WHM makes a fine backup healer, too.

Put it this way; if the party has four DD's, and one of it is BLM, is it actually a good thing if the BLM does nothing but nuke? Keep in mind that means there's only room left for a one tank and one healer/support (WHM or RDM or... er... SMN?!). That's when a BLM should be very glad he is more than DD.

[Sabaron]

I did mention situational usefulness above. The specific issue I was addressing with that paragraph was the mention of the fact that it should be assumed that any BLM not subbing WHM is not "doing his duty" by providing curative assistance. In a PT where healing is "covered", the BLM's primary responsibility is to kill a given string of monsters with the absolute maximum efficiency. If it is necessary that a BLM (due to his high base mp pool and good mp regen) should heal, I stated above that paragraph that he should do so. I was merely addressing the specific statement that BLM has to sub WHM to be useful.

As for the 30-36 thing. The three parties I had for this level range consisted of a certain "core" group which is ideal for the situation:

These "ideal" cores are as follows:

Party 1: PLD tank, BLM/WHM, WHM/BLM
Party 2: NIN tank, RDM/WHM, WHM/BLM
Party 3: PLD tank, BRD/WHM, WHM/BLM

All three of these parties are well cored, in one case refreshed, and ideal for BLM/NIN. The BLM in Party 1 and the RDM in Party 2 were able to follow-nuke increasing output on damage in both cases. All parties were very efficient.

[Malacite]

Loss of Clear Mind (+hMP trait) from /WHM. Fast MP recovery = good

Clear Mind Traits do not stack, and BLM learns them at the same rate as SMN (which I find a bit odd >. >)

[Sabaron]

How appropriate an avatar...

Malachite from Sailor Moon...

[Theyaden]

Regarding the /nin on the mage job
http://www.datasync.com/~dsmith/FFXIStats/
Figuring level 30 blm with subjobs fully leveled here are your base stats for blm/nin blm/whm blm/sum I'm using elvan as the race since thats what I play with and I've played with the whm and sum sub for experimenting.
Level HP MP STR DEX VIT AGI INT MND CHA
blm/nin
30 437 225 30 31 28 29 31 30 28
blm/whm
30 430 259 29 28 27 27 31 34 30
blm/smn
30 414 285 28 29 26 27 33 33 31

Ninja gives you the ability to have an extra wand with +5 int and mind at the loss of healing ability. You also get shadows but if your riding the hate line properly they shouldn't be needed.
blm/whm is the most common combo to xp it gives you the ability to throw status repair and cures but has the same base int as nin at this level.
blm/sum gives the highest base intelegence, but is only by 2 at this level and the highest mana going from 225 as nin to 285 as summoner. Unfortunatly the lack of curative abilities and summoning magic at half strenght only being fit for carby pulls and at higher levels buffs like arial armor reduce the desirability of this sub as well.
Usually your best bet is whm since it gives the most bang for your buck in utility.

Sidenote: For the love of all things holy I realize it's fun to melee too, but that is not a mage jobs primary duty. Please don't bring /war or /nin to xp as a redmage /blm or /whm or even /smn add so much more to the job when in a party.

[Haggai]

And just for note, the BLM/NIN I mentioned was not using jutsu magic, just utsusemi.

[Sabaron]

Truly, /NIN is pointless without the Elejutsus.

[Malacite]

yup >. > that's where I got the name from, and no I'm not ashamed ^^ (Even though I misspelled my damn name @ the time > _ < wish I could change it and add the missing "H")

[massaranger]

If ur a dd blm why not /rdm for healing spells and the int bonus not to mention the fast cast and u also get the blink and stone skin and the def spells you need to keep ur self alive if a bomb toss for 900 goes off. You will deal more damage than with using those ichi jutsus.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I maintain that BLM/NIN is not selfish. It's smart especially if you already have two healers in the PT. PLD with WHM? BLM/NIN WHM with RDM? BLM/NIN. Another situation where BLM/NIN is nice is if you already have a BLM/WHM. set yourself up as BLM/NIN and the BLM/WHM can follow your spell wheel.

"If we have other two healer" is a crutch excuse for Job/non-EXP sub. Things get hectic in PTs, PTs feel safer when they know you're doing something to look out for them. They're not going to appreciate /NIN, when the WHM gets stuck in mid-cure and someone else dies. It happens, but that's not WHM droping the ball, that's you.

And if you have never main healed past 37, you just do not know what a drain status cures are to a healer's MP. If you're casting nukes and little else, you can back the WHM on status cures, there's no good excuse not to. If you have a NIN, you don't need to be tossing out elemental ninjutsu debuffs, the NIN needs to do that to keep hate, so you're being counterproductive to his tanking ability.

Saying that "you have to be useful" seems to indicate that other DD's should shirk their damage boosting sub job abilities in exchange for the occasional Cure II. Perhaps I should ask all those DRK/THFs to do that... Black Mage is not a support character. Of all the characters in the game, Black Mage is most purely DD. BLM has no defensive ability to speak of and his selection of spells is limited primarily to those that cause damage. Support characters, it can be argued, should have Cures. Damage Dealers should not be held to such a responsibility.

To quote Ben Parker, "With great power comes great responsibility."

You're telling me with all that MP that BLM shouldn't be expected for toss out a cure every now and then? Well, I hope you're not intending to pass the buck to RDM or SMN because they sure as hell don't want to main heal, yet are often expected to. BLUs sure as hell could do it, but for whatever reason, they get off the hook. All PTs expect of BLM is to support cure, what is so hard about that? That's easy as pie.

Yes, you are an offensive character with a LOT of MP, so is SMN. You're going to be doing some curing, deal with it. You aren't even saddled with the level of curing expected from SMN. I don't see why BLMs get so defensive about support curing when SMN is expected to main heal each and every time a WHM or RDM isn't available. SMNs are big damage dealers and they main heal, what's your excuse?

BRD and COR have a joke a manapool with WHM sub, barely enough MP to Raise somone pre-merit - BLM has MP to spare. If a WHM goes down and curing comes down to BRD and COR, your party is screwed. Best those two can do with /WHM is do status remove and the odd Cure II or III, they can't do much in an emergency. COR is very disadvantaged because they cannot simply overwrite Evoker's Roll with Evoker's Roll like BRDs can overwrite ballads, they have to cycle two new rolls to even get back to Evoker's, that's at least two minutes they're not getting MP back.

Telling melee to sub mage doesn't work, you need raw damage output and skillchains or there's no point to even having a BLM in PT. Melee have plenty of ways to support a PT, RNG, THF, WAR and DRK have access status bolts, THF and /THF can tranfer hate, DRK cripples the mob with thier own spells. DRG can sub mage and be an effective support healer, but they lose vital melee traits and abilities when they do so.

But they don't have lots of MP like BLM does. Seriously, it won't kill you to toss out a cure. The only place you should even be drawing a line is when people ask you to main heal as BLM. There is a bizarre trend on the JP side our community that is somehow willing to accept that, NA and EU BLMs apparently aren't that desparate nor should they be, because they are damage dealers.

But tell me you won't support cure and I won't be inviting you to PT. I manaburn with enough BLMs to which cureing allies is a foreign concept. I don't EXP with those BLMs again after I'm running around half dead for 15 minutes at a time.

[Sabaron]

Things I never said:

1. That BLM shouldn't cure when necessary.

2. That a COR should ever consider subbing WHM.

3. That anything I said pertained to any level range other than the one I specified (30-36)

4. That BRD was a "good" support healer (BRD has other options: Lullaby).

With respect to NIN's Elejutsus: Most nin's don't bother with them Pre-Ni, so you're on your own until then, and even if they are packing ele tools, you'll not be getting full wheel. Low level NIN's lose hate when using them.

I mentioned DRK for a reason. They have a native MP pool so they would be even more effective than a BRD at backup heal Plus they have Aspir so in certain conditions can restore mp efficiently. BLM also carries huge hate levels. If something goes sour, a BLM can most likely not cure terribly much without going down as well. Then where are you? No sleep, no cure, no options.... Wipe and like it.

Having two other healers is not a crutch excuse. You are assuming that under conditions where flight is most likely the best option that the BLM should "save the day" as it were and heal instead of sleeping it and running away. BLM also uses mp more liberally than other jobs. BLM is not oft found carrying "extra" mp and is frequently sitting. As II said (and I most whole-heartedly agree), sub job is situational. You'll need to better define the term "crutch excuse"--the situation I gave is a sound, valid reason to sub /NIN, and you'll have to come up with something better than an off-handed insult to support your argument that /NIN is never appropriate for BLM.

[IfritnoItazura]

If ur a dd blm why not /rdm for healing spells and the int bonus not to mention the fast cast and u also get the blink and stone skin and the def spells you need to keep ur self alive if a bomb toss for 900 goes off. You will deal more damage than with using those ichi jutsus.

Ichi level -ton spells is not used for the pitiful damages they themselves give; it's used to lower the resistance to particular elements. By doing that, a BLM's nuke would be less resisted, and thus get better damage per MP spent.

If there's a stronger support job than /NIN a BLM can use to better push up damage/MP ratio, I don't know it.

* * *

Since Sabaron clarified his stance, I'm in agreement with him on this: BLM/NIN is situational, and those situations do exist. Though I've only seen it done once in party, that JP BLM picked the right party to do it in, and it worked out very well.

However, DRK/WHM is a worse backup healer than BLM/WHM. They just don't have as much opportunity to rest for MP, and they'd lose TP for resting outside of Signet area. At low level, juices can make up for it especially in shorter duration parties. At higher level, it's a lot harder unless the DRK gets full time refresh.

However, as a RDM69, I'd rather a DRK go as /THF or /WAR, and we get a WHM or BRD. I'll keep the WHM Refreshed, or even the BRD--less enmity problem with BRD curing instead of the DRK, that's for sure.

As a BLM53, though, I will say this about curing--if the party needs curing from me, then curing is higher priority than my damage output. There may be other BLM's who rather make the party stop the exp chain to recharge the overburdened healer's MP and/or risk death of the tank than tossing out a few cures themselves, but I'm just not one of them.

[Malacite]

If there's a stronger support job than /NIN a BLM can use to better push up damage/MP ratio, I don't know it.

Well, now we have SCH so.... yay! ^^

BLM/NIN and NIN/BLM for the win!

... that is all.

[Magoo]

Edit: D'oh - I didn't realize the prior conversations were from months ago. Cutting out the irrelevant parts and updating my response now~

Just last night I was leveling my lvl 29 black mage in E.Altepa and due to my level I couldn't land an unresisted nuke to save my life even with the best gear available. If I had been 30+ in a similar situation, subbing nin might have been more advantageous than scholar if it would have significantly reduced my resist rates.

Maybe once I hit 30 I'll play around with the beetles and try to get some numbers both with and without EJ:I. My party disbanded with me about 150 xp short :x