Black Mages and Hate

[KobanTheCatBoss]

O.k. I have a problem here, and no I am not a Warrior. Here is a typical example of what I encountered-

I was playing an alt in a party of 6 in Dunes, me (RDM 16), BLM 17, WAR 15, WAR 15, THF 15, WHM 16. So we are basically taking out IT stuff like flies, occasional snipper, Ghouls when they happen to spawn, etc. We reel in an IT fly and things are going well except this time the Black Mage dies. It's a Taru BLM, so he takes a hit before the Warriors can provoke back, fly drops it's AE ability right afterwards before we can get a heal off and boom no more BLM! The BLM then proceeds to bitch about how WARs weren't provoking, where were the heals, blah blah blah...

1. Why aren't BLMs standing at max casting range? I see this time and time again, the BLM gets lazy and likes to stand right up there with the mob so not only do the Melees not have enough time to provoke it away before he gets hit, but he is also pretty much going to be AE bait every time. Meanwhile the WHM and I are sitting back at max casting range laughing at his stupidity. WHM tried to advise him on standing back with us, but got the usual "Don't tell me how to play my job!".
2. Why is it that so many BLMs I group with can never seem to understand that you need to manage your hate. Is it that hard to wait for the melees to get in a few hits first before you start chain casting, or better yet how about not chain casting at all and casting your nukes a bit more sporadically? If you are going to chain cast nukes and then die because of it, don't bitch to us about it, learn to play your job.
3. Provoke is a 30 second refresh BLMs, please remember that. If you are pulling hate away from the tanks every 5 seconds, you are going to take some hits. Whining, bitching, and moaning is not going to change that. Managing your hate better, will

Veteran BLMs, please help us in educating the young folk about hate control, and making them better party members, and better FFXI players in general. That is all. Thank you

[SmartieKjm]

you shouldn't have to stand that far away...with good warriors they will provokle very nicely when needed.

of course if its an enemy that has area attacks...like how a ghoul steals hp from everyone around him....then you want to stand back a bit further....but you shouldnt have to be way back...maybe not right in the action...but not miles back to the very edge of your range.

i always try and keep a clock in my head on how much provoke time is left for my warripr...15 second delay...so i will cast very lightly in that 15 seconds...then ill blast away cuz i know my warrior has my back.

and alot of times "chain casting" as you call it....will save peoples lives...i can do some serious fast damage with chain casts...do i draw some hate ? yes...do i get attacked? yes...but i usually can withstand a good hit or two..i will never do it if i dont have high health.

as a black mage i try and get a feel for the fight...you forget that a black mage is a "damage dealer" his passion is to deal out damage...not sit back and cast once every 10 minutes....we are not support characters...we are deliverers of destruction.

the one downside to this is that major mana will be lost and you will need to rest up alot...not good for experience chains...but alot of times after the battle the warrior can go and provoke another...and you can sit and rest for a bit..and gain enough mana to go again.

telling a black mage to hold back on his casting is like telling a fighter to stop fighting...our one and only goal is to do damage and destroy.

[SmartieKjm]

i should point out and add.

previous post sounds like i said it "as fact" meaning what i said is a fact....but it is not fact...just my opinion.

[Morphy]

BLM's get lazy and dont maintain distance sometimes. Overnuking will cause problems like these.

And all I have to say is silly Taru's. Hope you enjoy how dangerous life is when you can be two-shot by the size of mobs that your group should be pulling. It gets worse in later levels. As an elvann (I admit, not the best choice but my char is one sexy beast) I'm able to match almost all taru blm's I have come across in INT, while keeping enough hp to take a beating.

Back at lvl 17 I was in a PT with 2 other blms, both Taru's. Both of them were discussing subbing monk for hp.

[Zenyx]

It looks like part of the problem is you paired a higher lvl blm with lower lvl warriors, the blm is 17 and the war's are 15, it should be the other way around, the war should be 17 and the blm 15.

If the war was 17 and blm was 15 then the blm could rely on the war's hits keeping decent aggro, but with it reversed you are more or less relying solely on provoke to keep aggro, which limits how effective the blm can be.

Although the blm should have been standing out of the ae range, possibly what happened was the blm got aggro, the war ran after the monster and provoked, if that happened then the monster is suddenly alot closer to the blm than before and might ae right then.

I notice alot of people running after the monster and then provoking, I kinda wish people wouldn't do that, it seems like there shouldn't be any problem with just hitting provoke from right where you're standing and not moving... that way the monster doesn't end up closer to the casters.

Alot of times there's not a 2nd good place for the casters to move to if the melee let the monster move too close to the casters.

[Morphy]

or dont fight anything that can two-shot your char. In the case above, the worst hp race with the worst hp job.

[Zenyx]

Bah, you can't not fight stuff just because they can kill you quick, as levels continue the monsters power grows considerably faster than any blm race's hp. It happens sooner for tarus true, but it will happen with even galka blm's.

To prove my point, I've been hit for 250 by a giant's throw ability, and that's only stuff that's we're killing around level 25+, a Galka blm at level 50 will have around 841 hp, if level 25 stuff can hit you for 250, I'd bet that level 50+ stuff can hit for 500+, so even the mighty Galka Blm is going to be killed in 2 hits, which 2 hits can happen just about as quickly as 1 hit, the mob can run after the Galka smack him and then ae before the Galka can run off and you have a dead Galka blm.

[Calianeri]

BLMs must learn where to stand and how to avoid hate problems. It's a part of their job, just like knowing skillchains to do magic bursts. A BLM who chain-nukes when the WARs aren't keeping hate is going to get himself killed. A BLM who stands close to any engaged monster will also get himself killed. A mithra/elvaan/hume BLM may be able to make those mistakes 1 or 2 more times than a Taru, but they will end up just as dead.

But the provokers and the healers must also know how to do their jobs - keep the fight away from the mages, keep provoking throughout the fight, cure the mages immediately if they get into the yellow, etc.

And Morphy, if you intend to bad-mouth Taru BLMs, please stop. You don't want to get the most deadly magic-casters in the game mad at you... :p

[Macht]

The tactic I've watched a BLM do and they never got any hate or monster come for them, and yet still dealed out a great deal of damage is watching the situation.

The instant they saw a provoke for about the first 10 seconds, they would blast the hell out of that monster. Then take a brief pause and hit the monster every second or third attack till the provoke was done again, then did the same thing of hitting that monster hard then taking brief pauses.

The strategy seemed to work well, they never got hate. The only time they'd go overboard and it was intentional is when they witnessed the members were all on the verge of death. Then they nuked that monster with chain-spells like crazy, purposly to hopefully delay the monster long enough that the healers can catch up on their healing..

Yeah, keeping your distance was a key thing to it all. They kept their distance but they were not very far away either.

[Icemage]

The point about monster damage racing past HP should be noted again, actually.

In the last days of the FFXI beta, I levelled from 45-50 as a WHM and saw Sand Spiders in the Quicksand Caves using a special move called Sickle Scythe for 600-700 damage - and that was on a WAR47+. Went from full to 0 in about 5 seconds.

I can only imagine this becomes even more acute at higher levels.

The point, however, is that you can use good tactics to bypass this problem. Subbing WHM or RDM gives you access to Blink, for instance, which can give you a chance to avoid the damage (and eventually Stoneskin, which helps even more).

But overall, your total HP doesn't really make a huge difference - if the party is working properly you should rarely if ever get attacked if you are managing your hate correctly, and when you do, the PLD, WAR, and WHM should be there to save you.


Icemage

[Zenyx]

There's generally 2 safe times to cast strong spells.

Directly after a provoke, you can at least get 1 strong spell off then, and maybe 2.

And the end of the fight when the monster will die with 1 spell (need to time this correctly though to kill the monster but to not wait so long that you did 100+ dmg and only needed 10, but you also don't need 200 and only did 100 (ie you're gonna get hit probably)) resists can make the last one tricky.

If you want to do spells in between those you'll probably get aggro a few times trying to figure out exactly how fast your melee is building hate.


Also, I tend to stand away from the whm's, this is because in most groups I've been in the whm's pull aggro and the melee end up fighting by them, so their's less moving around for me if I stay away from the whm's to start with.

[Deldrach]

I don't recall that I have ever been in a party where the WHM ran out of mana before the BLM, especially since much of the time the healer and backup healer are alternating heals, so what's the hurry in back to back nuking and blowing your wad? In some situations where things are not going well and you need to kill the monster pronto, then yes by all means fire away. In general however...

Less heals needed on BLM (or mages in general) = More heals available for tanks! That is a good thing! Besides, like some people are saying, if you don't learn to manage now you are going to have a hell of a time with tougher monsters down the road, where the margin of error is even less so.

[KobanTheCatBoss]

Re:

It looks like part of the problem is you paired a higher lvl blm with lower lvl warriors, the blm is 17 and the war's are 15, it should be the other way around, the war should be 17 and the blm 15.

Indeed in this instance this was true. However not all parties are ideal, and we must learn to adapt our tactics accordingly. One of the reasons we were able to handle ITs so easily is because the BLM was laying down the hurt. I just don't like to see anybody in a party die, especially since it can be avoided.

Although the blm should have been standing out of the ae range, possibly what happened was the blm got aggro, the war ran after the monster and provoked, if that happened then the monster is suddenly alot closer to the blm than before and might ae right then.

I notice alot of people running after the monster and then provoking, I kinda wish people wouldn't do that, it seems like there shouldn't be any problem with just hitting provoke from right where you're standing and not moving... that way the monster doesn't end up closer to the casters.

I will admit I have seen this happen numerous times as well, and it causes us mages a bit of distress having to shift position every 15 seconds. If a Mage is moving than he is not casting, and that is not a good thing. In this case though the WARs couldn't have chased the mob if they wanted to because the BLM was standing practically next to the mob. You just got to remember that by doing so you are 1 hit/AE combo away from death.

But the provokers and the healers must also know how to do their jobs - keep the fight away from the mages, keep provoking throughout the fight, cure the mages immediately if they get into the yellow, etc.

I do not dispute this at all. I have certainly seen my share of shitty tanks, and the occasional shitty healer, though healers in general seem to have less fucktards among us.

On a final note, just remember as a BLM you are always living life on the edge. It doesn't take much to die, and if you are continuously pulling hate you increase the chance of that happening.

[Zenyx]

Welp if that blm was just standing by the mob all the time then they were kinda asking for it, the only time I'm close by the mob is when it's something easy (ie not for xp) that we're killing because we're doing some quest or something. Was the blm meleeing?

As that blm get's higher level they'll learn to back off I'd think (or die alot at least lol), there's some pretty nasty ae's that can happen as you get higher level.

[FF Fan]

BLM should some common sense as well. I partied with some BLM who will continue to cast strong spells after getting hit giving no chance for a cure to come it for them. After getting hit, you should stand still for a cure to come in and while the warrior provoke it off you, not continuing to fire your best spells hoping the mob will drop dead. (the blm was so confident of his new stone 2)