blm castining nonstop = dead

[Harlequin]

Hmm maybe its just me or maybe its the Paladins I've been hanging around with. I spent all day nonstop nuking and failed to get killed. A good tank can deal with the agro you generate an excellent tank can keep the monster from ever touching you. Don't ever waste your time healing a blm thats what regen and his Drain are for. (Flash is a great spell that and provoke pretty much solve the agro problem)

[Taga]

usually I cast a few enfeebles and then chain cast the rest of the fight against a monster's weakness. but that is only because crawlers aren't weak to any of my -II spells. If I was fighting something weak against fire + earth and chain casted my -II spells I would get agro. Knowledge is power in this game... I cannot stress enough how important it is to conserve your MP (I usually end fights with 200 MP and then have enough time to regen up to 500 and still get xp chain #4 with refresh casted). Remember to save at least 200 MP incase you have to elemental seal > Sleep > escape.

Random Tip: Keep a BLM enfeeble on at all times ^^ (they don't stack I usually use Frost)

I even did an informal test on this and casted all my spells except the weakness (it was an LS party) and the downtime increased VERY dramatically. I'll tell you why. When a spell gets resisted it usually does 1/4 damage of your MP casted or 2:1 dmg/mp. Therefore with Fire II for example instead of doing 210 damage I am doing 105 damage or 15 damage. Every time I do this the damage dealers need to make up for that 100~190 dmg and therefore the tank has to take more hits. Guess what ? Then the WHM has to heal more and uses up more MP. This results in more downtime. We were only able to get to xp chain #2 when I didn't use weakness... and I just used neutral spells. Imagine how bad it would be if I was going against that mob's weakness.

Conclusion : A BLM can control A LOT as to whether the party is good or bad depending on his or her experience and knowledge. All the parties I've been in have almost always got to xp chain four (on IT) even with a DRG tanking and then I hear about other members always complaining because they are having a hard time chaining VTs to #3. I'm not saying I'm some uber black mage or anything.. I just know my role and play it how it's supposed to be while a lot of other BLM (my level) are just power leveling and not really thinking about efficiency and what not. I can understand why a person would only party with a BLM he/she knows.

Hope this helps all you up and coming BLMs and if anyone wants to point out anything wrong feel free; I still love to learn.

[Oompa]

Finding a good mixture of waiting and casting was a huge problem for me in earlier levels. As almost any BLM can attest, you chaincast, you die, unless your group is very aware of your casting and wastes a lot of time trying to fend off the mob from getting knee deep in your ass.

What I usually do now is drop Shock, Bio, maybe Blind, then two nukes, Thunder/Fire/Blizzard/Aero/Stone II all depending on what I'm fighting against, then sit back and watch the mobs meter and wait until I notice the tanks and other melee fighers are starting to have some problems, then I step in again and thin out the mobs hp a bit more. By the time (barring an super IT mobs) the mobs hp is down around 1/8th the starting point, I'll sit and heal, and wait for the next battle. If the mob is super tough, then I'll usually keep nuking until only a sliver is left on their bar. Keeping in mind the aggro I'm causing...

In my experiance, Enfeeblments don't cause a lot of aggro, so blasting off a couple right in the beginning of the battle is usually ok. Once that's done, you have to be careful though. I'd never chain more than two nukes in a row before sitting out a couple seconds. Always being aware of your aggro is very important for us frail little Taru BLM's...

[Arguile]

And yes, if you are teamed with 1-2 paladins nuke away as much as you like. Paladin used shield bash...i chain stone II, Water II, Aero II, Fire II, Blizzard II one after the other...no aggro. And each hit for full damage.

Was just to test out, btw. Paladins are blm's best friends when it comes to keeping aggro. ^^

[Mylek]

and for the love of god NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER use your 2 hour unless it is at the begging of fight of something like a aggroed mob attacking while you heal

It seems rather pointless to use the blm 2hour at the beginning of a fight when you already have MP available to use.

I believe the blm 2hour is best used when all mages in the group have run out of MP and the monster is still alive. You can use the endless MP to heal the fighters completely and do some supplemental damge while the other mages heal to regain their MP.

[Oompa]

Generally what I tell my party, is if you see my breaking out Manafront, it's become one of the most dire moments in a battle where the mob is still at half or better stregnth, all mages are out of mp, all tanks and melee's are dying quickly, and everything else you can think of to go wrong, has went wrong.

I also tell them that once I break it out, run like holy hell and don't look back because I'm letting loose a hail of fire power equaled by no man, and most likely I'll end up dying, but in the end, it's all to save the other five people in my party.

Drop Manafront/Bind/Sleep/Run/Warp/Escape/Etc...

[SuLang]

what i ment to say was dont drop a mana front in the battle unless it comes to a point like oompa said or if you have no mp after a hard fight and a mob aggros (which shouldnt happen if you know wat ur doin') but that is all i see it to be used for cause otherwise id like to know of some good uses cause it is almost worse than chainspell. and amazingly at my high lvls i almost never use my 2hr because of this...id like to know if there are neother characters out there that also do the same thing because id like to know if im in the wrong by doing this

[almighty_boof]

I think a BLM is THERE for nuking, that how they dish out a lot of DMG and thats what a BLM is for! I do agree that you shouldn't be doing non-stop casting (just mix up the attacks with enfeeblement and such) but the tank needs to be doing thier part as well! Being a BLM, I can't STAND it when a tank doesn't know how to provoke! It is one of my biggest pet peevs about the game! And then the stupid people are to ignorant to open up thier mind and actually listen to you when u ask them to provoke. I can't tell you how many times I died because a tank couldn't provoke correctly (and NO I was NOT nuking the monster, After the first time they didn't provoke, I tried to lay off my magic to a 2 spell every provoke but the thing still aggrod me and the bastard didn't even use provoke!) and deleveled! In a good party, the mage shouldn't even get hit even if the ARE nuking! A tank needs to be provoking every 30 seconds to keep the monster on aggro, and there is usually a sub tank so if the main one loses aggro, enter the sub-tank! This is how the game should be played but a lot of people are too stupid to realize that it is about cooperation! BLMs are there to deal insanely high amounts of DMG >=) While the tank is there to take hits and keep aggro! NOT to aggro every time the monster goes after the mage, but every 30 seconds, because provoke stacks! It's probably an American thing because whenever I party wiith Japanes people, I NEVER get hit, even when I nuke!

[Taga]

I'm guessing you are leveling in Qufim.. ever since I left Qufim I haven't died once.. die about 20 times there heh..

[Tsama]

Yeah Manafont is a blm best friend in certain situations. I will say this. Every blue moon I will drop a manfont. I presonally have the thought if I am droping Manafont something has really gone wrong.

Now as for Tanks holding agro. I will say this sometimes you will get hit. I have played with 2pld's. And I have been hittin.

/em kisses his New Equipment.

They also weren't smart about there Provokes or there Healing they never healed themselves therefore not getting any of that hate. I will have to say those were probably the worse to PLD's I have ever played with.

Now also I have played with just one warrior. No pld's

And I have gone without being hit. Very much. But sometimes you will just get hit. One of the more known instances is when you Cast a spell that hits for full damage. Those times you instantly get Agro.

Thank God for distance Casting.

Sometimes it just can't be helped. That is just how it goes sometimes. Now if you are with the kind of whm I like to play with you haven't healed me. I can heal myself which is a hell of alot less hate then I am getting for other spells. That and it leaves the whm with more MP.

I kind of have one little rule I use when playing somewhere. If my whm is out of MP after one fight we need to get the helll out of there.

[Oompa]

Tonight, the strangest thing was happening.

In Qufim, we were chaining Pugils.

Pugil comes close:
I drop Shock
I drop bio
I drop Thunder

Pugil died because of great tanks, etc...


This doesn't seem like I'm chain-nuking now does it...

However, almost every time the pugil would get on me and it just wouldn't get off me for anything! In fact, several times they'd hit me before they hit anyone else, and before I even casted my frist spell...

Never died, never REALLY got hurt, but it was just so irritating...