How best to lvl a low lvl black mage?

[ravage]

So I am a lvl 5 black mage and I was wondering what the best way to kill is?

Currently I am attacking from a distance, so when they come close i can still hit while i'm waiting to cast.

Now when I choose attack because I'm far away it just readies my staff.

I then choose blind, then poison then cast water or stone depending on the monster and repeat stone or water.

My problem is after every monster I have to rest, which is a bitch. Is this a good way to attack with the Black Mage or am I doing all this wrong?

[riceburner4540]

thats how i leveled with my black mage...and i stuck with it til level 15 -_-;;

[Kousai]

wow, didnt join any pt's till 15? poor guy

[ravage]

well at least i'm doing it right.

Is there anyway to recover MP faster?

[riceburner4540]

food is a good way to restore mp faster, juices adds the refresh effect while chocolates increase mp recovered while healing. if you just started and blm is your first job, these foods will be pretty expensive to you, so you can just use honey...+1 mp per tick while healing i believe, common drop from bees.

the other alternative is to have a level 41 red mage and 55 bard follow you everywhere, temporarily party, cast refresh/ballad I+II, and disband while u kill, then party again afterwards for the buffs

[Issaac]

The *best* way (i found so far) are worms. The cast stone which dont make a lot of dmg and you can kill though once with ease. If it realy gets bad, you can run away (if you are not bound)

I made lvl 12 in no time.

[Tobold]

At level 7 you will get the spell Bind, which allows you start each combat by binding the enemy to the spot, before blasting him with damage spells.

At level 10 you will get the spell Blaze Spikes, to be cast before combat. It will damage the enemy each time he hits you.

My character just happens to be skilling BLM at the same time as cooking. So I skill cooking by making lots of orange juice, then go out leveling and always drink the juice to regenerate mana. But of course as Taru I have a bigger mana reserve anyway.

Maybe you shouldn't try to kill the highest level of enemy possible? Being short on money, I did a lot of leveling in Ghelsba, where I often blasted orcs that were only easy prey. Thats not that fast for xp, but has a lot less downtime. And each orc might drop a fire crystal, which are worth nearly 200 gil apiece on my server. Worms are easier to kill, but the earth crystals they drop are worth only 25 gil each.

[Coinspinner]

I found I could kill two enemies worth ~75 exp before resting, or one enemy worth 100 exp. I took on the 75 exp ones until, because I never upgraded my armor until level 12, they hurt me too much and I had to rest anyway for HP. So I targeted 50 exp enemies, killing two and then resting. Aside from food I see no way to avoid this, unless you want to stick with the easiest things that give you exp and rely on a staff or club to do the damage.

If you start in San d'Oria, I hear you can take the Worms in La Theine when they're tough with ease. The crabs there are supposedly easy for BLM too.

[Scatman]

Two words: Ash Pole. Get that, dabble in some casts of Water in between and that'll get you right up to Aero. Once you have aero, it will be grouping all the way.

[ravage]

Ok, so Ash Pole is a fishing pole right? And casts of water you mean fish.

What is an aero and how will that help me group?

[Kousai]

an Ash Pole is a staff you can use at lvl 5, and by casts of water he means casting water... and aero is a spell you get at lvl 9... and that will help you group cause its a good spell? :X

[Coinspinner]

For Black Mages there are two kinds of staves: Staff and Pole.

Staff: Raises HP and MP, hits weakly and slowly.

Pole: No stat bonus, but deals more damage and is slightly slower.

You want the staff/pole with the highest damage, and that is usally a pole.