Is it all really worth it?

[Patchinko]

Ack, my mistake! >.> I'm so anxious to get one that I forgot what it does~

Do you know if the Mgc. Atk. Bonus affects enfeebles as well? The description is just "Improves power of magic spells."

[AtraposBLM]

I'm not entirely sure, to tell you the truth. I haven't done any testing, nor have I noticed any increase or decrease in the number of enfeebling resists I get. Ask a rdm with it though

[Tsama]

antikomma ugh.... Just a little info for you.

The differenece in lvls between a lvl 68 and a lvl 66 blm are not a that much. There are some, but between the differences are really substantial. I think there is probably maybe 2 or 3 more int. And Elemental skill is probably 5-10 points higher. If even that. I honestly can't remember how much Enfeeble you get per lvl.

[Rhayn]

Honestly, I'm not sure how important uber BLM gear is in a standard exp party situation. Our set recently helped get our BLM an Ice staff to help with the Torama and Cockatrice we've been exping off of and I can notice a difference, especially since I'm the one keep the hate off the BLM.

However, I'm not sure I can honestly say it effected our exp rate significantly. From what I've heard though, all the uber gear, especially the Elemental skill + is important when you fight the tougher HNMs such as the sky gods. Genbu obviously is a BLM's HNM dream, but Seiryu, for example, is notoriously good at resisting elemental spells. When all that elemental skill means the difference between 90% resists and 50-60% resists is the time you'll be especially glad you have this equipment. Btw, I'm just pulling those numbers out of nowhere but a few posts I've read, so perhaps someone with experience on these SGHNMs can help me out with some more specific numbers.

If this has already been mentioned in the 78+ posts before this, please excuse me. I kinda zoned out around the 3rd page.

[Akari]

Tsama - That little bit is the differeance between we can kill this and we can be killed by this. Lvl 66's groups dont go fighting lvl 68 stuff because they cant do damage to it like a lvl 68 can. However, according to the info that was given at the start of this message a lvl 68 was being JUST as effective as a 66. That means those two mages could bring in alot more exp then the 68. Higher lvl mobs dying quicker = more exp. Does this equipment or 2 lvls make you a God, no but it is a worth while differeance.

[LockeCole]

Other than making yourself feel better, I don't see how it's that much of a worthwhile difference. At 45 I haven't seen any truly valuable blm stuff. All the little int+ do add a little bit more damage sure, but the damage difference is pretty significant, less than 10 for the highest level spell. If you think about it, the amount of extra cash you have to put forward for some of this equipment just isn't worth it.

Perhaps blm is more about playstyle. Sorry guys, but I've only met less than 5 good EN black mage that I consider good and decent playstyle, and I've got 2 jobs about 60 and another above 50. If your level 66 group is as effective as a level 68 group, it's probably because they had a bard and have a good setup with competent players. Playstyle + bard > great equips.

[AtraposBLM]

Originally posted by LockeCole
Other than making yourself feel better, I don't see how it's that much of a worthwhile difference. At 45 I haven't seen any truly valuable blm stuff. All the little int+ do add a little bit more damage sure, but the damage difference is pretty significant, less than 10 for the highest level spell. If you think about it, the amount of extra cash you have to put forward for some of this equipment just isn't worth it.

Perhaps blm is more about playstyle. Sorry guys, but I've only met less than 5 good EN black mage that I consider good and decent playstyle, and I've got 2 jobs about 60 and another above 50. If your level 66 group is as effective as a level 68 group, it's probably because they had a bard and have a good setup with competent players. Playstyle + bard > great equips.

You ever hear the expression "When you assume things, you make an ass out of you and me"?

First off - you played black mage for 45 levels. That's 6 levels short of the gear that's primarily being discussed in this thread. Not only that, you're harping on a fact that I already said was stupid - getting more than a certain amount of +int just isn't cost feasible.

Second off - you can harp all you want about playstyle. I, however, maintain that the difference between a good black mage and a great one is VERY hard to distinguish, and most people you exp with won't really notice the difference.

To the person that said something about lv66 and lv68 not being that different - you're sort of right. There's 0 difference in int (I had 74 base int from lv60ish until I ding'd lv70 and got 76 base int). There's a bit of hp/mp difference, and there's about 8 elemental magic skill worth of difference. What this means is a lv66 black mage with an ice staff is just as effective as a lv68 black mage is without one. HOWEVER, a lv66 fighting the exp mobs a lv68 would is more advantageous because EVERY SINGLE MOB gives 2 levels MORE worth of exp. Meaning...the lv66 and the lv68 would both be doing their job just as effective, but the lv66 has a higher base exp granted simply by being 2 levels lower. The problem is usually that the other members of your party are not able to exploit this fact, so it's rarely a big deal. It is nice to outdamage blm's that went all-out int gear though.


As far as fighting Tu'lia gods goes, I've fought only Genbu and Zipacana (sp) so far. Let me make a quick side note - I'm fairly sure that at lv70, blm's don't get Clear Mind V, they get an additional Magic Attack Bonus. The reason I'm fairly sure is that the moment I dinged (read: before any skills capped), I gained about 30 damage across the board on all lv3 series nukes, 40 damage on lv4 series nukes, 20 damage on lv2 series nukes, and no damage increase on lv1 nukes. So I consider the difference between lv69 and lv70 to be fairly large. My best spell against Genbu was Blizzard III - hit for 227 damage. All other non-elemental sealed nukes hit for <20 damage. That's right...20 damage. I was a waste of a slot in that fight. Good thing most people don't notice.

[navpops]

Originally posted by LockeCole
Other than making yourself feel better, I don't see how it's that much of a worthwhile difference. At 45 I haven't seen any truly valuable blm stuff. All the little int+ do add a little bit more damage sure, but the damage difference is pretty significant, less than 10 for the highest level spell. If you think about it, the amount of extra cash you have to put forward for some of this equipment just isn't worth it.

Perhaps blm is more about playstyle. Sorry guys, but I've only met less than 5 good EN black mage that I consider good and decent playstyle, and I've got 2 jobs about 60 and another above 50. If your level 66 group is as effective as a level 68 group, it's probably because they had a bard and have a good setup with competent players. Playstyle + bard > great equips.

so according to you, a group with a Bard using a Flute (lvl 1) and a full set of Fishing gear, and a party of 5 >EXPERTS< (like you and your level 60 self, *sarcasm*) people using level 1 gear is better then a group of decked up people that are "moderatly" good?

Originally posted by LockeCole
Not Playing at the moment T_T

[LockeCole]

Sorry, maybe we're comparing different levels here thus what I said. At this point, to me, a good black mage is one who doesn't draw hate each round and helps out with the healing and debuffing, while a bad one is one that goes through every "II" spell in his arsenal, getting resisted more than half the time and ending with 0 mana after each battle, drawing hate when two of his spells so happen to be not resisted. And I apologyze for the Int thing T_T just very irritated at it because once I was in a party and I told them I was getting resisted, first thing I got was 3 checks.

Guy above > Level 60 wearing level 1 aren't just poor equips. My opinion was on great equips vs decent equips. Decent will be like samurai wearing AF instead of Haubergeon, Blm having the highest +int staff rather than elemental staff, thief not having Cotehardie or Monk without Cross Counters/Spartan Cesti. I do mantain a bard with a level 1 flute ONLY will still produce good exp with a good setup and 5 other competent players who have decent equips. If he has his songs.

[AtraposBLM]

Originally posted by LockeCole
Sorry, maybe we're comparing different levels here thus what I said. At this point, to me, a good black mage is one who doesn't draw hate each round and helps out with the healing and debuffing, while a bad one is one that goes through every "II" spell in his arsenal, getting resisted more than half the time and ending with 0 mana after each battle, drawing hate when two of his spells so happen to be not resisted. And I apologyze for the Int thing T_T just very irritated at it because once I was in a party and I told them I was getting resisted, first thing I got was 3 checks.

Guy above > Level 60 wearing level 1 aren't just poor equips. My opinion was on great equips vs decent equips. Decent will be like samurai wearing AF instead of Haubergeon, Blm having the highest +int staff rather than elemental staff, thief not having Cotehardie or Monk without Cross Counters/Spartan Cesti. I do mantain a bard with a level 1 flute ONLY will still produce good exp with a good setup and 5 other competent players who have decent equips. If he has his songs.

A blm with ice staff would land all of his "II" series spells. Ask Helpme about that I found you could tread a very thin line of near-constant nuking, and as long as your tank is very good, you can keep up your damage. With a good tank, my parser reads me doing nearly 50% of the damage to mobs. With a bad tank, I end up doing about 30% of the damage to a mob, as I have to spread my nukes out more, meaning the mob takes longer to die, so melee do more damage.

Also, I think the difference between uber players and good players (judging by gear) is fairly hard to tell - unless EVERYONE in the party is uber. I had a party of BLMx3/RDM/BRD/Pld, and every single person in the party was decked out. BLM's had a minimum of 2 staves, rdm had 2 staves, brd had opo-opo crown, paladin had joyeuse, etc. We got almost 6k exp/hour, with 2 other groups competing for pulls in Kuftal Tunnel. That's fairly ridiculous, btw.

FFXI is a game of sums. Each individual improvement is hardly noticeable, but when you add all the minor improvements up, you end up getting a lot more than you'd expect.

[LockeCole]

Point taken~ I have dark staff and am definately planning on getting ice staff later this weekend . Sorry if I came out as a little pompous~