My responses to the Japanese's questions.

Elmerthepointy has posted up the second round of questions from the Japanese, fired at us, the non-Japanese speaking community in an effort to bridge the cultural and language barriers. I figured this time around, I'd offer up my own answers on my blog, even though they're in the comments on JPButton.

First off, if you're not familiar with the project, what Elmer did was to gather a sample of questions from the NA players (NA in this case meaning "Not Japanese." :P), then translated and posted some of the questions onto Japanese forums for Japanese players to answer. He then reversed the roles around, gathering questions from the Japanese to ask us, translating along the way in the hopes that each side gets greater understanding of the other.

The first EN/JP questions project can be found here.

So, without further ado, here are the questions to the second round of questions from the Japanese. Questions are in bold, my answers are in plain text, and any additional comments I have will be in italics. ^^

{START button}!

1. Do foreign players have a lot of interest in joining social Japanese Linkshells? (Especially ones with only JP members) I ask because when I recruit for my shell in Japanese, I get a lot of tells from foreigners looking to join. Personally, I feel like even if they could understand my /shout, it still would be hard to keep up with regular conversation. They wouldn’t understand pop-culture references to old TV shows, for instance.

I was personally interested in joining a Japanese linkshell, if only because it allowed me to keep in touch with my Japanese language.

That being said, you are right in saying that even if foreigners did study Japanese, we wouldn’t get all the pop-culture references. However, that applies to any foreign language student that’s trying to take his language skills to everyday conversation.

Now that I am in a Japanese linkshell and I understand most of what’s going on, I get headaches after a while, and will switch into an English linkshell to relax. I assume most Japanese feel the same way too when put into an English environment.

Keeping in touch with my Japanese was indeed one of the reasons why I applied to TK, although now that much of the EN side has gone due to the Salvage bannings, the impact of what is essentially a Japanese only linkshell is hitting me. Honestly, I get such headaches trying to keep up with the chat sometimes, I just stop paying attention and come to once I realise my linkshell leader's scolding me for not reading the chatlog. :P

2. Parties that cycle in replacement members seem to be popular amongst foreigners, but a lot of times the party will just disband once the replacement arrives. Of course, there are times when the replacement is contacted before they get all the way there, but there are many instances when no one says anything. There are also many cases where inappropriate jobs are invited and the party can no longer function well.

To me, this is a big reason behind some of the negative images Japanese players have about foreign players. What do you think about this?

Ah, I was wondering when this question would get asked. ^^

I am personally not a fan of “replacement parties,” though I understand why some would do it. To some, they might think why they have to stop the xp party just because one person has to go, so they find someone to replace the leaving member and keep the party going for those that want to stay.

Unfortunately, what happens a lot of the time is that people get tired around roughly the same time, so one person leaving usually leads to a chain of other people leaving as well.

I honestly don't blame the Japanese for this kind of impression that they have, because I've only very rarely come across Japanese players that will look for replacements.

I've accepted it as just the way of doing things with English-speaking players, and try to accomodate, such as not expecting to stay as long as I might otherwise in a new party, or asking the existing members how long they plan to stay before looking for replacement members.

I'm not saying it's overall a bad thing- I've been in excellent parties that were both good xp/hr and were long because of replacements, I've just found that it's usually more trouble than not.

In my experience, the unspoken guideline is that xp parties last around two hours from when you start fighting, so I plan around that.

3. Why does it seem like many foreign players don’t bother to bring medicines and potions to Missions and BCs? Many Japanese players make sure to have Vile Elixirs, Hi-Potions and/or Reraise Earrings.

From my observation, it’s accepted here that everyone has food and Reraise, while mages have Echo Drops in addition. I generally would not expect anything else, and if I really wanted Hi-Potions, Yagudo Drinks or something else, I’d specifically mention it in party chat before setting off.

I'm also going to call on some of the claims here, because I honestly do not remember an instance where a Japanese player came extra prepared to a mission. Honestly, taken to extremes, I can ask why you're not prepared with Opo/Sleep Pots or Icarus Wings. I know there are some people that carry around a Vile Elixir just in case, but to expect one is too much in my opinion.

As I mentioned in my answer- I will plan assuming members don't have these items outside of food, reraise and echo drops for the mages. I will say if I want other specific items before setting off.

4. Sometimes I see foreign pick-up parties recruiting for members using Auto-Translate, but then when I join the party, all the conversation and battle planning is in English. I’ll ask for them to {Please use the Auto-Translate function.} but nobody ever does. If you are going to /shout for help with the Auto-Translator, why not use it in the party? It feels like I was tricked.

Interesting point. I wasn’t aware full auto-translate shouts were even effective in recruiting Japanese players!

Sorry I can’t really help out here- personally, if I’m doing a mission and have both English and Japanese players, I explain what’s going on twice- once in English and once again in Japanese.

I honestly had never considered that Japanese could actually accept an auto-translated /shout invite and come face to face with a wall of English characters only, with little conscientious effort to translate the battle plan, etc.

That being said, it does strike me as odd that the question claims that even after he/she asks {Please use the Auto-translate function}, there is no noticeable improvement. It may be that we are so used to using the translator more as a shortcut function (like Sau"TAB key") as opposed to a translator that we're just not used to, well, actually using it to translate!

5. How many NA and EU players do Campaign? Any thoughts about the recent nerf to Fortifications?

I don’t do campaign, unfortunately, so I can’t comment here either.

6. What equipment do you think has great stats but horrible looks?
What equipment do you think has the best graphics?

Ugly: Zenith Mitts! The green gloves are sooo ugly!

Pretty: I personally love seeing all the classic FF costumes, so I love AF. In fact, my first job was WHM just because in my newbie days as a BLM08, a taru WHM rode past me on a chocobo, and I saw his Healer’s Briault, and I thought to myself, “I _must_ have that!” I was so disappointed when I found you couldn’t buy a briault off the AH. T_T

One thing I've noticed is that all the jobs I've leveled have a very striking piece of AF, be it the WHM or RNG body or BLM, RDM or SCH hats or SMN horn that really exudes the classic FF feel, and also why I didn't level say, WAR or MNK whose AF I do not identify as well with. Because of that, my first melee job will probably end up being DRG, despite my protests. :P

7. Outside of your normal party gear, is there any equipment that you go out of your way to get strictly for looks? What are your favorite pieces of casual equipment?

My Goldsmithing equipment. In town, I walk around in my Goldsmith’s Apron, Shaded Spectacles and a Vulcan’s Staff. I really wish I could get my hands on a Nomad Moogle cap though. T_T

I'm proud to be a Goldsmither even though I don't actually synth for gil. In fact, I fully understand why people would use their guild aprons as town gear. Apart from advertising, it feels good to show off the fruits of your hard work, especially for a craft like Goldsmithing! >_<

8. I’m a Mithra, and I find that a lot of foreigners seem to be into Mithra fashion. They examine me and ask where I got my equipment and such. Do you think male players enjoy dressing up their Mithra in cute outfits?

I’m not a Mithra, so I can’t comment. TARUTARU FOR LIFE!

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with playing a character who is of the opposite gender that you are in real life, if anything, it might even provide some insights into what people of the opposite gender may have to consider.

I wish I still had that bookmark on some university conducting a class in WoW, where one of the assignments was to create a new character of the opposite gender and observe how your own behaviour changed. I remember finding the student's paper quite interesting, but unfortunately, cannot remember for the life of me where it was now. :(

Second, did I mention TARUTARU FOR LIFE? ^^

9. I wonder if you calculate the XP/hr of parties, and if so, do you think that Skillchain/Magic Burst or Weaponskill spam produces the best results? Before parsing became widespread, Japanese players used to think Skillchain/Magic Burst was the best.

I think it’s been quite conclusively shown that weaponskill spam parties bring in the highest xp/hr rates, especially in merit parties. That being said, don’t neglect the power of a skillchain, but skillchains now are things that are done when the opportunity arises, rather than being something you’d plan a party’s strategies around.

Parsers did one very good thing- it gave you cold, hard, numerical results, which in turn allowed us to conclusively say that if you wanted to maximize your xp/hr, this style is better. I personally pay attention to the xp/hr gained in a party.

10. How come it seems like so many people don’t utilize Search Comments properly? Why don’t they write their camp location for others to see? Also, it’s strange to see so many people seeking without basic information written like available jobs and where they can access. Don’t you want an invite?

Yes, this has been frustrating me too. Most of the time though, I’m only really concerned with what camps are taken, so I can figure out where to go, or whether to even start forming a party in the first place.

As for subjobs, it’s rare that I specifically want a certain subjob (although I have been asked to merit as WHM/DRK before) and as for areas, unless the camp is really somewhere that people might not be able to get to (like [S] regions when WotG just came out), I’ve found it a same assumption that people can go to camp, so I don’t bother looking at those in search comments, nor do I see how excluding those comments would affect your party invites.

I don't remember when the last time I invited someone based on their subjob availability was, with the exception of ignoring those with underleveled subs. Concerns with areas do crop up occasionally for me because of Campsitarus where I am usually found trying to explore any new areas (I was trying to party exclusively in WotG areas when it was released), but other than certain times like that, I'd only ask if there really were some definite barriers to entry.

11. If you know you are going to be busy, how come you don’t alert people at the beginning of the party instead of surprising everyone at the last minute?

I have no idea- this is not something I practice, although I have been the victim of such things before. If anything, I’d say this is a rather unfair generalization.

I can see where the question comes from though. Sad to say, while I have had my fair share of people suddenly leaving the party without any prior warning, the majority of such cases are from EN players.

Perhaps it's the idea that I have the right to leave if the party is bad, etc. After all, if we're stuck in a company we hate, most would say "quit your job!" or something to that extent (well, maybe not in these days...)

In the end however, these cases are few and far in between, so I do feel it's an unfair generalization of the entire EN playerbase.

12. Honestly, the largest difference in thinking between Japanse and foreign players exists in the Merit party. You often say 5 DDs and a RDM is so good, but having a single, solitary healer is hard on the RDM. Japanese realize that healers can be in short supply, so we make sacrifices to lighten their burden, like subbing a mage job, or using Utsusemi. I feel like many people don’t show proper respect to healers.

When we say JP ONLY, it isn’t always an issue of language, but the fact that we feel there are other dangers and demerits associated with a non-JP party, stemming from our different play-styles, that we wish to avoid.

This key difference in thinking, more than any race or language issue, is what really sets us apart as players. They are just looking to sit back, relax and earn some decent XP.

Please feel free to provide your own insight and thoughts.

I agree that the difference in merit parties might just come down to mentality. Personally, if I join a merit party, I want the fastest xp/hr rate, which means I expect to be pushed to my limits, mage or melee. I don’t expect it to be relaxing at all. I am there for merits first and foremost. If I really wanted to relax and get some xp at the same time, I’d party with friends exclusively, where the aim is more on socializing than getting merit points.

That being said, where’d the 5 DD and 1 RDM come from? I’ve never seen that formula around.

I was surprised to see that the OP saw merits as something relaxing, although I'll admit it's not too far fetched. I've already spelled out my thoughts on merits and how I generally don't view it as something to relax to.

The interesting point here is what is the disservice being done here- pushing the healer, or making the healer's job easier at the cost of limit points? From a WHM or RDM's perspective, as a healer, I cannot easily solo or get limit points by myself, so I'm personally out for merit points first and foremost! Thank you for the consideration towards possibly making my job easier, but I really don't mind you taking more damage if it means I have to work harder and get more xp.

I will definitely agree that if the "meripo is for relaxing" mentality is prominent throughout the Japanese community, then this might be why there is such a difference in style. On our side, merits can be seen as a chore, so get it over and done with! Besides, we all like being part of that uber party that pulls in 20k/hr, so why not work towards it? In other words, why settle for being good when you can be great?

Bonus question: What type of sushi do you like best?

Salmon! My host family in Japan were laughing at me because I love salmon, but don’t really like tuna. I hear salmon is really cheap while tuna is expensive in Japan, so my host parents were happy, too.

I looooove salmon. Actually I like fish in general although I'm not so hot with tuna and sardines for some reason. But salmon..../slurp.

Imagine my surprise when I found out salmon is the cheapest fish in Japan, too! :D


And that's it! Hopefully you found these answers insightful.

Picture lifted from vgcats.

Brothers ENM solo- after the April Update

Last month, I was working on trying to improve my BLM soloing, recording, documenting and commenting on my runs to pick out mistakes and areas of improvement.

I actually have three recorded runs, although I only put two up on this blog simply because, well, I didn't think they really appealed to the general FFXI audience. The third run can be found on my BLM blog, which is collecting dust at the moment, oh well. ^^;

Then the April version update came, and while people were dashing off to strange BCs and killing {Too weak} beastmen, I went up on my weekly routine Brothers BLM solo.

That was my first encounter with the 45-second Sleep II, and suffice to say, I didn't win that run.

Then came all the talk in the forums about SE adjusting sleep durations, as reports came trickling in. Mindertaurs, Ouryu, ghosts, bombs- all could not be slept for the full 90-second duration. The days of BLM soloing Brothers seemed over.

If this issue doesn't get rectified anytime soon, the question becomes whether a RDM could still solo Brothers, since a RDM's killing speed is faster than a BLM's for obvious reasons. (*cough* Chainspell *cough*)

So I decided to check it out. Never mind that I have yet to even attempt to do this ENM as a RDM, but seriously, the strategy should be more or less the same, right?

I am not used to soloing as a RDM (and this is my first time, too), so there are some incredibly newb mistakes in the following video. Keep that in mind! >_<

Well, there are a few changes, most notably that, as a BLM, I normally just suicide after the Eldertaur's dead so I can take on the Mindertaur with full MP. As a RDM, things change as I have Refresh and Convert, but not the firepower, so I need to maximize my MP before trying to nuke the Mindertaur down, and also try to reduce its HP as much as possible before nuking.

So, the basic strategy is now to just blast the Eldertaur down, and then DoT/kite the Mindertaur until the following three conditions are satisfied:

1. The Mindertaur's at 50%HP.
2. I have full(ish) MP.
3. Convert is ready again.

Once all three conditions are met, I'd start nuking the last 50% HP by cycling through Thunder III, Blizzard III and Fire III, hopefully overpowering any Cure Vs along the way.

There were several (rather major) mistakes made during that run. I tried to make a full version, with the boring parts just sped up for completeness's sake, but silly Windows Movie Maker apparently doesn't like processing movies when the source files involved go beyond a certain total. Ah well.

[1:16] I'm not exactly sure why I'm casting Thunder III here, or why I haven't Chainspelled by this point. With the change to Sleep duration, it's even more important that I fell the Eldertaur quickly, which cold-casting Thunder III doesn't not accomplish. You can make the argument that I could've Chainspelled into Gravity to be safe, and save myself the trouble of having to wait for Gravity's cooldown later.

[1:31] /panic. :( Could've definitely kept my cool better here.

[2:00] The clock here was added later to first give the viewer a sense of the time pressure involved, but also to keep track of just how much time you really have before the Mindertaur's in a position to actively play a role in the ENM again. Remember that either taurus may cast Cure V if one of them is below 50% HP, so I definitely got very lucky here that the Mindertaur didn't Cure V the Eldertaur.

More importantly, it gives us a timeframe to work with in planning future runs- we can plan based on the assumption that you have approximately 55 seconds to knock off the Eldertaur.

Unfortunately, I can't show the entire fight here because of memory constraints (that, and it was a pretty long, boring fight), but some things to note are:

• For some reason, I had a hard time getting Poison II to stick.
• Eventually, I just settled on whittling its HP down through Bio II with a few III-nukes here and there.
• Elemental Seal-Silence also wears off too quickly.
• Composure is fantastic here!

Some things I was not happy about is that even with Convert and Refresh, it still took all my available mana to nuke down the Eldertaur, and to nuke down half a Mindertaur.

If you look carefully at the various snippets I put in here and there, you may notice that my Convert timer actually increases after a certain point- I actually set things up and was getting ready to kill the Mindertaur, but even after a Convert, I found myself unable to kill the Mindertaur, so I had to wait for Convert to cooldown again and redo that 50%. Thankfully I merited Convert down to an 8:20 recast- I'd have timed out if I left it at 10:00.

If I were to do it again, there are definitely some changes to be made, particularly at the start- I know that bit was screwed up bigtime. >_<

For one, the pull was completely wrong. I'll readily say I screwed it up bigtime, because just looking at the video reveals a lot of error. I probably slipped back into BLM mode, and just did things as I would've if I were BLM instead, thus revealing the dangers of playing on autopilot. :P

See, the whole reason why you pull the Mindertaur to the back of the tunnel when soloing this ENM as a BLM, before the Elemental Seal-Sleep II is to buy you a few extra seconds to take down the Eldertaur.

The point is, because of Manafont, a BLM's limiting resource is not mana, but time! Assuming the ENM was just a 1v1 fight against the Eldertaur, a BLM would have no problems blasting through, backed by Manafont because time is on the BLM's side.

But time is not your limiting resource as RDM because of Chainspell! Instead, mana becomes your limiting resource (for obvious reasons), but that is still a very soft limitation because of both Refresh and Convert.

So what I think I should've done instead was:

• Enter the ENM, buff, rest up.
• Run in towards the two taurus, and Elemental Seal along the way.
• When they aggro and move into range, immediately Chainspell and Sleep II the Mindertaur.
• Gravity the Eldertaur, and start nuking away with Blizzard III.

The difference is that as a RDM, you wouldn't even bother to drag the Mindertaur to the back of the tunnel, because moving back within nuking range of the Eldertaur wastes time, not to mention that you still need to cross the Eldertaur and get to a safe range on the other side. It took me eleven nukes to down the Eldertaur. Counting the Sleep II, Gravity, Convert and maybe a couple of Dispels, it shouldn't be too difficult to get 15 spells off under Chainspell, even within the 45 second naptime the Mindertaur has.

You could even get gutsy and Convert without curing yourself if time really was that tight, and plan out the following scenario (using my HP/MP as an example:)

Starting MP: 983mp

1. Sleep II: 954mp
2. Gravity: 930mp
3. Blizzard III #1: 810mp
4. Blizzard III #2: 690mp
5. Blizzard III #3: 570mp
6. Blizzard III #4: 450mp
7. Blizzard III #5: 310mp
8. Blizzard III #6: 190mp
9. Convert into 190HP/796MP
10. Blizzard III #7: 676mp
11. Blizzard III #8: 556mp
12. Blizzard III #9: 436mp
13. Blizzard III #10: 316mp
14. Blizzard III #11: 196mp
15. Blizzard III #12: 76mp

Which isn't even counting the extra MP you save/gain from Conserve MP and Refresh.

In any case, it seems that SE has now officially come forward and classified this as a "Current Known Issue," so hopefully it'll get fixed. Given SE's track record though, I think it might be a matter of when it gets fixed.

I'd really like to go back and try again before the fix though, just to prove to myself that I can do the solo smoothly on RDM, even with the enfeebling "nerf" in effect. :P

Yet another layout to criticize.

Taking the comments from my last post, I went ahead with another design for Campsitarus,


One big critique I seemed to get with the previous template was that it was just too dull. Sorry, I'm not a graphics designer. ^^; I tried to spice things up a little bit more this time with little tarus that also act as visual cues to the level range they represent (although I might've overdone it with the 70s taru. ^^;)

Perhaps the header should have more colour, much like the current Campsitarus where Strawberrie's drawing of me in RDM AF provides a very striking contrast against the green-ish blogger theme.

I'm still trying to keep at least all the standard camps visible on the first fold. It's my intention to display all the alternate camps below (you'll need to scroll down). This time however, the screen resolution has been reduced down to 1024 x 768. I checked against an 800 x 600 browser, and while there will be a little side scrolling involved then, all the campsite links will still be visible.

The font size for the camp links have been increased, and are now bold. I'm not sure if this is overcompensating for the too-small links the previous time around.

I also took away the articles, even though I still think they'd be a good idea. For now though, I'll err on the side that I won't be able to keep up with the articles, and so as per Oshikorosu's suggestion, I took them off.

I'm still not sure on the colour palette. As you may be able to tell, the colours were taken from West Sarutabaruta [S] this time. It still looks rather dull, but I'm at a loss here on what else I can do to spice things up that isn't too complicated and will still load quickly.

So, opinions? Ideas? Comments?

What do you think of this as a layout?

After some fiddling around with Photoshop, I came up with this:


It's open to improvement, and is only something I quickly threw together, so there're bound to be some design flaws. As I am a believer of the "you cannot see your own mistakes," I'm putting this up for public consumption. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, it's only a picture- this does not exist on the internet yet.

So, how is it? Too dark? Too many Mandragoras? Text too small? Why am I wearing a Haubergeon and a Butterfly Axe?

Some things to consider:

• This was designed with a 1280x1024 resolution in mind, which according to the poll I put up, is the most common screen size.

• Only "Standard camps" have been displayed. From what I've heard, not many people actually use Campsitarus for the alternate camps (and correct me if I'm wrong!) so I've decided not to display the alternate camps on the first fold (that's whatever you see when the website loads).

• Where should the little explanation about standard camps and the button to flip over to Alternate camps go? Top left? Bottom right?
  

• If you look on the left hand side, I'm toying around with the idea of maybe providing some extra value through articles related to xp'ing. There seems to be sufficient depth to explore, but I'd like to know what you all think about the idea. Basically, it'll expand Campsitarus into more of a real blog or online magazine rather than just a list of links.

• Articles on the left, links on the right or the other way around?

• Are the text "links" of the standard camps too small for comfort? You might be wondering what is with all the empty white space, but those boxes also need to fit the alternate camp listings for when users click on that button, and there are much more alternate campsites than there are standard ones.

• Should I put info regarding BST pet camps here, and if so, where?

• Is the colour scheme too dark? I didn't really give much thought to it, and based it off the current incarnation, using colours ripped from Caedarva Mire (place of /joy that it is -_-).

Either way, I'm sure it's an improvement over the one looooong list you have to scroll down in Campsitaru's current incarnation. Please leave feedback!

About a little blog of mine called Campsitarus...

Lately, I've felt rather empty in game. Sure, I'm in a good HNMLS and while the fights are nice and all that, I haven't really been satisfied with endgame. Sure, you get neat gear, some very powerful, but I haven't really felt like I've been giving back to the community.

So, I've turned my attention to a little blog of mine that I started up a few years ago called Campsitarus


You might have heard of it, or better still, even used it. ^^

I've been meaning to take Campsitarus off blogger for a long time, and have it properly hosted on its own domain, like campsitarus.com or something, following in the footsteps of other FFXI-related websites out there. Yes, I know it technically should be campsitarus.info, but that just looks odd to me.

My problem is, I'm a complete {Amateur} when it comes to website design and templating. I can design the structure of the website and I know what I want on it, but I haven't the faintest idea how to actually code everything so, well, it shows up on the screen.

Furthermore, the task of revamping Campsitarus is no longer a one-taru job. Since I first created Campsitarus way back in November 2005, I have listed 123 camps for parties, and have another 36 pet camps to write about. Some still don't have entries, which was something that really bothered me. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that that is a heckuva lot of writing. And that's not counting the camp entries I took down.

Or to be more precise, that is a heckuva lot of revising to do.

The nice part about having Campsitarus on a blog has always been that people could leave feedback in the comments when things change, like for example, the introduction of SCNMs that made the Castle Oztroja [S] merit camp not as feasible as before (and a pity, too T_T) I personally couldn't keep up with all the changes, so left it to the comments to duke them out.

It is my intention now to revise these entries to update them with any in-game changes, or maybe bring a little nugget of information, for example, BRD pullers at the Greater Colibri camp will pull with a throwing weapon (I forget which one) because the Colibris won't waste time mimicking Elegy, and the pulling distance is greater (25 yalms, as opposed to 21).

There are also a few questions and loose ends that I want to incorporate into Campsitarus. I'm thinking it might be a good idea if I wrote an occasional post about partying in general, like how to deal with Japanese or bilingual parties, or what each job has to offer, or even things like what makes a good party.

The end result would be a Campsitarus blog, with normal blog entries, as well as links somewhere on the front page to all the information that people use Campsitarus for.

For now, I think I'll fiddle around a bit on Photoshop to see if there's even space to fit everything in. -_- So many ideas, so little space...

...and did I mention I'll need help with all this?

So I'll say this again, highlighted, just because I know many people don't actually read the content word-for-word:

I am going to revamp Campsitarus and I'll need help. If you can write, edit, do web design or graphics, or would like to contribute, please {Help me out!}

Please, give me feedback on this either by e-mail (tuufless.taru(AT)gmail.com), by contacting me in-game (I'm on Odin) or leaving a commentaru below. If you're willing to give me a hand, even better! :D

P.S: If you have it, "//vanatunes play 48" is made of win. :D

Brothers ENM solo #2

In my last post, I detailed out my first successful solo attempt at the Brothers ENM. I went ahead and soloed the ENM again yesterday, and with the intention of improving my play, I'm going to repeat the exercise again. Things were slightly easier this time since I wasn't as nervous going into the ENM, although as you'll see from the video, things didn't quite go according to plan, so it was a good exercise in contingencies.

I nearly lost the ENM, but fortunately the game decided to forgive my misplays.




Observations:
[00:03] Again, I entered the BC on Lightningday. This was not intentional- I actually logged out behind the ice wall the day before, and it just happened to be Lightningday when I logged back in.

[1:23] I don't think keeping Ice Spikes up is a good idea anymore because of situations like this. Sure, the Paralyze proc might be more potent than a regular Paralyze, but in this case, the Ice Spikes proc could've broken my Bind, leaving me with an unsleepable mob without Bind or Gravity. Taking away Ice Spikes will also let me use Bind more aggressively in the future.

[2:17] As you might notice, the Mindertaur had woken up and is now within my sight range. You can see the benefits of sleeping it some distance into the tunnel as means of buying some extra time while you kill off the Eldertaur.

[2:34] In retrospect, I don't think Thunder IV was the correct nuke to use here- I failed to play around Cure V, and the small sliver of health the Eldertaur had at the end made it even more painfully obvious. That being said, I'm not sure what I should've used instead- Blizzaga III is clearly out of the question because the damage would be split with the incoming Mindertaur, but Burst II might've taken too long.

[4:16] I thought it would be safe to reraise by now in the interest of saving time, so you can imagine my surprise to see the Mindertaur turn around! With no reraise on, Priority #1 was simple- get RR on.

Note to self: the Mindertaur has a very large aggro radius to sound.

[4:28] There should have been a Gravity here to buy even more time, especially since I still had to wait for the Reraise Earring's equip timer to finish! This technically almost cost me the run- I was lucky that the Mindertaur persisted in using non-damaging spells and abilities, allowing me to put on Reraise in the nick of time. Had Bind worn off earlier, or the Mindertaur cast a Banish II, I probably would've lost the ENM.

[4:45] I've considered replacing my Sorcerer's Earring with a Reraise Earring in my standing set because of situations like this. A Sorcerer's Earring will not kick in until I'm under 25% health, and in this case, the additional damage reduction wouldn't even matter. On the other hand, there have been times where I've needed to put on Reraise immediately after getting up. By equipping a Reraise Earring as part of the standing set, the timer gets to count down even when I'm unconscious, so I can get up and immediately use the earring.

[7:02] It turns out that I didn't see the Mindertaur buff with Protect when I first reraised. That being said, when I saw that Protect was dispelled, I decided to Dispel again just to make sure Shell was not on.

Two points to note- first, if you want to cancel a spell, just /heal. Running around like a headless chicken takes longer. Secondly, I remember reading somewhere that there is an order in which buffs are dispelled- that is to say that Protect would get dispelled before Shell does. I'm not sure whether this is true, since it's been a long time since I read that. Ix'MNK's Crystalline Cocoon (which puts on both Protect and Shell) contradicts that statement, since sometimes Shell is taken off first, though maybe Crystalline Cocoon behaves differently?

[8:51] This time, I end up with 344mp left, which is much more compared to my previous attempt. I totalled up the MP used to take out the Mindertaur, assuming Conserve MP did not kick in, and I got a total of 1009mp this time around, compared to 1169mp the previous attempt. The extra 160mp used the last time can easily be attributed to the extra Blizzard IV (164mp) I needed to win the last time due to a Cure V that my Silence this time prevented.

From the above, killing the Mindertaur without drinks or ethers would be very doable (well, at least for myself) assuming Cure V does not go off, though it doesn't really leave much room for error. My current nuking setup carries 1083mp, which means that I'll only have 74mp leftover if Conserve MP doesn't kick in at all. As such, non-taru BLMs will probably need to find ways to boost their MP to 1000+ to effectively solo this, at least using this method.

Further areas of improvement would obviously include not being so sloppy when things go wrong- I've mentioned that I got away lucky from that attempt, and I do not doubt that statement. In lieu of this, however, I should probably experiment around a little bit more with carrying a Reraise Earring around to see how it feels.

Finally, feel free to leave me a commentaru if you see any other areas of improvement/interest!

Brothers ENM solo

For quite some time now, it's always bugged me that I've been unable to beat the ENM, Brothers, solo. The ENM is very easy to duo, and I usually duo it with my friend Sodalitas. Yet, I've always felt that if I wanted to improve as a BLM, one of the things I could work on was clearing this ENM solo consistently.

But before I start on the "consistent" part, actually beating the ENM in the first place would make a very good starting point. -_-

I've tried a few times previously with no {success}, so as expected, I was quite nervous coming into this fight. I didn't do anything special to prepare since the idea was to be able to just go and "do it"- I only brought a Reraise Earring (I'm too cheap to use a Reraise hairpin :P) and a few Yagudo Drinks. Other than that, the rest of my inventory was pretty standard fare.

I watched a couple other videos, and borrowed a few ideas from them in my own fight, which I'll elaborate further below.

For those who aren't very familiar with this ENM, you are up against two Taurus, an Eldertaur (the small one on the left) and a Mindertaur (the large one on the right). The Eldertaur is immune to Sleep, while the Mindertaur can be slept, although it's recommended you back it up with Elemental Seal first. Both are susceptible to Gravity and Bind, and will try to cast Cure V once their HP drops below 50%.

Strategy:
The general strategy is to Elemental Seal-Sleep II the Mindertaur to immobilize it. Gravity the Eldertaur, and finish it off. Use Manafont if you have to, the priority is to kill the Eldertaur.

Once the Eldertaur is dead, run back to the start point, and let yourself get killed by the Mindertaur (you don't lose xp while in the ENM). Once the Mindertaur has left, reraise (you did put Reraise on, right?) and rest up. Hard part's over.

Once you're fully healed again, take on the Mindertaur solo.

At all times, be careful of Shell III and Unblest Armor, both of which give very strong Magic Defense Bonuses to the taurus- essentially, you'll see your nuke damage halved if either are on. In addition, make sure you do not face the taurus to avoid getting Doomed by Chthonian Ray.

For duos (I usually go BLM+BLM or BLM+SCH), have one person Elemental Seal-Sleep II the Mindertaur, while the other Gravities the Eldertaur, and both take out the Eldertaur first. After that, the Mindertaur should be easy pickings.

But wait! Why talk more about the fight when I can just show it to you? (And my first video, too! :D)



I have an HD version here, but I didn't get the aspect ratio correct, so it makes me look fat! /fume (So much for 5:4 ratios :/)

Observations:
Okay, some commentarus- first, yes, I'm on Windower. Let's get that one out of the way first. Eventually, I'd like to be able to do it without the various aids that the windower gives me, namely without Recast, TimeStamp and Distance to make this more of a "true" solo attempt.

[00:03] First of all, you might notice that I entered on Lightningsday, for the obvious damage boost with Rairin obi. You don't actually need this bonus, but I figured it'd be nice to have anyways. ^^

[00:19] With regards to the pull, you will notice that I only go ahead far enough to aggro both taurus before turning back into the tunnel, which was something I got from Avesta's video. The idea is to pull and Sleep II the Mindertaur far into the starting tunnel. That way, when Sleep II wears, you buy yourself extra time because the Mindertaur has to walk all the way back to the main arena.

[00:19 - 00:50] The actual starting sequence is the same as Avesta's video- aggro both taurus, Bind the Eldertaur, Stun the Mindertaur, run a bit, Elemental Seal-Sleep II the Mindertaur, Gravity the Eldertaur and start working on it. As you work on the Eldertaur, pull it away from the Mindertaur to build distance should you not kill fast enough.

[02:06] This should've been Thundaga III- neither mana nor longer cast time leading to spell interruption is an issue because of Manafont, and should the nuke get resisted, a Thundaga III would've dealt more damage than Firaga III.

[02:20] Not sure why I stopped and turned around here- probably force of habit. In this particular case, I wanted to get killed, and the sooner the better. :P

[04:24] You might notice I put Reraise on again. This is not necessary, just an extra precaution since I still have time to die, rest and try again if I don't manage to kill the Mindertaur.

[05:24] Yes, I forgot to use my Yagudo Drink at the start of the second half. -_-

[06:24] There should've been a Silence before this nuke to prevent the upcoming Cure V.

[07:02] Elemental Seal-Silence was something I got from Metticus's video. You don't really need to sleep the Mindertaur again, but you do want to prevent him from Cure V'ing himself, especially since your mana pool is a lot more constricted this time around. In my case, I should've Silenced him earlier than I did, making the fight safer overall.

[07:30] This last Blizzard IV nuke was risky. Yes, Gravity wore off unexpectedly, but still, I should've tried to Bind or at least Stun the Mindertaur after the Thunder IV first, just in case. Had the Mindertaur double attacked, got lucky and broke my Stoneskin through Blink, I could've had that Blizzard IV interrupted and now I'm cornered with a speedy Mindertaur on my heels.

[08:12] What exactly is the correct legal jargon for this sort of thing?? /confused

[08:19] Love it or hate it, I just can't like the weather in Uleguerand Range. -_-

I'm still a little bit worried about the Mindertaur solo- if you count up all the mana costs associated with solo'ing the Mindertaur, the grand total comes up to 1144mp, which is definitely more than what I carry around. Of course, this is not taking Conserve MP into account, nor the one Aspir I made for 96mp. If I were to take that Aspir into consideration, the total goes down to 1048 which just barely makes it into my mana pool (1083mp total).

Admittedly, the Mindertaur fight could've gone slightly better- that Cure V that went off probably cost me an extra III-nuke's worth of mana, which an earlier Silence could've saved. In addition, looking at how close the total MP spent comes to my max MP, a Yagudo Drink might actually be relevant. :o

Of course, one further trick I could do would be to first nuke in a real max-MP setup, with my Zenith Crown +1, Mahatma pigaches and Morgana's Choker on for +120mp. The damage won't be as high, but it covers 73% of a Blizzard IV in mana, so that might be something to look into.

That's all I managed to pick out from watching over my own play. I'm still looking to improve though, so if there are other things I overlooked, please let me know!

February.

Listing one's accomplishments and newfound loot in blogs like these is fairly commonplace, and was something I subscribed to back in the day. Of course, the interest in that quickly died out, since after all, who really wants to read about the stuff you got?

And so the post count plummeted. :P

That being said, I do feel that I ought to look back over the past month, more of an exercise on my own progress than anything else. For obvious reasons, I meant to post this on the last day of February, but my modem's power adaptor burnt out. -_-

So, here's how my February went:

1) Sorcerer's Belt (1st Feb 2009)
TK usually goes to Dynamis on Sunday mornings, JP time. In an effort to get me cleared through to Dynamis-Tavnazia, we headed over to Valkurm. We cleared the boss as per our normal routine, and then proceeded to farm for AF. I'm not sure exactly what adjustments SE made to Dynamis drop rates in that update ages ago, but it was literally raining AF- unfortunately I must've misplaced that screenshot where our loot pool had six AF pieces in at the same time.

Anyway, I don't remember how many people wanted the BLM belt- if memory serves me correctly, there were only about 2-3 people, myself included. Eventually, one Sorcerer's Belt dropped, we all cast lots, and the belt went to another BLM in the shell.

The run went on, but towards the end, we went after another set of Manticores and Sheep, and another Belt dropped! Thanks to an unfortunate pull though, things were rather hectic, and I quickly cast my lot on the second belt.

Not too much later, with the leader pushing people to quickly pass on items, I saw the belt drop into my inventory, which is why I'm not sure how many people actually wanted the Belt that run.

Either way, I'm glad to have what is probably one of the best BLM-only belts out there. :D

2) Sorcerer's Petasos +1 (2nd Feb 2009)
The belt wasn't the only thing that dropped that Valkurm run- somewhere in there, a Sorcerer's Petasos -1 also dropped. Alas, compared to the Belt, this drop was resolved quickly and quietly once we realised I was the only one in the run who put the BLM AF-1 as part of my wishlist for Valkurm. I guess everyone else must've gone for a different job. :P


I bought 28 Tukuku Whiteshells from the LS bank, and wasted no time in trading all the relevant materials to Sagheera for the upgrade.


Next day:

This is also the most I've officially ever spent on +6MP. But white border! >_<

3) Zenith Mitts +1 (16th Feb 2009)
A few posts ago, I had managed to pick up a pair of Cursed Mitts -1 from a bazaar. I'm still not quite sure about the price, but after a little haggling, I managed to buy it for 8m gil. Now, the only problem was that at the time, I think I only had a little over 3m on me.

Thankfully, I was able to borrow 5m off Celestria to cover the remaining 5m, and listed my Mahatma Houppelande and Hedgehog Bomb up on the AH, which thankfully sold rather quickly (at 300k profit, too! :D) so I could repay Celes.

The problem now was getting the abjuration. -_-

Despite the fact that I've been playing FFXI for a while now, and have killed my share of Genbus here and there, I have yet to even see an A-hands, yet alone get ahold of one.

So, the task fell upon trying to get ahold of A-hands. Since TK doesn't do sky anymore, that leaves two options- either try to get the Genbu pop items myself, or Fafnir.

TK does Fafnir. :P

Only problem was, we couldn't claim Fafnir. In fact, the two times we did manage to get the claim, it was Nidhogg instead, though that really isn't something to complain about. XD After that, in the wee hours in the morning, BBQ and TK teamed up due to lack of members and actually managed to claim Fafnir, but A-hands didn't drop.

However, Ridill did. :o

Well, on the 16th Feb 2009, just over five weeks after I got the -1 Mitts, TK managed to claim Fafnir, and finally, I get to see A-hands. XD Luckily, the rest of the members had been around enough to the point where nobody needed A-hands anymore, so it defaulted to me.

Off to San d'Oria I went, and voila! My first piece of cursed gear! :D

4) Zenith Crown +1 (24th Feb 2009)
Unlike the Zenith Mitts, I actually had the A-head abjuration for quite some time now, and was just waiting for an opportune moment to pick up a Cursed Crown -1. For those who are wondering why I'm going with -1, I did my Stoneskin and Sorcerer's Ring calculations in advance, and as long as I was nuking in an obi, an NQ Zenith Crown would fall short of the 75% HP threshold needed to activate the Sorcerer's Ring by just 3hp. So unless I wanted to carry around another item to lower my HP, HQ it was. :P

I didn't really want to pay AH price for it, so I contacted my Goldsmithing buddy, Nynaeve to help me try to make a Cursed Crown -1, which he got around to doing. It took him a couple months, but that was okay, since I didn't really have the spare cash to buy it off him at the time.

Luckily, he saved it for me, and when I got my pay from TK, I bought the crown off Nynaeve at a discounted price of 1.1m. And I was off to San d'Oria again! :D

5) Morgana's Choker (24th Feb 2009)
With a Zenith Mitts +1 and a Zenith Crown +1 in hand, all I needed to complete my Sorc Ring setup was just two things, one of which was a Morgana's Choker. To be honest, I was a little reluctant at getting one, because the choker would serve only as a Sorc Ring piece- I have no use for the +MND on the choker because I was planning to use a Stone gorget for Stoneskin.

My initial plan was to either get a Dalmatica (I wish ; ;) or a Serket Ring to lower my HP down by that last bit, but then I looked over my numbers again, and saw that -40HP would suffice and not -50HP.

Thus, Morgana's Choker.

Luckily, TK has been steadily growing more active in Einherjar, and I didn't particularly have any need for the ichor, so I had stockpiled a small sum of ichor, which in this case, came in handy. :D

Morgana's Choker get!

6) Sorcerer's Ring (24th Feb 2009)
With Zenith Mitts +1, Zenith Crown +1 and a Morgana's Choker in hand, the last thing I was missing for my Sorc Ring set was, well, the ring itself. -_-

Thankfully, ENMs had been fortunate to me that month, and Sodalitas and I split both a Hedgehog Bomb and Hagun, which paid for the Sorcerer's Ring. I bought it a little high, at 1.18m- the price has since fallen down to 1.15m, but it doesn't really affect me, since my purchase from Nynaeve saved me that money and then some.

Ring in hand, my Sorc Ring setup was now complete! All I really needed at this point was an Ixion Cape to round it off, but that can wait. ^^

7) Merciful Cape (24th Feb 2009)
One other thing I was working on was my Elemental setup. In fact, I already had an Elemental Setup, giving me 329 Elemental Skill and 122INT (without food), but in the name of efficiency, I found out that I could actually forgo using an Elemental torque and still hit the 320/120 mark.

Why would I ditch the torque? My reasoning was, if I got a Merciful cape, I could reach 322 Elemental Skill without a torque or a weskit. That being said, I felt it'd be better to aim towards damage in the body and neck slots, which would mean Morrigan's coat (I wish ; ;) and a Prudence torque.

The difference is, a Prudence Torque can also be swapped out for an Uggalepih Pendant when needed. If I stuck with Elemental Torque and Ixion Cape, I cannot use the Uggalepih Pendant and still maintain 320+ Elemental Skill. But with a Merciful Cape, I can maximize my damage with the Pendant (7MAB > 5INT) and still maintain 320 Elemental Skill.

The only problem was getting a damn Cape. -_-

Sodalitas and I have been duo'ing Ix'MNK for quite some time now, farming H.Q. Aern organs solo or duo in our free time. The fight against Ix'MNK is easy- we solo it when the other is not around- duo's just faster, but the drop date is abysmal.

Thankfully, we saw our first vice of antipathy today, and after casting lots, it fell to me. Now, all I need is a Prudence torque to complete my Elemental skill set. :P

Oh, and if anyone wants to compare {luck}, we were 1/29 on the vice drop. Hopefully the second drop won't take as long. (/pray)

Wrapping up
So, that was my February in a nutshell, at least in terms of me getting shiny stuff. :D There are a few other incidents here and there, including a GM asking me about a Jeweled Egg and me seeing a Macha's Coat, but losing the lot (/cry), but I guess some of those things would be better saved for another time (read: this post is getting long enough already. -_-)

One last thing- I've started working on a little resource for BLMs. Like Campsitarus, it is extremely crude at the moment, and honestly, I don't know what direction I'm going to take it, if it even develops. Currently, I plan to put all my BLM musings there, although whether it will turn into a BLM-blog, or a BLM resource blog is undecided.

The information there is very basic and simple, so right now, it's pretty much for my reference only. I don't envision it taking over Kaeko's BLM guide, at least, not to that level, but if anyone wants to take a look and give suggestions, clicky below to see for yourself:

http://thunderiv.blogspot.com

Oh, and if there are any BLMs or SCHs out there who would like to contribute, please let me know! :D

On the Cheap: Black Mage 75

Last updated: 28th July 2009.

A good friend of mine, Ringthree has a little mini-series over on his blog called "On the Cheap: (insert job here)." Essentially, he breaks down a job's gear options for the player that has just reached the endgame for that particular job, and the guides are, in his words, "a guide on how to be a good (something) in the quickest and most efficient way possible."

Until recently, Ringthree has been purely melee. He has since picked up White Mage and is now leveling Black Mage, and I've taken up interest following him simply because he goes through the questions every up-and-coming Black Mage goes through- questions I've long since taken for granted.

These are his past guides, if you feel like thumbing through them:

On the Cheap: Monk
On the Cheap: Samurai
On the Cheap: Ninja (this one feels like a paradox in itself.)
On the Cheap: Dragoon

So, paying tribute to Ringthree, I present to you my On the Cheap- Black Mage!



Before I start, Ringthree had made some rules about his series, which I'll reiterate here.

1. First, you can’t be dumb. I've had my fair share of silly questions, and while I'm more than happy to answer silly questions, it just gets aggravating when it becomes clear you are talking to a brick wall, like the person that insisted on casting Aero IV with an Ice Staff equipped.

2. You need to be an end-game player. The assumption is that you have main storyline content done, have sky access, completed CoP and ToAU. If you're not up to this stage, make it one of your priorities.

3. You need to be able to do at least some end-game events. That's not to say you're in a full-time HNM LS, but you should at least have access to an LS that does some end-game content, so you become an "end-game player" and not a "player with a job at 75."

4. Despite the name of his series, you will be expected to spend a decent amount of gil to get the gear you need. Not everything needs to be HQ, but I will suggest HQ pieces where I think the money is well worth it. Remember, this is "On the Cheap," not "On the Gimp."

With that aside, Black Mage is fortunate in that functionally, much of your gear can simply be bought. Of course, there are several end-game RA/EX items that will further enhance your play, but for the most part, you can build a very solid foundation with just the almighty AH.

With that in mind, I've provided options for gear that are financially quite easy to obtain, as well as providing further enhancements through event rewards.

There are at least eight main sets I think about when it comes to gearing up a Black Mage:

1. A standing set.
2. A nuking set.
3. An enfeebling set.
4. An elemental build set.
5. A Stoneskin set.
6. A Dark magic set.
7. A resting set.
8. An elemental debuff set.
   

I've intentionally left out a Sorcerer's Ring set here because the overall set is rather costly, and I wouldn't really focus on a Sorcerer's Ring build until you have these basics tied down.

Because of all these sets, it's a little difficult for me to talk about gear when I sort them into their equipment slots, so I'll first get the basic slots out of the way, before breaking up the rest in terms of their sets.

General

These are the slots that pretty much stay the same, no matter what you use, so I'll just address them now and leave it at that.

Weapons- When I say BLM weapons, the first thing that should immediately come to mind are your almighty Elemental Staves. At absolute bare minimum, you should have an Earth, Ice, Thunder, Wind, Fire and Dark staff. However, to really shine as a Black Mage, you will need to get the HQ versions.

Simply put, HQ staves are hands-down, the most powerful weapons a BLM has in his arsenal, surpassing both BLM relic and mythic weapons because of their hidden boosts to both damage (+15%) and accuracy (+30MAcc). That being said, you won’t need to get all eight HQ staves. At the very least, get your Jupiter’s Staff and Aquilo’s Staff first, followed by a Pluto’s Staff for more reliable sleeps. You can pick up the rest as you see fit.

Grips- I would personally just stick with a Bugard leather strap +1 for the 1 INT, seeing as how it is the only grip that has any INT on it. I wouldn’t consider the elemental grips.

Ammo- This one’s easy- Phantom tathlum. Tarus can use a Sweet Sachet to get the same effect, but the tathlum has 10MP over the Satchet, and isn't too pricey, either.

Rings- As a BLM, you really only have INT to worry about as far as stats go. As such, you can function perfectly well with two Snow Rings. If you’re considering going to magery full-time, Tamas Ring is hands down the best ring for a mage out there. Snow Rings can be a little pricey though, and Diamond Rings provide a much more affordable alternative with just a little bit of damage lost.

Other more situational rings you may want to look into are a Balrahn’s Ring for Assault/Salvage, and an Omega Ring to round off your Enfeebling set.

Now that the basics have been taken care of, I’m going to move onto the various sets:

Standing set

Popularized by Kaeko, the idea behind the standing set is to reap as much benefit out of your idle times, while waiting for cooldowns to reset, as well as giving you the best chance at survival if you pulled hate and need to survive long enough for the tank to get the mob back.

At the very least, you should have a Black Cloak for Auto-Refresh, and couple that with an Earth Staff for the -20% damage reduction. If you want to enhance your standing set even further, you can look into a Cheviot Cape and a Sorcerer’s Earring for the damage down effects, although these last two pieces are more debatable. Bear in mind that because a BLM's DEF is so weak, you are looking for gear that applies a direct percentage mitigation to the damage you take instead of focusing on your DEF rating.

For those fortunate to have Herald's gaiters, macro your gaiters into your standing set too. Also take note that because the movement speed does not kick in until the blinking animation has been completed, you will also want to macro your gaiters into pretty much every other macro except your nuking ones.

Nuking set

This is usually the first thing people focus on when it comes to gearing up a Black Mage. After all, your main purpose in any group is (usually) to deal damage. As a general rule, you want to focus on Magic Attack Bonus first, then INT. This, of course assumes you have sufficient skill so your nukes are not resisted. Thus, you may want to consider a hybrid of this nuking set and an elemental set until you complete your Elemental skill merits.

Much of the Nuking set focuses on INT where Magic Attack Bonus is not available. As with many of your other spells, INT determines their effectiveness, so you can easily take parts of this set and use them in any of the other sets where I have not mentioned anything.

Head: The biggest damage boost comes from a Selenian cap with INT+4 and MAB+2 augmented. Alternatives include a Yigit turban or Demon Helm +1. Which will do more damage does depend on your other stats, so experiment to see which you prefer. Personally, I hate how either looks and I love pointy hats, so I stick with my Wizard’s Petasos +1. ^^

Body: Your body piece is easy- get an Igqira weskit. Long gone are the days where these used to cost an arm and a leg to get, so there really is no excuse not to have one. Alternatively, if you have completed A Crystalline Prophecy, a Royal Redingote (with "Magic Attack Bonus +4" Augmented) surpasses the Igqira weskit and even comes very close to a Genie Weskit, at least in terms of damage.

Neck: Your neckpiece should be an Elemental Torque for the resist rates. Once you are comfortable with your resist rates, you can choose to opt for additional damage with a Prudence Torque. I personally wouldn’t trade the Elemental Torque for any of the other neckpieces that give intelligence. An Uggalepih Pendant rounds off your basic nuking neckpieces.

Ear: As a BLM75, there is no excuse not to have a Moldavite earring. Your other ear slot can be taken up by an Abyssal Earring for the INT. If you don't have access to an Abyssal earring, or if you chose a different Divine Might earring, go with either a Cunning, Morion, or Phantom Earring. Elvaan and Galka mages can try for their RSE earrings, the Desamilion's Earring or Gayanji's Earring respectively, both available from the ENM Automaton Assault.

Hands: If you don’t want to shell out the cash for a pair of Zenith Mitts (or can’t get the abjuration), you can use Vicious mufflers instead, although bear in mind that if you eventually want to use a Sorcerer’s Ring, it will be considerably harder to activate with the mufflers. If you don’t mind losing a little bit of damage, you can opt to use Yigit gages instead, which also doubles up as a Stoneskin piece. The difference is really quite minimal, so it may be something to consider if you are short on storage space.

Back: The cape that will add the most damage to your nukes (that is also free) is a Gleeman's Cape, obtained from Einherjar. Unfortunately, this does not come without its drawbacks, so most people stick with a Rainbow Cape/Prism Cape. If you're into ZNM, you can try for a Solitaire Cape, but it is very narrow in its use, and doesn't even make up for some of the earlier listed capes in terms of damage.

Waist: A Penitent’s Rope is rather pricey, but is well worth the money from BLM60 onwards. If you are looking for an upgrade in damage, you have a Sorcerer’s Belt to look towards, although bear in mind you may still need the Rope for Stoneskin, not to mention that the Belt usually has a decent queue. In addition, get your elemental obis- the damage bonus from a Hyorin and Rairin obi are too good to pass up, especially with SCHs around to fix the weather for you.

Legs: If you are short on money, Errant slops are your best option here. Later on, once you have saved up enough, you can upgrade them to Mahatma slops, which are second only to Morrigan's slops. Jet seraweels are another upgrade option, although I prefer the extra INT from Mahatma. If you can, also try to get ahold of a pair of Sorcerer's tonban to boost your damage when the condition is right (day of the week matches your nuke).

Feet: The best feet out there for damage are Yigit crackows, obtained by trading 20,000 Assault Points from Lebros Cavern. Fortunately, Demolition Duty happens to be one Assault a BLM is pretty useful for, if you decide to spam one Assault until you get the points. If for some reason you cannot do this, Cobra Unit crackows perform almost as well although personally, I find it less troublesome to just go and get Yigit.

Enfeebling set

As a Black Mage, nuking and blowing mobs up is not your only responsibiliy- thanks to four available Sleeps (two of them AoE!), Bind and Gravity (through /RDM), crowd control duties also frequently fall under a BLM's repetoire. That's not to mention the importance of landing your debuffs when it comes to soloing things- resists can mean the difference between you walking away safely, or facing the floor (if you're Taru.)

One thing to note- recent research into magic accuracy has shown a link between INT, MAcc and magic skill, which is a relationship I'll be referring back to every now and then. In short, as long as your INT is below the mob's INT+10, 1 INT = 1 MAcc = 1 Skill. After your INT exceed's the mob's INT+10, it becomes 2 INT = 1 MAcc = 1 Skill. You can read more about the test here.

Head: Igqira tiaras are both cheap and provide a very substantial boost to your Enfeebling magic skill, so there is little excuse not to have one.

Neck: At the very least, you should have a Spider Torque, although an Enfeebling torque is obviously preferred.

Body: Your Wizard’s coat serves you nicely here. If you can, upgrade your coat to a Wizard’s coat +1 for the extra 2 Enfeebling skill. Once you get used to low-manning Apollyon Northwest, the Ancient Beastcoin cost should be negligible.

Hands: If you can snag yourself a pair of Oracle gloves from ZNM, they will be the best overall piece for the slot. Long ago, you could carry around some Master Caster’s Bracelets, although nowadays these are probably not worth the slot, unless you happen to do a lot of {sea} activities.

Rings: Special mention goes to an Omega Ring for this slot if you want to use it. The combination of Magic Accuracy and 3 INT gives it an effective MAcc of +4.5~+6, while a single Snow Ring comparatively gives MAcc +2.5~+5. It's up to you to decide whether the extra accuracy is worth it to you or not.

Legs: Unfortunately, Igqira Lappas are a little bit pricey, due to requiring a drop from Megalobugard. if you can get ahold of them, Nashira Seraweels perform just a little bit behind the Lappas in terms of accuracy.

Feet: Which are better- Goliard clogs or Avocat pigaches? Either will be fine, although recent research on magic accuracy shows that Goliard clogs make the overall better choice, since in the worst case scenario, they are just as effective as Avocat pigaches, while in the best case scenario, they provide an extra 3 MAcc due to INT's role in MAcc.

Elemental set

An elemental set is something to look into once you start getting into HNM fights, where resist rates become a very real factor. You may have heard about the 320/120 rule, which is basically an eyeballed benchmark to reach (320 Elemental Magic skill + Magic Accuracy, 120INT). Ideally, you want to hit the 320 mark first, then maximize your INT after that. There are many, many options out there for a BLM to boost his/her Elemental Magic skill or Magic Accuracy, so match and mix from the options below depending on what’s available to you.

Head: You really should be aiming towards a Sorcerer’s Petasos for this slot. In the meantime, you can try to settle with an Elite Beret (+1) or Oracle’s cap until you get your Petasos. Of course, this argument is pointless if you ultimately decide to use your Black Cloak as part of your Elemental set (see below).

Neck: This one’s easy- like your nuking set, get an Elemental torque.

Body: I'm going to mention the Black Cloak here, in the event you feel that you absolutely must have the elemental skill. Bear in mind that the Cloak only adds +3 more Elemental skill and 4 INT over the Weskit (so an effective +5~+7 Magic Accuracy), not to mention takes away your ability to wear a hat, so the tradeoff is pretty steep. I'm not so sure I'd be willing to do it with a Demon's cloak either, but the option is there if you need a last resort.

Hands: Nothing beats Wizard’s gloves. Nothing, except Wizard’s gloves +1.

Back: You can go for a Merciful Cape, although be warned that the drop rate on Ix’MNK is close to abysmal.

Legs: Your option here is a Druid's Slops. Most of the time though, this tends to be overkill if you already have your purple hat.

Feet: Numerist pumps go here. Like Druid Slops, these tend to be overkill.

Stoneskin set

Due to the increasing amount of solo or lowman fights BLMs are called for, having a maximized Stoneskin is very important for increasing your survivability. For the record, a BLM’s Enhancing Magic cap is 200, so you will need to reach 114MND to cap your Stoneskin. Obviously, the gear you will need to accomplish this will vary according to your race.

Weapon: A Kirin’s pole is the easiest way to get the MND boost you’ll need for the weapon slot, and shouldn't be too hard to buy from sky linkshells that don't really need them now. If you have the means to add MND elsewhere, you can stick to a Water/Neptune’s Staff instead.

Head: The head portion is interesting because all three feasible slots also serve another role elsewhere. The biggest boost to your MND is a Goliard’s chapeau, which also fits into your resting set. If you find that you don’t actually need all 5MND, a Yigit turban works as a nuking piece and a Stoneskin piece. Later on down the road, you can shift towards a Zenith crown (+1) if you’re looking to find a piece that will also help activate a Sorcerer’s Ring.

Neck: There are several neckpieces that all provide decent boosts to your MND, such as a Promise Badge. However, I must stress that the absolute best item to have here, hands down, is a Stone gorget. Not only does it add 30hp to your Stoneskin (the next time you see an effective MND+30 on a neckpiece, let me know), it also allows you to surpass the Stoneskin cap of 350hp, so your Stoneskin now absorbs 380hp instead. In short, get one.

Body: All hail the mighty Errant houppelande.

Feet: Errant pigaches give you MND in the feet slot, but take note that they also take away HP in the event you want to work towards a Sorcerer's Ring set later on.

Dark Magic set

Two of your most important spells happen to be Dark Magic- Drain and Aspir. Drain is the most efficient damaging spell in your entire arsenal, damage/MP-wise, while Aspir shouldn't need much explanation other than these spells actually need to land in order to be useful.

Neither INT nor Magic Attack Bonus plays much of a role (if any!) in Drain or Aspir's potency. Thus, because Drain and Aspir are so good, but are restricted by a 1-minute cooldown, you can slot in Haste gear to lower their recasts, which may also come in handy when coupled with Stun.

However, there is one threshold you ought to aim for with your Dark Magic, and that is a total of 291 skill. Reaching this level lets your Bio II do an additional 1 dmg/tick, which can add up over longer solo fights. As a BLM75's natural Dark Magic skill caps at 269, you don't actually need that much +Dark Magic skill gear to satisfy this requirement, but I'll provide the options below.

Head: If you can get ahold of a Nashira turban, use it for the mix in both magic accuracy and haste. A much less troublesome alternative would be a Walahra turbun, purely for lowering the recast timer.

Neck: No brainer here- get a Dark Torque.

Ear: There isn't much to say here, other than good for you if you picked an Abyssal earring. Depending on prices, you may want to pick up a Dark earring as well.

Body: The undisputed champion here is a Nashira manteel, with magic accuracy, Dark Magic skill and Haste, all tied in one package! Alas, if the manteel is out of your reach, a Goliard saio will at least help with recasts.

Hands: Nothing beats Sorcerer’s gloves. Nothing, except Sorcerer's gloves +1.

Back: Your Merciful cape from the Elemental set also doubles up here as part of your Dark Magic set.

Waist: Going along the lines of reducing recasts, feel free to put in a Swift Belt here to lower Drain/Aspir timers if you can afford the space.

Legs: At last, one easy one to fulfill- use your Wizard’s tonban. The tonban alone more than makes up for half the difference you need to reach 291 Dark Magic skill.

Resting set

The next set I need to address will be your resting set. Usually, this is the set that doesn't get too much focus due to inventory issues, but also because an additional +1hMP doesn't really have much impact, so most of the time, extra hMP are bonuses slotted in here and there, usually with pieces that already have uses in another set. If you really want to dedicate the space to resting gear, full Yigit is one of the better options out there, although bear in mind that can still be surpassed.

Weapon: I should not have to say this here, but this is why people get a Dark Staff.

Head: You have several options here- a Goliard chapeau adds the most +hMP, although it’s only +1hMP over a Wizard’s petasos +1, or a Yigit turban. Yes, it's a sad day that BLMs can't wear a Mirror tiara.

Neck: To start, use your Grandiose Chain or Beak Necklace +1. If you really want to maximize this slot, you can try your luck at getting a Phi necklace through a chance appraisal from the Chief Sergeant Leujaoam Sanctum Assault, or a Gnole torque through Moblin Maze Mongers.

Ear: Be prepared to spend a lot of time in The Garden of Ru'Hmet to farm up a Relaxing earring. I personally wouldn’t bother with the other earrings that give +1hMP (and there are a lot of them!), although one to note is a Boroka earring that also doubles up as your nuking earring, if you don't have a +2INT earring or something better in that slot.

Body: The almighty Errant houppelande comes in here, especially since you can use the almighty houppelande for your Stoneskin as well. If you really want to maximize your hMP, you can aim for an Oracle’s Robe, although last I checked, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to get your hands on.

Hands: Oracle’s gloves provide the best +hMP here. Bear in mind that if you have Zenith mitts, you may want to swap out the gloves as you rest to take advantage of the additional MP the Zenith mitts give you.

Back: For completeness's sake, I'm going to list the Invigorating cape here.

Waist: Your best option here is a Qiqirn sash +1, which thankfully is also quite affordable.

Legs: For those who are looking to maximize their hMP set, use either Yigit seraweels or Oracle's braconi here. Bear in mind though, that the gain is only +1hMP over Wizard's tonban +1, which also has its use in your Dark Magic set, so decide for yourself if the extra +1hMP is worth an extra inventory slot.

Feet: Use either your Goliard clogs, Avocat pigaches or Numerist pumps here, whichever you have.

Elemental Debuff set

The last set which sees little play is your Elemental debuff set. Your Elemental debuffs refer to the cycle of Rasp-Choke-Frost-Burn-Drown-Shock. The priorities here, however, is your INT, as INT determines the reduction in the enemy's stat, as well as your DoT.

• 1 - 39 INT = 1hp/tic (-5 stat)
• 40 - 69 INT = 2hp/tic (-7 stat)
• 70 - 99 INT = 3hp/tic (-9 stat)
• 100 - 149 INT = 4hp/tic (-11 stat)
• 150 - ??? INT = 5hp/tic (-13 stat)

As you can see, the magic number to reach is 150INT, which is quite substantial even for a Taru. I am not sure if the other races can reach the 150INT mark- if not, then at least aim for 100INT on your build. Supplement any extra slots with +Elemental skill gear to prevent resists. The overall set will resemble your nuking set, just replacing +MAB slots with +INT where available.

Neck: A Prudence torque again, is the winner here, but if you don't have one, you may want to consider one of the lesser INT neckpieces, in which case a Philomath Stole is by far the cheapest option.

Body: Switch your weskit out for your Errant houppelande.

Hands: This is where Yigit gages users get to save a slot and have nuking gloves that help their elemental debuffs, too.


And voila! It is done! It certainly took a lot longer and was much harder to write than I initially thought, but the above should give any upcoming BLM a very solid foundation to work towards. It is a lot of work to obtain everything, and admittedly I'm still trying to finish off bits and pieces here and there.

Further steps to take once you are comfortable with your gear would be to slowly upgrade the various pieces to their HQ components, as well as starting to plan/work towards a Sorcerer's Ring set. Unfortunately, the Ring set alone requires a fair amount of planning, so that is something I can talk about some other day. ^^; Then, there are always the "big three" to work towards- Herald's Gaiters, Novio Earring and Morrigan's Robe- good luck with those. ^^

As always, I do not claim this to be the end-all of all BLM gear guides- in fact, there are plenty floating around the various forums (with a bit of work), so if there are any questions and/or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment down below. ^^