HALF Damage as BMG SUB?!

[modnar]

Hi. I am sort of new, but more importantly I am a Monk and therefore I have no experience in Black Magic.

I have heard that once the BMG is set as a sub-job, the Black Magic that is cast by the character is set to half... Is this true?! What is the cause of that?

Or is it that I misheard? Is this simply refering to the fact that subjobs are half of the main job, and therefore you need to lvl the main job up to 14 to use a lvl7 Black Mage spell? Is that what they are referring to?

I guess you can see I am confused... can anybody shed some light on this subject?

[Coinspinner]

Your Elemental Magic skill would be half, not the damage. If a Black Mage with maxed out elemental skill has difficulty breaking through enemy resistance, half that skill wouldn't stand a chance...

[Pilsbane]

Yep, Coinspinner is right on. Your elemental skill is half of what it would be for a main BLM (unless your main job has a skill in elemental magic like Redmages do, then its not half but its whatever the skill is for the Redmage, less than a BLM but more than a WHM/BLM) which will make you have partial resists much more often, in turn making your nukes really only effective on Magic Bursts. It doesn't really half your damage though--at least not directly.

You'll also get less Magic Attack Up bonuses from subjob, or have to wait longer for them I should say (10 BLM vs 20 WHM/10 BLM for the first one). Add to that the Blackmage main will keep getting new spells while you get them at a much slower pace. A level 50 WHM/ 25 BLM has Blizzard 1 as their biggest nuke to burst on a Distortion Skillchain while a 50 Blackmage has Blizzard 2 or Freeze he can burst with doing upwards of 10 times the damage.