Spells i should get,and spells that are worthless

[Gyserelf]

Well,ive been having trouble on my blm....im not sure what spells to get or anything..i know i dont get all of them because there a big chunk of money...if there are any expert blm's,post the spells i should and should not get out of 75..i know its hard work but it would really help...thanks

[SephirothYuyX]

There is not a single bad spell you should not get.. some you can wait awhile, but you need all of them.. well ancient magic is kinda worthless, lvl2 ga spells almost do as much damages ~_~

[Nodoka]

Yea its good to get them all. You really dont need ancients until Maat, but you wont need to bother with the really pricy ones even then (Flare and Quake are the most expensive).

[Yuanlung]

Well, there is not much you can really skip, but I will try to prioritize it:

Spells you absolutely need:

elemental nukes, single target*
elemental enfeebles
sleep, sleepga, sleepII, sleepgaII

These are our butter and bread.



Spell you need ASAP:

aspir, drain
warp, warpII
elemental nukes, area effect
enfeebling spells, such as blind, stun, bio



Spells you can take your time with:

ancient magic
blaze/ice/shock spikes



Spell to a mage is like gears to melee. Would you want to party with a Warrior if he decided to skip some of his armors and weapons?

If you are coming up short on gil for buying your spells, it's time to halt the leveling, and start making some gil. This is not neccessarily farming. At lower level, questing can make you very nice money for your scrolls with an additional bonus of fame.





* later on, you may be able to get away with not having all of them in a level, for a while. Get those the exp mob you are fighting are weak to first.

[blueoakleyz]

Considering I make around 150k per week I shouldn't really need to skip any spells...... But some I just am, for a long time,
like Stonega II.. This is mostly just for personal use for the current levels so why not just wait? It's way overpriced.

And Poison II...do I really need this? When there's Bio II?

[Gyserelf]

Thanks for the replies everyone =).

[Mininou]

As soon as you reach the right Level you should get those:
Stone I-IV
Water I-IV
Aero I-IV
Fire I-IV
Blizzard I-IV
Thunder I-IV
They're important for nuking and MBing.

The I's -ga Spells arent that important, but you should get..
Blizzaga II
..very important for MBing in the 60+'s

Well of course you need the "Support Skills" like
Warp
Warp II
Tractor
Escape

Another fact is you need
Drain
Aspir
...very helpful not just for PTing, you can use them while Soloing.

Stat-Spells like
Frost
Burn
Choke
Drown
Shock
Rasp
aren't that important in Lower Levels, you can easily lvl without them till lvl 30.

Those Enhancing Spells like
Blaze Spikes
Shock Spikes
Ice Spikes
...are kinda useless, well in my opinion just helpful with Soloing, since you shouldnt get hit while PTing..otherwise your Tank is loosie~ ;3

BLM Enfeebling Spells aren't that important.. WHM EFS's are more important..

Oh and you'll need the Dark Magic Spells as well..they're important..
Sleep
Sleep II
Sleepga
Sleepga II (will be your best friend while BCNM'ing)
Stun (soooooooo important!!!!)

Ancient Magic Spells are "Show-off" skills..you need them for nothing, too much mp for MB'ing..and not worth the 200 dmg more..

Well that's just MY point of view..

/edit
*blush* too late ;

[Gyserelf]

Thanks Mininou ,you really helped alot =).
I think i seen you around 0.0...

[blueoakleyz]

Here's my suggestion if you want to skip some of the elemental debuffs for a while.

Get Burn, Frost and Shock.

Now if you cast Burn with Frost, Burn will override Frost.... or if Burn is already on and you cast Frost, Frost will have no effect, since they're opposing elements.

But you can use Shock with Frost
or Shock with Burn.

If the mob is very mage-tough, meaning it resists a lot, or there are more than one offensive mage in your party, cast Burn +Shock.

If there are more melees, especially DRKs, cast Frost....since that helps them hit more, with Shock

[AtraposBLM]

Originally posted by blueoakleyz
Here's my suggestion if you want to skip some of the elemental debuffs for a while.

Get Burn, Frost and Shock.

Now if you cast Burn with Frost, Burn will override Frost.... or if Burn is already on and you cast Frost, Frost will have no effect, since they're opposing elements.

But you can use Shock with Frost
or Shock with Burn.

If the mob is very mage-tough, meaning it resists a lot, or there are more than one offensive mage in your party, cast Burn +Shock.

If there are more melees, especially DRKs, cast Frost....since that helps them hit more, with Shock

That's almost exactly what I used to say. In exp parties, I've yet to consistently use anything but burn/shock or frost/shock. Shock helps land every enfeeble spell. Any rdm worth his salt will be trying to stick it...blm's have infinitely higher elemental magic skill, so why not help your RDM friend out and reduce his workload? That to me means that shock is a mandatory spell any time you party with a red mage. If you're lucky enough to have a bard, then you can go with something else, but to be honest, the amount of times I partied with a bard were so few and far between that I honestly don't consider bards when talking about normal party play.

As far as burn/frost goes, I don't go by the jobs in the party. I judge by 2 things: First, I judge by levels. Meaning, if the mages (read: blm, rdm) are lower level than the melee, I'll use burn. If the melee's are lower than the mages, I'll use frost. Second, I judge by gear. If I'm in a pld/drk/blm/blm/whm/rdm party, and the other blm is as pimped as I am (I'm not really that pimped, but I have enough gear that I can usually function as low as 2 or 3 levels lower than I "should" be at for a given exp location), but the dark has garbage gear, I'll use frost, even though it's only benefiting 1 person instead of the 3 burn would benefit (me, the other blm, and the rdm (if the rdm nukes)). If, however, the dark is pimped, and the other blm is gimped, or I'm casting against a particularly resistant enemy (cockatrices, for one), I'll use burn.

To be honest, BLM enfeebles won't make or break a party. I didn't even use my first one until lv32 or so, simply because I had bought rasp and shock already and they didn't seem to do anything. Knowing what they do now, though, I realize how much help they could've been.

Just use your head, and go with what you think works best. If your party complains...either change it, or if they're rude about it, don't change. It's really more of a finishing touch than anything else.

[blueoakleyz]

I'm starting to think Burn/Shock......maybe Choke... are what I"ll cast from now on cuz well..... I want my nukes to hit lol
I think I might be a lil more selfish in the future if no darks around

[AtraposBLM]

yeah, I've found that burn makes much more difference to me than frost does for melees, unless they're having really bad issues with missing. Selfish maybe, but hey, I'm doing 30-35% of the damage (40+ if there's no ranger), I might as well improve my efficiency some.

I've found that choke really doesn't improve damage for melee's by much, if anything at all. Maybe I just don't notice, but it's generally hard to land on leveling targets (what the hell is weak to aero? (yes I know there are things, it's a joke >_<)), and I don't have space in my macro to dequip my ice staff....so I'm lazy. Shoot me.

[imstimpy]

With some exceptions, you can cast the -ga spell of the appropriate element for some extra damage if you don't have the II spell (inefficient, but sometimes you NEED the damage). For example, in Garlaige Citadel I was using Aero for 60 damage and Aeroga for 140 damage. Before I got Aero II, Aeroga was a big help even when I wasn't bursting. Bursting with a -ga spell if you don't have the next higher level spell (Firaga vs Fire II) will make this even more pronounced. In Yhoater Jungle, Fire bursts for 110 damage while Firaga bursts for 260 damage.

Blizzaga II at lv57 is the spell to use in Cape Terrigan; Blizzard II for 400 dmg versus Blizzaga II for 700 dmg, Thundaga II should be great with Fragmentation; and Stonega III at lv 63 in Labrynth of Onzozo, Stone III for 500 dmg versus Stonega III for 800 dmg. These are all expected.

Because of my experience, I have given -ga spells an equal priority to single target spells.

Scission is the least used skillchain so most of the Stonega line will go relatively unused. However, there will be times where your party is forced to use a sub-optimal chain and I try to have every spell possible in case the need arises. In these parties, Scission shows up quite regularly because Viper Bite is a Scission weaponskill. Sometimes, even an unimpressive element can do good damage.

Any of the dark element spells are way too good to pass up for even one level. Aspir is the only possible exception to this since you learn Aspir as you leave the MP using mobs and can't use it again until you go to Altepa at 30, Sea Serpent Grotto at 31, or Garlaige at 33. The rest are expected of you to have, even if they aren't used all the time.

Elemental enfeebles are probably where the line gets fuzzy. I have all of the elemental enfeebles, but I don't find myself using more than just a few. My most used ones are Frost with melee intensive parties or Burn if a skillchain is going, Burn in a dual BLM party, then I supplement Rasp or Choke to help a bit. My experience with me being a BLM and an RDM doing their job properly is very limited, so I have not yet used Shock much. I did have a dual BLM party where one of us enfeebled and Shock was used to pretty good success.

Enfeebles themselves will probably get used more often in the lower levels where RDMs don't know their job yet, when there simply is no RDM, or with an overburdened WHM. These are all cheap anyhow, so they shouldn't be a financial concern. Bio and Poison have both been used for me to level up my corresponding Dark and Enfeebling, so they are both great in that sense. I haven't yet noticed the effectiveness of Bio versus Bio II versus Poison, so I don't have an opinion of that yet.

Blaze Spikes is incredible as you solo in the early levels. Honestly, I haven't used a spike spell since lv12. Ice Spikes may have its place if you find yourself with aggro a lot. The paralyze effect may save your life.

[[SD]DarkDragon]

Why would you use burn over frost? It is my understanding that burn lowers INT and frost lowers AGI. Why would lowering an enemies INT help out the party(ofcourse except mage enemies that resist silence)? Is there something about the INT stat that I'm missing?

[wicked-jawsh]

INT also increases BLM Nuke's dmg, but I would still HIGHLY suggest Frost over burn. Helping 3 melees hand their hits is much better than helping 1 BLM do 10-20dmg extra per nuke.