A few questions on a blm build...

[KingJesterEOE]

I lose intrest quite quickly with melee characters so Ive created a whole new account and started a Black Mage.I love the magic aspect of this game and all the diffrent variety of spells availible ,so this should keep my intrest going for along time.

I have a few questions for you guys:

How do I obtain Drain (80,000gil at AH!!! Why???)

Where can I get a picture of the sickle the BLM can use?

Would BLM/summoner be a good choice?With having summoner as sub will I still be able to summon my avatars,and do all blood pacts???Or will I have to have summoner as main to get access to avatars?

Which is better Mind or Intellegence? And what exactly do they do?

Thx for any answers I get from this.I want to take full advantage on my job choices.

[Jei]

Re: A few questions on a blm build...

kinda strange, you can change job so there's no real need to start new character to try out new jobs really.

however, to your question. Blm's strength is an instant damage boost. They can dish out the most damage in the shortest amount of time. Their MP limits the total spells they can cast so over long period of time they won't be the best. Of course you have to know when you can go crazy with your spell and do it at the right time or you'll call the monster to yourself and get killed. They also have other useful support spells such as escape which warps the entire group out of dungeon, warp which sends yourse'f to homepoint, warp 2 that sends party member to home point, Bio that lower attacks, elemental Dots that lower status and so on. At end game, they are among the most powerful jobs out there. An alliance of Blms can do impressive stuff like 1-2 shot some of the toughest battles in the game

Your primary stats will be INT. So concentrate on that. And MP as well if you're not a taru.

Sub job, you probably can find lots of detailed explanation from more experienced blm here from other thousand threads but here's my take ;o

I reccomend going /Whm at lower level. You can never go wrong with /Whm, it gives you curing spells and most important of all the status correcting spells (heal poison, mute, curse etc.) You can use /Whm all the way to 75.
/Rdm is also good, it gives a slightly higher Int and an ability to reduce cast time. But those alone can't beat /Whm *yet* so it's best wait until you can cast dispel (64Blm/32Rdm) to make it truely useful.
/Smn is the least useful for Blm. At least for me. MP auto regen sounds helpful but not enough to give up all the utilities of /Whm and /Blm, some summons like Garuda got blinkga which is helpful but as blm you don't want to waste time summonning avatars and run to the tanks and use that ;o

Drain... is a quest in Sandoria, in the castle which I can not spell it's name, but it's in North Sandoria and easy to find really. First you need enough fame by doing other quests and you go into the castle, there's an elvaan NPC who drinks blood walking around the jail underground, he'll give you quest for it.

Warp is from quest in bastok metal works, you also need a reason amount of fame.

[neighbortaru]

Re: A few questions on a blm build...

for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT sub /smn. You loose out on so many useful spells and abilities of /whm or /rdm just for Garuda's AA... not good (yes you can summon avatars as a sub, but they are half leveled). everything else /smn offers is, imho, utter crap.

Drain is questable in N Sandoria like Jei said, but you'll access to castle d'orablahblahblah; which means you'll need to be on mission 2-3 at least (and have decent fame).

for BLM, INT is key. You really want to buff this up as it increases your damage.

the mandibar sickle is level 46 and not all that great... you definately wouldn't be using it in a party.

[Ammoth]

Re: A few questions on a blm build...

I was going to sub SMN at lv30, but i'll stick with WHM for now, thanks. <(^_^)>

[Icemage]

Re: A few questions on a blm build...

The Drain quest requires several ranks of fame to activate, as well as a minimum of Rank 2 with Mission 6 for your home city activated, in order to get access to Chateau d'Oraguille. The quest itself comes from the NPC Novalmauge, who is wandering in the halls near the first (safe) part of Bostaunieux Oubliette, which connects to the Chateau. He'll ask you for a vial of Beastman Blood. Give it to him to obtain the Scroll of Drain.

INT boosts the power of black magic, and up to a point, lowers the amount of resists that you get when casting black magic. This is a primary stat for BLM.

MND boosts the potency of white magic, such as cures and defensive spells as well as some enfeebling magic like Slow and Paralyze. As a BLM, you won't have much, if any use for MND, since you rarely will be casting these spells often enough to make it worthwhile.

Using SMN as a subjob, the only things you get, for all intents and purposes, are a couple points of extra INT, marginal Auto-Refresh at level 50/25, Garuda's Aerial Armor at level 50/25 (also not very useful for BLM), and some extra MP. The rest of the SMN avatar abilities are either too weak to be useful (most offensive blood pacts) or unavailable when subbed (Earthen Ward). Generally speaking, this isn't as good as using /WHM or /RDM for emergency situations where you need to cure someones, or just to get around a zone safely by casting Sneak and Invisible. I highly recommend NOT using SMN as your subjob. There are times when it can be useful, but those situations are very very rare.


Icemage