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**TheGrandMom** · 01-25-2009, 09:26 PM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

The link to Part 2 on his website:

Kanican - BLM Guide (Part II)

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Part 2

Overview

There are a lot of ways to play a Black Mage. I think a lot of 'career' Black Mages really fail to realize this fact and get too caught up in their own personal style. You really start to get this feeling after viewing some of the popular BLM forums, or just the fact that almost any endgame post can potentially be derailed with 2 of these 'career' BLMs butt heads over some small detail.

Before I get any "you're a retarded BLM this is how you do it" PMs or replies, I just want to stress this is how I happen to play BLM. This style has it's strong points and admittedly it's weaknesses as well. I personally think this style works really well in just about any situations, but I will admit it's not perfect and there are always trade offs (usually regarding the choice of /RDM over /WHM).

The main premise behind the style is that it focuses purely on solo aspect of a BLM - the ability to do anything by yourself. When put in a small group, or even a large alliance, the playstyle extends from this idea of being able to do anything solo, or with as little help as possible. In this post, I will try to go over some common BLM playstyles I see or hear about and attempt to argue the flaws behind each argument.

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Enmity - Black Mage as a "Glass Cannon"

This would be the catagory I used to be in back in the day. The concept behind this is that BLM (especially Taru) gets destroyed by anything in endgame in 1-3 hits; therefore it is essential that a BLM learns to control his hate to remain below the level maintained by his tanks. The ability to stack enmity gear ultimately increases your damage output due to the fact that you can get more nukes off before reaching this hate level and having to stop. This idea is most noticable at something like Fafnir. This 'style' of BLM would in theory do more damage than a BLM that does not stack enmity because when fighting Fafnir, the limiting factor to a Black Mage's damage output is usually hate, not MP or resists.

In this style, enmity plays a large role in equipment decisions - for most not to the point where they would say give up 50 damage for 2-3 enmity, but it is a big consideration in gear choice. Perhaps the greatest difference is not the gear, but the actual method in which a BLM doing this is played. The #1 goal is to dish the most damage WITHOUT taking hate in this style. All the gear choices and fight-time decisions are played towards this 1 goal. Taking hate is generally considered playing "badly" or messing up.

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Great Concept, but Slightly Flawed Logic

Th original reasoning behind the idea that a Black Mage should not get hit is that it is assumed that a BLM cannot survive any extended period of time with hate on an HNM. WIth the introduction of a few key items, however, this is actually no longer true. A well equipped and prepared BLM can survive due to a very good damage reduction set (which is cheap and readily available nowadays) and Herald's Gaiters for potential kiting when safe to do so.

It is the introduction of these few key items - Terra's Staff, Umbra Cape, Sorcerer's Earring, Herald Gaiters (especially) - that really led to the ability to change playstyles from the old "Glass Cannon" methodology to this more "reckless" style. Black Mage (excluding support duties for a minute) is ultimately about the ability to do as well as possible on offense without dying or causing too much issue for the rest of the support. These items, when equipped properly, give more leeway as to how much a Black Mage can do - essentially by greatly increasing the 'defensive' capabilities of the Black Mage, it is allowed to perform even better on offense.

So If This Style Isn't the Best, What Is?

In my opinion, the biggest key is every action or situation has 1 best stat to max. If you are standing around not doing anything, the best stat to max is physical damage down or run speed; if you are nuking, the best stat to max is damage. There is no "mixing" or "balance" to this at all. If you are nuking, you don't need to be wearing an Umbra Cape. If you are standing around, you don't need to be wearing a Novio Earring. By only stacking the most important stat in every possible action or situation, your Black Mage is the absolute strongest it can possbily be in any situation, IF you are fluid enough to switch well.

The idea behind ditching the "glass cannon" method of playing Black Mage is only one small change a part of a greater strategy - involving the the idea of a highly defensive "standing setup" to increase your survivability. In essence, you are stacking 1 stat (well 2 if you have Gaiters) that is most needed in a particular situation. It happens to be a situation you will be in 99% of the time in game, making it incredibly important, but it is only 1 situation out of many.

Regardless of what situation you are in or action you wish to perform, always ask yourself -

What is the #1 goal of this action and how can it best be improved by equipment?

Don't look for "good all around items", but look for items that max out what you want for a particular action. Balanced items suck - items that are the best for a particular situation are best. You can only perform 1 action at a time, so you need to always have on what is best for that particular situation. All around good items are only useful if you are lazy and do not switch gear.

Good Examples of "Lazy" or "Balanced" Gear:
Magnetic Earring
Serene Ring
Igqira/Genie Hands

Good Examples of Common "Lazy" Actions:
Nuking in any form of refresh gear other than Morrigan Body
Standing in any body piece that does not have refresh
Not standing around in Earth/Terra's Staff

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Solo Play and Not Relying on Others

The general mindset for this style is not to expect any help. The ability to do everything without the aid of others just makes it easier when you actually do get support. Because of this fact, the ability to solo plays a huge role on your ability to perform in a team envirnment. I would say that in order to perform very well in a team situation as a Black Mage, you basically have to learn how to solo. Basic skills like Kiting, fluidly pulling off macro switches, etc. you really don't learn that well in team play and there is much less pressure on you to do it correctly as others are there to help.

Given the vast number of support tools BLM was given - 4 sleeps, stun, pretty good enfeebling skill, good enhancing skill and spells, and cure - in order to be a "good" BLM I really don't see how it's possible for you not to know how to solo. Not being able to do so just shows a lack of understanding of how to use all the possible tools available.

Examples of How Overpowered this Style Can be

Really the key thing to focus on is the fact that this style allows a Black Mage to do certain things other styles cannot. The most recent example I can give refers to our Bhaflau Remnants Long-Bowed Chariot Strategy involving BLM kites. The use of Herald Gaiters, good kiting technique, and generally good BLM soloers allows this strategy to work for us when a lot of others groups who have asked me for me tips on this can't seem to pull through. Granted, there are other methods which can do this boss with almost as few members ( lordwafik: 10 Man (or less) Bhaflau Remnants boss run, a guide. for a low-man strategy that does not involve Herald Gaiters abuse), it is just one example of how this can be effective. There is really very little team work involved in this strategy - it's really just 3 BLMs solo kiting a mob in turns.

Sea also offers a lot of good situations to highlight the strength of the defensive style. Just about everything in sea can be done either solo or by a small group of BLMs (with some notable exceptions like Fortitiude). The style really is at its best when you are allowed to kite, which is the case for just about everything in the region. All three Ix'Aerns can be soloed or duo'd, you can basically pop and hold Temperance solo, and Hope/Prudence can basically be ganked using BLM Kite (this is how we happen to do it). In these team situations where the tank is completely taken out of the equation, the added survivability for each BLM add a certain degree of error that you can get away with.

Conclusions

I realize that this post had a lot of scattered thoughts and really doesn't go into a great deal of detail as far as how everything is pulled off. I've been trying to write my ideas in posts then going back and putting them into the guide I have outlined in "tags". My point of writing this was really to sell the idea to others and to try it out.

I would really appreciate feedback and love tossing ideas back and forth when it comes to BLM play. I'll try to go into more detail next time.

**TheGrandMom** · 01-25-2009, 10:02 PM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

The link to Part 3 on his website:

Kanican - BLM Guide (Part III)

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Overview

When it comes to determinations of "Skill" for something like FFXI, it's really hard to tell sometimes - I mean when you really get down to it it's more about gear, preparation, and experience more than anything. To compare certain people or certain LSs with "Skill" in mind is probably more arbitrary than fact usually I would have to say. Keeping this in mind, however, I will say that some things in this game do require at least some amount of "Skill" to do.

In this post, I will try to focus on the art of "Kiting" and differentiate between kiting and just plain running away. With the situations of particular HNM fights and soloing in mind, I will go over a fairly difficult, macro-based technique which can greatly enhance the kiting ability of any job which I call as "Blink Casting". I will also go over why Herald's Gaiters are, in my opinion, the single most over-powered and game-breaking item wearable by Black Mage.

Before I go into any sort of detail, I did not discover or invent this kiting technique - surprisingly I found it on KI forums back in like 2005 but the information was buried by 2 BLMs getting into a shouting match over gear or something stupid like that. I in no way take credit for discovering this (unfortunately I have no clue who originally posted about it so I can't cite).

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Kiting Concept

The term "Kiting" is generally used in any sort of strategy where the person with hate runs from the mob instead of attempting to stand his ground and "tank" it. Unfortunately, this word is used pretty liberally and nowadays a lot of players run around like a chicken with its head cut off and really have no idea what the hell they are doing and call it kiting. The typical "strategy" behind kiting starts with trying to add run speed or slow the mob in question down via Gravity and Run Speed equipment; however, this concept can be further advanced with the implementation of actual technique through the use of terrain and game mechanics/flaws. It is this concept of technique that I want to focus on in this post.

It is pretty well known that terrain plays a huge role in kiting - those pillars in the Kirin room, that log in Behemoth's Dominion, etc. - the AI generally has difficulty selecting the best route around obstacles such as those. Being able to simply outrun the mob using overwhelming speed and a couple terrain abuses will typically be enough to get past 95% of the game where kiting is involved; however, to truly maximize kiting potential, there are actually many other things available.

Performing Actions While Kiting

A huge problem with most kiters is that in order to actually maintain any form of hate in the long run, they have to stop to perform actions. Simplest example is a tank kiting then stopping to use Provoke - when they stop to Provoke, sometimes the mob can catch up and take a shot or TP move at the tank while he is stuck in the Provoke animation. It is this animation that causes many kites to fail - either the tank dies while stuck in the animation because he's locked and can't run, or the tank is scared to perform actions constantly and fails to hold hate as well as he needs to.

What about soloing? Black Mages have trouble with things that cannot be slept, bound, or gravitied. This is because they have to actually stop to cast, and sometimes the mob is just too fast to enable you to get any sort of cast off. Again, the fact that when you cast, there is a casting animation that locks you and disables movement really hurts. On some shorter casting spells, the casting time is actually really short, but it's this annoying animation that locks you up and gets you killed.

What if these players were able to get rid of these animations? You could essentially run from a mob and Provoke without ever stopping, or only stop momentarily to cast fast animation spells, or lower your "stand-still" time while casting a long duration time by 1-2 seconds - the equivalent of nearly 10 steps. Well I guess it's obvious by how I'm writing this that there is indeed a way to do this - this is what "Blink Casting" is.

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How to "Blink Cast"

I'm sure a lot of players have done this accidently actually. When you switch equipment, there is a short period of time where your character disappears from the screen (on both your's and other's screen). Typically this is a bad thing to most people - great example here is the WHM getting pissed off at his tank for changing equipment, which forces the WHM to retarget.

Well, when you "blink" after an equipment change, you are still allowed to perform actions like normal; however, any animations that are supposed to occur will be 100% bypassed.

This simple game mechanics flaw is the idea behind the entire technique.

If you time your actions to occur while your character has momentarily become "invisible" due to an equipment change, you will always bypass any animation that is supposed to occur on your screen, preventing that annoying movement "lock-up" from ever happening. This really does let you kite and perform actions like Provoke essentially without ever having to stop. For anyone who has a lot of kiting experience, this technique is really an invaluable tool for safety and player efficiency.

This is Harder than it Sounds

This idea sounds great, but if it were so easy, I'm sure a lot of people would be using it already. The problem with this techinque is it is based on a game mechanics flaw - the momentary blink after equipment changes. That momentary blink occurs at a variable time and a variable duration - you cannot exactly know with 100% certainty how long you will remain invisible or when exactly you will turn invisible. These variations are due solely to LAG. The more lag you have, the longer you will stay invisible after an equipment change and the longer wait there will be the equipment change and when the blink occurs.

When the blink occurs after equipment changing isn't actually a big deal, as long as it's consistent and predictable - it just requires timing practice; however, how long you stay invisible does affect how much error you are allowed to have in your timing and still pull the technique off correctly (longer you stay invisible, the longer time you have to perform an action). Because of this, you want the "blink" effect to occur predictably and for a long duration - this actually means you WANT lag. That's right, you want a decent amount of lag to pull this off. As long as the lag is consistent and doesn't spike, it is actually an advantage, not a liability.

Macro Considerations and Fluidity

You must time the equipment switch just prior to the end of the cast for this to work. If you are using this idea with a JA, which is instant, then obviously you have to have a slight delay between the equipment switch and the usage of the JA. This can be surprisingly difficult due to variable lag - generally I try to get a decent lag so that the duration of the blinking is fairly long, which helps to account for variable lag. At this point, I cannot really help all that much as every computer runs at a different speed. It's really about trial and error at this point really.

I will say just doing some quick tests on Corsair, JAs are MUCH EASIER to pull off this technique with. You can usually set a Macro to automatically do it for you...

/equip main "Terra's Staff"
/ja "Provoke" <t>

The equipment change will occur just prior to the action to use Provoke. However, the delay between the equipment change and the actual "blink" effect may take awhile and the Provoke may occur between this delay (meaning the "Blink Cast" failed). If you need to time the Provoke to occur for a longer delay, there are 2 options. The first is manually adjust the crap running on your computer to make it faster, or the easier thing to do is simply force a longer delay in the macro between the equipment change and the Provoke action...

/equip main "Terra's Staff"
/equip ear1"Eris's Earring +1"
/equip ear2"Eris's Earring +1"
/echo --- Wasting some time to perform echo command ---
/ja "Provoke" <t>

Adding more actions (easiest ones are equipment actions) between the first equipment change and the Provoke action allows you to manually determine the time between the equipment change and the Provoke. By using windower macros, you can add mulitple equipment changes and have a pretty good range of adjustment in which to play around with. After properly adjusting this, you can pull off this technique when using JAs near probably 80%+ accuracy without really doing any timing on your part.

If you wish to pull this off using an actual spell with a casting time, this can be a little more difficult as you cannot "auto time" it with a macro. This is really the situation most Black Mages are in (with the rare exceptions of things like Elemental Seal). For spell casts, you really have to do the timing on your own and just manually switch into the final equipment you want to use just before you know the cast animation will occur. Generally the order of action for say a long cast like Thunder 4 would be...

Begin casting Thunder 4
Wait until about 50% casting completed
Start running (you are allowed a few steps and the cast will not interrupt)
Change equipment to final set while running
Animation is bypassed by the "Blink" effect while you continue to run

I must admit this is really pretty difficult (at least for me). Generally I do not bother using this technique unless it is absolutely necessary for success or safety. I usually have to be extremely focused to pull this off at 100% accuracy and if you miss, you can often get your spell interrupted or end up with the wrong set of gear on when the spell goes off. Being able to do this on spells consistently is really what I would consider one of the few things in this game that requires some form of "skill".

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Usage of "Blink Casting"

The usage of this technique is really incrediby useful for just about any job. Again, a huge part of this entire guide is the concept of fluidity and speed. Bypassing useless animations GREATLY increases the "flow" of your character and the speed at which it performs actions. As far as Black Mage technique, this is probably one of the most powerful and difficult tools to use. I generally learned to use this technique when first attempting to solo Apollyon North West - the mobs in that zone all run at above average speed and can double or even triple attack you for 250-400 damage without safety gear on. Being able to constantly maintain a large distance between the mob and you, even during casting, greatly increases the safety during the run and saves time. Because winning the zone requires great time management (unless you are incredibly lucky wiht portals), I will typically not cast any buff other than basic stoneskin now until floor 5. Currently my record for beating this zone solo has been with 4 > 3 > 3 > 1 mobs killed prior to portal opening (floors 1 through 4), and a 22 minute KB kill. It is this technique that has really made it possible for me to win this with consistency.

The best way to use this idea is probably with JAs in the method I described earlier because the macro takes care of all the timing issues - it's really just too difficult to pull off on spells manually at high accuracy all the time. However, even on something as simple as Provoke, this is still incredibly useful. Fast casting spells such as Stun can also be pulled off in this fashion (require a pretty long delay though), making it probably a more useful technique for Tanks than Black Mages.

Pulling this idea off is not just limited to soloing or kiting HNMs - say you are a Corsair and need to buff tanks during a straight tanking fight against a heavily AoE based mob. That long animation of rolling can cost you at least a good 4 seconds in which you are a sitting duck in AoE range. By simply "Blink Casting" the roll abilities, you can get in and out 5-10 seconds quicker. These are just a couple of example of how this technique can be used to enhance play. Because it is not limited to any job in particular, it's really up to the player's imagination to take advantage of it.

Herald's Gaiters - Why a Black Mage Should Want These

Gaiters are hands down, the most overpowered Black Mage item in the game. This includes items such as Novio Earring, Morrigan's Robe, HQ stave set, etc. While all those those items are really nice and enhance your damage or play, none of them can single handedly change the way you play Black Mage. Black Mage soloing (and especially this style of play, which focuses on a solo style Black mage) is almost completely reliant on kiting. Add in this technique which essentially lets you run while casting - and it's easy to see why you would want to these shoes.

Imagine fighting a mob which runs at normal speed, immune to sleep/bind/gravity, and never stops to cast anything. There are quite a few mobs like this - Ix'MNK is a popular one just off the top of my head. Being able to just outrun it is already a huge advantage, but imagine barely or not even having to stop to get off actions on it - speed kills. This style is all about speed and fluidity - and there is nothing more important than running speed when 99% of endgame mobs can kill you within seconds if they ever caught you. It's not even just about defense and safety. Speed and safety can, in turn, propel your offense as well as you no longer have to worry as much about dying.

I realize that these shoes are pretty rare and, sadly, not within the grasp of a lot of players due to Tiamat's spawn times; however, they are what they are. If another form of faster movement speed became available for Black Mage in the future, I would definately recommend them, as they would greatly enhance both solo and team options.

**TheGrandMom** · 01-25-2009, 10:40 PM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

The link to Part 4 on his website:

Kanican - BLM Guide (Part IV)

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Overview

Sea is a particularly Black Mage-friendly zone - Just about everything is manaburnable, NMs included, and you can easily do a good 75% of these NMs with nothing more than a team of Black Mages; this is a good reason why the RMT probably have so much success in Sea. As far as bettering oneself as a Black Mage up here, there are a number of really interesting solos and techniques you can use - soloing Ix'MNK, spending about 20 hours farming 5 Euvhi organs for Relaxing Earring, getting Ghrah Chips, etc.

In this post, I want to focus on something a Black Mage can do for their LS that is perhaps less obvious. The one NM in sea that generally everyone feels a BLM is horrible at is Jailer of Temperance. Obviously magic does 0 damage on it, so it makes sense to think something that focuses on magic damage is useless; but this is really not so. With enough practice and knowledge of routes, it is possible for a single BLM to run through all 5 JoT spawns, solo the placeholders, and HOLD Temperance for an indefinate period of time entirely SOLO using a technique called "Pinning".

So what is the point of this exactly? Jailer of Temperance is one of those annoying NMs that requires you to traverse the entire map - there are tons of aggro mobs, annoying escort NPCs, and fairly difficult routes. In short, it's a HUGE timesink for your linkshell if you're in sea farming triggers. While you can just wait at 1 spawn and kill a placeholder every 16 minutes, this is even more inefficient. However, if you are able to secure Temperance with the use of only 1 member, you can drastically increase the productivity of your sea run. Everyone can just go on to something else like say trying to pop Ix'DRK, while a BLM attempts to pop Temperance. If it happens to pop, everyone can just rush over.

In this post, I'll pretty much go over exactly how this is done - from the routes to take to the holding process. In addition, I'll go over some subtle techniques you can use as a Black Mage to pull this off - it gets somewhat difficult once Temperance is actually spawned. Really the point of using this example in the Black Mage guide is to show how many really tiny things regarding gear choices and play can affect the efficiency of not only your own play, but your LS's as well. It also, again, highlights the strength of the Black Mage style I have outlined previously.

To reiterate so no one misses this...

The goal is to only pop and HOLD Temperance, not kill it!

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General Knowledge about Temperance

- It runs retardedly fast - flee speed at all times (think Faust)
- All forms of magic damage do 0 damage to Temperance
- Temperance has 3 forms and is only susceptible to one of these at any time - blunt, piercing, slashing damage
- All types of DoTs still work if landed, including magic ones
- Uses the SAM 2-hour Meikyo Shisui multiple times

- It has NO repop timer or downtime (you can pop it right after it dies)
- Chance spawn about 5 seconds after killing an Eo'zdei is killed
- Pops aggroed if you are near the alcove at the time
- True sight aggro

Some key things to focus on about Temperance...

It will outrun you without gravity... Easily. Unless you have a bunch of powdered boots or a Hermes Quencher, there is no way to outrun this without the use of Gravity. It also hits like a ton of bricks, has a very fast attack speed, and can double attack. Generally, this is considered the most difficult tier 1 sea NM by far.

Note that there is no repop downtime on this. You can spawn it again pretty much right after it dies. Typically it takes a little bit to find it again though. There are 5 spawn positions on the top floor of the Grand Palace (one in each alcove in the 5 towers) - note that the top floor where JoT spawns is the one you enter on. The one that requires warping is the basement. I won't go too much into detail about this as it's very well documented elsewhere (try the Wiki).

The Wiki also contains maps with the escort routes and teleports. If you are interested in trying this, you MUST know these routes inside-out. I'm always fairly surprised as to how many people in Sea LSs can do these NMs for over 6 months and still not know the basic routes in Sea. Make sure you know these - you will be solo and no one is going to help you if you get lost. Even more, if you get caught in a bad situation and need to bail, you need to know where everything is to possibly find a teleporter.

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Quickly Tranversing the 5 Towers - What Route to Take?

Speed is incredibly important on this. You're farming and if you take 30 minutes to get to a tower, you're hurting your LS and you should probably just bring the whole army to pop this if it takes that long. The single biggest time-waster on this map is the escort. Waiting for that NPC, which basically has to crawl half way around the map, can easily cost you 10+ minutes as it can aggro mobs, which are slow to kill solo.

Luckily, you can hit all 5 towers only spawning 1 NPC escort! Because of this, you can really easily tranverse all 5 towers in 20-25 minutes flat (includes killing time) - it really is that fast, even solo. The key trick to this is the fact that the sealed doors open going backwards. Everything I write from here on regarding routes is written with the assumption that you actually know the basic routes in the Grand Palace.

For quick reference to the Grand Palace map, just use this link that shows the entire thing with escort.

The order in which you do this is roughly...

Enter from the left side door
Tarutaru Tower Placeholder (South West F-13)
Get Escort (F-10)
Finish Escort (H-7)
Hume Tower Placeholder (North H-4)
Backtrack to Mithra Tower
Mithra Tower Placeholder (North West C-8)
Portal Down to Basement (D-9)
Run to and use ??? One-Way Door (G-10)
Run to portal at Galka Tower and Portal up (K-12)
Galka Tower Placeholder (South East J-13)
Backtrack to Basement
Go to and use Elvaan Tower Porter (L-6)
Elvaan Tower Placeholder (M-8)
If still no Pop, use Escape

This really seems like a lot of things to do; however, there are many tricks which can drastically speed things up, especially when moving from Tower to Tower. There are many temporary zone switches which allow you to shed aggro. This lets you essentially train your way through nearly all the mobs.

That's pretty much the basic outline of the route, I'll go over how this actually pertains to Black Mage strategy next.

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Training Mobs - Enfeebling, Standing Setup, and Gaiters

The number one factor that is going to determine how quickly you can do this is your ability to move from tower to tower quickly without dying. Many times, as previously mentioned, you are heading for a particular zone (like a portal). In these instances, you will lose any aggro upon zoning so it's perfectly fine to train. Some instances, you will be able to literally train your way across the entire zone. In these situations, the 3 biggest things to consider are your enfeebling magic setup and usage, your standing setup, and the use of movement speed enhancement.

Everything in this zone is sleepable with a decent enfeebling gear setup. Below is the enfeebling setup I currently use for sleeps (admittedly it is actually rather weak).

Main..............Pluto's Staff................Dark Magic "Potency" +15%
Ranged.........Phantom Tathlum
Head............Genie Tiara .................Enfeebling Magic Skill +11
Body............Wizard's Coat +1.........Enfeebling Magic Skill +12
Hands..........Zenith Mitts +1
Legs............Genie Lappa.................Enfeebling Magic Skill +11
Feet............Herald's Gaiters............Movement Speed +12%
Back............Umbra Cape.................Damage Taken -6%
Waist..........Qiqirn Sash +1
Neck............Enfeebling Torque........Enfeebling Magic Skill +7
Ear 1...........Loquacious Earring.......Fast Cast +1%
Ear 2..........Sorcerer's Earring..........Latent Effect: Damage Taken -30%
Ring 1.........Tamas Ring
Ring 2.........Snow Ring

The focus on equipment for this setup was Enfeebling Magic Skill, Speed, Damage Down, and finally HP and MP balance (in that order). This gives me only 271 Enfeebling Skill (pre-new merit) and still manages to do the job just fine - you could really add another 31 Enfeebling Skill with 8 Merits, Altruistic Cape, Enfeebling Earring, and Master Caster Bracers (always active in sea with Signet). Again you actually don't need that much on the order of Enfeebling Skill to reliably sleep the mobs in this zone.

A big key here is using your enfeebles - 4 Sleep spells, Gravity, Bind, and even Stun, correctly. There will likely be mobs flying all over the place, so this is a great exercise in multi-targeting, and quick/fluid macro usage. I personally use <stnpc> macros on sleep spells (one of the few exceptions, I usually use simply <t>). Basically you rush towards the portal keeping this in mind:

1) Sleep or bind anything that will aggro if you run by it
2) Dark Element Ghrahs simply run by and stun if sleepga is attempted. Bind/Gravity if needed afterwards
3) Aspir anything you can when timer is up to maintain or gain MP
4) USE ALL 4 SLEEP SPELLS

Make sure you can quickly access all 4 sleep spells via macro. You will sleep a lot of mobs in a short period of time and need quick access to all 4 due to heavy recast timers. It's also a good idea to use a macro of /recasts (mentioned in a previous post) so you can keep track of your timers while running without menu.

The other 2 important things - standing setup and movement speed enhancement, have been gone over before previously. Obviously the Gaiters thing is out of your control usually - you either have them or you don't. Due to the amount of running you'll be doing (most of the time with 5-6 mobs behind you), they are really great to have for speeding this process up.

Beyond these basic keys, the only real advice I have for this part is to just be very wary of your surroundings at all times - know where the nearest portal or zone is. This is really more of a test of instinct and reflexes than anything. I really wish I could video this portion just to show everyone how amazingly fast and safe this process is when done correctly.

So lets assume Temperance has popped (I'm also assuming you could solo that Eo'zdei placeholder). Now for the fun part!

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Temperance Pops! Don't Panic!

A lot of very quick thinking is going to be required when this thing pops. It will most likely pop aggroed and immediately starting B-lining towards you. Prior to getting the final kill shot on a placeholder Eo'zdei, make sure you have the following:

- Reraise (should always be on anyways)
- Stoneskin and Blink
- Elemental Seal
- At least 200 MP (rest prior to kill if needed)
- Gravity was not just used (ie. it's not in /recast mode)
- No normal mobs are currently aggroed to you

The goal here to start is to simply land Elemental Seal'd Gravity without dying in the circle room. Temperance really comes at you with a vengence right from the beginning though, so you must be calm when you do this - pre-planning your actions ahead of time can help.

With Blink and Stoneskin, you will be able to absorb at least 3 hits, possibly 4. Of course there is always the possibility that is opens with a double attack and both happen to bypass Blink (if your Stoneskin breaks at this point, you will most likely be interrupted). The key is to just remain calm and focused. With /RDM sub and correct timing, you should be able cast gravity between hits. Also note that running away will do absolutely nothing once it catches you as it's going to outrun you from that point on anyway.

Make sure your Standing Setup has a good amount of physical damage down - Staff and Cape are really enough probably, but Sorcerer's Earring can be a life saver here as you can very easily be put into red in a matter of seconds by Temperance. Once Elemental Sealed Gravity is landed, RUN. You will be able to outrun it at this point; however, gravity won't stay on for too long and resistance builds quickly. Just run around in the circle area.

You probably have about 30-45 seconds before the gravity wears and you're essentially screwed if you have not confused it. Take the time to scream that Temperance is up at whatever tower to your LS so they can start running for you. After this, it's your job to hold it.

The next step is crucial to survival and takes a good deal of tact.

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Holding Temperance - The Use of "Pinning"

Gravity is on and your linkshell is on its way. Depending on what tower it spawned in, you may have to hold for at least a good 10 minutes (Galka and Hume Towers being the worst). I keep saying how Temperance runs at flee speed and pretty much destroys you in a couple seconds, so how the hell is a Black Mage supposed to hold this for 10 minutes? The answer is poor AI. Again, I'm pretty sure a lot of players have done this accidently or even use it knowingly.

Read the next 2 paragraphs closely!

"Pinning" is a type of kiting that can be used when you have a fairly large circular kiting zone (in this case, the square room in the towers. When you are directly across from a mob seperated by a circular obstacle (for example you are at 12 o'clock and the mob is at 6 o'clock), the mob is forced to choose between going clockwise or going counter-clockwise. The AI is extremely poor at choosing the right direction.

When you have reached this point where Temperance is directly across from you, find the nearest pillar (there is 1 at each of the 4 corners of the kiting area). When you hit the pillar, switch directions, run a few steps and watch - Temperance will switch it's directions as well and start running that way. Now switch again when it switches - it will switch with you! Keep repeating this, keeping in mind to ONLY move 1-2 steps in each direction before switching again. Try to get your timing down. Once gravity wears, if you do this correctly, it will get stuck and can't pick a direction as long as you keep this up - hence the term "pinning".

What is really funny about this on something that runs extremely fast like Temperance is how it changes directions even when it is clear that changing will make it run further to get to you. When you try this on Temperance, you will take just 1 tiny baby step each direction while Temperance will take about 5 giant steps and be halfway to the next pillar already - yet still it will go back and switch directions! Once you have pinned it, just keep at it until people arrive.

This technique isn't difficult, but it does take a bit of practice. It's a good idea to test this out for yourself on something that runs slower (say one of those Eo'zdei placeholders). From this point, you can hold Temperance for as long as you want, assuming you don't mess up. After like 5 minutes of this, it really starts to hurt my fingers a bit, but hopefully it doesn't take more than about 10 minutes for your group to get to you. As far as communication, there is no way you can type anything once you start this - so either tell everyone before gravity wears or use vent.

Once help arrives, you're pretty much done! You've just saved your linkshell a lot of annoyance!

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Conclusions

I think that while task I went over isn't something that one would normally brag about (afterall, you're not actually killing anything other than 5 placeholders probably), it's really one of those things that is more difficult than it looks to do quickly and safely. It all comes down to reflexes and quick thinking - something I think many players have a hard time with. I notice a lot of people generally do extremely well when everything has been pre-planned for them, yet start to panic when something unexpected happens. In addition, this little trick really helps your LS out a good deal and keeps the monotony of sea farming somewhat interesting.

I'm sure a lot of groups have their own methods of popping Temperance, so maybe this isn't something needed for a lot of groups; however, the real point was to showcase more strategies regarding a solo Black Mage. In my opinion, this is fairly difficult to pull off efficiently and requires a lot of different difficult techniques, ranging from macro fluidity to high end kiting technique.

If anything, I think showcasing things like this continue to show how the notion of a "Glass-Cannon" Black Mage is really limiting and just incorrect. Black Mage is given so many tools other than it's nukes, as well as a very good variety of equipment. Given all these things, a well played Black Mage can pull off a great deal of things in a multitude of situations - some so well, a single Black Mage can easily do things a group of 3-4 other jobs could not, quicker and safer.

Black Mage Use and "Zerging"

Long story short - Black Mage is strong enough as it is when poorly played. Just follow the RMT on your server for a reminder how easy this job is to use and get the job done. However, Black Mage is extremely broken and overpowered when well played. This really brings up an interesting debate which I have found has become more prominent since this blog has started.

TK (the LS I'm in), is well known for low-manning everything (something I like to highlight on this blog), usually through to usage of NIN tanks and BLM backline Damage Dealing. A knock on us I get a lot is the fact that we "BLM zerg" everything - which in some part is true, but here's the defining factor and the biggest flaw in the argument:

The average LS on Odin server takes a good mix of everything - a good deal of melees, and probably 3-4 Black Mages for your common Skillchain Magic Burst strategy. TK only takes 3-4 Black Mages PERIOD. We just don't have the melee and end up with less players overall. So there are 2 ways to look at this - if you go by absolute number of Black Mages used in a fight, well we still have less BLM because we use less players overall (rarely do we take over 4 Black Mages to anything because we don't have that many players to get that many DDs and support). On the other hand, if you look at this from a % of DDs that are BLM, well ok we're near 100%.

So which is considered more of a "BLM zerg"? Having 5 Melee and 4 Black Mages, or just having 3 Black Mages (we will average about 3-4)? It's a really funny argument when you look at it from this point of view and it stresses something very key in the success of any low man LS - that while this is a video game, there is still a concept of "skill" and it does play a role. That is the entire point of these Black Mage posts! When 1 Black Mage can pop and hold Temperance for you while an average group of 6 Black Mages probably couldn't even hold it without zombie tactics, this is a great example of how Skill affects LS strength and efficiency.

When talking about Black Mages, it's easy to just hoard them - they work pretty damn well just hoarding them. But because Black Mage is just in general, overpowered, it's true strenghth as a job comes out when you low man things using them. I think TK is a great example of this.

With that thought, I hope you enjoyed this overly long post. Sorry for not updating as much.

**TheGrandMom** · 01-25-2009, 10:56 PM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

Link to Part 5 on his website:

Kanican - BLM Guide (Part V)

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Overview

In previous posts regarding BLM styles and techniques, I've gone over a wide variety of ideas, from using a basic "standing" setup to some pretty high end kiting methods. In this post, I intend to really try to put it together in the form of what, I feel, is by far the most difficult Black Mage solo currently in the game - soloing and winning Apollyon NW (this means getting the chip, not just getting coins). I had previously gone over the basics of this in a previous post way back in November when I first did it; however, this time I hope to be much more in depth.

Since the first time, I've been able to win this solo successfully 4 straight attempts. In addition, I've duo'd it twice - most recently wiping both floors clean with 30 minutes remaining upon exit. The amount of employable strategy specific to the zone itself as well as BLM in general is pretty vast for this zone in particular, making it an ideal 'training ground' for anyone interested in pushing Black Mage to its current limits.

My hope is to also show that with enough skill (and gear I guess), it is less about "getting lucky" to win, but rather more like winning unless you get "unlucky" - if that makes any sense. Winning this zone seems daunting, and even today, I think a lot of people find it "impossible" or "he just got really lucky". I hope to change some people's views on this by showing just how high the you can get the win percentage on this if you are serious about employing some of the strategies I've talked about in previous posts.

This post will try to focus more on the soloing aspects of this zone - I realize that this zone is mostly duo'd or trio'd in a low man situation when a win is required; however, the overall point of the post is to stress the solo aspects of Black Mage. I will put some duo information in there, though. Some pics will be redundant from previous posts, I generally forget to take pictures when I do this. Sorry.

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Portals and the "Luck Factor"

In my opinion, the most interesting part about this zone is the fact that even after you manage to beat it solo, there is still so much to improve on due to this huge luck factor involved with portals. For those not familiar with the zone, each floor has a bunch of normal mobs and a boss, along with an HP/MP chest and 3 timer chests (5 minutes each). The items chest appears when the boss of the floor is killed, but is optional.

The portal opens randomly after a normal mob is killed. This means that you could open up the portal to the next floor in 1 kill, or maybe 5 or 6 kills. Because of this, and the fact that you have to scale 4 floors in this manner, there is a large luck factor involved in winning this for most people - if you manage to get the portal to open first kill 4 straight times, you'll end up with about 70-80 minutes on the final floor; this is a huge difference from, say, getting portals to open the 5th mob each floor. It should be noted that the vast majority of the time, the portal will open within the first 3 kills - after doing this zone at least 30 times, I can say that this is true in almost every case.

The major difference between this post and the first win post is that I'm attempting to increase the winning percentage of this zone solo by decreasing the effect of luck on winning the zone. In the initial win, I managed to get the portals open on the 2nd kill on all 4 floors (2>2>2>2) and had about 50 minutes on the final floor, winning with just under 3 minutes to go. At this point in time, I can win the zone comfortably getting the portal on the 3rd kill all 4 floors (3>3>3>3). Because the portal opens by the 3rd kill the vast majority of the time in my experience, this essentially ups the winning percentage of this zone for me solo to well over 50%.

At this point, it almost stops becoming "I got lucky with portals" when I win, and more like "I got unlucky with portals" when I lose - if that makes any sense. By increasing a large number of things ranging from gear setups, to killing speed, to kiting tricks, kills can go faster, smoother, and safer - allowing more room for "bad luck" and still winning. This is really the point of this post - HOW to go about doing this.

I may refer to how much "luck" I had with portals by saying something like "4>3>3>2". This just means the number of mobs I killed each floor before moving up to the next on the first 4 floors (the final floor with Behemoths would be the 5th). 4>3>3>2 is currently the most kills I've recorded on a run while still managing the win (my most recent win).

With the zone basics in mind, I'll start getting into the important stuff.

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Safety and Maintaining Distance

For this zone in particular, you really have to kind of treat youreslf as the old "glass-cannon" type of Black Mage. Every single mob in this entire zone gets double attack - in the case of Behemoths, triple attack. In addition, they do a pretty high amount of damage and easily break a 350 damage skin in 2 shots with damage down equip. Blink and Stoneskin are extremely helpful, however, you cannot rely on them quite as much because the mob can break defenses and interrupt you in as little as 2 hits - even 1 hit if you come with a substandard stoneskin or standing setup.

The first issue with this zone is safety - you're not going to complete the zone in time if you're dying and wasting 6-8 minutes per death. This is not to say you cannot win if you die - the first time I did this I wasted 8ish minutes after dying on the 5th floor and was still able to recover; however, it's best just be extra careful not to die. Here are a few quick tips regarding safety and keeping distance.

Use Bind Frequently!

On any mob where both bind and sleep are landable, there is 1 huge advantage to using bind - when the spell wears, the mob will momentarily stand still before continuing to move. In sleep spells, this is not true and the mob immediately starts to run after you after waking. It's this little delay that can help you pull a significant amount of extra distance between casts. Whenever possible, I would use this to get those extra steps. There are some times where you definately want to avoid bind and stick to sleeping though -

- If the mob is strong to Ice. For this zone, this only applies to Ghosts - you can try it but I wouldn't rely on it.
- If the mob can cast. Again, only applies to ghosts in this zone - leaving them able to cast is dangerous.
- If you're handling links. Bind has an unpredictable wear off timer and it's annoying to bind adds.

I think bind is rather underused by most BLMs, perhaps due to the fact that it is more unreliable than sleep. I would point to those old Avesta solo videos to show anyone how reliable it can be. I realize that he's got about 340 enfeebling skill; however, with all the new gear and those new merit caps, you can easily hit 290s or even 300 enfeebling magic skill. Honestly you don't even need that much to have a reliable bind - my BLM is horribly under-merited (no INT, no Enfeebling, no "other" catagory merits) because I can't find the time or patience to do those.

Another advantage of bind is when it doesn't wear after damage is dealt. Typically, bind wears the instant a mob takes direct damage (DoTs won't wear it though), but sometimes it remains on. In these situations, you can speed the kills up quite a bit by just chain nuking a bit until it wears. It really doesn't happen too often, but if you use bind a lot (which I'm advocating here), you'll probably still see it a good bit (happens to me a lot on Behemoths and Bugards actually). It's just another little strategy to increase your overall killing speed.

I think it takes a little getting used to with Bind because of how unreliable it can be; however, when you're going for killing speed (which is definately a huge part of doing this), it can be an invaluable tool. I would consider it something to focus on when going for killing speed (and sacrificing a bit of safety) - if you're in a dire situation or dealing with adds, definately go with safety over speed and just use your sleep spells. If you're just crusing along with kills, however, I would consider using it to speed things up.

Blink Casting to Gain Distance

Everything in this entire zone runs at above average speed. The slowest mobs in the zone are probably the first floor ghosts. After that, everything you'll see is going to run at at least 25% enhanced speed, meaning you cannot outrun anything without gravity, even with gaiters. This makes maintaining your distance between nukes, even with gravity on, somewhat difficult; therefore it is extremely important that you take advantage of every little detail that gets you more distance.

One of the best ways to gain extra ground has to do with the "Blink Casting" method I described in the 3rd part of the Black Mage Guide - where you use blinking toon effect to bypass useless animations. If done correctly, the amount of distance you can gain will roughly double, just to give you an idea of how strong this technique is. I would personally recommend that you try practicing this idea on something easier first just to get the hang of it; however, this will probably be the only event you'll do solo that really shows the benefits of doing this. This is not only a protective measure, but also a big key in increasing the speed of your kills (you have to focus much less on other defensive manuvers when using this).

If you're not used to using this or just don't feel comfortable with it due to the extremely bad position it puts you in if you screw up (an interrupt), at least try to use the technique where you run a few steps moments before the cast. Generally, that is good enough to 'get by' in this zone.

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Weaknesses of Using /RDM Sub - Status Heals

I would never advocate soloing with any sub other than /RDM; however, there are some notable weaknesses when subbing this over /WHM that all solo Black Mages should be well aware of. Some of the strong points of subbing White Mage are definately not too noticable when soloing, for instance curaga spells, but others are. In particular, 2 of the biggest pluses of subbing /WHM for a solo situation are -

- Reraise spell
- Status healing spells

Fortunately, nowadays these are both pretty easy to counter actually. Obviously just about everyone is taking Reraise hairpins where ever they go now, so the fact that /WHM gets reraise isn't that huge a deal. For the status healing spells, it's pretty easy to just buy and keep a stack of Remedies in your inventory. Since assault came out, the price of Remedies have fallen off greatly. In addition, they are very common to find on the Auction House now as well. Most decent Black Mages will carry a stack of echo drops at all times; however, I find it easier just to carry a stack of Remedies instead.

For this zone in particular, nothing really causes that much status. The only notable exception to this is the first floor boss Pluto, who likes to use a ranged TP move that causes virus status (unable to /heal for HP or MP). If you get hit with this move on /RDM and don't have remedies, you're pretty much screwed as it takes about 20 minutes to wear off, effectively ending your run. Generally speaking, it's rare to use Remedies, but when they are needed they are life savers, making it worth the cost.

Note that you can also carry Remedy Ointments - a cheaper version of Remedy. These 2 are identical in every way as far as what status they can heal. The difference between a real Remedy and the Ointment is that the Ointment cures only 1 status at a time if you have multiple affected status while Remedy clears them all. This is most noticable when fighting Malboros and getting hit with Bad Breath. I usually just go ahead and shell out the extra cash for the real Remedies.

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Manafont Usage Practice

A very unique thing about Apollyon Northwest is the fact that you get to use your 2hr up to 5 times when soloing this (4 refilling chests and you probably enter with 2hr up). Typically, it is rare to use Manafont in a soloing situation this many times in under 2 hours, so it adds a great deal of strategy as well as practice chances. Yes, using Manafont well actually does take a bit of practice.

Generally speaking, on soloing you will never use those lower damage to MP ratio spells unless you're on Manafont - things like Thundaga 3 for example. When you do get to use Manafont; however, you get a free minute to really bust out with all these high damage (but horribly inefficient) spells. It's just in general, good practice to know where in your menu/macros these high damage, infrequently used spells are. For my case, I don't macro any MP inefficient spells - no -ga3 spells or ancient magic 2 spells. All these are done through menu for me.

There's really not much to say here except I think that for many Black Mages, you will find yourself fumbling through macros and menus for these high end spells during Manafont simply because you aren't used to using them. Soloing Apollyon NW is an incredibly rare chance to actually learn through experience how to quickly shift through all these during Manafont.

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**TheGrandMom** · 01-25-2009, 11:25 PM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

Part 5 continued

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Managing and Calculating MP Efficiency

It is extremely important to realize that you're going for most kills over a long span of time, not just speeding through 1 kill. Because of this, it's important to ALWAYS be efficient with your MP (obviously disregarding during your 2hr). I would personally always avoid both ga3 spells and ancient magic 2 spells. I think a lot of Black Mages would disagree about not using Ancient Magic; however, it's just noticably less efficient than using simple 4 spells.

Calculating how efficient your spells are is pretty simple. You just simply look at the damage you do to a certain mob and divide it by the MP cost of the spell. If you do this a couple times on any mob (it has to be the same type and level of mob obviously), you'll notice that the MP efficiency by tier usually comes down to this -

Tier IV > Tier III > Tier I > Ancient Magic II > Tier 2 > -Ga III > Ancient Magic I

There are exceptions to this due to variations in how the damage is calculated (most notably the effect of INT on direct damage adding); however, this is generally true. Because of this, you're going to want to stick to Tier IV spells whenever possible. Also, if you're merit'd like most endgame Black Mages, your Blizzard and Thunder spells are going to do more damage due to the job specific I merit catagory, so obviously try to use those as much as you can if resists are ok.

Maximum Damage Possibly Dealt Calculation

Yet another calculation that you can do is take your damage per 1 MP on a tier IV spell and multiply it by the total maximum MP you have. This will give you a rough estimation of the most damage you can do without the use of items, Manafont, resting, or Aspir. It's going to be an over-estimate due to the fact that it doesn't account for MP usage on things like stoneskin and sleep, but it is a good indication of your killing power.

This value is really going to come into play for a couple of things and is a good indication of how bold you should be on various mobs and situations.

- If this value is less than the total HP of the mob you're trying to kill, make sure you can /heal, 2hr, or something
- If this value is well over double HP of the mobs you're fighting, you can chain 2 of them before resting

For Apollyon NW, this application applies to a couple of things. If you do this calculation on the Ghosts and Buffalo on the first and second floors, I think you'll most likely find that it is impossible to kill either of these without resting, 2hrs, items, etc. It may be possible to kill them without these things but my personal Maximum Damage is still well below that needed to do this (8,000HP estimate I think...). Knowing this, I know well before I fight these what I'm going to do to make up for this lack of killing power.

Another extremely important application for this mainly applies to non-Tarutarus. If you are not Tarutaru, you need to apply this calculation on the 5th floor NQ Behemoths. These have an HP count of 5000 HP. This calculation is extremely valuable because you cannot aspir, sleep, or in any way stop this fight midway. If your maximum damage comes out lower or extremely close to 5000, you need to be ready with some type of back up plan, because if you get caught without one and no more MP, you're dead.

A couple of good counters for non-Tarus (besides just having retardedly good gear) are to go on Blizzard/Thunder day, which can enhance the average damage of your spells through day bonus. Other options include bring Vile Elixers or blowing Manafont (although this only lets you kill 1 of the 3). Another very good option is to equip full MP gear on the first opening nuke (usually as much Zenith as you can). Although the damage dealt will be weaker than nuking in damage gear, this MP you're using is going to be above the typical maximum you go with, and essentially be "free" and add towards your maximum damage possible number. This trick is something another Black Mage in TK, Demetrius (Hume), has used to more easily solo these Behemoths.

As for the second thing to check for, if your damage is over double that of the mob's HP, you can chain 2 mobs in a row and save some time. This happens to be true of my setup and the 3rd floor Bugards, so I generally kill these 2 at a time. This is really helpful as I can kill literally 6 bugards in a row without resting on a single pool of MP with this strategy...

First Kill > Second Kill > 2hr Third Kill > Use HP/MP Box > Fourth Kill > Fifth Kill > 2hr Sixth Kill

Obviously this requires me to have Manafont up at the start of the floor, which may or may not happen. This really highlights the fact that your MP efficiency plays a huge roll in your killing speed, especially due to the HP/MP Boxes on each of the first 4 floors.

Just make sure that you try to perform a few of these calculations after trying this zone out a couple of times. It helps tremedously in planning your course of action in future runs. Just a simple comparison of numbers lets you know if you're going on a suicide mission, cannot afford a single resist, or have a ton of leeway. It's just a good way to let you know if you need to have a back up plan for something.

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Kaiser Behemoth Solo Strategy

I went over a bit about this in the first solo win post; however, I hope to go much more in depth this time with regards to how to actually play Black Mage in general (using this fight as a show case). This fight is a great measuring tool for the following areas of Black Mage soloing -

- Kiting knowledge and skill
- Mob timing (dealing with when Meteor goes off)
- Blink Casting
- Your Dark Magic Skill setup
- Just generally being able to keep focus for a 20+ minute solo fight

As previously mentioned, ALWAYS kite this thing going counter-clockwise. This is to take advantage of a pathing/terrain trick that lets you nuke Kaiser Behemoth while it's going after you. I think many people who duo this often will disagree with this point, but also if you're duoing this, have everyone kite this direction and do not try to bounce aggro going both directions. My reasoning for this is mobs do NOT always cast a spell on the person you think has the most hate. Hate can switch quickly and switch back by the time you do an /assist on it and it's just risky to try this. Having everyone go the same direction is safer and as you will see later, still lets you nuke freely very often.

I'll try to go into each area of detail about this solo from here, starting with the pathing exploit.

Using the Pathing Exploit to Get Nukes Off

If you intend to solo this on a BLM, you're going to need to take advantage of this exploit to win in time, barring incredible luck on the portals coming up. This exploit is the only reason that Black Mage is a better soloer for this zone (when clearing) than Red Mage, which is overall, a much stronger long duration soloer. Using this allows you to essentially get off a strong nuke with 100% safety as much as once every minute, turning this long duration fight into about a 20-30 minute one solo, or a 10-15 minute joke with 2 BLM/RDMs duoing.

The exploit has to do with the pathing of Kaiser Behemoth. What you need to do to pull this off is stand at the Blue Dot and wait for Kaiser to come to you. Get your nuke ready and spam its use until Kaiser comes in range. When Kaiser reaches where the Purple Dot is, the spell will be cast (in range), but Kaiser will not attempt to cast Meteor and continue running around the long turn. He takes a ridiculously long time to clear this turn and runs back in range of your long casting nuke right before it goes off. At this point, he'll most likely try Meteor, but you'll be just inside casting range and will have plenty of time to move.

Doing this basically allows you to get off a Tier 4 spell (I usually use Blizzard 4 in Elemental Skill gear) every full loop around the kiting path. I usually get the nuke off at that point and attempt a quick casting spell where the Red Dot is labeled (Bio II, Poison II, Drain, or Aspir). This is, in my opinion, the ONLY efficient way a Black Mage can solo this in a reasonable amount of time.

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Dark Magic Skill Setups

Dark Magic is an extremely important and typically under appreciated skill set for Black Mages. The effectiveness of using Dark Magic really comes into play in the Kaiser Behemoth solo fight in particular, though, because you will essentially be using 3 of the 4 main Black mage Dark Magic Spells - Bio II, Drain, and Aspir predominantly throughout the fight. Try to focus on getting higher skill then Fast Cast / Haste.
If you have Herald's Gaiters, keep them ON when you switch you can blink cast while using Dark Magic Spells. There are 3 main, often overlooked advantages to using Dark Magic spells -

- They are extremely MP efficient
- They all cast extremely fast
- They generally do not follow the same resistance / damage formulas as other spells

Because they cast extremely fast, you again, want to keep your Gaiters on if you have them. This is to take advantage of the Blink Casting manuver - becuase these dark spells cast so quickly, you can much more easily pull off Blink Casting, almost to the point where it looks like you never even stopped to cast the Dark Magic Spell. This speed abuse really lets you keep incredibly safe distances from Kaiser throughout the fight.

My current Dark Magic Set is shown below (Stun has a different Staff, though).

Main.............Pluto's Staff.............Potency +15%
Ranged........Phantom Tathlum
Head...........Walahra Turban........Haste +5%
Body............Dalmatica.................Auto-Refresh ; Magic Defense Bonus +5
Hands.........Sorcerer's Gloves......Dark Magic Skill +10
Legs...........Wizard's Tonban +1...Dark Magic Skill +15
Feet............Herald's Gaiters.........Movement Speed +12%
Back............Merciful Cape.............Dark Magic Skill +5
Waist..........Anrin Obi*..................Day/Weather Bonus Effects
Neck............Dark Torque..............Dark Magic Skill +7
Ear 1...........Loquacious Earring....Fast Cast +1% ; Recast -0.5%
Ear 2...........Abyssal Earring..........Dark Magic Skill +5
Ring 1.........Tamas Ring
Ring 2..........Snow Ring

* Note that I have Anrin Obi but usually don't use it because I'm too lazy to bring it - it is no longer in my normal gear setup so I usually don't bring it to things. However, because of the constant double darkness weather in Apollyon you should use this if you have it for a huge boost in Aspir and Drain.

In summary, this setup gives me the following important statistics for Dark Magic -

- Dark Magic Skill 311 (+42)
- Fast Cast +1%
- Haste +5%
- Day/Weather Bonuses (+20% at least in this zone)
- Maintains Faster Run Speed

This setup is still admittedly a bit weak. Adding Swift Belt and Nashira Body would add 5 more Dark Skill and +7% more haste to the setup, which is a significant improvement. In addition, I'm also missing HQ AF2 hands as well as Dark Earring (which I just don't feel is worth an inventory slot). The most important number to make sure yout hit is 291, so that your Bio II will hit the 8 damage per tick tier.

Even with skill above 300, you'll still get a lot of resists on Aspir; however, you will start to get some pretty nice Aspirs every once in awhile.

A couple of these gets you another free Blizzard IV and speeds up the fight considerably after a few of them. This is just one of the many benefits of maintaining a very strong Dark Magic Skill set. If you notice on the equipment layout, I spend a large number of equipment slots on items that have no use other than for the Dark Magic Setup, sometimes, only marginal increases at that (Torque and Earring in particular). This is because I personally feel that the Dark Magic Setup should never be overlooked.

When you get into any situation where you're very low on MP, or just in a long duration fight like this one, you're almost always going to heavily rely on the Dark Magic Spell Set because they are just so cheap, efficient, fast/safe to get off in kiting situations, and almost never follow normal resistance rules. Whlie RDM is undoubtably the king of long duration fight solos, BLM is, I feel, an underrated endurance soloer due to the fact that it gets all these Dark Magic Spells.

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The Use of Drain as the Primary DD Spell

Once again, I cannot stress to anyone reading this enough, the importance and game-breaking ability of using Blink Casting on Black Mage. As I had mentioned previously, using Blink Casting on a short casting spell, such as all the dark magics, essentially let you cast these spells practically without ever stopping. When you're fighting a mob that is constantly B-lining towards you, this becomes extremely powerful as you still have a non-DoT damage tool you can use while engaged in a full kite!

This Kaiser Behemoth fight is a decent example of this; however, it isn't even the best one as it still stops to cast. If you're not comfortable using Blink Casting, you really don't have to on this because Kaiser stops to cast Meteor at really predictable times so it's not as important to maintain max distance. To truly see how strong this technique is, you would have to try it on something that just never stops coming after you, such as Ix'MNK. If you try it on that, or just watch someone use it, you'll realize how absolutely ridiculous it looks - it looks like the BLM is casting drain entirely while running and the poor mob just never can catch up even when you're casting.

Besides the huge advantage of it's a fast casting spell, Drain is also, by far, the most MP efficient spell in the game for Black Mage. With an MP cost of 21 and damages that easily get into the 300s, you're looking at MP efficienies in the 12 damage/MP range, far greater than anything you could ever get on a Tier IV nuke. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell show this because the damage doesn't show up in the log if you're at full HP. Funny enough, I haven't even mentioned to this point that Drain gives back 100% of the damage dealt to you - which, oddly enough, is just a bonus considering everything else it can do.

Unfortunately, I can't really tell you how the actual damage or resist formulae work for drain or any of the other Dark Magic Spells. I haven't realy heard of any conclusive testing done to get these formulas; however, I do know that they are easily the most efficient and unique spells for Black Mage. So honestly, I really couldn't care less exactly how they are calculated because I would use them regardless.

With a properly constructed Dark Magic Set and Herald's Gaiters, your Black Mage essentially has 2 forms of extremely strong and unique (compared to any other job) damage dealing. On one hand, you have your extremely strong nukes, which are already incredibly MP and TP efficient, but take a bit longer to cast. On the other hand, you have drain, an ability which doesn't follow the damage or resistance rules of any other spell or ability in the game and has ridiculous MP efficiency, and best of all, an incredibly fast casting speed. This makes Black Mage not only potent in fights where it can stand to nuke 4 spells, but also in kited fights - something usually overlooked with Black Mages.

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History and Conclusions

I have to give credit where credit is due and say that I was NOT the first person to solo Kaiser Behemoth. That feat belongs to a Tarutaru RDM/NIN named Darkshines (Ragnorak Server?). Unfortunately, in his initial Kaiser win, he timed out of the zone between killing Kaiser and popping the final chest and failed to actually "win" the zone. After reading and looking at pics of his attempt, I started going for the win myself, thinking that a BLM could do similar things. I successfully solo'd the zone 2 weeks later on my 3rd attempt and was actually able to finish popping the chest with about 2-3 minutes to spare. He later repeated and got the full "win" himself literally a day after I did. This was around November '06.

At this point in time, I still do not know of any other person who was able to successfully solo the zone on either BLM or RDM, which I honestly find surprising considering the surge of game information, merit changes, and better equipment in the game now. There are probably others that can do it that I just don't know about, but it seems that they are few and far between. A lot of people still think it's impossible to do solo, so definately not many have done it. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, at this point, it's not even about just winning the zone, but trying to increase the winning percentage. At this point I can comfortably say my win percentage would be well above 50% and I'm currently on a 4 run "win streak" in the zone solo.

There is definately a huge "e-penis" or "bragging factor" associated with this zone for me; however, I honestly want to play this off as a showcase of a Black Mage STYLE, and not a showcase of a single Black Mage PLAYER. I truly believe that this game is not rocket science, and especially with cheesy tools like Distance Plug-In, it doesn't take a genius or a "haijin" Avesta-like gaming god to pull off any of the things I've gone over in any of my posts - whether they be team efforts or solos. All it really takes is some decent gear, experience, and for the person to be willing to try enough.

I am a strong believer in the efficiency and dominant play of this particular style of Black Mage I've gone over in these posts - the often "reckless" style, inventory and gear setups, use of macros, and it's often complicated methods to achieve perfect setups in every situation. My attempt to sell this style was through to showcase of particularly difficult solos such as this one or that Temperance holding method gone over previously.

This style is so strong, in my opinion, that it starts to show noticable benefits to not just soloing, but also group play. For instance, nowadays, I don't just solo/duo this zone for fun anymore. The small group of NAs in TK actually do Limbus runs now and doing these chips solo helps a great deal in finishing sets off quickly. In the end, this is what it really should be about in FFXI - being able to help others, not soloing for "e-penis" points.

Attached Files

**TheGrandMom** · 01-26-2009, 12:12 AM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

Link to Part 6 on his website:

Kanican - BLM Guide (Part VI)

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Overview

Before I even begin, I want to stress that it's perfectly fine not to have all those crazy rare items for your Black Mage if you just don't have access to them. While you may not be able to run some of the harder solos in the game, there are still a good number of things you can do that can "wow" people. All it takes is being smart and nit-picky with your gear and building up your macro system to adjust to the various situations you'll be in.

My take on damage dealing is going to be slightly different than your typical career Black Mage advice. This style does not focus on E-penis damage shots; it focuses on doing the most damage over time for any number of situations and fights. You'll notice this when I start to talk about nuking and focus more on flexibility than damage. Because of this, you'll find that if you choose to take my advice, you won't be doing as much damage as you possibly could in some situations, but you'll be well-rounded, flexible, extremely fluid, and still near the top situationally gear-wise in any event.

In addition to damage, I'll start to briefly go over the choice of gear for your inventory. This is obviously highly situational depending on what gear you have access to, your race, and what events you typically do. I'll try to generalize as much as possible. If you would like me to critique your setup personally, feel free to ask in comments and I"ll try my best to reply. Also, for anyone that cares, I'll show the gear I currently use as well in here.

I'll only go over damage sets and the standing set this post. Other things like dark magic, enfeebling, stoneskin, etc. I'll have to do another time. It's just too lengthy to put in one post. This post is pretty long as well and gets pretty complex - I'll try to edit anything that is unclear later on.

I also apologize in advance for the lack of pics. The topic this time just doesn't really give a lot of oppurtinities for that many pics. I think just about everything in this post is either inventory, equipment, or my obvious attempt to fill space with screenshots of myself in various pieces of gear.

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Inventory Management Basics

Preparation is one of the biggest keys to success to playing any job in this game. Being able to properly manage your 60 inventory slots is something you have to be able to do well in order to really maximize your potential, regardless of what kind of gear you have access to. Before we get into specific items, I want to lay out some "rules" that you have to figure out yourself. Learning how to constantly manage and adjust your inventory as you gain items or new items come out will help you in the future. I feel this is more useful then just telling people what to use.

- How many item slots are devoted to non-equipable items?
- How many item slots do I want free to hold misc. drop items?

Answering these 2 questions will determine how many inventory slots for gear you have. For me, the answer is 5 for non-equipable items (Reraise Hairpin, Linkshell pearl, stack of Remedies, stack of food, stack of imperial silver pieces). I included the reraise item here because it's not actually macro'd. I like to hold 4 inventory slots open as well for misc. drop items. This leaves me 51 slots for gear.
The next step is choosing how many different equipment setups you want to use. The more you have, the more complex your macro sets will have to be, but the more versatility you will have. These are the general equipment sets I happen to use.

- Standing Equipment
- HMP
- Stoneskin
- Dark Magic
- Enfeebling Magic
- Nuke - Normal
- Nuke - Elemental Skill
- Nuke - Day or Weather (Ice and Thunder only)
- Nuke - Sorcerer's Ring
- HP Down (Sorc. Ring Proc.)
- Cures

As you can see, there are a ton of setups you need to be able to use. All these setups need to be up to par so that you are able to perform well under any circumstance, whether you're holding 5 demons in Dynamis Xarc, soloing puddings, fighting Tiamat, or just kiting an NM. This is where the idea of trade-offs, and weighing the importance of each set relative to each other becomes extremely important. I only have 51 slots to fill all these holes.

Not all of these setups are going to be maxed out - it's just not possible with 60 item slots. This idea of managing inventory and judging various items for trade-offs is one of the most difficult things to do in this game for a veteran player, regardless of their job. This becomes especially hard for jobs such as Black Mage, Red Mage, Ninja, and Blue Mage, which have a great deal of versatility, and hence, a great deal of gear choice. I'm going to try to give some tips on which sets to focus on more than others and some tricks on how to use the same item for multiple setups.

For reference, I'll post the gear I currently use. It's constantly changing and being updated.

Remedy
Melon Pie +1
Kirin's Pole
Vulcan's Staff
Aquilo's Staff
Auster's Staff
Terra's Staff
Jupiter's Staff
Neptune's Staff
Apollo's Staff
Pluto's Staff
Phantom Tathlum
Sorcerer's Petasos
Walahra Turban
Morrigan's Coronet
Wizard's Petasos +1
Zenith Crown +1
Genie Tiara
Reraise Hairpin
Morrigan's Robe
Wizard's Coat +1
Dalmatica
Mahatma Hpl.
Wizard's Gloves +1
Zenith Mitts +1
Sorcerer's Gloves
Wizard's Tonban +1
Genie Lappa
Sorcerer's Tonban
Mahatma Slops
Mahatma Pigaches
Yigit Crackows
Herald's Gaiters
Orochi Nodowa
Uggalepih Pendant
Dark Torque
Enfeebling Torque
Elemental Torque
Grandiose Chain
Hyorin Obi
Rairin Obi
Penitent's Rope
Qiqirn Sash +1
Merciful Cape
Prism Cape
Umbra Cape
Loquacious Earring
Abyssal Earring
Sorcerer's Earring
Relaxing Earring
Moldavite Earring
Snow Ring
Sorcerer's Ring
Tamas Ring
Linkshell Pearl
Imperial Silver Pieces

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Maintaining Stable Maximum HP

This is incredibly important, especially if you eventually choose to use Sorcerer's Ring, yet almost always overlooked when Black Mages do their gear setups. The idea behind this is you do not want to be wildly switching your maximum HP, as it could affect when you are in yellow or not. If you happen to be around undead and are in white HP in 1 setup, switching to another setup with higher maximum HP could cause you to aggro everything.

You need to find a "stable" HP to stay at for your BLM. I'd base this HP value off your nuking setups, so it's usually -50 HP for most people (Zenith Mitts). It's a bit annoying to do this but its really helpful and can save you a lot of issues. All you really have to do is "fill in" gear to match this HP value once you get all your needed gear in for a particular setup. For instance, if you're doing a set which does not use hands equipment, add in zenith mitts to match the HP.

Note that I break this rule sometimes just because some sets require too much gear, but in general, try to do this. I started doing this when I was soloing Apollyon NW. I would use Sorcerer's Ring to nuke to get my MP efficiency but my HP would go yellow anytime I used the dark magic set after this, and aggro more ghosts - horribly embarrassing. This is just one of those little tid-bits that helps you out.

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Don't Ever Gimp the Standing Setup

This entire playstyle is based on being able to take a hit. If you're going to gimp this setup and become the Glass Cannon so you can have say +3 HMP, then you are severely limiting yourself as a player. This is one of the absolute easiest setups for me to tell you what to do - there are very limited options and I would personally try to follow this gear scheme as closely as possible.

Main.............Terra's Staff...........Damage Taken -20%
Ranged
Head
Body............** REFRESH PIECE **......Auto-Refresh
Hands
Legs............Golliard Trews.........Damage Taken -3%
Feet............Herald's Gaiters.......Movement Speed +12%
Back............Umbra Cape............Damage Taken -6%
Waist
Neck............Orochi Nodowa.......Regen
Ear 1
Ear 2...........Sorcerer's Earring....Latent Effect: Damage Taken -30%
Ring 1
Ring 2

*** I realize not everyone has access to Herald Gaiters or Golliard Trews, just use what you can get ***

At the very very least, you should have the earring, Cape, Staff, and refresh piece. I would also highly suggest getting an Orochi Nodowa for your standing setup since you will be /RDM on this style. While the regen is relatively small, it does add up for kited fights and helps in situations where you wouldn't realize it. It is definitely worth 1 item slot in my opinion. Also, if you're one of the few with a Defending Ring, by all means use it here.

There is really very little to talk about in terms of trade-offs for this setup. You want this as strong as possible - it lets you do the other things just so much easier. The blank spots you want to fill in at the very end. There are 2 goals you need to strive for for the blank spots I've left.

- First check your HP when you are in nuking setup. Make sure you get within around 10 HP of this setup.
- Fill the rest of the items with the highest MP+ items possible.

My standing setup at this point looks like this.

Main...........Terra's Staff..........Damage Taken -20%
Ranged.......Phantom Tathlum
Head...........Sorcerer's Petasos
Body..........Dalmatica.............Auto-Refresh ; Magic Defense Bonus +5
Hands.........Sorcerer's Gloves
Legs...........Sorcerer's Tonban
Feet..........Herald's Gaiters....Movement Speed +12%
Back.........Umbra Cape..........Damage Taken -6%
Waist.......Qiqirin Sash +1
Neck........Orochi Nodowa
Ear 1.......Loquacious Earring
Ear 2.......[b[Sorcerer's Earring[/b].....Latent Effect: Damage Taken -30%
Ring 1......Tamas Ring
Ring 2.....Snow Ring

If anyone happens to check me, this is what they'll see 99.9% of the time. I suppose you can throw in some e-penis gear or things that you like the look of on this setup instead of focusing purely on MP. For instance, If I really wanted to be "perfect" about this, I would probably use Genie Lappa on my standing setup instead of AF2 pants to get the curse proc if something wants to touch me. I did do this for a little bit, but it was just so damn ugly I couldn't stand it. There's a little vanity for you.

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Complexity of Nuke Macros

As I showed above when going over all the various sets I use, I had a good number of nuking setups. It is important that each of these setups can be reached quickly and interchangably - for instance, if you choose to use Sorcerer's Ring, you should not macro it in such a manner that you HAVE TO use it. This leads to some pretty complex macros. You may have your own way of pulling this off, but this is just how I happen to do it. I feel that this method is about as simple as you can get it without having to flip through the equip screen and manually change equipment.

- Nuke - Normal
- Nuke - Elemental Skill
- Nuke - Day or Weather (Ice and Thunder only)
- Nuke - Sorcerer's Ring

I'll try to briefly go over how I'm able to pull all these macros off. I never use the menu to nuke my main spells, so not only do I have to get into any number of nuking gear sets by macro, I have to get the right nuke off as well. The solution to this problem for me was to macro different sets of gear to different nukes of the same element. For instance, my day/weather nuking gear is macroed to all Tier III spells while my normal nuking gear is macroed to all Tier IV spells. This leads to a relatively simple solution for flexibility...

- Goal: Thunder 4 with Normal Set: T4 Macro
- Goal: Thunder 4 with Day Set: T4 Macro > T3 Macro
- Goal: Thunder 3 with Normal Set: T3 Macro > T4 Macro
- Goal: Thunder 3 with Day Set: T3 Macro

I actually further complicate this a bit right now, since if you nuke during the correct weather but not the correct day, you actually want to ditch the AF2 pants for Mahatma Slops. I have a seperate macro that just equips Mahatma Slops, so you can get even more complicated right there...

- Goal: Thunder 4 with Weather Set: T4 Macro > T3 Macro > Slops Macro
- Goal: Thunder 3 with Weather Set: T3 Macro > Slops Macro

This allows me to cover multiple actions as quickly as possible without manually using the equipment menu. This gets much more complex as we add in elemental skill and the Sorcerer's RIng into the picture. I have 2 seperate macros for Sorcerer's Ring and Elemental Skill gear, both of which have no spell macroed to them (only gear switches). The reasoning behind this is that these switches much be usable for both normal and day/weather setups.

For reference, this is my normal nuking setup (example of Thunder 4 is used). The day/weather setup is almost the exact same thing except the belt and pants are switched.

Main..............Jupiter's Staff....................Potency+15%
Ranged.........Phantom Tathlum..............INT +2
Head............Wizard's Petasos +1..........INT +5
Body.............Morrigan's Robe................MAB +5 ; INT +8
Hands..........Zenith Mitts +1..................MAT +6
Legs............Mahatma Slops..................INT +8
Feet............Yigit Crackows....................MAB +2 ; INT +3
Back............Prism Cape........................INT +4
Waist..........Penitent's Rope..................INT +5
Neck...........Uggalepih Pendant.............MAB +8 (Situational)
Ear 1..........Loquacious Earring.............Fast Cast +1%
Ear 2..........Moldavite Earring...............MAB +5
Ring 1.........Tamas Ring........................INT +5
Ring 2.........Snow Ring.........................INT +5

Notice the lack of of heavy situational gear such as the MAB circlet. Also, I only use Pendant when nuking, despite the fact that is remains inactive at above 50% MP. I would personally want to get a Prudence Torque to nuke above 50%; however, at this time, I don't feel it is worth a gear slot for that type of situational, marginal increase. This is a good example of having to make decisions about trade-offs.

As you will see in the next 2 sections, this gets extremely complicated, with at times, 4 macro presses between the start of the cast and the actual spell going off. It looks difficult, but it really just takes practice and getting used to. While seemingly impossible to pull off at first, it becomes surprisingly easy and much more fluid since you never have to manually switch anything via the equipment screen.

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Elemental Magic Setup Macro

The elemental setup specifically only targets the pieces which need to be switched in for elemental magic skill, leaving everything else the same. This allows you to easily use this setup for any number of equip situations by simply applying it at the very end of your macro combination.

- Thunder 4 with Normal + Element: T4 Macro > Elemental Macro
- Thunder 4 with Day + Element: T4 Macro > T3 Macro > Elemental Macro
- Thunder 3 with Normal + Element: T3 Macro > T4 Macro > Elemental Macro
- Thunder 3 with Day Set + Element: T3 Macro > Elemental Macro

The typical equipment setup will look something like this (there is great variability for this type of setup, so I have just used the case of Normal + Elemental Gear using Thunder 4).

Main..........Jupiter's Staff...................Potency +15%
Ranged..... Phantom Tathlum.............INT +2
Head......... Sorcerer's Petasos..........Elemental Skill +10
Body.........Morrigan's Robe..............MAB +5 ; INT +8
Hands.......Wizard's Gloves +1.........Elemental Skill +15 ; INT +3
Legs.........Mahatma Slops................INT +8
Feet.........Yigit Crackows..................MAB +2 ; INT +3
Back.........Merciful Cape .................Elemental Skill +5
Waist........Penitent's Rope.............INT +5
Neck.........Elemental Torque..........Elemental Skill +7
Ear 1........Loquacious Earring........Fast Cast +1%
Ear 2........Moldavite Earring..........MAB +5
Ring 1......Tamas Ring....................INT +5
Ring 2......Snow Ring.....................INT +5

Notice that the only pieces which have been switched are the ones that specifically added elemental skill. My normal nuking setup contains 0 elemental skill increases. Note that this is one of the 2 setups that I use which do not follow the "Stable HP" rule I laid out earlier. It's an issue which I have yet to fix in my current setup.
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Sorcerer's Ring Setup Macro

This setup is a little different than the elemental skill equipment macro. It only needs to change out the Snow Ring for a Sorcerer's Ring, but it has to lower the maximum HP briefly to get the Ring Proc. I chose to accomplish this with a single macro with this kind of setup (the screenshot will show me pressing Thunder 4 then Sorcerer's Ring macros - this is really only an in-between phase and requires at least 1 more macro press)...

Main
Ranged
Head........Zenith Crown +1.........HP -55
Body.........Dalmatica...................HP -50
Hands......Zenith Mitts +1...........HP -55
Legs
Feet.........Mahatma Pigaches......HP -25
Back
Waist.......Penitent's Rope..........HP -20
Neck
Ear 1
Ear 2
Ring 1
Ring 2......Sorcerer's Ring............MAB +10 (75% Base HP)

After this macro is pressed, the maximum HP will be lowered to the correct amount to just barely proc the Sorcerer's Ring, yet still keep me in white HP when I nuke. An additional macro combination then needs to be pressed to complete the correct gear. The biggest thing to note is that the original nuking macros for both normal day/weather cases do not equip the second ring slot. This keeps the Sorcerer's Ring on during the transition. The result is something like this...

- Thunder 4 with Normal + Sorc: T4 Macro > Sorc Ring Macro > T4 Macro
- Thunder 4 with Day + Sorc: T4 Macro > Sorc Ring Macro > T3 Macro
- Thunder 4 with Weather + Sorc: T4 Macro > Sorc Ring Macro > T3 Macro > Slops Macro
- Thunder 3 with Normal + Sorc: T3 Macro > Sorc Ring Macro > T4 Macro
- Thunder 3 with Day Set + Sorc: T3 Macro > Sorc Ring Macro > T3 Macro
- Thunder 3 with Weather + Sorc: T3 Macro > Sorc Ring Macro > T3 Macro > Slops Macro

Technically, you could reach the same setups in fewer macro presses if you just initially pressed the Sorc Ring Macro before the nuking macro. I choose not to do this in real time fights because you always want to get your spells started as quickly as possible - to press the Sorc Ring Macro first does not make sense since you're affecting your speed and fluidity when doing the opposite does not (you're waiting on your cast at this point anyways).

**TheGrandMom** · 01-26-2009, 12:20 AM

Re: Kanican's Black Mage Guide

Part 6 continued:

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Is Sorcerer's Ring Worth It?

This is a really tough question to answer. It's hard to pass up such a significant, consistent damage increase; however, it requires a lot of complicated macro work, a lowered HP count on an already HP deficient job, and a good number of inventory slots to lower your HP (slots which you could use to improve something else). For me, I chose not to use this for a long time until I started Apollyon NW. After that, I realized that MP efficiency just had to be as high as possible for me, so I went ahead and eventually started using it.

What makes this ring worth using, in my opinion, is if you can limit the number of inventory slots devoted to lower the HP count. For instance, if you look at the items I use to lower my HP, all 5 pieces used to lower my HP actually are used in another set - Dalmatica for Standing Setup, Zenith Crown +1 and Mahatma Pigaches for Stoneskin, and Penitent's Rope and Zenith Mitts +1 for Nuking. So actually, I only have to give up 1 slot (the Sorcerer's Ring) to use this setup. Being Taru helps tremendously to pull this off since the HP drop needed is pretty low. If I were another race with higher HP, I may have just ditched using it.

Designing an HP drop setup is pretty difficult to do without going case by case, so I'm not even going to attempt to. The only thing you should make sure of if you attempt to use this ring is to make sure your actual muke occurs when you're in WHITE HP. Do not ever use this if your setup has you nuking constantly in yellow HP - you will get yourself killed and others angry at you. If anyone wants help on making a Sorcerer's Ring setup, feel free to ask here and I'll try my best.
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Tips on Nuking Macros

I don't wish to get into things like the "perfect" nuking gear or whatnot simply because I know that for 99.9% of the players out there, it's not feasible to achieve, so it really does no good to talk about it. Instead, I just want to bring focus to how you choose to set up your nuking macros - this style is about fluidity, ease, and flexibility. While the style of nuking macros I've outlined here seems complicated, I assure you it grows quickly on you just because you nuke so often as a Black Mage. It's incredibly fluid to use since you're not going to the equipment screen, yet even more flexible since it can account for so many situations - all controlled by you at any time.

Whatever you decide to make for your macroing system, just try to make sure you don't end up doing any of the following mistakes -

- If you use Sorcerer's Ring, don't make it so you use it 100% of the time...
- Try not to do anything that forces you to manually switch equipment through the equipment menu.
- Make sure it doesn't take up too many macro slots. You still need many for essential spells like Stun!

The last thing I'll say about the system I happen to use is that switching gear a lot is a good thing simply due to the whole "Blink Casting" trick. Anyone who's ever watched me solo will attest to the fact that it looks like I'm invisible over half the time just because I'm switching so much. The more you're invisible, the more often and better chance you have of taking advantage of probably the cheapest kiting trick known in the game right now.
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Elemental Skill Gear

This is the only thing I'm going to mention in this point outside of the Standing Setup that focuses specifically on certain pieces of gear. If you do any event that involves Sky Gods, Fafhogg, CoP wyrms, or harder, you are going to need a decent Elemental Magic Set. My general take on this is you want to hit around 330 Elemental Skill excluding staff bonuses. I have 0 hard evidence or testing that this is the number you want to hit - this is only my conclusion through personal eye-ball testing over the course of 3-4 years doing HNMs, so make of it what you choose to. My current setup uses 329 skill.

This goal is actually pretty tough to hit without some key pieces of gear, so I'm going to try to go over how you can try to reach this cap with 8 merits in Elemental Magic and no RARE/EX gear outside of AF1. Black Mage at 75 has a 276 base Elemental Magic Skill. From here we can immediately add these skill ups which are pretty much 100% accessable with no endgame connections or money.

- Merit Points (+16)
- Wizard's Gloves (+15)

This gives a skill level of 307. If you merit your Black Mage decently, there is no excuse to not be able to reach this. If we add in cheap, NQ items that can be easily found on the Auction House, you can get pretty close to this 330 skill goal...

- Elemental Torque (+7)
- Igqira Weskit (+5)
- Druid's Slops (+5)
- Elite Beret (+4)

I won't include the Earring in this because it is semi-expensive still (on Odin server at least). Even without this, this setup gives you 328 skill, which is where you want to be. You can hit this number consistently on any day or weather, and there are no RARE/EX items outside of AF1. Honestly, if played correctly, you can be a complete monster on Fafhogg, TIamat, or Ouryu with just this setup, NQ staves, maxed Elemental Merits, and a good Standing Setup. That's really how easy it is to play Black Mage well...

As far as your RARE/EX Elemental Skill gear - Sorcerer's Petasos, Nashira Crackows, and Merciful Cape... I would definitely go for Sorcerer's Petasos and Merciful Cape. This isn't because you would want to stack skill beyond the 330 range, but because they achieve this skill goal in fewer gear slots and more efficient trade-offs. Sorcerer's Petasos has a very good trade-off of 5 INT for 10 elemental skill. Merciful Cape has a somewhat average trade-off (4 INT for 5 elemental skill), but also doubles as a Dark Magic piece, which is extremely useful. The AF2 hat really depends on your access to a good Dynamis Shell; however the Merciful Cape can be solo'd or duo'd easily (horrid drop rates though).

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Conclusions

This post turned out a bit disorganized now that I look back at it but I'm too lazy to fix the organization at this point in time, so I apologize. My focus on things continues to be the fact that ANYONE who is willing to really try at Black Mage can become pretty amazing at it. I tried to convey this again in this post by focusing on macro and inventory management strategy even though the topic was DD - which is honestly the biggest source of E-penis for 99% of Black Mages out there.

It doesn't help to talk about gear someone doesnt' have access to, and it doesn't make you a good player just because you have better gear and can put up higher damage numbers. I want to continue to stress to anyone reading these Black Mage Guide posts that the key to being successful in this style is to be fluid, flexable, and incredibly maticulous in gear/inventory preparation. These are aspects of playing Black Mage which can be applied just as well whether you're the most pimped out BLM on the server or just someone with 8 jobs and BLM happens to be one of them.

In future posts, I will try to show-case some more real-game situations where this style of Black Mage really excels at - namely Fafnir, as well as talk a bit more about solo aspects such as Ix'MNK. I feel that while these purely informational, detail posts are useful, it's the show of particular feats that highlight the dominance of this BLM style that are really interesting. Afterall, everything is just hearsay until you prove it.

Announcement

Kanican's Black Mage Guide

Kanican's Black Mage Guide

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