Subjob BLM useless?

[cavill]

I am a lvl 17 WHM and wanted to be a BLM subjob, and i was wondering, since you cant get all that great BLM spells till like lvl 20+ and parties will lvl u up forever anyway so whats the point on getting weak offensive spells? And even if you do get good BLM spells, the party woulc probably prefer you to use your MP to heal rather than use it to do weak attack dmg am i right? I mean BLM/WHM would be good but WHM/BLM is pointless! Anybody have any other suggestions for a subjob?

[Kitalrez]

I completely disagree. I've been using BLM sub to solo around Mhaura this week, (dialup and bad lag make grouping a bit difficult). I probably couldn't do half the things I'm doing without this sub.

I think you're being very narrow in your focus on what BLM actually does. Sure, they're big on nukes, that is their main focus after all, but they can also do a number of really nice support spells. For instance, in soloing this week, I lead every single battle by casting Blaze spikes on myself, then binding the mob so I can slow, paralyze, blind, bio and dia it. By the time it actually gets to me, it's not in very good shape, and that's not counting the number of times Bind's held long enough for me to pop off a Banish or Banishga, too.

This is an incredibly useful subjob, even if the nukes will be underpowered for you. I mean, we only get one or two nukes ourselves... with a BLM sub, I was soloing Maze Makers awhile back. Yeah, it didn't seem like I was hitting very hard with Aero, but that was still way better than trying to melee one of those, or blowing a full mp bar on Banish and Silence recasts.

Think about this:
1. At lvl 15, BLM gets the job trait of Clear Mind. We get one at 20, therefore, by lvl 30 if you've worked on your sub, this combo will give you two of these effects. This means you'll recover mp very quickly once you start to heal.

2. BLM gets a magic attack damage up bonus trait at lvls 10, 30, etc. With this kind of bonus, our holy magic nukes actually do reasonable damage even at early levels.

3. MP, MP, MP. Maybe you're not Taru and overlooked this one or something, but BLM sub will give you a major boost to MP. Even if you never use a BLM nuke, you'll benefit by having a bigger pool to cast cures from.

You're only looking at one part of the equation here... yeah, the underpowered nuking part sucks, but the rest of the sub has some pretty good uses for us. There are some parts of that job I suspect were only put in there for subs, like the Spikes line. I rarely hear my BLM friends talk about these spells as useful, but since I'm right in there meleeing with a warhammer, I'm getting lots of free damage out of them.

[Jorins]

so identical job traits will stack? Clear mind for BLM will stack ontop of Clear Mind WHM gets? If so that's pretty awesome, but what about SMN auto-refresh? Is that worth thinking into?

[IhsanShade]

1. At lvl 15, BLM gets the job trait of Clear Mind. We get one at 20, therefore, by lvl 30 if you've worked on your sub, this combo will give you two of these effects. This means you'll recover mp very quickly once you start to heal.

I don't think that is accurate information at all.

[Nylia]

Correct, the level 15 BLM Clear Mind and the level 20 WHM Clear Mind don't appear to stack.

BLM is far from a useless subjob, infact it is arguably one of the most powerful, if not THE most powerful subjob for WHM.

Utility spells such as bind, sleep, warp, etc are very powerful tools. The added MP is especially welcome. By the time you get MP Conservation you will be hooked on blackmage.

[wonko]

I love this combination. How can you say it's useless? The mp bonus is nice, it's fun to actually kill things, and Bind is infinitely useful.

[Icemage]

I've posted on numerous occasions that /BLM really doesn't give you much until level 30/15, when you get Elemental Seal. At 40/20 or higher, though, MP Conserve is a very useful trait that makes /BLM probably the best all-around sub for WHM and RDM alike.


Icemage

[Soonyi]

Wow, so many high level Whm answering this post. I'd agree as well that /Blm is very useful. To me, I find it diversifies my character. And I don't find the Elemental spells weak at all. Today, I was doing more damage (per hit) than a Lv 25War/10Mnk, and all the while healing him too. Lol, I love the Bind and then cast-every-enfeeble-spell combo. :D

Soonyi.

[Haplo]

Plus at level 34 your sub can be 17 and you'll get Warp. That's pretty handy.

[Typhus]

Yeah man I agree with the above statement. Warp is what it's all about. Up until 34/17 blm isn't all that great, but believe me when I say that Warp and teleport were made for each other. You can make a good bit of money transporting people around and then warping back to your home point. And for questing warp will make things way easier. So for the time being sub whatever you want. After 34 the choice is easy

[Kweh]

I'm still stuck as to what sub I'm gonna stick with.

I want WHM/SMN for the auto refresh and insane MP boost
I want WHM/BLM for Warp.

Can anyone clarify that the difference in MP Boost between a WHM/BLM and WHM/SMN is THAT different at later levels?

I'm lvl 33 WHM at the moment.

[PetriW]

The thread with the explanation is right under your eyes...
http://ffxi.cogn.net/forums/showthre...threadid=29787

SMN gives no insane MP boost, actually MP Conserve make BLM give you more MP than SMN unless you cast spells slow.
This at higher levels of course when MP Conserve actually kicks in from your subjob until then SMN give 20-30 extra mp, no more.

[Cassidy]

Blm gives Bind, Sleep, Warp, Tractor, Escape, more MP, Elemental Seal, Drain, Aspir and -ga spells for farming. Alot of this requires high level but it is far from useless.

Smn gives a hefty amount of MP and auto refresh but its high level before you get auto refresh, you wont use any summons except perhaps Garuda for blink, but once again thats not until level 50.

Rdm gives fastcast, some mp, Gravity, Phalanx and En-spells, but once again the good stuff cant be used until high levels (common theme?) and the En- spells are arguably of little value.


Of these with Blm you get Drain at 24, ES at 30 (but no sleep until 40) Warp at 34 and Aspir/Tractor at 50

Smn gives you a MP boost at 20, auto-refresh at 50, and group blink with garuda at 50

Rdm gives you fast cast at 30, gravity at 42, and phalanx at 66

I prefer Blm but do whatever, groups are gonna take a whm/<anything here>

[PetriW]

Smn gives a hefty amount of MP and auto refresh but its high level before you get auto refresh, you wont use any summons except perhaps Garuda for blink, but once again thats not until level 50.

If you consider 5% mp hefty that is, read the thread, honestly it'll open your eyes.
As for MP Refresh as the same threads says MP Conserve actually saves more MP than MP Refresh gives you, so much more mp that the "hefty" MP bonus is nullified too.

[Calianeri]

At least we have a couple decent choices. I'd say /RDM and /BLM are probably even for the first 30 levels... neither gets you any showstopper abilities, so you trade a bit of HP and combat skills for a bit more MP and earlier access to some black magic. At 30 they start to distinguish themselves - Fast Cast vs Elemental Seal. At 34, BLM's Warp comes into the picture, which every WHM will want sooner or later.

I chose /BLM because I love that job to death, and I like having more MP early on. Conserve MP at level 40 is great, and I think that's the point where BLM really starts to be a clear-cut choice. I haven't played as /RDM, however, so I don't know exactly how much help Fast Cast would be at this point.

Of all the mages, WHM can make the best use of /SMN, so at least it's sort of an option. It's just not a good option until level 60, when you can hopefully get some avatars (coughGarudacough) and put them to use leveling SMN to 30+. If you're not a taru and feel you are hurting for MP and can't be bothered to gilfarm to afford +MP or HP->MP items, then maybe SMN makes a little sense, just for the 20-30 MP... but you give up a lot for that MP, and you force yourself to level a gimped SMN. And there are already far too many gimped SMNs in Vanadiel.