WHM / SMN with Avatar Belt + Elemental Staff

[Ninja Kitten]

Shining Ruby is "ok" but can you honestly say spending 10 seconds summoning carbuncle + time to activate blood pact is worth the 2 ticks of MP you would have otherwise recovered if you had just kept resting? You could heal the difference in damage easily with that extra MP. Shining Ruby's effect is very short-lived.

It doesn't last as long as Aeriel Armor, but it also isn't that high cost. And since I start out with more mp than a whm/blm, I have a bit of extra mp I can spend on Shining Ruby.

Also, I forget now what the percentage is, but it gives a % def/magicdef boost. I think it's around 10%, but I'm not sure. at lv48, I had like 209 defense with Holy Breastplate and Protect III and with Shining Ruby, I had 229. My lv30 pld friend has 256 def with Protect II and Steamed Crab. That'd mean about 281 if Shining Ruby were added and that's only at lv30.

Aerial Armor sucks except under very specific circumstances for XP. If your BLM is magic bursting Ancient Magic and the mob isn't instantly dead or dead within 5 seconds of the magic burst, you're doing something wrong.

I disagree. Yes, there are times when it's not as useful, such as in a party with a nin/war, thf/nin, and rng/nin. However, your comment about blm MBing AM....that's ridiculous to say. A slight mistake in the timing, a small spike in lag, or a random resist can mean instant death for a blm, especially a taru blm. Aerial Armor shadows work just like Utsusemi shadows. 3 shadows and you won't get hit, except by AoE WS(i.e., bomb toss, etc), until they're gone. And Aerial Armor doesn't wear off as quickly as Blink.

[Icemage]

Good BLMs don't MB ancient magic beyond... oh... level 53 or so, when you leave Kuftal Tunnel. The MP cost isn't worth the damage - half the time, either the damage from the ancient magic is overkill, or it gets resisted and now you have to scramble to keep your BLM alive.

With that said, IF you're using an AM burst, then Aerial Armor can be useful, but most good players avoid ancient magic like the plague. It makes for really sucky party dynamics.


Icemage

[kuu]

Ancient magic is like any other spell, you gotta know how to use it when, and have everything work well with the pt.

Ancient magic does one thing and one thing well, high max power.

Match it with the monster, and equipment and you can do some nice things with it.

Specialized pts can benifit from ancient

So yea if you need arial armor on, then it's a good choice....

EXCEPT, that most blm pts that do ancient well have a smn already so why have whm arial...

Nin, brd, smn, blm + others is a good example of this.

Lower elemental def, then MB its rear into extinction with a elemental staff to boot.

Then there is the 4 blm, brd, nin deal -.-//// massive ancients.

[namfoodle]

Utsusemi and Blink (aerial armor) are not the same. They are the same concept but the utsusemi shadows absolutely mean that the next 3 single target things will not hit you whereas the aerial armor just gives you a higher percentage of evading with the cost of evading being a shadow lost.